383 383 Better Safe
As soon as the barriers overlapped and Wolfe created a walkway for the Witches to pass through, the exhausted group from the netting began to run, crawl and scramble into the bus.
They didn’t care how full it was. They would happily sit in someone’s lap just for the promise of not having to walk anymore after all that they had been through. Christa followed them in, and Grok took up his customary spot in the back row of the bus, watching for anything that might come up behind them, while Ella climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Are you up for running ahead to scout?” She asked Wolfe as she adjusted the seat to her smaller frame.
“Yeah, that’s not a problem. Let me know if you see me doing something strange, just in case there is another Illusion that isn’t so easy to see through from outside the barrier. With the bus encased, you should be mostly immune to them, but you never know if something is going to sneak through.
Just follow at a long enough distance that you can stop the bus before you reach the point where you saw me acting oddly, and you should be able to escape any area spells that have been placed on the area if I miss them.”
Wolfe adjusted his [Detect Magic] spell so that he would have a better view of the mana flows in the area and set the Unholy Flame Barrier to encase the outer shell of the bus before he began to jog with the full speed of his augmentations.
That was barely a moderate pace for the bus, but it would give Ella plenty of time to stop, and when the light began to fade, it would still let her dodge the worst of the ruts and potholes.
These dirt tracks were more suited to wagons and horses than large buses, but at least the patrols kept them cut wide enough that the vehicle could get through without any issues.
Not that they had seen any patrols lately or even anyone alive at all. There were no more villages this close to the Academy and no trade to speak of. So, coupled with the spell that they had just escaped, the whole area was pretty desolate.
That made it a great spot for bandits or rebels to hide out, assuming that they weren’t the ones whose ghosts he had just met, so there was still a high chance of running into traps of some sort intended to capture roaming witches and trade caravans.
But for the first hour, Wolfe had nothing to warn Ella about except a few potholes that it would be best not to get the bus stuck in. Daylight was fading fast, and if it weren’t for the lights of the bus behind him and [Detect Hidden], Wolfe wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all.
That was when their night took a predictable turn for the worse. The sound of barking filled the air, followed by a distinctive howl that Wolfe recognized as Dire Wolves. What they were doing this far south was anyone’s guess, but they had definitely scented either the group or the active magic, and they were on the hunt.
They most likely wouldn’t pose a proper threat to Wolfe, but in a wolf-on-Wolfe battle, he didn’t want to be the one finding out just how many tricks the magical creatures had up their sleeves.
They were already known to be able to bite through magical armour, so they might have some sort of counterspell ability or magical resistance.
The howling of the Dire Wolves grew closer, and suddenly, Wolfe could feel the threat again, the same as he had in the woods earlier. Exactly the same feeling, in fact.
It didn’t take a genius to realize that the reason he was alerted earlier was that the leader of the pack had spotted him, and the feeling had only ended when it went to get reinforcements. That was extremely bad news because it meant that it knew Wolfe was dangerous, but it still thought it had a chance with the force it had gathered.
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Ella stopped the bus behind him, and Witch Magic began to flow out of the vehicle, filling the surrounding area and weaving itself through the plants. Ella was enchanting them all to her side, making it easier to create vines and cast Earth Magic when the attack came.
The leader of the group strutted out in front of Wolfe as if it had nothing to fear, and on a normal day, it was absolutely right.
It was a Rank Three Magical Beast, likely as smart as most humans, and [Detect Hidden] showed that it had brought a full thirty-wolf pack with it.
The creature growled at Wolfe while the rest of the pack moved toward the edge of Ella’s magic and prepared for the rush to the barrier. They would try to hit it hard enough that the multiple responses would drain the caster’s mana and render them unable to fight, an especially effective tactic against the standard Lightning Array Barriers that the Coven Witches used.
There was no doubt about it. They had done this before.
The leader gave the pack a silent signal, and everything moved at once. The pack charged the barrier, Ella’s vines lashed out at the Dire Wolves, and the leader charged at Wolfe, who hastily drew his blade and rolled out of the way of the vicious fangs aiming for his throat.
Wolfe lashed out with the blade, and the [Lightning Bolt] crackled over the enchanted fur of the Dire Wolfe alpha. The blade’s enchantment wasn’t enough to penetrate the fur of the beast, even with Wolfe activating it, and it was unlikely to give him the chance to upgrade his weapon during the battle.
In short, Wolfe realized that he might be in trouble for the first time in a long time if he couldn’t make a space to cast a more destructive spell.