'Tree, Tree, Tree'
Michael kept thinking of that word inside his head, as the jaws of the wolves are just behind him.
Swoosh! Snap!
Michael just managed to dodge the jaws of the wolf in time as he executed his skill Shadow Blur to once again increase the distance between them and the wolves chasing after him.
But the unfortunate thing for him is that the five wolves had grown to over fifty and its still increasing as Michael could hear the wolf howls coming from different directions.
"Tree!" Michael yelled in delight as his gaze finally landed on the tallest tree among the trees around him, this particular tree has been something he's looking forward to along the way.
Swoosh!
Michael's grappling hook quickly flew away from him and wrapped around one of the tree branches as the device quickly pulled him towards the other end of the rope, and as he once again increased the distance between him and the swarm of wolves even if it's for just a little bit.
"Shit, It seems I'm gonna really die this time" Michael continued sprinting while the three cubs on his arms are whining in anxiety.
Michael looked towards his back, towards the monsters chasing after him.
"Shit, this is really a bad idea in so many ways!" he bitterly smiled at the shortening distance between them, and sadly all of his escape skills are all on cooldown, and him being able to escape this far from the pursuit of this speed type monsters is already a miracle in itself.
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
Just when Michael was about to accept his defeat and death, he suddenly heard a huge rumbling sound heading towards him from the front.
"Kill! Kill these bastards!"
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
"Oh shit!" Michael quickly ducked down on the ground and hid behind a huge log lying on the ground as a huge shadow flew past above him, then another, then another, then many more!
It was the famed wolf cavalry of the Sunrise Empire!
A mixed cavalry of Blood Wolves and Highland Wolves, that can be found in the high mountains in the east of the empire.
"Where the heck did those wolves come from?" Michael yelled as he remembered that there were only a few wolves when the expedition started, but now there are literally hundreds of soldiers mounted at the back of their gigantic wolves.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The swarm of monstrous wolves and the wolf cavalry collided against each other, as the sounds of flesh being sliced and tore, as roars, whines mixed together at the chaos before Michael.
"Holy mother of god, this group of people are sick" Michael was amazed at the scene in front of him. It was because it was something that he had never seen before.
The mounted wolf and its rider are working in motion like the gears of a machine, the wolf would bite their fellow wolves' neck to hold it down while its rider would deal with the killing blow, and because of it, the swarm of wolves was routed in no time where the cavalry only suffered some minor injuries and with ten wolves covered in wounds.
Then largest wolf among them made its way towards Michael as it stopped before him.
"You really brought us quite a bit of trouble there young lad, fufufu" General Ouki laughed while gazing at the person before him, and along with his glaive covered in the blood of the monsters, which made him even more scary holding that.
*****
"So you managed to get three wolf cubs, huh?" General Ouki said while sitting in front of Michael, who's sitting opposite of him while holding and caressing a pup on his arms.
It was one of the three cubs that Michael is trying to tame using the normal method...taking care of it like a parent would and enticing it with delicious foods.
He was doing it because he wanted to see if it would work like in the real world.
The other two cubs are already stored in their basket, and resting inside Michael's Inventory.
He wasn't able to put them there earlier because he needed to successfully escaped from the pursuit of the wolves, and he would've failed earlier if General Ouki and his men didn't show up to help him.
All thanks to his teacher, or else this General wouldn't have even bothered to lend him a helping hand earlier and just left him on his own devices.
And unbeknownst to Michael, he wouldn't receive anymore help from General Ouki while they are inside the Forest of Despair.
After all, as a Sage's student, he should be able to solve his own problems and not to always expect help from other people.
Michael plans to see his teacher after this expedition to see if there are any other ways to tame a monster or beast, other than hatching them from an egg.
After all, Sage Laura does have a dragon as her pet, and even a Dragon King at that, which is considered as a catastrophe level monster.
Meaning that the dragon king is a threat that no single nation could handle, and that it would require international cooperation to give their kingdom or empire even a chance at survival.
It's like telling a person on Earth that an apocalypse is here when a Dragon appears on Earth.
This shows how powerful a Sage is, that angering one would result in devastating consequences.
"Are you really not planning to sell those two cubs to me?" General Ouki asked Michael while caressing the head of the huge wolf lying beside him.
"Sorry General, but I plan to gift those two and including this one to some of my friends" Michael smiled, as he continued staring at the wolf beside the General.
'This wolf is really huge, don't tell me this is the so called wolf king?' Michael thought as he continued caressing the scared pup in his arms.
"Is your partner the so called Wolf King, General?" Michael carefully asked, while sounding not to overbearing.
"Fufufu, of course not. If it were a Wolf King then we wouldn't have gone all the way out here just to capture wolf cubs to raise to become our mounts, and instead would just have the Wolf King subdue the the Blood Wolves here then train them to be our battle companions" General Ouki chuckled.
"Go on and take some rest then" General Ouki said.
"Yes, and thank you for your help tonight General" Michael said before making his exit from the main tent.
"There's only three minutes left," Michael sighed as he smiled at the guards before the entrance of the tent and made his way over towards the direction of the camp for the users.
Growl~
The cub in Michael's arms growled as it playfully bit on Michael's arm. Michael just left it as it's not even causing some damage on his Health, knowing pretty well that it probably hates Michael for taking it away from its parents.
And he doesn't have any plans of getting it tamed anymore, as his greed for a better mount had awoken once again when he saw hundreds of soldiers having the same kind of mount earlier.
'Now, I also want a Dragon or something similar to be my mount. A wolf mount is not enough if I want to be the best!'
*****