Chapter 434: Getting in the way of some mangy Coyotes and their Meal

"So you want us to take down the coyotes that are coming after the elks?" Vince said a bit surprised. "Any reason in particular we don't just sit back and watch how things play out? After all the elks had no trouble running off the last group of coyote that came chasing them." At the moment none of them had any trouble with talking out loud since they were a large enough distance away from the elks and any other beast in the area to hear them.

"The main difference this time around is the environment." Joshua said while pointing to the direction the coyotes were coming from then towards the elk that were grazing on the grass. Even if the elk were to move further away from this area the current path they were taking was too close to the tall grass to avoid ambushes. Joshua could see that the elk were taking this approach since they were trying to avoid the prairie chicken groups nearby in the short grass, but it still left them open to other beast even if they felt they were strong enough to scare them away.

"I see what you mean." Isabella said with a small nod as she observed the area that Joshua was pointing out. "This time around the coyotes will have the advantage of the tall grass nearby which could give them the opportunity to attack far more of the elk than they were able to last time. Even if the elk are sticking closer together as long as the coyote are able to drag them off into the high grass then they can get away home free."

"I still don't understand why you're so worried about the elk. Even if they lose a few more of their group the rest can still lead the way for us. It's the cycle of life and what not, I'm sure you've all seen that kind of crap in movies when you were kids." Dave said with a shrug. Although a shiver seemed to go up his spine and Joshua could see where that came from when he turned to look at Lilly and saw her giving the most brutish Carsen brother a hard glare.

"If that were the only problem then that might be ok, but it's likely that the elk herd will collapse and break apart if too much chaos is created by the coyotes. I don't want have to wait another entire day for the herd to get back together and head towards the lake again because we didn't intervene beforehand." Joshua explained.

"It would be even worse if they didn't even come back together and we were forced to find another herd of mostly docile animals to follow around through this territory filled with unknowns." Madalyn said with a shrug. "It would suck if we were forced to go through the tall grass just because we couldn't find a path around a large group of deadly prairie chickens wouldn't it."

Dave nodded in reply, but went silent after that. While they were discussing this they all finished their meals and it seemed as if the elks had done the same as the herd had started moving again. Even if they were leaving the area the path they were taking was still close to the tall grass and Joshua could sense the pack of coyote following the elk from a distance. The only reason the coyote didn't seem to notice them at the moment was because of Vince's subtle illusion that was keeping any beast from a large distance from being able to see them. It was a simple illusion so it wasn't as hard for him to maintain as some of the much stronger ones he uses during combat. It was the main reason why the elk hadn't noticed them either up to this point.

For the next couple of hours the group continued to follow the elk, but after a while it seemed like the elk were preparing to settle down for the night. They were all sleeping in an area off to the side of the tall grass with one decent sized tree that would give them shade until night fall. Joshua monitored the coyotes that were approaching the entire time and noticed that they were waiting for most of the elk to fall asleep before they would go on the attack. Even if most of the elk were to fall asleep there were always at least two out of the five larger elk that would be on watch, and they were highly alert with a good view of their surroundings. When the coyotes attacked they'd realize it right away and fight back.

"How do you want to handle this Joshua?" Isabella asked as they all looked on at the situation from above. "If we want to fight off the coyotes without the elk getting agitated then we will have to take them on in the tall grass. That's going to be a problem since we won't be able to see them very well. The grass is much taller than any of us and will hinder our movements as we fight through it. This will give a big advantage to the coyotes."

"We have to fight them there if we want to avoid the elks running off or mistaking us for enemies as well. In that situation we could find ourselves getting attacked from both sides if we're not careful." Henry explained. Both of them were right on the mark and Joshua knew that they were going to have to fight in the tall grass if they wanted to avoid a confrontation with the elks as well. The issue was how they could fight in their enemies' playground without falling prey to all of their tricks and there was one way that came to mind for Joshua.

"We'll just have to make it so that we don't have to rely on our sight to see which direction the coyotes are attacking from, and luckily we have the two people to make that a possibility for the rest of the group." Joshua said with a small smile as he pointed to Natalie and Becca. "Natalie can create a mental link with all of us and feed us the visuals of the echolocation that Becca uses. Similar to back in the canyon dungeon, just keep in mind that the grass will slow our movements down while we're fighting. It'll be like fighting underwater to some extent."

"What about the elks? Even if we start fighting the coyotes further away from the area it'll still be noticeable." Adrian asked with a puzzled look.

"That's where Vince's illusions come in. He can set up an illusion for the elks where it seems like nothing is going on. Even if they have a feeling that something is off they won't run as long as they don't see any danger coming their way. We still need to finish this fight as quickly as possible so that the elks don't get agitated." Joshua explained before he noticed that the coyote were starting to move closer as if they were preparing to go one the attack at any moment. "It's time for us to go."

Joshua led the way down from the hill and into the high grass in the direction of the coyotes. He instantly felt the mental link from Natalie and could see everything in the tall grass through a sonar like view. The grass was still swaying back and forth all around him but in the distance he could see the large bodies of the coyotes trying to sneak closer to the elk. Joshua singled out the leader of the pack and started rushing through the tall grass in its direction. The leader was at the back waiting for its minions to go in first, but since Joshua was coming towards them from behind he was going to be able to take the leader by surprise and cause some chaos to start the battle.

When Joshua got close enough he could tell that the leader could sense his approach as it turned around quickly and tried to swipe at the direction that Joshua was coming from, but Joshua dodged under its hand while slashing it across the arm creating a large wound. The beast let out a painful scream as it jumped back and stood up to its full height which made it look nearly as big as the bobcat. Its frame was too big to be covered by the tall grass while standing at full height so its sneaky movements were ruined.

Before Joshua could go for another attack on the creature its minions started rushing over and tried to attack him, but were met with arrows and bullets along with ice spears. One of the unlucky coyote got speared with a much larger chunk of ice before its neck was bit into by Cinder who was in her ice form as she dragged the coyote away back into the grass in surprising silence. The other coyotes started spreading out into the grass to try to hide their selves so they could ambush the group, but with Becca's echolocation their prowling was pointless as they could be seen easily.

During the fighting Vince had put up an illusion to keep the elks from getting involved and it seemed to be working well since Joshua could feel with his aura sense that the elk were just watching the area as if something was wrong instead of going into mass panic. When Joshua went into the fight he didn't take into consideration the fact that Cinder would be even more deadly than the coyotes in the tall grass. Although she couldn't use her fire form just like the mages couldn't cast any spells that could start a fire, Cinder was able to do anything she wanted in her ice form as she silently glided through the grass crouching her body low so that the only way to see her form would be from up above.

Two minutes into the fighting and Cinder had dragged away three of the minion coyotes. The sudden surge of experience told Joshua that she was killing them just fine. The coyotes had a couple of levels on Cinder but her size and mutated powers were too much for the two star creatures. The pack leader was a bit stronger at level eighty-three with three stars, but outside of its powerful jaws and ability to create clouds of dirt to hide itself the coyotes didn't seem to have anything to help them out in the current situation.

The creatures were completely reliant on ambush tactics to show off their strength, but that was taken away from them. When the pack leader made another lunge at Joshua he dodged to the side, but this time he sent out an aura string that wrapped around the coyotes large neck. With his aura flaring Joshua pulled on the string which halted the giant creature for a moment while sending Joshua flying directly towards its neck through all the tall grass. He stabbed his scale blade deep into its neck on impact before tearing it upward and sending blood gushing everywhere with the fatal blow. The giant coyote stumbled for a few seconds before collapsing as an even larger surge of experience filled up everyone in the group.