"Faster, faster! Run, run!"
"If you want to live, run for your lives!"
In the dense forest, nearly a thousand half-naked starving refugees ran barefoot at full speed, each scrambling to get ahead. Even the several dozen shoe-wearing mercenaries assigned to maintain order were thrown into utter disarray by the rushing crowd. The mercenary captain at the front was covered in blood. A massive axe hung on his back as he kept waving his arms, urging the exhausted refugees to run faster and not stop for even a moment.
Faintly, Red Wolves with blood-red eyes and enormous bodies prowled through the forest behind them.
Whenever the guarding mercenaries let their attention slip, the wolves would leap out from hiding and attack with lightning speed. Their enormous jaws would clamp down on a gaunt victim, dragging them effortlessly into the undergrowth to be torn apart and devoured.
There were at least twenty or thirty of them.
And they were incomparably cunning.
They seemed born knowing how to circle around the mercenaries. The instant the guards showed the slightest weakness, they would strike successfully!
"Beasts, get back!" The mercenary captain was the only one capable of facing these Red Wolves alone. Yet even his great axe could not kill them. It could only wound them and drive back those incomparably greedy, thick-skinned hungry wolves.
A silver arc of axe force tore through the air and came crashing down.
The Red Wolf that had a starving refugee in its jaws was struck across the head and neck. The skin on its neck split open, spraying blood.
It let out a whimper, dropped its prey through the pain, tucked its tail flat, and fled swiftly into the woods.
The starving refugee thrown to the ground was already dead. His entire skull had been punctured