'What the heck is going on,' Noah wondered casually dodging the strikes of the large grey and white wolf before him. His group seemed to be in the same confusion as he was, but he didn't care.
They all looked capable of handling whatever was thrown at them, and that capability was needed since there were exactly twenty wolves before them. Apart from the three that had died before he got there.
Noah jumped backward; once again dodging the claw strike of the now annoyed wind wolf. Each of its strikes caused slashes made out of wind to fly towards him, but they never managed to strike him.
In his seconds of thoughts, Noah had found many openings he could utilize against the enraged beast, but he held back. At least then he did. Now that he sighted four more wolfs rushing towards his position to take care of him, he focused.
Crouching a bit, his nostrils drew a large amount of air, then his figure vanished from his position.
The event caught the eyes of the others who felt their hearts skip a beat when they realized that his movement speed was at a pace their trained eyes couldn't follow.
His figure appeared sight beside the first wolf standing at a height of about 6m. Raising his right leg while hopping a bit, Noah delivered a kick to the wolf's head.
Flesh and brain matter flew everywhere as he directly one-shotted the beast.
Shock ran through the mind of his group since he had casually killed a beast more than halfway into the middle stage!
Actually, all the beasts there were at that level, but everyone including Noah knew there had to be a leader somewhere.
Lowering his leg barely an instant after the first wolf died, Noah disappeared from his position again, but this time rather than waiting to stop, his figure seemed to flicker between two of the wolfs onto him, and before they knew it their heads exploded into gory masses of bone flesh and brain matter.
Noah didn't seem to be holding back, but he actually was.
Flicking his leg of the blood that had tried to stain his black boots, his eyes fell on the last wolf that had tried to attack him. He could clearly sense its fear. Weirdly. Unfortunately for it, there was no mercy, it would kill him if it had the chance.
With whimpers of fear the beast tried to escape his figure, but before it could take three steps, Noah appeared beside it and delivered a smashing punch on its side belly,
His casual attack directly opened a huge hole in the beast before sending it flying into one of the tall trees and almost bringing it down.
That scene reminded him of his first kill in that world and a smile threatened to crack on his face, but he remained expressionless.
Noah's astonishing display of pure prowess ultimately made the others especially the two men want to show their skills.
The three of them were stronger than the wolves, but they had to be careful anyway.
Noah soon found himself watching his guild-mates fight.
'Why are they desperately trying to impress the other person,' he wondered, unfolding his consciousness in search of the leader of the pack. The tall trees didn't allow sunlight to completely get to the surface, causing a few visual dark spots in the area. Only his consciousness could find anything.
Picking up an aura that resembled what he expected a leader would be, Noah felt taken aback to sense that the beast power was actually within the higher stage.
The matter worried him a bit since he still had reservations concerning higher-stage beasts. But seeing as the middle-stage wolves were pretty weak, he didn't expect much.
Notwithstanding, he waited a bit to watch them before breaking the news.
Noah's eyes landed on the pink-haired beauty and couldn't help but admire her graceful fighting style. They even reminded him of Ariana. Except that the pink-haired lady had far more skill under her belt.
Her rapier was rapid. But also contained an incredible amount of force. Each of her casually thrusts either dug deep into the body of the wolves or directly blew off their limbs.
In a matter of seconds, all the wolves fighting her were without limbs, and she moved to remove their heads, ending them.
Noah had stopped the system from making the beasts disappear by itself, so he moved to wave his hand over the ones he had killed making the scene look natural.
His focus went to the green-haired man and his pair of heavy-looking silver axes. They looked heavy, but he swung them like they weighed nothing.
The wolves could only die when his axes touched them. He was even more destructive than Noah, and every single one of his slashes had a form behind it. One that allowed him to remain flexible even if his weapons were chunky masses of metal. He didn't even empower the axes yet they tore through flesh like a hot knife on butter.
Last but definitely not least; the blonde-haired guy. The expert wielded a regal-looking spear, making Noah miss Cudgel. He had not touched his divine weapon in months now, and he hoped to integrate it with the Roiling Thunder technique if possible.
There were still a lot of moves he needed to learn from the monkey king manual, but he wondered if it wouldn't clash with his mastering of the Roiling Thunder Technique. He soon moved that issue to the back of his mind, however.
The blonde-haired man was spectacular in his movements. Graceful even.
His movements resembled a dance but were incredibly lethal.
Noah honestly didn't know how he would face the young man. Actually, he knew what had to be done, but it sure would be difficult. That was one of the advantages of long-range weapons, compared to someone who was mostly focused on close combat.
With each spin the young man performed, blood sprayed everywhere. The wolves tried their best to escape the spinning killing machine, but he never let them leave the range of his attacks. Until they were all dead, that was.
All of them were spectacular individuals, and even Noah knew he would need to get serious to properly win. He more or less began to understand why only experience and skill could win in a battle with people like them. At least in terms of martial arts.
The three were done in less than two minutes, and they met Noah staring at them, but with his cold expression back on.
"We have a problem," Noah announced alerting them, and just as he was about to speak a howl containing pure fury shook the grounds of that area.
"Higher stage!" the green-haired man exclaimed and their expressions turned cold, except Noah's of course.