It was decided that Xiao Hou and I would scout the path in turns so as not to get tired quickly. This was very much to my advantage, as I could use all my strength to try to get servant souls, and at the same time clear the road. Xiao Hou went to scout first, I didn't object, as there were unlikely to be any monsters near the military base.
And so it happened, we walked quietly and calmly, not attracting anyone's attention and not getting distracted by anything ourselves. We walked non-stop until about three in the afternoon, then Luo Dong, via a special radio, told Xiao Hou to wait for us. Catching up with him, we took a break, ate, and rested, after which Xiao Hou handed me the radio for communication, and I headed out to scout. These radios are quite interesting things, usually animals react to radio waves emitted by phones and ordinary radios, but these transmit information on special frequencies, and also use special spirit magic to pacify animals that detect them. This does not enrage the animals, but even slightly calms them down, but only a little, using them for pacification is pointless.
But, unfortunately, there are few such radios, and they are only issued for raids into monster territories. For example, as we walked, I learned that there are no more than twenty such radios in the entire city of Bo, and it's a miracle that we have one. By the way, there are about three thousand military personnel in the city! This means one radio for every one hundred and fifty people! A rather unpleasant ratio, as communication is incredibly important. Fortunately, from the original work, I know that in six or seven, maybe eight years, such devices will become widespread.
The first hour was just wonderful, in a bad way, not a single monster on the path! Damn, even rats would do, I'll die of boredom! Fortunately, the monsters heard my calls, and I felt the aura of monsters ahead. I immediately stopped behaving casually and carefully approached them. The monsters turned out to be our targets, seven one-eyed wolves. Two months ago, I would have preferred to go around them, but now they were good targets for training my skills in both hand-to-hand combat using daggers and using magic.
"A group of four one-eyed wolves has been spotted on the route, I am proceeding with a diversionary maneuver, please wait exactly five minutes and continue moving," I said into the radio I was given. This was necessary because the distance between us was no more than a kilometer, and in about seven to eight minutes, at best nine, the whole squad would be here, and I doubt my ability to kill them so that there are no remnants, in such a short time. Why did I lie about the number? It's simple, if I had told the truth, they would most likely have decided to go around, and I don't need that.
"Okay, I'm giving you exactly five minutes, no more. If you don't make contact within ten minutes, we'll come looking for you," Luo Dong's voice replied from the radio. As a commander, he is quite good, but as a mage, I don't know, I haven't seen him yet.
Immediately after finishing the conversation, I began to exterminate the wolves, but first, they had to be lured away from the planned route. Firstly, I couldn't explain their corpses, especially after I said I saw four alive, and they saw seven bodies. Secondly, the corpses can quickly attract other beasts, and then the squad passing here will encounter them, and I don't want that, as I will be blamed for not fulfilling my job.
First of all, I had to attract their attention without injuring them, which was difficult considering my strength. I jumped down from a tree, about twenty meters from the wolves. They all turned, hearing the unexpected sound and saw me. Honestly, I thought they would stand in a frenzy for a couple of seconds and I would pompously insult them, but no! They immediately ran at me in a whole pack!
Fortunately, the wind step was prepared in advance, and we started a middle-distance race. After moving a little over a kilometer away from the route, after about a minute and a half, I stopped running. The wolves were about fifty meters away from me, so I had time to act. I wanted to test my speed and ability to fight a group of opponents alone with daggers on this group, but seven wolves is a lot, I need to reduce them a bit.
Creating a lightning star path, I killed the wolf that had almost caught up with me, then immediately dodged aside and drew two daggers. And although they don't conduct magic as I would like, they don't prevent it from being used either, without resorting to them at all, so with them in hand, it's quite possible to use the wrath of lightning, and the wind blade even becomes more precise.
The second wolf was surprised and slightly frightened by the sight of its brother's head literally torn apart by lightning, after which it fell dead. However, it didn't stop and ran at me, but because I dodged aside, and the wolf couldn't react in time, it ran slightly past me. That was enough for me, I jumped up, directing my movement with the air currents of the wind step, flew right over the wolf's carcass and cut its neck with a dagger. I learned to deal with the wind step like this quite recently, it's very difficult and requires great control of magic, and it's not always possible to kill the victim like this.
This time, everything didn't go smoothly. Firstly, the knife, hitting the vertebra, of course, cut through it, but this disrupted my balance, and I started to fall, but I managed to land safely. And, secondly, the wolf's body, due to the preserved momentum, ran into me, forcing me to jump up again, avoiding the carcass that was trying to crush me. But at the same moment, a third wolf attacked me!
On the remnants of the wind step, I dodged this attack as well, simultaneously creating a new one. Following the third wolf, a fourth appeared, which also sought to bite off my head. This time I reacted better and, pushing off the ground, using the new wind step, slipped under the wolf, slashing its belly with daggers. At this moment, I glanced out of the corner of my eye at what essence emerged from the first and second wolves, but they were just fragments, and I stopped paying attention to them; my tooth would deal with them on its own without my knowledge.
The fourth wolf was successfully killed, only four remained. The fifth was right on the heels of the fourth. I had to dodge it by jumping aside, but it almost bit off my leg, it literally came out of its mouth at the last moment! This made me break out in a cold sweat, it was quite creepy. The fifth, like the third, flew past, but the third wolf was already circling me, aiming for where I would fall, and the sixth and seventh were also rushing at me.
Using the control of the wind step currents, I changed my trajectory, ending up on the side of the sixth, flying past it at high speed. This time my hand was almost eaten, but I pressed it to myself so that only the dagger blade remained in the wolf's mouth, and the second was aimed at its neck. Because it was running forward and I was flying backward, there was a considerable relative speed and a strong impact from the collision. I ripped open its mouth and cut its neck. Also, out of the corner of my eye, I managed to see that a whole soul, not a fragment, emerged from the fourth, and the fifth came to its senses and was ready to kill me again.
I continued my flight, again with a changed trajectory due to the collision. The wolf, in turn, flew into the seventh, knocking it down, and bleeding profusely, it had only a couple of minutes to live. I had to work quite hard to avoid losing balance when I touched the ground. The soul of the fourth was flying towards me, trying to get into the tooth, while the fifth and third were trying to kill me, and the seventh was pinned by the sixth.
I quickly put one dagger in its sheath and took the soul vessel from the bag on my belt. The previous wind step had finished its action; the duration of the spell was greatly reduced when I performed somersaults in the air. A new star path was quickly created, but the stars aligned a little incorrectly; their position was different from the wind step and did not correspond to the wind blade; this was a new spell! But I didn't have time to think about its purpose and analyze where it came from, so I just ran towards the soul, activating the soul vessel and ordering the tooth not to touch it.
The new spell activated with my first step; it enveloped my legs with wind like boots. Now every step of mine strengthened the gust of wind, pushing me forward, and the currents, similar to those that appeared when I used the wind step, corrected my direction. The spell also covered my hands, like gloves; I guessed the meaning of this, but I wasn't sure.
The third and fifth began to turn, following me. I approached the soul and successfully caught it in the vessel, then quickly put it in another empty bag on my belt. The third was the closest to me, and the seventh, meanwhile, had already gotten out from under the almost dead sixth and was also about to attack me.
The unusual spell was still working, so I pushed off the ground and flew at a considerable speed towards the third, drawing the second dagger. The wolf, like the previous one, opened its mouth to bite me, but with great difficulty, I shifted my center of gravity so that I flew at its neck, not its mouth. At the moment of impact, with my left hand, I struck its upper jaw, piercing it, and with my right, drawing the second dagger, I cut its neck. Everything should have gone smoothly, despite my obvious fatigue, sweat was running down my face, almost blinding me, and my chest ached as if it were being squeezed by a huge press, my head was exploding from the inside due to the sequential use of strong magic, at the moment, and its precise control, and my body could not withstand the overload, despite the fact that I had been working on it, but not putting much effort into it, there was no time.
However, something incredible happened: the wind gloves on my hands broke off, releasing one-fourth of the power of a third-stage wind blade, amplified by the seed! The left glove passed over the dagger, tearing the upper jaw to shreds, and the right glove created something like a short-range blade, successfully severing the wolf's head, a mid-level servant!
But due to the surprise, I tumbled with the third wolf's body, from which a fragment also emerged, just like from the sixth a moment before our collision, I saw it out of the corner of my eye. As soon as my position stabilized somewhat, I pushed off the ground and flew away from the corpse, thankfully the wind boots were still on their last breath and accelerated me, as at the same moment the seventh latched onto the place where I should have been. I saw it at the same time as the sixth's soul fragment.
Landing, I immediately used the wind step and jumped away from the two wolves even further before they could recover, but I hit a tree quite hard, not noticing it due to my concentration on the wolves. The fifth did not fail to take advantage of this and was the first of the remaining two to approach me. I, in turn, jumped aside, trying to catch my breath and think about further actions. Only two wolves were left, and I was at my limit!
However, neither the fifth nor the seventh intended to give me a rest. Of course, if I had used lightning or wind blades, it would have been over immediately, but no, I was curious how long I could hold out against them using only the wind step and daggers. It's brilliant, isn't it?
After about a minute of jumping and dodging, I found a favorable moment, separating the two wolves with difficulty. The fifth flew past me, crashing into a tree, while the seventh ran directly at me. Using the updated wind step, I jumped, dodging its fangs, then hooked the wolf's back with my daggers, piercing it and slightly slashing it due to the momentum. However, the wolf was alive and well and was trying to throw me off, but I, using the momentum from my jump, released one dagger and with a kick to the head, made the wolf recoil a couple of steps. With the second dagger, I slashed its belly and chest, hoping to hit its heart and kill it.
I managed it quite easily, but at that moment, the fifth was running at me, not intending to retreat, but noticing that he was left alone, he braked sharply. "What's wrong with him?" I thought, and then remembered, they are not under the effect of the Black Church's rain now and are not planning to commit suicide. Most likely, before this, they believed that they would all take revenge for the fallen and feast on delicious meat.
Taking advantage of the respite and the wolf's confusion, I pulled out my second dagger from the seventh, from which a soul fragment also separated and was quickly absorbed by my tooth. Both of my daggers were caked in dried blood, and it would take time to get them back into working order. Even the last one I killed by a miracle; the knives barely cut him, and I had to put in a lot of effort to slash his chest. The fifth didn't move for just a second, after which he decided to bolt, saving his skin.
"Hey, fifth, I liked your act, wait!" I shouted, but letting him go was not in my plans, so, creating a lightning star path, I killed him with the wrath of lightning, hitting him precisely in the heart, slightly to the left of the center of his chest.
After that, I looked at myself, covered in wolf blood, my green t-shirt and black jeans had turned into a red t-shirt and dark red jeans. I myself was incredibly tired, so, moving a little away from the corpses, I fell to the ground almost without strength, looking at the time, I realized that no more than ten minutes had passed since I announced my decision to carry out a diversionary maneuver, during which time I was incredibly exhausted.
"Jiaxing Yun on the line," I said, bringing the slightly trembling hand from overexertion to my mouth, my voice was also trembling, and my sentences were interspersed with deep sighs. "I had to struggle a bit with the wolves, but I managed, I'm returning to the route."
"Excellent, I can hear from your voice how tired you are. In no case do this again, it's better to change the route and go around the beasts than to waste your strength here," Luo Dong's strict voice came from the radio.