A wolf's death didn't frighten the others. Instead, it only stoked their fury.
Without waiting for the Wolf King to give an order, the moment the Skeleton Warrior fell, the other wolves charged at Rhode. But the passage was only so wide, so only a few wolves could approach him at once.
Just as Rhode swung his sword at the wolf in front, the Walking Corpses arrived from behind.
The Walking Corpses attacked the wolves at the rear, and the Wolf Pack immediately fell into chaos. Some wolves still prepared to attack Rhode, while others turned around to bite the Walking Corpses.
With the Wolf Pack in disarray, the pressure Rhode faced suddenly eased.
At the rear, a wolf had just sunk its teeth into a Walking Corpse's thigh. Before it could start tearing at the flesh, the Walking Corpse swiped at it with a claw, leaving several bloody scratches on its body, completely unfazed by the wolf's bite.
Any player with even a little common sense wouldn't trade blows with a Walking Corpse. Trading injuries was largely ineffective against Undead Creatures, especially sturdy ones like Walking Corpses. The only way was to target their weak points.
But the Wolf Pack was different. The wolves only knew to attack the enemy in front of them, relying on their instincts to kill the Walking Corpses by biting them as they would any other prey.
In the passage, Rhode brought his sword down, forcing back a wolf lunging for his leg. Then he swept it sideways, wounding another wolf beside him, before lifting his foot and kicking the first wolf in its vulnerable nose.
The kicked wolf was visibly dazed. Not only was it wounded, but the pressure Rhode exerted left it too afraid to attack him again. With other wolves blocking the entrance behind it, it couldn't retreat either, and could only remain stuck in the middle of the passage.
Rhode continued to keep the two wolves in front of him at bay, wounding them just enough to make them hesitate, but not killing them outright.
He planned to leave them stuck there. The wolves in the rear clearly couldn't defeat the Walking Corpses. If he held the line like this, he could kill the Wolf Pack without suffering many losses.
The Wolf Pack couldn't retreat because the Walking Corpses blocked the way behind them. If they wanted to attack him, the entrance was blocked by the wounded wolves...
For a time, Rhode had the upper hand, and the Wolf Pack was thoroughly suppressed.
Wolves were already falling at the rear, killed by the Walking Corpses before they could finish biting them. The others were in bad shape too.
The Wolf King realized this as well. If things continued like this, the Wolf Pack would only meet one end: death.
The Wolf King let out a howl. Unlike its earlier howls, which had clearly been commands, this one immediately brought about a change in the Wolf Pack.
At the rear, the wolves attacking the Walking Corpses went berserk. Their eyes turned blood red, and they ignored the Walking Corpses' attacks, savagely biting at their legs.
In front of Rhode, the wounded wolves that had been too afraid to advance seemed to have their bloodlust roused. Their eyes were bloodshot, their fear of death gone. They opened their jaws, baring their sharp teeth, and lunged at Rhode.
With Expert Swordsmanship, Rhode wasn't about to be hurt by an attack like that. He thrust forward, driving his sword into the wolf's mouth at incredible speed, plunging almost the entire blade inside.
With the sword buried deep in the wolf's body, Rhode couldn't pull it out right away, so he took another sword from his Space Ring and swung it at the next wolf.
Other than the few wolves biting the Walking Corpses, the rest charged at Rhode too, completely unconcerned about getting hurt.
"Leadership Technique, huh..."
Seeing the Wolf Pack's reaction, Rhode knew that if he could see the Wolf King's attributes, it would definitely have Leadership Technique as a special skill.
Leadership Technique was a skill used by commanders to boost their troops' morale. When actively used, it could send subordinates into a frenzied state for a time.
The number of times it could be actively used was limited, but increased as the skill's level rose.
Leadership Technique was a must-learn special skill for players who wanted to lead subordinates. Otherwise, morale could easily collapse, especially when they were at a disadvantage or leading creatures of other races.
Undead Creatures had no such limitation. They were dead beings controlled by necromancers, and would carry out any order, even one that sent them to their deaths. Morale was useless to them. As a result, Leadership Technique was of no use to necromancers.
Rhode guessed that the Wolf King's Leadership Technique wasn't very high-level. Otherwise, it would have used it earlier, when facing the Skeleton Warrior, instead of waiting until it was nearly cornered.
Now, a small portion of the frenzied Wolf Pack began attacking the surrounding Walking Corpses, while the rest followed the Wolf King's command and charged together into the tomb chamber where Rhode stood.
They no longer feared the damage Rhode's blade could inflict. Even if they died, they were determined to reach his feet and bite him. Fueled by this frenzied conviction, the wolves launched a relentless attack.
At first, the Wolf Pack had known to leave room to dodge, sending only two wolves into the passage at a time. Now, they had lost all reason. They paid no heed to the narrow passage and only thought of attacking the enemy in front of them.
This way of attacking allowed Rhode to make the most of his swordsmanship. Since the enemy had no room to dodge, he didn't even need to consider the angle of his swing. He only had to bring his sword down to hit them.
Compared with open ground, the terrain here was extremely favorable to Rhode.
Rhode's sword flashed again and again, and the number of wolf corpses before him steadily grew.
Just as Rhode ran his sword through a wolf in front of him, the Wolf King, watching from the rear, made its move and began gathering magical energy.
Rhode didn't need a warning from Scouting to notice. He had been keeping an eye on the Wolf King, and the instant it moved, he saw it. As Magic Arrow shot toward him, Rhode flicked his sword back, sending a wolf corpse into the air to block the spell.
The wolf corpse shattered in midair, scattering blood everywhere. Rhode's Strength of 15 allowed him to perform such a feat.
By now, the frenzy brought on by Leadership Technique was beginning to fade, but it still drove the wolves to charge at Rhode. He kept attacking the wolves before him while watching the Wolf King's movements.
The wolf corpses piled higher and higher at Rhode's feet. What puzzled him was that the Wolf King he had been guarding against never attacked again, even after not a single wolf remained in the passage.
Rhode looked toward the rear. The Wolf King was now engaged with the Walking Corpses.
"Engaged" wasn't quite right, since the Walking Corpses were the ones swiping at the Wolf King, while it spent nearly all its time twisting aside to dodge.
As it dodged, the Walking Corpses closed in from all sides. No matter how it tried to evade them, it couldn't avoid taking damage altogether. Several claw marks covered its body.
The Wolf King dodged while desperately trying to reach somewhere the Walking Corpses couldn't get to. Rhode knew it was trying to escape.
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