Supreme Magus

Chapter 3774: Wild Hunt (Part 1)

Protector the Skoll was no longer Lith’s friend or Faluel’s apprentice. He tapped into his true nature and became who he was meant to be.

”What are you talking about?” Kazam held his flaming hands out to keep the angry beast at bay. ”Those are not your children.”

That night, Emperor Beasts and Fae had one thing in common. Their survival instinct screamed at them not to cross the distance separating them from the Skoll. That they had to deal with him from a distance.

”Dad?” Jadon asked. ”Is that really you? Did you come back to save us?”

Count Lark had often hoped to see his father again, but in his daydreams, he imagined that Trequill Lark would come back as one of Lith’s Demons. That his father would return from the grave to say to his children the goodbye that Orpal had denied them.

Not that the late Count Lark would return in the form of a massive wolf. Yet Protector had just called Jadon and Keyla his children, and Count Lark couldn’t find any other reason a beast would fight like that for them.

”Yes, it’s me.” Protector replied, hearing Leran’s voice instead of Jadon’s. ”You stay put and cover your eyes. I don’t want you to see this.”

”Yes, Dad.” Keyla replied.

Dad was just a word, but hearing it sent Protector into a frenzy.

He disappeared from the pantry and reappeared in the middle of the room, floating in the air. Before the Upyrs could ask themselves how Protector could float while under the effect of Frost Soul, one of the Emperor Beasts collapsed to the ground, his head crushed into a pulp.

Then, a deep cut appeared in the net formed by the Fae’s vines, and another struck those the barrier was supposed to protect. A Fae still in her human form doubled over in pain, one of her arms missing.

’Don’t stand there like idiots, attack him!’ Kazam unleashed a jet stream of Fire Soul at the floating Skoll, but the bloodline ability phased through Protector like he wasn’t there. Because he wasn’t.

Ryman moved across the room too fast for the eyes to see, and his speed increased further as he got used to the golden lightning. What the Upyr saw and Full Guard spell perceived floating at the center of the room was just an afterimage created at the point he crossed more often.

A Titania felt something grazing her tendrils and swung her mace, but hit only air. Protector avoided the weapon as if it were still and blew the head of the Emperor Beast standing next to the Titania with a single strike.

’He’s going for the beasts!’ She warned her companions while the corpse had yet to reach the ground. ’He wants to whittle our numbers. Protect the beasts!’

The Fae spread their tendrils forward to catch the Skoll in midair and screamed in agony. Something had mowed down the vines, reducing them to sap-bleeding stumps.

’This isn’t a cut.’ A Redcap said. ’This is a bite. I can’t sense the missing parts of my body anywhere. The bastard is eating us alive!’

Keeping a human form allowed the Upyrs to infiltrate the Lark Mansion, but their mass was still the same. They were still Divine Beasts and weighed dozens of tons. A perfect, compressed meal for Life Eater.

With each bite Protector assimilated hundreds of kilos of extra mass and life force. What he could, he kept to himself to increase his mass and recover from his wounds.

The rest he sent to children, making their power soar.

”Dad is okay!” Lilia yelled with joy. ”Dad is okay!”

Violet flames now engulfed the young Fastarrows’ necks and tails, the stored energy reassuring them of their father’s well-being.

Protector could feel their joy and relief through the bond they shared, but he could also hear Keyla and Jadon whimpering from the pantry. His frenzied mind mixed the signals, making it impossible for him to distinguish between them.

’They are happy I’m out of danger, but they are still scared. My children are still scared of these bastards!’ The primal fury burning through his mind tapped into Protector’s dormant potential and brought it to the light.

As the Soll bolted through the room and harried the Upyrs, he activated his second bloodline ability, Wild Hunt. His perceptions surpassed his movement speed, and time seemed to stop for an instant.

Wild Hunt allowed Protector to identify the temporary weak spots in the enemy formation, determine where to step next, and decide on the direction to take.

In that brief moment of stillness that Wild Hunt granted him, Protector tried to predict how the Upyr would react to his attack and exploit the openings it would create.

When he failed, his maces went wide, and a poorly executed parry was enough to deflect his blows without the Upyrs suffering any damage. When Protector’s predictions turned out to be true, however, Boros would slip through the enemy guard and reach their vital points.

To make matters worse, after each successful blow, the Upyrs were sent crashing against their neighbors, disrupting their footwork and the arrow tip formation.

’Let’s speed things up a bit more.’ In less than two seconds, Protector had launched dozens of attacks and gotten used to Wild Hunt, whereas his enemies were still trying to understand what was happening.

An Emperor Beast’s bloodline abilities were more about intuition and instinct than understanding, and Protector had plenty of them and enough fury to push them both to their limits.

Strong with the golden lightning and the extraordinary perception granted by Wild Hunt, Protector broke past the wall of sound once again. He moved too fast to attack without his limbs getting tangled with the Upyrs, but now he had the finesse to know exactly where he would land and where to go next.

He attacked as soon as he slowed down enough to regain control over his momentum and sprinted past the sound barrier as soon as he brought his weapons close to his chest again.

When the sonic boom struck the Upyrs’ formation from the right side, Protector hit them with his maces from the left. When the sonic boom reverberated from the Upyr’s back, sending them tumbling forward, Protector struck them from the front.

He could only be in one place at a time, but to his enemies he was everywhere, and everywhere there was a storm of sound and metal.

Protector lacked the mastery to create constructive and destructive interference between the shockwaves, which caused random surges of power and calm spots that only confused the Upyrs.

At the same time, however, Protector’s Wild Hunt was also tearing the room apart and hammering at the Lark Mansion’s arrays as much as at his enemies.

The Skoll cursed, using the signet ring to recall the power from the nearby magical formations and focus it on the pantry room.

’I can’t stop attacking, but if I end up killing my children, all of this will be for nothing!’ Protector howled with rage, cursing at the monsters who had dared to invade his turf and threaten his pack.

’Somebody do something!’ Kazan yelled via the mind link. ’He’s swatting us down like flies.’