*Whoosh* The arrow flew and embedded itself slightly to the right of the wolf’s chest.

The wolf’s eyes narrowed, and its ears flattened as it howled in pain at the sudden assault, clearly anxious at suddenly receiving an attack.

Its body slowly lowered and got closer to the ground, the it stopped. The wolf did not fall. It was heavily injured by the arrow, but that injury was not fatal.

It used its mouth to pluck the arrow out of its chest, wincing in pain again when the arrow exited its body. It licked the wound a few times before it turned into the direction of the arrow.

Its ears rose straight up as it let out an angry growl while directing a ferocious gaze towards Alz.

Alz smiled bitterly as he watched the scene play out. Some part of him had hoped that the arrow would be able to kill the wolf, but his senses knew that the wolf would not fall to such a wound the moment he released the arrow.

He had been intending to use something else to support the front of his bow, but he couldn’t find anything suitable around.

The pain in his head also continued to intensify as he surveyed the surroundings, causing him to give up on his idea and use his legs instead, despite knowing full well that they weren’t in the best condition either.

However, regret now welled in his heart as he thought back on what would have happened if he had spent more time finding something to support the bow instead. These thoughts flashed by as he watched the arrow hopefully, praying for the what if.

Clearly, his luck ran out when he managed to find the lake and the wolf, expectedly, lived the arrow.

All he could do now was hope, hope that the injury would cause the wolf’s movements to slow down enough such that even his current battered body could take it out.

He quickly took out several herbs from his bag and rolled them together into a round shape, grabbing on it the ball with his right hand.

He then assumed a combat stance and met his gaze directly with the wolf’s.

When the wolf growled, he immediately purged his mind of the unnecessary thoughts in his head and focused all of his attention on the enemy in front.

After the howl, the wolf dashed straight towards Alz, but it was clearly less agile than normal as it’s motions visibly slowed each time its right legs touched the ground.

“There’s a chance” Alz thought as he silently observed this while his left hand gripped tightly on the handle of his fang dagger and he evened out his breathing, slightly calming down his racing heart.

The wolf quickly got closer until it reached a distance of 3m from Alz where it stopped abruptly.

It then started to circle around Alz while observing him, looking for an opportunity to take Alz down.

Alz calmly watched this familiar scene as he continuously directed his stance towards the wolf in extremely fluid motions as the wolf circled him.

This was something which his body remembered, from the hunting he had done in the past. His body could react and respond to the movements of the body before his mind even reacted, resulting in the fluidity of his actions.

Soon, the wolf stopped in its tracks and snarled at Alz, as it prepared to pounce. Alz looked at this calmly and did not react.

Seeing this, the wolf stopped its feint and continued to circle around Alz as though nothing had changed, but its eyes were shining brighter than before.

Its instincts were telling it that the thin, weak looking creature who stood before it was a strong foe despite how weak it looked, that it had faced off against many of its kin and survived.

However, it soon got impatient and its injury from before begun to hurt. It could not afford to prolong it any longer as it pounced towards Alz, without warning this time.

Despite the lack of warning, this time Alz quickly reacted, in fact, he had reacted even before the moment the wolf itself decided to pounce.

This was the wisdom of the elves at work, knowledge accumulated over time that allowed the physically weaker elves to take on wolves who outnumbered them by several times.

Wisdom which allowed them to split into three pairs when in their squads while scouting, because they were confident in escaping as a pair even if they encountered a pack of wolves with the wisdom they possessed.

With his body in tatters and his physical state being far from optimal, this was also the only edge he had left against the wolf, alongside his hunting experience in the past two years, the blade of wisdom.

Despite reacting before the wolf, Alz had only barely managed to avoid the pounce, something he felt extremely helpless about as his body could not keep up with the movements in his head.

Although the pounce missed, the wolf managed to close the distance between them and immediately turned to Alz with its jaws wide open, a reaction so fast, it was only possible if the wolf itself had expected its pounce to miss.

Alz revealed a slight expression of panic but he quickly crushed the herb ball in his right hand and threw it at the wolf’s nose while moving his dagger up to block the jaws.

The wolf’s nose crinkled, and it closed its jaws immediately, backing off to its initial distance. Alz inwardly heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the wolf back off, thanking Lein for his teachings in his mind.

The wolf stared at the herb ball before it with a human-like expression of disgust as it swiped its right foreleg in front of its nose twice, as if trying to blow away the pungent odour before its nose.

It then glared at Alz with ferocious eyes which contained more anger than before. Clearly, it had not been pleased by the smell of the herb ball.

This was developed by their tribe more than a century ago and was capable of paralysing the sense of smell of wolves and repelling them temporarily.

However, it had the downside of only being able to be used once in a short period of time as the sensitivity of the wolf’s sense of smell would be heavily affected after it was thrown at them, rendering subsequent uses ineffective.

It was also easily avoidable with its stench and did not have much of an effect if not thrown up close, making it extremely useless for most elves and many of them back in the tribe did not even know about it.

Alz also only found out about it because of the research he did when designing his traps and had prepared some for use with his traps, something which came in handy in this battle.

The wolf snarled at Alz and pounced at him again, not bothering with feints this time.

Alz moved his body slightly to his left and stared at the left chest of the wolf where it got shot. He then pushed his left hand forward in a stabbing motion, aiming it at that spot.

The wolf noticed this and turned its head to the its right, spreading its jaws open attempting to bite off Alz’s left arm.

Just then, Alz’s lips curled up and he immediately retracted his left hand, the dagger nowhere to be seen.

The wolf saw this and was confused momentarily but it soon felt a sharp pain transmitting from its left eye and its world turned black, forever.

Alz had moved the dagger over to his right hand during the stabbing motion and stabbed the wolf in the eye while distracting it with his left arm.

Alz panted heavily as he stared at the corpse that lay before him. This was a large gamble that he had taken there, but thankfully, it had paid off and Alz was the one who survived.

He had thought of this plan mid battle when he realised that this wolf was fairly intelligent from its behaviour and gambled everything on this one attack.

The attack was entirely dependent on the wolf’s reactions. Had the wolf not reacted to his lunge and continued forward, he would have been the one to fall.

Alz took in a few deep breaths to calm his rattled breathing as he turned his attention to his right arm. The pain which had slightly subsided from the rest assaulted him full force again as a crimson liquid threatened to trickle out of the bandages.

He sighed and cut some material from his shirt, fastening it around the bandages to stop the blood from seeping out.

Following this, he squatted down and started taking apart the wolf’s corpse with experienced motions as he placed the materials obtained into his bag.

He then rushed to the lake as fast as he could, as there was the possibility of more wolves coming to this area, particularly after the howling just now and it would be disastrous for him if another wolf appeared now.

As Alz approached the lake, the melodious chirping of insects gradually increased in volume. Green plants of various shapes surrounded the emerald waters, creating an air of life around the small body of water, something not commonly found within this area of the woods.

Alz marvelled at the beauty of the lake as he approached, but his actions did not slow down. He sat by the leg and took out the leather water container in his bag, chugging down multiple full bags of water before finally stopping.

He made a mental note to himself to bring more leather containers the next time he came while looking down at the lone water container he had.

“This saves me some trouble”. He thought as he looked around and saw several medicinal herbs around which could help him rebandage his wound. He quickly gathered several of each type that he needed and placed them in his bag, revealing a satisfied smile on his face.

Now that his objective was achieved, he started to proceed along the markings, heading back to the underground area. The trip was smooth, and he soon found himself back in the underground corridor where the lights clicked on in welcome.