Aurel attacked with more strength, speed, and just as ferociously as a beast. The Lycan seemed unprepared for the brutal attack. The swing of Aurel's bastard sword at his midriff sent him flying. Perhaps he was unaware of the presence of a mage's magic on the battlefield, after all, father hadn't cast any on him.

If he was just a bit smarter he would've noticed though. After all, the Lycans thought of humans as nothing but fragile blood sacks; he should've found it strange that we recovered from the earlier bout so quickly. No matter what it wasn't normal for humans to recover from wounds as grave as those he had inflicted on us so quickly. I assumed the Lycans were not completely clueless about humans, and that led me to believe the only reason the Lycan in front of us had not noticed was that he lacked a bit in the intelligence department. The Lycans were many things, but smart wasn't one.

His ignorance ultimately served us well. As warriors, we were taught to never underestimate an enemy in battle. It was good to be confident and assured during battle, but one had to be careful to not cross the line and become arrogant. Arrogance led to complacency and complacency in battle was fatal.

The Lycan was complacent. Earlier, before he had transformed, he toyed with Aurel and me. Even though his arrogance had left space for me to badly hurt him, I imagine he was so confident in his abilities he would've considered that a fluke borne out of my desperation to survive. His complacency left him vulnerable, and once Aurel had attacked he would never be able to recover.

I also moved quickly, got in position, and threw a knife at him, aiming for his heart. Lycans are fast, but from his position on the ground, he wouldn't be able to dodge the knife I threw with my boosted strength. So he did the next best thing, he opted to catch the knife.

The ensuing explosion took his right arm clean off. A part of his torso was also badly damaged. The Lycans healed fast but that didn't mean they didn't feel pain. Without a doubt, he was in pain as the damage was immense. He howled in fury and proceeded to charge at me.

He didn't look like he had any reason. He looked like a beast only following its instincts. He probably pegged me as the bigger threat, but I had no reason to run from a damaged Lycan, especially since father's magic had given me a significant boost in strength and speed.

I still wasn't as strong nor as fast as a Lycan. But having trained as a warrior with people far bigger and stronger than I was, over time I had learned to cope with fighting opponents who were stronger. My biggest advantage over typical warriors was speed, but the Lycan was faster than I was.

I simply stood my ground and waited to be attacked. Of course, Aurel wasn't far behind the Lycan. I could see the wild swing of the Lycan's left arm heading my way. All five claws spread out aiming to reap my life. I stepped back just to the edge of his range, raised my axe, and took the blow.

Normally I would try to parry, but an attack swung with such ferocious speed and strength would damage me if I attempted to parry it, so instead, I followed his swing, spun around and that took away the force of his attack. Now he was left open.

I swung my axe at it, activating the knockback enchantment on the axe as I did so. The Lycan was sent tumbling back towards Aurel who jumped up and swung his bastard sword down with mighty force.

Aurel's attack this time succeeded in slashing the Lycan's left shoulder. The wound inflicted wasn't too deep and would heal in time, but the pain only made the Lycan madder.

Unlike us, the Lycans didn't train for combat. They were simply wild beasts that took delight in their own strength and went to battle trusting that. So of course when met with opposition capable of inflicting damage on them, they lost their reasoning due to the pain.

Titus called them babies in battle. Even with their fast healing, their threshold for pain was abysmal. They lost their composure and that negated their superiority. Before we were able to deal significant damage to the Lycan, he was far superior to us. But now having suffered damage at our hands, he was far more inferior.

His attack lacked any pattern, he only swung his arm as fast and as hard as he could. Sometimes he tried to ram into us with his massive body, but a beast attacking through instinct was far easier to deal with than one that still had its wit about it and used a bit of cunning to hunt its prey.

Aurel concentrated his attacks on the Lycan's left shoulder, no doubt with the intention of robbing him of his last remaining arm. But the Lycan with his speed was proving difficult to handle. When he couldn't attack he would retreat away from our attack range or simply avoid our attacks once we got close enough to attack.

We were finding it difficult to land significant enough blows on him when we go close, it was proving next to impossible to hit him using projectiles. As the battle wore on it became obvious to me that our initial plan of damaging his heart using the explosive knives wouldn't work. However, if we could immobilize him under concentrated attacks from Aurel and me we could defeat him.

"We have to immobilize him!" I yelled towards Aurel. Aurel simply grunted in return.

Aurel's arm had grown numb from parrying those wild attacks by the Lycan. My muscles were beginning to ache from the strain of the strengthening magic father cast, I could tell Aurel was also experiencing the same strain. The human body wasn't meant to move the way we were, and it wasn't meant to exert the kind of force we were.

We were still young so the side effects of the magic were relatively tamer for us. Some of the older warriors almost lost the use of their limbs. I had experienced strengthening magic at different times in my life, and yet, after an hour of activities under its effect I was left incredibly weakened. It took days to recover.

We couldn't afford to engage the Lycan in a battle of attrition. He had more stamina and could take more damage. He was vulnerable now, but he wouldn't remain so for too long. Over time we would become slower and weaker, conversely, as he recovered from his wounds he would grow stronger.

His right arm was recovering, but growing back limbs wasn't such a simple thing. It would take even Lycans days, maybe weeks, to regrow an arm.

I knew the Lycan's right arm was recovering because the bleeding had stopped and he had started to regain a bit of reason. His attacks had grown less wild, he started to chain his attacks. One of his chained attacks caught me off guard and injured my thigh.

He swung his arm aiming to take off my head, so I ducked, only to find his feet heading straight at my face. I leaned back to dodge and attempted to somersault backward, only for his arm to swing back downwards and catch me on the thigh. His claws left a deep gash on my thigh.

Normally father or any other mage capable of healing would've healed me. But no matter how powerful father was, he was no god. He cast three spells in quick succession from incredible range. Without a doubt, he was drained. It took a lot from a mage to cast magic over distances, so many mages tried to get as close to their target area as possible to reduce the strain. Father would've exerted a considerable amount of power and needed time to recover, so we had to proceed without his help.

The Lycan seemed to grow complacent again as his reason returned. His confidence started to build again seeing that his attack landed. For me, it was quite a painful injury. Blood flowed nonstop from my thigh and my mind went numb from the pain.

Aurel stepped in just in time. A slash that the Lycan tried to block with his arm cut deep into his flesh. He growled angrily and tried to retaliate, but Aurel simply stepped back, and once the wild swing of the Lycan's leg passed, Aurel slashed at his thigh.

That gave me a few precious moments to recover from the initial sting of the Lycan's attack and get back in the fray. I ran and swung my axe at him, he was already preoccupied with Aurel so he didn't have enough leeway to mind me.

I connected with his left shoulder, seeking to complete Aurel's initial plan of decapitating the second arm. I didn't succeed, but I cut him deep. I cut through his clavicle and deep into his chest. He went down on his knees just as Aurel slashed at his neck.

Aurel's sword cut straight through his neck and his head rolled off onto the ground. We had successfully hunted a Lycan.

Aurel continued to stab into the lifeless, headless body of the Lycan. There was a bit of madness in his eyes. He seemed to have completely given into the rage in his heart.

Meanwhile, I tried assessing our situation. I had been so focused on the task at hand that I had completely forgotten my initial worry of being found out by the other Lycans in the settlement. I looked back at the direction of the settlement, and walking slowly towards us with mocking grins on their faces were five Lycans.

We had suffered through so much just to take down one Lycan. The strengthening spell father cast on us was wearing off, and my body ached all over. If we had to engage in another battle in our current state we were going to die. That much was certain.

"Aurel, we have to go," I screamed as I grabbed his arm and yanked him away from the corpse of the Lycan.

He didn't need much telling, as he had noticed the situation the moment I started sprinting away. My thigh still hurt and the bleeding hadn't stopped. I was starting to feel light-headed from the blood loss. I knew deep down that I wouldn't get too far in my current state.

{Zhiva, concessa mihi venia protegas fetus. Ab inimicorum patere volunt laederetur protegat}

Just then I heard father say the incantation to cast [shield presence]. The spell hid one's presence from all enemies. This spell was born from one of the myths of Zhiva. That was why the one father asked permission from was the goddess.

The spell wasn't one father used often. In fact, since I had been alive I can count on my hands the number of times father had used the spell. It was very useful when trying to escape but completely useless in attack. Father served more as a healing mage, and in battle, he served as backline support that provided buffs and healing.

He was also a decent attack mage, but that came from studying attack magic and training for years. The gods he was tied to weren't war gods, so the types of magic innate to him were support magic.

[Shield presence] was one such support magic. The spell ultimately came to exist due to goddess Zhiva's will to protect life. She considered everything to be born from her, and so all lifeforms were considered her children. The spell worked that way; to protect life from harm it was hidden from all that wished to destroy it.

The downside was that the effects wore off immediately anyone that the magic was cast on tried to attack another. The purpose of the spell was to protect life so she rescinded her permission once anyone tried to use it to attack.

I was relieved once I heard the incantation. It didn't take long for the spell to activate, and I knew it had activated due to the howls of anger and voices of confusion from the five Lycans that had come to hunt us.

"Come see me immediately you return," father said angrily before cutting off the link between us.

I knew he wouldn't be happy with me, still, I was feeling elated. We had hunted a Lycan. Despite their resistance to magic, I had discovered that enchanted weapons were effective against them