Immediately following the howl, we felt the ground shake, reminding me of what happened in the Frozen Hell. We then heard a series of messy and hurried hoof steps, pawn steps, and footsteps coming at full speed toward us.

Amidst the loud chaos, one could easily hear some monsters crashing against trees, despite the immense distance between each tree in this part of the forest.

Soon, a pack of monsters from various species came into view, charging panicked at us. We naturally prepared ourselves to engage in a fight against them, but they simply went past. It was clear that these creatures were running away from the creature from which that howl originated.

Among these creatures fleeing away in such a hurry were monsters that we would easily describe as decently strong, yet they were fleeing without even engaging in the fight.

Soon, all the creatures managed to run away, fading into the background, leaving us amidst a heavy and empty silence.

"What was that?"

"No, idea."

We both knew that these monsters' running away was an immediate reaction to the growl from earlier, but never did we ever face a creature capable of instilling such a fear in such a wide variety of monsters.

We still had no clues about what kind of monster that howl belonged to, but we already knew that it belonged to an overbearingly strong monster.

"Oi, oi I think it’s approaching."

"Yeah, I noticed."

Coming from where the monsters were flying from, a series of paw steps resembling one I would attribute to a wolf-like creature could be heard.

Those footsteps sounded just like those of a fangwolf, but this one had a certain sense of heaviness coming along with it, in a sense that each step it took brought an intimidating aura and literally a heavy mass with it.

As it got closer, the noise of its breath became more and more noticeable.

How to put it? Lately, I noticed that when monsters aren’t behaving as they should be, I tend to get very anxious.

That is what I am feeling now.

That monster’s breath was steady, unlike the erratic and bloodthirsty I was used to.

A massive black shadow emerged from the afternoon and the tree shades from the depths of the forest, along with two golden glowing orbs.

After several steps, the monster's entire body was finally revealed.

Easily standing at 6 meters tall from the top of his hair to the base, was a giant wolf with nothing but black fur. Given his fur color, his eyes were a gleaming golden that would hardly go unnoticed.

If I had to guess, this creature must be the king of the area, and we unknowingly walked on his territory.

For some time, he remained there at a distance of twenty-five meters without doing anything. Only after a few did it begin to growl at us, while slowly turning around us like a vulture above a dying creature.

"How do you feel about this? Do you think it’s doable? "

"Of course."

The creature kept circling us as though waiting for us to make the first move, and so we did.

We charged at it, and it did the same to us.

Despite the huge disparity between our body sizes, I was the first one to engage. I came at it at the head with a powerful whirlwind swing.

That wolf-like creature with a head bash simply ignored that attack with colossal power, one that my early would only admire in awe.

Still in midair, the wolf attempted to maul me, but it was interrupted by an attack from Han’s snake vessel: a powerful ice breath.

Yet the monster was merely pushed several meters away.

Taking advantage of the opportunity Han offered me, I immediately got away from the wolf monster’s mouth.

From how things were presented, despite having stopped its attack against me, it seems that no damage was inflicted upon it.

"This doesn’t look good."

"Sure it doesn’t."

I mean, we didn't show off every single one of our assets, but so far, that monster hasn't unleashed a single magical attack, only brute force.

The wolf walked toward us without displaying any sign of being bothered by our attack, then it happened.

The wolf howled out of nowhere, and some body changes occurred on it.

Its four feet changed color. They turned from black to a glowing white from the elbow to the base of its paws.

One could easily assign that white color to light magic.

"This is bad."

The creature charged at us at an incredible speed, shoving us with its head.

We didn’t simply wait for its attack to come at us, but welcomed it with an attack of our own, Han retrieved its bearlike vessel, which was slightly smaller than the wolf’s current size, while I readied my sword with all my might.

Upon contact, our attack scattered an insanely powerful shockwave in every direction. The ground itself around us crumbled.

At the moment, the power behind us was even, but as seconds went by, we were soon pushed back.

While being pushed back, we kept attacking it, and so did it.

Everything in our passage was annihilated, that was how fierce it was.

We were two against it, yet I had the horrible impression that I was the one that the wolf was focusing on. It merely blocked Han’s attack or evaded it, focusing solely on me.

As such, we shifted from both attacking the wolf to letting Han handle the attack while I would focus on, -well, not dying.

Which I did pretty well for because we got engaged in one of the longest fights I’ve ever been engaged in.

"Come on, we aren’t done yet, aren’t we?"

half a day.

We were in the middle of the afternoon when this fight started. Now, I knew from the cold breeze that the night had already taken place.

We fought for that long, yet none of us were dead yet.

I and the wolf were panting erratically, and I could tell that even Han, who wasn’t a creature made of flesh, was exhausted from this fight.

The wolf no longer had its black attitude from earlier, growling at us frantically. I knew very well how pissed off it was.

It was clearly willing to keep this fight going on if pressed, but was in an overly foolish mood to do so, and so were we.

We were done with this fight.

Yet the one to leave first would definitely be the alleged loser of the fight, so we remained there, awaiting for the other to turn their back and give up.

Which, of course, didn’t happen.

After a while, we came to the common understanding that this wouldn’t lead anywhere, so one of us had to take the first step.

I was about to make it when, surprisingly, the wolf did.

It vented out a series of ferocious barks that I obviously couldn’t understand, for I didn’t speak wolf, yet I knew very well what it suggested.

"We are done for today."

With that, the wolf departed

From my point of view, it didn’t simply depart, it was like it faded in the dark with its black fur. The only thing that could tell me that it was still there were its golden eyes fixated on us. Even as he got farther, that thing was so proud that it didn’t even turn its back to us.

"What the hell was that thing."

"No idea."

***

Later, that night, while laying on the ground, I was grilling myself rabbit meat above the bone fire by using one of my appendages.

Every bone, every joint in my body hurts like hell.

At this moment, if that thing were to attack me by surprise, I wouldn’t even fight back because I’m too exhausted for that.

Well, deep down I knew that wouldn’t happen, I doubt that something so proud would go so low as to attack us by surprise.

To be honest, it was quite an experience to fight a light-elemental magical beast like this one.

We once fought someone using light magic, but never a monster.

And there is an immense difference between the two.

If I had to categorize monsters with elemental inclinations, I would do so as follows:

The church has a way of classifying monsters, which tend to be a hindrance for each crusade of each century depending on their elemental inclination.

Among the monsters using the eight primordial elements, those with the elements of light and darkness are the rarest.

The most common were the earth-elemental and wind elemental monsters.

The gentlest would be the earth-elemental and fire-elemental monsters.

The strongest would also be the earth-elemental and fire-elemental monsters.

But the most violent types are the water-elemental and light-elemental monsters.

From what I’ve read, water-element creatures tend to be extremely violent due to the fact that they tend to live underwater, which isn’t as widely available everywhere as firm ground. Their violent behavior is more commonly associated with a sense of territoriality.

While for light-elemental creatures, there are no known explanations for their extremely fierce and violent behavior, one can say this might be engraved in their nature.

The wolf we fought earlier was one of these rare light elemental magical beasts, yet it displayed little to nothing of what was described in the book as the natural behavior of a light-elemental monster.

Well, I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it wasn’t violent, but it was nothing particularly exaggerated, at least compared to the monsters we’ve met so far.

In fact, I found it weirdly well-composed, even for a monster.

Smelling the noise of roasted meat, I immediately removed my food from the fire, and brought it to my mouth.

I began blowing at it so it would go down at a reasonable temperature.

Just as I was about to bring it to my mouth, I heard from afar a long howl that I immediately recognized.

From an objective point of view, it definitely would’ve sounded scary, but I found it quite magnificent.

"I guess we’ll be back at it again tomorrow."

"Sure, we will."

Being done with my food, I then proceeded to take a good rest for I knew that the next day we would affront that thing once again.