"They have strayed too far from the forest," the coachman said in shock, "I’ve never seen a beast outside the forest."

Jacob bowed his head in silence, "They must be reacting to me," he thought.

He raised his head momentarily again.

The gray furred beast leaped at Xenia angrily, its jaw spread wide, ready to snap her bones into two.

At the last possible second she looked at it from the side of her eyes, she had fused her Qi with her sword already, Jacob watched on as she side stepped, vanishing from the wolf’s line of sight.

She swung her sword sideways, it’s edged ripping into the beast’s jaw, its flesh and bones easily parted under the hot metal. Streaks of crimson stained her steel and bathed the soil.

But she wasn’t done.

She changed her gaze, looking forward, she ran straight for the alpha of the pack, gripping her blade even tighter.

But before she got to it, about three other gray fire wolves had blocked her path, protesting in low growls.

She stared at them and flung her sword hard to the side, the blood came off it easily.

Jacob wondered why the Alpha hadn’t attacked yet, it may have been a low grade beast, but it was calculative, he could see that much.

It studied her, most likely waiting for its best moment to strike, while willingly sending its pack to their deaths.

One of the three wolves lunged at Xenia, it was fast. It snapped its jaw directly in front of her face, She blocked with her sword as the beast bit hard into the steel, it didn’t make any dent.

The other two were already gearing up to attack, the wolf gritted its teeth, making a metal grinding sound on her blade.

Instinctively, she balled up her fist on her free hand and rammed it repeatedly into the wolf’s side, the beast whined painfully.

Jacob smiled, he could see that her flurry of punches broke a couple of ribs in the wolves abdomen. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

’Get ’em Xenia!’ He thought, momentarily doing small air punches, mimicking her movements, luckily he caught himself before the coachman stared at him.

The wolf released her sword, limping after it dropped to the ground, it barely even moved before Xenia’s sword found its way through its nape, in a split second, the beast’s head was severed.

The other two halted their attacks briefly, Xenia could see the fear in their eyes, they stepped back slowly, but then, the Alpha growled, loud.

All of a sudden, as though they were in a trance, the rest of the pack became aggressive again.

Their red eyes shone even brighter, their teeth bared as they jumped at her, at the same time.

Xenia danced through the pack easily, she ran her blade through the first beast, piercing its heart instantly.

She watched as it dropped lifelessly to the ground.

She beheaded another three, the remaining nine beasts didnt relent as they rushed into the bloody scene, Jacob watched carefully as she dropped the monsters, one after the other, gracefully.

The pack leader stood and watched, unfazed, naturally it stood larger than any of the other smaller animals.

Jacob mused for a moment, he wanted to add the pack leader to his shadow army, but there would be no reason to as they would encounter even more powerful creatures.

After a moment of gracefully using her sword techniques, Xenia had felled every single one of the low grade wolves. Only the Alpha remained.

She began walking sideways, surprisingly her leather overalls were devoid of any blood stains, but her blade was covered in crimson.

The Alpha followed, both parties moved silently in a circle for a while, as if waiting for who would strike first. Xenia knew that the beast was smart, any wrong move and she would get injured, or worse.

Then the alpha wolf dug its paw in the sand and flung it at Xenia, who shielded her eyes in the nick of time, the animal, seeing that she had blocked her vision, went for the attack.

It ran in a zig zag motion and attempted to strike at her with its front paw, its claw laid bare, sharp and shiny silver.

She spun her body to the side and sliced its paw off in one clean move, the beast yelped in anguish, it retreated immediately, limping painfully as it licked its wound.

But Xenia wasn’t done, she used her Qi control to create a gust of wind that blew the beast to a nearby tree, its spine a cracking upon impact. The life already draining from its eyes.

Just before the creature dropped to the ground, she threw her sword at it, piercing through its jaw to the hard timber.

The beast hung lifelessly on the tree bark, its hind legs still twitching from the impact.

Xenia let out a long held breath as she walked up to the beast and pulled out her sword. She watched the wolf fall to the ground and then wiped her sword on its fur.

The dire wolf immediately started to disintegrate, in tiny flickers of light, and so did its subordinates.

Jacob remembered the first time Xenia held her breath while sparring with him, he asked her why, and she told him it helps her control the flow of Qi better, she had mastered holding her breath and was able to do it for as long as 3 hours.

Jacob snapped out of his flashback thought and began clapping slowly.

"Well done, Xenia—you handled that extremely well, I minuet say I am proud." He said with a great big smile on his face.

"Xenia looked at him and responded, "You flatter me with your praise, young master, but these were merely low-level beasts, there are more to come."

"Oh look, they dropped some cores—it seems." Jacob replied, pointing to the glowing blue orbs that lay in the wake of the dire wolves.

Devouring them would be a bore and wouldn’t really add much to his power so he decided to give them to Xenia.

He thought briefly about how the fight would’ve gone if it was him instead. ’Would probably last a second." He mused, a mischievous smirk playing on his lips.

As the carriage went on, he looked at Xenia again, he was convinced she was just trying to show off, but he didn’t mind, he would cover for her when needed.

"Next stop—Myren town." The coachman announced, whipping the horses as they began to move.

"Let’s go."