Chapter 229 Jewel Hunt – The Dangerous Mountain

Each of the dire wolves was much bigger compared to a normal wolf, even Beast's tamed beasts were smaller, except for Fluffy. The dire wolves looked extremely menacing with their stares and growls, their fur was dark blue and their sharp claws shone brightly as the sun shined on them.

Upon noticing the wolves Reign and the others immediately got ready to fight, there was a pack of 10 wolves in front of them, led by an Alfa dire wolf who was bigger compared to the others. A group of ten monsters that was led by a level 42 elite monster were usually not something that would get Reign and the others flustered, Wolf had previously fought against 30 monsters by himself and even though the spiders were amongst the weakest monsters of their level, the sheer number of them coupled with the elites and variants was enough to make them stronger than this group of dire wolves.

The wolves slowly surrounded them while staring intensely at them. Wolves are usually very cautious animals and even though these were monsters that were changed and strengthened by mana, their basic instinct still remained. They had never come across humans here and seeing them now made them a bit interested, the biggest reason they were currently going for an attack was simply that Reign and the others were suppressing their mana to the fullest.

To the wolves, they were the same as the prey they usually hunted, coupled with the fact that they had greater numbers and their alfa here, was enough for them to attack. Reign and the others deliberately looked at the alfa and let their backs wide open, as the wolves came behind them, their animal instinct immediately kicked in and they attacked.

That was the last attack of their lives as Reign and Shadow were the ones that responded to the attack. Tank attacked left and Greenie took the right side while Wolf charged at the alfa, a level 43 elite enemy was not a problem for him, even if it was stronger compared to the elite and variant spiders he had fought before. This game had a certain weirdness to it, a level of a monster or human was not a good basis for determining strength, but when killing a powerful monster of a certain level, it would barely give more exp compared to the weaker ones, the only thing that changed was the probability of getting better gear.

Upon seeing the explosive strength of Reign and the others, the wolves immediately grew flustered, the mana pressure coming off from them had multiplied suddenly and they realized that the prey in front of them was not prey at all, but hunters instead. Even though the wolves wanted to immediately retreat, it was simply not possible as Reign and the others had already started their attack, the alfa growled furiously at Wolf but was beaten down by him and his flames.

The battle took less than 2 minutes, the wolves were all dead while the alfa was motionlessly lying on the ground while staring at Wolf with intense hate in its eyes.

"You want to try taming it?" Wolf asks Beast who simply shakes his head, "He has too much hatred for you, that will make it difficult to tame him, not to mention that he's elite, those guys barely have any chance of evolving."

Upon hearing Beast's words, Wolf simply nodded and swung his greatsword down at the alfa, the latter's head was separated from its body as blood spewed from the neck like a fountain.

Reign and the others quickly picked up the pace up the mountain, on their way up they came across a multitude of different monsters, but none of the monsters were able to stop them, they even came across a couple of bosses on the way up, the bosses were harder compared to the spider, but the difference was that they were all alone. No matter how great their strength, the bosses were still killed in the end while Reign and the others would take a brief rest near the corpse.

It was morning when Reign and the others started climbing the mountain, so far they had managed to get halfway and it was late afternoon, from what they knew, they should have at least until midnight to get up the mountain, if not even later.

Still, in order not to take any chances they decided to pick up their pace, they had a bunch of jewels and their total amount of points should be a bit above 1500. They didn't know how much the other teams had, but judging from the strength they had, getting 1000 points should be a difficult task even for the teams in the top 5.

The monsters in the mountains were much more ferocious compared to the ones in the forest down, since the forest was huge, the monsters were able to take up their own areas and hunt some low-leveled monsters nearby, but the mountain, even though it was big, was still much smaller compared to the enormous forest that was around it, the monster here were stronger, but the area they could take over was smaller.

That led to many of the monsters fighting against one another daily and as such, they were very territorial and aggressive. Some of the monsters even dared to enter the areas that bosses had taken over in hopes of finding some food. So far, the strongest boss that Reign and the others had encountered was a level 46 boss, it was a 2-meter long cougar, it was much smaller compared to most of the monsters found on the mountain, but if one underestimated it because of that, they would find themselves dead before even trying to defend themselves.

The cougar was silent and Reign and the others didn't see it until it attacked them from above, thankfully Wolf had noticed that something was watching and following them for some time and he had already told them about it. They all made sure to be aware of their surroundings and Reign also tried his best to sense the flow of mana around them, it was for naught however as he could feel nothing.

Nobody thought that Wolf was wrong however as they knew that he was the most sensitive amongst them when it came to things like that and had helped them immensely before when they would be stalked by monsters. Nobody even asked why he had such an ability since they all knew better than to pry, when the time was right he would tell them.

It was the slightest movement that the cougar made that allowed Wolf to notice it, the branch of the tree it was perched on creaked ever so quietly when it pounced on them and Wolf was able to pick that up immediately. Tank used his shields skill immediately after Wolf told him and they were able to defend against the attack, still, the biggest surprise was that Tank had a grave look on his face after defending the attack, even after being besieged by tens of ants previously he was able to defend them without great difficulty, but this one attack was enough to put a strain on him.

The cougar was incredibly fast and it could camouflage itself, the camouflage not only fooled the eyesight of others but even allowed for it to walk around without disrupting the flow of mana around it, and as such even Reign was unable to find it when it did so. The battle lasted for over 30 minutes during which the cougar would attack and quickly retreat before disappearing, it was only after Reign and Shadow used their body skills each that they were able to reach the cougar and stop it in its tracks.

The following fight was incredibly hard as the cougar tried its best to escape, the attacks of the others would only work to disrupt its movements and even Reign and Shadow had difficulty when it came to landing a hit.

In the end, it was only after Reign deliberately slipped and showed an opening that the cougar decided to take a risk and attack him, even though his tunic was able to mitigate a large deal of damage, the incredibly sharp fangs of the cougar still managed to pierce through his flesh before he stabbed his two swords in the monster.

Shadow used and the others also attacked as the cougar was unable to get away thanks to Reign's swords holding it in place, in the end only a couple of attacks were needed to end its life. It was obvious that the cougar was a monster that acted more like an assassin, its powerful speed and attack were enough to end a battle in an instant and it didn't need a powerful defense, however, once an attack failed it needed to retreat immediately as its body was not strong enough to take much damage.

Compared to most monsters it was one that had an obvious strength and weakness, similar to the Behemoth they had previously faced which had incredibly defense but lacked speed and more methods to attack its enemies.

After resting up and Reign getting healed by Laura, they resumed going up the mountain, right now they had about 2 000 points and they had already traveled some 4/5 of the way, the sun was setting down however and this was going to be the most dangerous part of their climb.