With the task of eliminating the rest of the wolves around the valley, I climbed back to the cliff to scout out the valley proper.

I counted around fifty or so of those Hell Wolves, most of them scattered in groups of one or two, the biggest group being a pack of five wolves in the middle.

The good news is that the smaller groups of wolves were all spread out around the outer perimeter of the monster group with progressively bigger groups nearer to the centre, all of them maintaining a distance from one another. That meant that I could work my way around the circle dealing with the smaller groups first before moving on to the larger groups.

Dealing with the solo wolves was easy enough, I just basically used the same tactics I did with the first one and they fell over dead without knowing what hit them.

First, using [Shadow Wall] to make myself invisible in the darkness, then [Shadow Glide] to increase my speed and muffle my footsteps to get close to my target.

While they were confused over the smell of my presence, strike at their weak spots and kill them quickly.

I didn’t need to worry about collecting their corpses either since mother seems to be picking them up behind me, allowing me to simply focus on wiping the monsters out.

With the solo monsters dealt with, it was time to move on to the duos.

I decided this might be a good time to test out how the monsters react to fear.

I intentionally chose a duo of wolves who were further away from everyone else to test this out. Even if the fear made one of them run off, it shouldn’t run to any other groups close by that would force a bigger fight.

This also serves to test if anything would change if they had a companion nearby too.

Again, I approached them like how I have been for the other wolves, but instead of killing them, I used [Darkness Paranoia] on one of the wolves.

The wolf affected by it let out a yelp before swivelling its head from side to side, its vision suddenly robbed.

Its companion noticed its odd behaviour and let out a low growl in response.

The sound startled the blinded one so much that it immediately lunged forward and tried to bite its friend.

By pure luck, the blinded one managed to bite its companion by the throat, crushing its neck with its jaws and killing it instantly. But because the fear was still in effect, it did not let go of its dead friend’s neck but continued to bite it while swivelling its head from side to side, looking for an enemy that wasn’t there.

It was a simple thing for me to just sneak up near it and slit its throat from under it.

Easy.

For the next pair, I tried to kill them without resorting to the fear spell.

Using my invisibility again, I first killed one of them using the same tactics on sneaking up on them with my [Shadow Wall], which in turn caused the second one to panic even without me using any skill on it. I still find it a little ironic that monsters are susceptible to fear.

It tried to escape but I moved faster than it could with my [Shadow Glide], my dagger plunging into its neck before it could get far.

And just like that, both wolves were dead.

Hmmm… Am I starting to get a little too reliant on my magic now? I know there are cases where people obtained power and got so accustomed to using them that once they lose said power, they become utterly useless.

Alright, let’s try the next fight without using magic.

For the next pair, I didn’t use my magic to hide myself and simply walked up towards them. The two wolves spotted me and immediately started dashing towards me, one of them heading straight for me while the other flanking to my left.

Seems like they are still intelligent enough to use tactics, I’ll have to keep that in mind when fighting the bigger groups later.

I lowered myself with my dagger held in an underhand grip, the tip pointed towards the wolf charging straight towards me.

Either it was confident of its own prowess or simply did not register the knife as a threat, it leapt towards me with his jaws opened wide.

I reacted quickly by driving my knife into the neck of the wolf while it was mid flight, using its momentum to swing it to my left just in time to smash it against the other wolf that had tried attacking me at the same time.

Unfortunately, I misjudged the weight of the wolf and I was unable to pull out my dagger before the body was sent flying away with it still embedded in its throat.

The good news is that the first wolf died quickly, the bad news is that the second wolf had recovered and I’m now without a weapon.

Ha… I got reminded of the description for [Martial Skill]

[Martial skill. Your armour will crack, your arrows will run dry. Your magic will fade and all your good luck will be of no more use. Your allies are nowhere to be found and your enemies have you surrounded. When you are against the wall, with nothing to your name, you will still have your body. And with that, you can win.]

Right now I only have dagger proficiency at tier one for it… Guess it’s time to get some unarmed combat proficiency.

I moved into a wrestler pose with my arms stretched to my side and fingers opened, ready to grapple it the moment it leapt at me.

Predictably, it did just that and I was ready to grab it by its foreleg with my right hand before slipping my left under its belly, allowing me to utilise the momentum to flip it and slam it to the ground.

Cocking back my fist I immediately punched it in the snout, dazing it but not yet killing it. No, the killing blow came in the form of me holding the wolf’s neck in a choke hold before snapping it with a twist.

…

Open [Screen] please.

[Martial Skill – Dagger Proficiency (Tier 1), Unarmed Proficiency (Tier 1)]

Nice.

This also confirms that eight extra points of strength seems to be quite significant, or at least significant enough to overpower the other person or creature in a contest of strength.

I reclaimed back my knife and as much as I wanted to continue this, that short fight had taken more energy out of me than if I had used my magic. If I wanted to kill all the monsters by tonight, I’ll have to leave off the physical training for a later date.

With umbramancy, the fight became much easier especially now that I wasn’t holding back.

With [Shadow Wall], [Shadow Glide] and [Darkness Paranoia], I’m able to sneak up on two wolves and kill them before they even have a chance to know what was happening.

Then when I moved on to the groups of three, I would start the fight with [Madness Infusion], causing one of them to go mad and start attacking one of its companions.

While those two were busy fighting each other, I would just simply kill the last one that was unaffected before killing the remaining one that won the teamkill.

After the group of three wolves would be the final group of five wolves, the last remaining group of monsters within this valley.

Unfortunately, all of the spells require channelled concentration of the spell for them to take effect. In order to cast it on multiple targets, I would need to split my concentration to cast it while also moving at the same time, a skill that is currently beyond me at the moment.

Still, just using one instance of [Madness Infusion] to turn one of their own against them was enough of a distraction.

While their attention was turned to the one I had affected, I had slipped in and killed one of the Hell Wolves that was in the outer fringes.

As luck would have it, the one incited with madness went in for the kill, bringing their numbers down to two when it was put down by its own brethrens in turn.

Right as I was moving towards the next wolf to slit its throat, a gout of flames was blasted towards my direction, forcing me to leap away to avoid it.

I’ve been killing them so quickly that I’ve forgotten they actually could use magic too.

I frowned, both my [Shadow Wall] and [Shadow Glide] was still active, so either the wolf who used the spell managed to sense exactly where I was or it got lucky.

Just in case, I checked its stats.

<strong>[Name: Hell Wolf Alpha</strong>

<strong>Stats:</strong>

<strong>50 Strength</strong>

<strong>25 Dexterity</strong>

<strong>20 Endurance</strong>

<strong>50 Magic</strong>

<strong>Magic Skills:</strong>

<strong>Pyromancy (Tier 2)]</strong>

Oh… Of course there’s an Alpha… What’s with that ridiculous strength though?! It’s stronger than a damned bear!

While I was busy protesting its stats, it opened its jaws and another blast of fire came out from its mouth, barely missing me as I used [Shadow Glide] to dodge it.

The fact that it had to pause and sniff in my direction before locking on to me proved that it still could not see me, which meant I still had a chance, I just needed an opening.

An opening which I already thought of and hoping it would be enough.

Casting [Madness Infusion] on the last wolf, it did as I expected and lunged at its Alpha, biting it in the leg.

I was hoping it would go for the neck but whatever.

With the opening secured, I leapt onto its back, stabbing my dagger into the side of its head while it was distracted.

It let out a howl and tried to buck me off, only to find that it couldn’t since its comrade was still biting on its leg.

I switched my grip on my dagger and started stabbing it repeatedly in the neck, ignoring the blasts of fire that it kept shooting out of its mouth.

A few more stabs later and I’ve got two more dead moves, the one incited by madness dying as soon as I stabbed it in the eye.

Hmm… That was easy.

Still, this was quite a workout, surely this–

“Ahhhhh!! My little one is truly the best and the cutest!! Mama is so proud of youuuuu!!”

Right… I forgot she was still around. Oh well, this feels good and I’m tired anyway, so I’ll let myself be pampered.

This feels nice…