The Golem Mage

Chapter 930: A Wolf’s Grudge 1.

The light wolf leader looked utterly perplexed, on one hand, its pack had the demonic bull encircled, yet now it had to account for Alec and his golems looming nearby.

No matter how it calculated the outcome of the fight, it didn’t look good for its pack.

It longed to finish the bull with full force, but the sudden appearance of this human and his golems had shifted everything. Worse, Alec had already killed one of its pack members, and the urge for revenge gnawed at it. Still, the leader couldn’t find a clear path forward.

Sending just one wolf against Alec while it and the remaining two wolves engaged the bull seems pointless, as Alec’s golems had proven too deadly, and even though the remaining three wolves were stronger than the one that died, the leader couldn’t afford to waste them as cannon fodder. Meanwhile, the bull showed no signs of falling anytime soon.

“Fall back,” it finally commanded after heavy contemplation, the hunt wasn’t worth the risk anymore, the other wolves exchanged shocked looks but obeyed, edging slowly into the bush without ever turning their backs on Alec or the bull.

From his perch on the branch, Alec felt a sting of disappointment that they hadn’t chosen to fight. Still, he didn’t mind too much, he had already killed one light wolf and that was enough to claim its soul.

“This isn’t over, as long as you remain in this region, you will never know peace,” the wolf leader snarled before vanishing into the forest with its pack.

And with that, its body twitched violently before blending into the bushes with the rest of its pack, even after the wolves were gone, Alec still didn’t like the threat left hanging in the air, from what he had seen, the wolf leader seems to carry deep grudges, and now that it had marked him, Alec knew this run through the special region would be different, as every step would now demand extra vigilance.

Because Four Tier 7 demonic beasts hunting for him without the bull’s support was no laughing matter.

“Thanks,” a deep, rumbling voice echoed directly in Alec’s mind, the bull had chosen to send its words as a mental message. Alec briefly wondered why it didn’t simply speak aloud but kept that thought to himself.

“No thanks needed, because I actually need a favour from you.” Alec replied evenly.

The bull’s eyes narrowed, its expression clouded with confusion.

“It’s nothing too troublesome. I just want to know where the blood-controlling demonic beasts reside.” The bull’s tense frame eased at first but stiffened again at the end of Alec’s request.

“What would you want with those troublesome bats? I must warn you, they are not the type to communicate, especially with humans, the second they see you, they’ll attack without hesitation,” the bull responded through another mental message, its tone laced with genuine concern.

Alec, however, welcomed that hostility, he preferred dealing with openly aggressive foes rather than cautious ones like this bull. In truth, it made his task simpler. If they would never listen, he had no reason to hesitate about killing them.

“Believe me when I say this, death is the least of my concerns in this region,” Alec answered, this time sending his own mental message, he felt if the bull preferred that method of communication, then he would meet it halfway.

“Well, if you’re that set on finding them, you’ll need to move deeper into the higher part of the outer rings, head in that direction, and eventually, you’ll come across their settlement,” the bull said, pointing with its horn.

Alec followed the gesture, then turned to Legion.

“Commit every detail to memory.” He hated admitting it, however his bad sense of direction only grew worse inside the third level of beast forest which is bigger than the other two he had been in, so in order not to lose his way and stumble into another set of Tier 7 demonic beasts that he had no business fighting because it wasn’t an option, he left the navigation to Legion, who was far sharper than anyone else in his squad.

After passing along the information, the bull turned and started heading opposite the direction the wolves had gone, Alec found himself perplexed by the bull’s apparent trust in him, though he didn’t dwell on it for long.

What mattered was that he now had a lead on the blood-controlling beast, and from the bull’s words, it seemed its animal form was a bat.

The more Alec thought about it, the more sense it made. In folklore, bats were often tied to vampires and blood, and he doubted the bull would bother lying about something so trivial, all he hoped was that he wouldn’t end up facing a whole colony of them.

Before leaving, however, he had one last thing to do. Alec glanced at Legion, who tossed him the corpse of the light wolf he’d been holding on too, catching the body, Alec spread his mouth wide and inhaled deeply.

[ > Low Bloodline Skill – Devour < ]

This was the first time Alec had attempted to devour a demonic beast’s soul directly, bypassing the amulet’s usual process, something inside him urged him to try, his bloodline instincts called for it, and with curiosity gnawing at him he didn’t want to waste anymore time, as he was extremely curious to see what would happen if he used the soul of a light wolf to push his shadow wolf to the high rank.

Eventually, the soul of the light wolf was dragged out of its body, glowing in a pure white form, so unlike the typical blue hue most souls carried, it was then that Alec realized even the two Tier 7 caterpillar souls he had sacrificed earlier for bloodline points had appeared brown.

The discovery made him wonder if this difference in colour was another distinction unique to high-rank demonic beasts.

The thought lingered, and after some deliberation, Alec resolved to examine the red salamander soul that he had stored later on when he left the beast forest , curious whether it would shine in the usual blue hue or display a colour of its own.

Though the light wolf’s soul resisted violently, struggling as if to break free, however; it was ultimately pulled into Alec’s mouth, swallowed as though by an invisible black hole that it couldn’t defy, once the soul was consumed, Alec sank into a cross-legged position, eyes closed, entering a cultivation state, it wasn’t the ideal place to attempt something so risky, yet he had already come this far and couldn’t suppress the urge.

At once, his eight golems closed in tightly, forming a protective circle around their master. Their eyes gleamed with unshakable resolve, as none would allow a single thr

eat near him while he remained in that trance.