Chapter 496 Mutation Part 1

’Timing their attack with the position of the sun is not just a trick, it’s plain smart.’ Lith inwardly cursed as one of the nearby watchtowers exploded, spreading the smell of barbeque and pieces of entrails in the afternoon air.

’They are not charging at the walls!’ Solus’s senses were unaffected by daylight.’ The warg are taking down the guards first. This wasn’t supposed to happen.’

Lith switched to Life Vision, noticing a barrage of spells were being unleashed on the positions where the guards had taken cover. Fire and lightning charred the stone and sent the guards into a panic, making them lose their tinted glasses.

’This is too clever for monsters who for decades have been recorded as mindless beasts.’ A wave of Lith’s hand dispelled most of the incoming attacks. They were just chore magic cantrips the warg used to cover their real targets.

The guards had no way to know this and stared at him with a mix of awe and fear, like a god of war had descended among them.

’How the heck can they attack with such precision even while being so far away that not even my mana sense can spot them?’ Solus thought. The situation was becoming more absurd by the second. Lith racked his brain for an explanation but found none.

Even if it was a violation of his orders, he took off and flew at full speed and followed the spells back to where they came from. The area in front of the city walls was kept clear for hundreds of meters, which made a sneak attack a formidable feat.

The moment Lith passed near a small patch of trees, something as big as a horse and as fast as a missile bolted up from the ground to intercept him. Lith had seen the unknown enemy thanks to Life Vision and was waiting for them.

Despite the high speed he was moving at, he managed to dodge the living bullet as his right hand wielding the Gatekeeper sliced through the enemy’s side and his left hand released three fireballs in a triangle formation.

The warg wasn’t as skilled as Lith in aerial fights. The creature took the full force of all of his attacks and was engulfed in the resulting conflagration. Lith managed to catch a glimpse of his opponent before the flames consumed it.

The Army bestiary was right about the warg’s appearance. The creature looked like a humanoid wolf, with a thick grey fur and bone spikes coming out of its spine and joints. Yet it was dead wrong about the rest.

The creature Lith had just killed was over three meters (9’10) tall instead of just two (6’7") and had hands bigger than Lith’s head. Warg were also described as incapable of using air magic to fly.

Their eyes were supposed to be yellow and filled with endless fury. What Lith saw, instead, were black eyes filled with surprise, malice, and confidence.

’That wasn’t the gaze of a dying man. Something is off.’ Lith stopped advancing to scout his surroundings when the warg came out of the smoke like a speeding train. The creature wasn’t just alive, it was unscathed.

Lith dodged the attack with ease, turning the enemy’s body into a pin cushion riddled with razor sharp icicles, but that didn’t even slow it down. The warg attempted another charge only to be showered with lightning bolts that flowed through the ice directly into its organs.

Once again, the enemy remained unfazed.

The clash continued for a few seconds, but despite Lith held the upper hand the fight seemed pointless. The warg was fast and strong, but it couldn’t land a single hit. Every one of Lith’s attacks struck with surgical precision, but none left a mark on the monster’s body.

Lith stabbed the warg with the Gatekeeper several times, but the blade went in and out almost like it struck an ethereal enemy.

’Solus, please tell me this makes sense to you. The life force of this thing is still as strong as when the fight started.’ Lith asked while weaving a tier five spell.

He would have preferred to save them for once he found the rest of the pack, but solving this mystery took priority. The idea of having an immortal creature within arm’s reach made him worried and excited at the same time.

’Sorry, I have no idea what’s happening. I think...’ Before she could finish her thought, the creature howled in frustration and flew away.

***

A few hundred meters from the scene of the fight, the warg tribe was cursing their bad luck. Many of them were gritting their teeth to withstand the pain of the terrible wounds that kept appearing on their bodies.

One of them had his side cut wide open, while others had their flesh covered in burns or their bodies trembling in a seizure.

’Retreat.’ The warg alpha telepathically ordered to his chosen beta who promptly obeyed.

’Not enough food to mend so many wounds in so little time. We need more time to increase our numbers, we still...’ The alpha paused, searching for the right word.

The Master’s experiments had enhanced the warg’s skill to share their abilities among pack members. Each one of them had a small fragment of the same Abomination inside of them.

A single piece was too small to have a consciousness, but because of the warg’s nature, they were able to form a network that created a mind link. As the fragments developed, the mind link was turning into a hive mind.

’... too stupid. Don’t get caught.’

Six wargs were sitting on the ground, weaving spell after spell which their brothers and sisters inside the city were able to unleash without blowing their cover.

"Take the wounded." The alpha said. He used the mind link only when he was forced to. The voice in his mind was too different from his own. "We retreat, now."

***

Lith followed the fleeing warg, noticing how its size turned to what the army bestiary described.

’Probably it was that big because it was borrowing strength from its companions. Are they in the area?’ Lith thought.

’Still nothing within range.’ Solus replied

The monster tried to shake the human off its tail by increasing its speed, but the gap in air magic mastery between the two was enormous. Realizing he was no match for the mage, the warg grinned.

"For the pack!" It yelled as it recalled all the wounds it had sustained during the fight as well as all those the other members of the tribe had received during the march toward Maekosh.

The warg’s body was ripped to shreds in an instant, leaving Lith shocked.

’You have heard that too, right Solus? I’m not imagining things, right?’

’I did. The warg used air magic to speak in the human language, just like a magical beast would. It shows they are both intelligent and willing to sacrifice themselves. We cannot underestimate them like the army did.’

Solus couldn’t believe decades of information could produce such a poor result.

’I wasn’t talking about that. The way it ended its life, the words it used. It reminds me of what happened when we faced Balkor’s creatures.’