"The rabbit you roasted is really delicious, even attracting a large group of dogs!" Bexia chuckled and looked at Talisa, only to be met with a glare. How could she have the mood to joke at a time like this?
"Are all the dogs in your house over two meters long? Are they as big as calves?"
"Hey! Are you still sitting?" Talisa stood up, holding her longbow in hand.
"What else can I do? I can't do anything with just my bare hands!" Bexia patted his empty hands helplessly, indicating his powerlessness. These days, he had done nothing except accompany Talisa, causing her to subconsciously overlook how he had initially appeared to her and see him as an ordinary person.
"Then protect yourself! I don't have time to protect you!" Talisa drew her short sword from her waist and tossed it to Bexia. With at least thirty or forty magical wolves in the group, she couldn't handle them alone and had no time to worry about Bexia.
Talisa leaped onto a tree trunk, suddenly shooting three arrows from her longbow, piercing through the bushes with strength, successfully killing a magical wolf, but also igniting the battle.
"Awoo!"
Howls echoed as black giant wolves emerged from the bushes, leaping seven to eight meters high towards Talisa on the tree trunk. She kicked several wolves off by stomping on their heads, but the branch she was on broke, leaving deep claw marks even on the sturdy tree.
As Talisa landed, the wolf pack immediately surrounded her, their emerald eyes showing a hint of red, then pouncing all at once.
"Thud!"
With a burst of strength from her seemingly slender legs, she kicked a magical wolf away. Talisa dodged the wolves attacking from all directions, then exerted force to jump up, swiftly shooting arrows downward.
"Awoo!"
A magical wolf pounced from behind, causing Talisa to grab the arrow she was about to shoot and thrust it like a short sword into the wolf's head from behind, piercing through its eyes and out of its skull.
Using the wolf's body as support, Talisa leaped back onto a tree. With no way to stay on the ground, she could only retreat to the tree to catch her breath momentarily. However, just as she was contemplating how to deal with the situation, the fierce wolf pack below suddenly seemed to shrink back, almost as if they sensed something terrifying.
Could it be the Wolf King?!
Just as Talisa wondered if it was the Wolf King appearing, all the magical wolves let out a mournful cry, turning around with their tails between their legs and fleeing. As she turned, she saw a golden glowing figure rapidly approaching and, in the blink of an eye, it was right in front of her.
"Thud!"
Instinctively, Talisa used her longbow to block the incoming golden sphere, but the immense force sent her flying. Strangely, she felt no pain at all. After landing, she even wondered if she had died too quickly to feel any pain.
But she had no time to dwell on that, as a terrifying creature stood before her. The golden glow was not an attack but a golden-maned giant lion, as large as a two-story building with fist-sized pupils staring down at Talisa, puzzled by how this fragile human stood unscathed under its attack.
Talisa was being watched by the Golden Lion, a dominant presence in the forest, one of the messengers of the beast god. She had heard of the stories of the Golden Lion since she was a child, had glimpsed it from afar a few times, but now, facing it head-on like this was a first in her life—a suffocatingly terrifying experience.
However, their stare was abruptly interrupted by an external force—a wooden stick spinning through the air, striking the Golden Lion accurately between the eyes, causing the behemoth to close its eyes.
"Don't just stand there, run!"
Bexia snapped Talisa out of her trance, pulling her to run. She glanced at the roasted rabbit in his other hand, then towards the direction of the campfire. Wasn't that stick the leftover skewer?
"Don't just stand there, I saved one for you!"
"..." Talisa rolled her eyes speechlessly at him. Was this the time to think about that?
And why did the Golden Lion just stand there without chasing them?
As Talisa pondered this, the Golden Lion let out an angry roar, feeling insulted by the defiance of a puny human.
"Roar!" The Golden Lion's furious roar resounded through half the forest, making the weaker magical creatures tremble in fear. It exerted its limbs, eyes seeming to flame with real fire, and started to run after the two figures ahead.
"We can't outrun it like this, the Golden Lion is catching up!" Talisa watched the massive Golden Lion, toppling trees in its path like a small bulldozer, pushing anything in its way down!
"What do you want to do? Offer it a treat?" Bexia looked at Talisa incredulously. Hadn't she noticed his hidden skills?
