Chapter 50
It had been drinking the blood of the beastfolk that soaked the battlefield, growing to a terrifying size.
Of course, this caused Aruellia's mana consumption to increase exponentially as well, but she could easily handle this much.
Unlike elsewhere, the Great Forest was rich in mana, allowing her to replenish it faster than usual.
“Wipe them out!”
Whether she had been swept up in the atmosphere of the battlefield or was simply focused on the fight, Aruellia issued the order in a shout.
Undine, which had grown to nearly ten meters in size, began crushing the werewolves beneath its overwhelming mass.
It swept through the werewolves while making full use of its enormous bulk.
Kroooar!
At the sight, Whid could no longer seem to hold himself back and escaped from Jade's arms.
He had instantly grown enormous, as if he wanted to fight too.
Then he unleashed lightning from the sky.
“Graaagh!”
“L-look out for the drake...!”
Dozens of werewolves were electrocuted by Whid's lightning breath, which descended from the sky like a thunderbolt.
Thanks to their innate resistance, none of them died instantly, but they could not escape the paralysis and shock.
And the beastfolk alliance did not let these werewolves escape.
They targeted the paralyzed ones first and killed them.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
In particular, the monkeyfolk, who were relatively small compared to the other beastfolk, never fought alone.
They moved in groups of at least three and sometimes more than ten, attacking the werewolves in swarms.
Moreover, unlike the other beastfolk, who used only their natural bodies, every member of the monkeyfolk carried an iron club or iron staff.
They had prepared individual weapons in addition to traps.
Boom-boom-boom!
However, since they had been prepared in such a hurry, the quality was poor.
Even though every forge in the territory had worked through the night, they had only barely produced enough weapons, so countless ones broke during the battles with the werewolves.
But they were effective enough.
The monkeyfolk showed that something was definitely better than nothing by holding their ground against the werewolves' charge.
“Move aside, you useless fools!”
At that moment, enormous werewolves appeared.
While most werewolves were only around four meters tall, these newly arrived ones stood nearly six meters tall.
Yet they were not merely large; their movements were agile as well.
They attacked the Undine summoned by Aruellia at a speed greater than that of ordinary werewolves.
Craack!
Undine, immune to physical attacks, flinched for an instant.
It was the first time it had reacted to the attacks of the larger werewolves.
And that information was immediately conveyed to Aruellia.
Because they were connected psychically, the pain Undine received was transmitted to her as well.
“So they're finally coming out.”
No matter how exceptional the werewolves' physical abilities were, simple physical attacks could not affect a spirit.
But if they could manipulate mana, things were different.
If they could shape mana into aura like a swordsman, they could even reverse-summon a spirit.
“Neigh!”
Even Pent, slaughtering werewolves on the front line as their vanguard, was using a technique similar to an aura blade.
He created aura blades on his two tusks and recklessly swept through the werewolves.
So naturally, there had to be werewolves among them who could wield aura as well.
Kroaarara!
Following Undine, Whid was attacked too.
Two werewolves lifted one of their own and threw him, using him to drag Whid down from the air while he breathed lightning.
But like Undine, Whid did not let himself be beaten so easily.
Even after a werewolf larger than him bit and wounded him, Whid did not grow frightened. Instead, he attacked the werewolf even more fiercely with all four legs and his tail.
“Guh!”
Whid firmly coiled his long tail around the werewolf's neck, then drove his breath straight into its face.
Ignoring the bites and scratches, he had delivered his most powerful attack.
Growl!
The werewolf, struck by the breath and electrocuted, was unable to do anything, and Whid boldly bit into its neck.
Then he roared toward the sky.
As if declaring that he was strong even without being in the sky.
“Everyone, charge!”
“Take them alive and offer them to our lord!”
Yet before Whid could savor the afterglow of victory, hundreds of werewolves rushed toward him.
They had thrown themselves at him without regard for their lives, as if unwilling to miss the opening created by his fall.
Whooosh!
But the werewolves, who had charged with such murderous intent, could not reach Whid.
A massive wind had arisen around Whid and pushed the werewolves away.
But that wind was not alone.
“W-what?”
“That wasn't all of it?”
More than a thousand of their comrades alone had already been caught in the flame-filled vortex.
Yet the wind blowing now was even larger than the vortex had been.
Though they could not see the spirits, the werewolves and the beastfolk who had submitted to the wolf tribe could feel the flow of mana, and they swallowed hard.
-We tested the waters, so now we should show them the real thing!
-We should show them who the lord of spirits is.
-Should I go? I want to fight too!
-There's a difference in rank. Do you really want to tussle with mere werewolves?
Powerful winds arose throughout the battlefield.
After sending the sylphs and salamanders back to the spirit realm, Jade summoned other spirits.
He called Silaphe, the intermediate spirit of wind, and Kasa, the intermediate spirit of fire, into the mortal realm.
And there were no fewer than two hundred in all.
Pent and the other chieftains gaped at the sight of Jade summoning another hundred of each spirit after having already summoned so many sylphs and salamanders.
“Huh!”
“Is this the power humans possess...?”
But the allies' shock was nothing compared to that of the wolf tribe.
Having experienced the fiery vortex firsthand, they were all frozen stiff, wearing horrified expressions.
Moreover, the hundred vortices appearing now were much larger than the previous one.
Krrrunch!
The flame vortices, now enormous, mercilessly devoured the wolf tribe.
They endlessly sucked in members of the wolf tribe like hungry ghosts from hell.
“Attack! This too is power formed from spirits! We can tear it apart with our strength!”
A huge werewolf standing well over six meters tall roared and charged without hesitation.
He charged straight at the vortex with aura blades formed in both hands.
But even though he wielded aura blades comparable to those of a master, the werewolf could not destroy the vortex.
The vortex had grown enormous after consuming corpse after corpse, so the two aura blades he had formed with his hands could not halt its momentum.
“Guh!”
Instead, the terrifying gale swept him up.
He was battered nonstop by corpses and chunks of rock spinning at terrifying speed, and died in agony.
“M-madness!”
“How are we supposed to stop that? No, how are we supposed to fight it?”
“It's getting bigger and bigger...!”
The wolf tribe began to edge backward.
If there had been only one, they might somehow have managed to deal with it, but there were a hundred such vortices.
That was why the wolf tribe eventually began falling back.
“You weaklings! To make such a pathetic showing against mere spirit arts!”
Boom! Booooom!
One of the fiery vortices, which no one had been able to stop, scattered for the first time.
One of the ten men guarding the silver-haired man had stepped forward.
The middle-aged man had even destroyed a vortex by forming an aura blade in his hand without transforming into a beast.
“L-Lord Uratan!”
“The great wolf tribe has no use for cowards! Those who do not want to fight should leave! Such people will only get in the way!”
“No!”
“Then fight! Fight and lay the groundwork for our lord's great undertaking!”
“Graaaar!”
The middle-aged man's shout completely changed the atmosphere.
The morale of the wolf tribe, which had been retreating, soared in an instant.
But the beastfolk alliance was not to be underestimated either.
They had been prepared to die from the beginning, so even when the wolf tribe's morale rose, they paid it no mind.
“Charge!”
“Gwaaah!”
Once again, a large-scale battle broke out.
The battle, which had briefly fallen into a lull because of the enormous fiery vortices, heated up again.
Boom! Boom-boom-boom!
And the vortices Jade had created began to scatter one by one.
The middle-aged man's rampage played a part, but the wolf tribe also threw themselves at the vortices like moths to a flame and destroyed them.
They sacrificed their own lives to stop the vortices.
“Oh?”
-That old guy is pretty strong.
“Yeah. He even knows how to raise their morale. He doesn't have silver hair, so he probably isn't the king of the wolf tribe.”
Jade wore a surprised expression as he watched the middle-aged man destroy the vortices at tremendous speed.
That was because, judging from the aura he was giving off, he was even stronger than Haines.
Of course, the amount of mana one possessed was not an absolute measure of strength. What mattered was that the middle-aged man before him was that strong.
KRAKABOOM!
The problem, however, was that the wolf tribe was not the only side with powerful warriors.
As soon as the middle-aged man began rampaging, Pent charged straight at him.
“Pent!”
At the appearance of Pent, who was nearly seven meters tall, the middle-aged man immediately transformed into a beast.
Surprisingly, even his beast form was not much smaller than Pent.
He stood well over six meters tall.
Moreover, because he could wield aura blades freely, his destructive power was terrifying.
Kwang-kwa-gwa-gwang!
As a result, no one went anywhere near the area around the two men.
Everyone avoided it on their own, since they might be caught in the aftermath and die a pointless death.
“W-what? Why are they increasing again?”
“We have to kill the spirit mage first! Then... Gack!”
While Pent confronted the middle-aged man, Jade re-formed the vortices that had dispersed.
His vast reserves of mana were still more than sufficient, and he still had many contracted spirits.
Although some spirits were reverse-summoned by the middle-aged man's attacks, that number was merely a drop in the bucket compared to the number of spirits Jade had contracted.
Whine.
“Did you have fun?”
Though a hundred fiery vortices were sweeping through the wolf tribe like a catastrophe, Jade no longer paid attention to them.
Since each spirit possessed its own consciousness, they fought well on their own as long as he gave them instructions.
So Jade smiled and opened his arms wide toward Whid, who flew toward him hesitantly.
Whine. Whiiine.
“You fought well, so why are you acting like that? There's no need to lose heart. You really did fight well.”
-That's right! You smashed the one who charged at you! That means you fought really well!
-Of course. Considering Whid's age, that was incredible skill.
Silestin and Elestra spoke incessantly to comfort Whid, who had lost his nerve.
At that, Whid's ears perked up.
His small ears, which had been drooping, twitched.
“Let's disinfect you first.”
No sooner had Jade thought of it than an Undine summoned into the mortal realm wrapped around Whid's body.
It disinfected his wounds with pure water.
Groooan.
Whid, looking as though he were trapped inside a droplet with only his face sticking out, let out a groan.
The wound had stung when it was disinfected.
But this was not his first experience, so he endured it stoically.
“You endured that well, Whid. Now let's apply some medicine.”
After Undine finished disinfecting him and withdrew, Jade immediately took an ointment out of his subspace.
It was a medicine he had made by mixing several herbs while staying in the Great Forest.
Grrrnn!
It worked well, but it had one major drawback: it stung.
Perhaps because of that, Whid squeezed his eyes shut and groaned.
“I've finished applying it. Now stay here and watch quietly until I return.”
Kyu?
Whid stared at him in bewilderment when Jade lowered him to the ground.
He was flustered because Jade, who always held him, had told him to wait there.
“I'm going to capture the king of the wolves and bring him back.”