After a brief run, I can finally see the wolfkin sprinting through the hundred of trees in between and as everyone turns their gaze, it changes heading bearing down straight for us. Richard unaware we can all see it, says through the comm setup.

“It changed direction to you.”

I pull another four of the formations from the inner world out and throw them on the ground unfurling all simultaneously and firmly attaching them to the ground. I get in the middle on one with Merlin and raise a smaller dome shield to protect us.

Without the network underground, my usefulness is more limited and I may need to be mobile for maximum effectiveness, but if I have to hunker down, that is what I’m prepared to do and this sounds like the right precaution.

Only moments before the beast is upon us everyone manages to get in a proper formation, while both me and Aspen send a full stream of mana underground to roots spreading from the inner world.

The spear wielders stand in a wall with Greg in the middle of the line and Alex just behind ready to dart to either side with more freedom of movement as his style requires.

I take one last deep breath in as the last second comes and raise a transparent almost imperceptible mana shield in front of the wolfkin who is sprinting at well over 150 kph.

An almost contemptuous claw swipe hits it, but the shield powered by the forward formation is a lot stronger than it looks with about 5000 mana and I feel the feedback as I send my perception in it. After a moment, reality catches up with me and I cough in my hand. A few droplets of blood and saliva cover the root armor protecting me.

Half of the strength of the shield just to stop its charge and for some reason it injured me.

I lower the shield larger shield in front, recharging the battery from my inner world as fast as possible, as the soldiers beside Greg advance. Rising to its two feet, standing a good 8 foot tall, it dwarfs even Greg who is a beast of a man himself.

As the white light from Greg’s skills shines signaling his speed buff and the impossible sharpness of his spear, the wolfkin grabs the weapon from another soldier and swiping its shaft breaks everyone's momentum with its shaft, knocking off all the attacks.

Only a single of these blows even drawing a drop of blood.

Alex jumps above everyone and heads in for a flanking maneuver. With Aether spinning around him, he dances behind the wolfkin. His dextrous and precisely targeted moves to reduce the Wofkin’s movement options, but only seconds later it gets tired of tiptoeing and simply bulldozers one of the least experienced soldiers as everyone tries surrounding it.

Another 2 scratches in its skin from the charge, but both are only skin deep.

At this pace, we will never win, but hope blooms as Merlin complete his first attack. I try to get a few roots to tangle it, but with uncanny, almost precognizant ability, it keeps its feet away from anywhere where I have even minimal chance of ensnaring it.

Even as the broken circle of level 90 plus soldiers tries to head in and surround it again, Merlin shoots a meta magic basketball-sized magma attack straight for its torso, which the beast contemptuously dodges.

The wolfkin lets a creepy grin on his face and I realize.

“Oh, shit… It’s playing with us and it’s bloody smart.”

I raise the shield of the formation under my feet and Merlin realizes what I’m doing and intertwines one of his own with mine in a way I didn’t think was even possible but he draws all the mana he can for the few instants we have.

The wolfkin’s charge is cut short again by the only protection we have, with the root formation powering the shield being almost ripped from the ground and the vibrations traveling the ground telling me we are screwed.

But the beast doesn’t pass right through the shield, instead it is knocked back on its butt. It hits its head apparently disorienting it for an instant with the shield losing barely 500 points.

What the …?

I ignore the question in my mind and take the slight disorientation from a harder knock against the shield that the beast expected and wrap roots around its hands… or paws.

With a movie-worthy martial artist backflip, it gets back on its feet as the group of soldiers manages to surround it properly. Staring at it backed into a corner, with a shield at its back and a double layer of soldiers surrounding it, I grin and connect directly with nature mana to the roots. The tendrils extend around its hands and I finally see what the wolfkin and possibly others could do. With a flick of its pinky, the mana on the roots dissipates and I feel a faint mana backlash. Not even strong enough to be painful.

And this realization is essential.

I may not know what the beast is doing or how to replicate it, but I understand how it could contemptuously break any of the mana shields I build. If there was no “will” behind it, it could take direct control of the mana for an instant and disperse it or something of the same nature. Not too dissimilar to the formation I use on the shamans in the goblin attacks, except this was a much higher level application.

I look to the side and Merlin doesn’t seem to be affected. Probably his higher intelligence stat protecting him.

What would be effective?

Merlin starts growing yet another magma ball on the outside of the shield without losing control of the interwoven shield and even after 5 seconds with everyone surrounding it I still don’t have any idea how to effectively combat it.

The beast is still playing with us or maybe bidding its time and assessing our capabilities.

An opening on the left and Alex heads in with a perfectly executed thrust. Mana and Aether spin around the shaft of his spear. The beast tries to twist its body, but the spear still pierces it in the midsection.

With an explosion of mana and a faster claw swipe than any other before, It hits the +7 spear and knocks it to the ground disarming Alex. Ignoring all other fighters around it, it pushes its entire body weight and strength in an attack on Alex’s throat.

With hands extended and the permanently extended sharp claws coming out of its almost human fingertips the result can only be catastrophic.

With desperation, I create a mana shield with all the mana in my grasp. Just 180 points or so, but with my entire willpower behind as I will it to be strong enough. Before the beast hits his throat Alex tilts his chin downward, enough to blunt the attack. The claws hit the shield punching through it, the roots and even the strongest armor we had access to.

I let out a small sigh of relief seeing the shallow nature of the wound in my perception field.

As it pulls its hand right hand back Alex nearly slumps grabbing his neck in a reflex. I use the opportunity to intertwine even more roots in the beast’s fingers. A dozen spear trusts hit its thick and tough hide causing it to hesitate for just an instant but it jumps off before Greg manages to get a much more damaging attack at its flank.

A nearly blinding white light illuminates Greg’s spear as the beast pulses its mana and jumps a good 8 meters high landing behind the shield dome that I and Merlin are hiding under.

Anger wafts off the beast that needs no translation. It hits the shield in quick succession, draining almost a thousand mana points and sending me coughing with each strike. The feedback injures me more and more but I take the opportunity to grow roots on his feet and ankles.

I keep active control with my will on the shield, otherwise it might break in just two blows. Moments later, just a single blow short of getting through us, everyone else gets around the small shield dome and surrounds the beast as Merlin shoots his prepared magma ball.

With a sidestep that allows one of the twenty armor-clad soldiers to hit him in the thighs, he easily dodges Merlin’s attack, which flies off in the distance missing everyone else by a wide margin.

From the inner world, I pull out yet another formation and let Aspen work on fixing it to the ground as the formation raises the last of my shield formations.

Both shield formations pull mana from the batteries in the inner world at the maximum rate, though luckily the second one can raise a shield at nearly full power with its internal mana stores.

With each step in any direction, a few of the roots on the ground attach to the ones on its feet and slow the wolfkin ever so slightly, but after a moment, it just pools mana at its feet and from its skin, a fire emanates.

Nothing exceedingly hot, but enough to char the thin roots and its fur. Jumping away a couple more times and behind the only evidence of my attempt is a little soot left.

The beast starts to maneuver up and down keeping its distance from me and Merlin, never letting more than half a dozen people surround it. Even with the shallow cut on his throat from the wolkin’s sharp nails Alex continues to press on. He is the one most able to keep up with the wolfkin’s erratic movements, not in sheer speed but in following the chaotic rhythm of the fight.

“Try to corral it in the middle formation. That’s the only chance we have.” Richard says in everyone’s ears with yet another note as he tries to follow the flow of the battle and direct everyone to be the most effective. He ends up partially succeeding and we manage to avoid anyone else being seriously injured for 30 seconds or so.

After perhaps a minute since the fight started and the skills fading, finally they manage to corral the beast into the central circle of a formation. The single one that had a chance to affect change in all of this and instantly the batteries spread through it feed mana to the runes standing centimeters apart far faster than I could ever have hoped to so through any external mana channel. In a nearly instant process, both of the purposes of the formation come to fruition.

The beast freezes and a fireball shoots up.

Not nearly as damaging as Merlin’s magma ball, but with a nearly full-on hit I see the beasts engulfed in it.

And after a single step slower than usual, the entire group of gleaming sliver-clad soldiers stand with spears extended keeping it at bay.

With the fireball fading, I realize that besides a charred hide, which might mean a few percent of its HP, the beast is not in the slightest hindered. Everyone’s triumphant faces under their helmets are frozen in a pained facsimile as our hope for victory evaporates.

Merlin stops working on a magma ball and instead starts on something else. With far more runes than I have ever seen anyone directly yielding and a mana output that I thought only I could sustain until now, he pulls from both the inner world battery and his own pool at the maximum rate he can sustain.

The wolfkin simply stands there, now exuding a calm aura that belied all we believed about the blood-thirsty beasts living on the other side of the divide.

Instead of the barest mana traces flowing into its movements, a torrent stronger than I saw on anyone not fully dedicated to the mage path continuously flows and the beasts bulldozers three soldiers in its path to us.

With a single leap and a pulse of mana, now I begin to see the real movement speed it is capable of, the only soldier in position charges full speed ahead to get in between us, the wolfkin uses some of the torrents of mana to its hand or paw and with something akin to uppercut, though with arm nearly fully extend the metal breastplate dents deeply pushing every bit of air in his lungs out and leaving himself fully opened for an attack.

Without stopping, a backhand hits him in the head and he sprawls on the ground.

I think of him for an instant, but I don’t have the time to check if he is alive, I need to take care of my own skin. Pulling on my entire mana pool and a sliver of Aether, something that I tried to avoid as much as possible, I try to imitate Merlin and interweave my shield like I saw him doing.

It is not fully successful, even with the help from Aether and rivers of mana.

This time the wolfkin closes his hands and goes full boxer mode on our shields. Adding its tremendous strength with the mana disputing capabilities in three blows the outer layer of the shield is broken. Though as it batters the second and last layer of defense, far more fragile than the previous one, Merlins’ attack finally finishes charging with the pattern of runes and odd lights hitting the beast and surrounding it.

It falls to the ground howling.

Just as I try and take advantage of that, the wolfkin rolls backward getting a little distance and not allowing itself to be surrounded. Like always Alex is right there at the tip of the spear to head in for one last time which seems easier with the beast's almost drunken movements after Merlin’s attack.

I feel Merlin trying to hold himself up, but after this last attack, standing up seems to be all he can do and I count him out.

Diving in for an attack, the beast gets inside the Spear wielder’s space. One swipe, one counter, another and everyone’s is getting closer. As its time runs out, it succeeds and takes a chunk of Alex’s throat out.

The beast pays a price in the form of a fairly deep hole in its neck, just above its ribs and a couple of shallow gashes in its side.

Roling on the ground one last time it runs away at a full speed with nobody able to get even a single more scratch on it.

There is a faint pull there like the system was telling it to come back and it just got strong enough to lets go. It seems the system is telling the beast it’s time to go back.

After it gets some 100 meters away, I take a breath.

I keep staring at it for just another second to make sure it really is over before dragging my attention and perception field back to Alex.

“Shit.”

I connect to the roots growing under his armor. From my inner world, I pull a potion and start growing the roots in a fine mesh to try and hold back the gushing blood under his hands and torn metal plates.

“You cannot die.”

Even as he tried to hold on to life above him a stream of Aether circles and I start feeding my own Aether to the cycle trying everything I can to help him.

“You will not die.”