Anna shook Reed off and kicked him to the side. Reed groaned a bit in pain.

While Anna turned around and stood at attention, Reed tried to concentrate while on the ground. He wanted to try to get to the state of absolute power again.

Anna waited, and growls started to come all around her. Eyes looked at her from where she stood.

A drop of sweat came off her head, showing her apprehension. But she wasn’t part of the hero party for nothing.

She was powerful a magician. A mere bunch of wolves couldn’t hope to defeat her.

She stood at the ready; her bloodied hands up in the air, sparks flying off her finger.

For a moment, there was a stare down.

Then, it happened.

All at once, the wolves came towards her in a horde.

They were furious. She had killed one of their kin for the sake of experimentation, killed another one of them and gravely injured their master.

Anna hands went towards the direction the wolves were coming from. Lightning shot off her hands, attacking multiple wolves at once.

She got 5, no, 10 of them in a single attack, bringing their numbers down to 88.

But there were far too many.

The wolves surrounded her, biting at every piece they could, riping off her clothes and clawing at her skin.

Anna kept shooting lighting, determined to win this fight.

She kept shooting and shooting, spinning around in order to hit all the wolves she could.

It was like a dance. A dance of blood, electricity and hate.

Wolves fell down electrocuted, but some came back up again. And then they joined the fray once more.

Wolves kept falling, but Anna’s resistance was falling just as well.

Blood poured out of the countless wounds she had gotten, blood poured out of the countless wounds the wolves had gotten. The ground was stained pure red with their blood.

When the wolves number had fallen down to a mere 30, suddenly every single wolf left the area at once, seemingly fleeing from something.

Anna looked confused at their backs as they flew, but for a single instant, she felt relieved.

Then, she felt a chill go down her spine.

She tried to look back, only to see a pair of red eyes with vertical slits rapidly approaching her.

When she noticed, her face was already being held against the ground by someone’s hand, leaving her only the bare minimum space so she could breathe.

She heard a voice coming right beside her ear, giving her the chills:

And so the tables turned. Funny how that happened.

A figure stood above her, holding her head in place.

It was a figure with an open stomach, blood dripping down from his wound. Red eyes looked over her.

It was Reed.

I’m guessing you wanted a live subject for your experiments, that’s why you tried to make me faint from pain instead of killing me. Too bad for you, I am pretty resilient.

Still holding Anna’s head against the ground, Reed kept talking while breathing roughly from the pain.

Now, here’s what will happen. You will heal me right now, or we both die here. …What makes you think that’s gone convince me?

Saying so, Reed started to roughly and strongly rub Anna’s face against the ground.

GAah!?AAAAHhh!!

Barely being able to scream, Anna’s face got its skin and meat scraped off, making her into an unrecognizable mess.

Stopping for a bit, Reed said:

Convinced yet? …Never…

Before Anna could finish her sentence, Reed started to pound her head against the ground.

Making loud sounds everytime her head got slammed, Anna eventually started to give up.

.I…AH…Give…AAaAh…Stop…Iiiiit…

Stopping his onslaught, Reed looked down at Anna.

Her face had become disfigured beyond recognition. She was barely surviving.

Now heal me. If you do, I’ll let you off. HA…HA…Is that…HA…true? I can’t kill you right now, for various reasons. …Fine…Ugh…

Reed let Anna get up, and then held her by the neck.

Didn’t you say you’d let me off? Can’t have you running awawy now, can we?

Reed’s dragon like eyes looked at Anna with a sharp gaze, seeing through what she was going to do.

…Alright…Let me just…

Anna put her hand over Reed’s stomach and started an incantantion.

When she finished, Reed’s wound mostly closed off, but there was still an ugly scar left from where it used to be, dripping with a little blood and hurting badly. Judging by the time she took to do it, Anna seems to not be as good in healing as she is in attack magic.

After that, Reed let Anna heal her own face. She mostly managed to heal everything, but an scar was left going from her forehead to her left cheek, crossing through her eye. Her eye was also whitened out, she was most likely blind from that eye now.

Now, miss evil witch, let’s go back to the tower. There’s a lot we need to talk about. Kuh…!

Dragging Anna by the neck, Reed started on his way back to the tower.

By the way, if you try anything funny…

“Grrrr…”

Out of nowhere, growls came out from all around.

I’ll not be so lenient.

And with that, Reed kept dragging Anna along with him.

His vertical slit eyes shone a dangerous glint in the forest.