As the beasts approached, Sophie took command and told Zander to move left and Cyrus to move right. Zander remembered his magical infusion spell now worked on Sophie, seeing as they were married, so he decided to infuse her sword with ice.
Zander quickly pulled out Cyrus' gauntlets and sword and tossed them to him. Cyrus put the sword in his sheath on his back and put on the gauntlets. He also threw the sword, infused with ice, which Sophie caught, in stride.
Zander shot out two ice balls. One hit a beast and knocked it over, but the other swatted it away.
"These things are tougher than they look, I hope Sophie and Cyrus are ok." Zander thought.
Sophie's choice to split the wolves up turned out to be a good one, as she quickly flew about 20 feet in the air and cast fireballs at the wolves. When one was knocked down, she'd dart down quickly, swipe it with the sword, which seemed to finish it off, then fly back up into the sky, away from danger.
Cyrus was having the easiest time with them, as his lightning powers, combined with his chi, disabled several of them at once, to which he ran up and smashed their heads in with a pair of gauntlets he had. His sword remained in his sheathe on his back.
"I knew these clanky, annoying things would come in handy," Cyrus said with a smile.
Zander started fairing better and every time he defeated a wolf, he received a system notification that he simply ignored. He was simply using ice to impale the wolves legs, then using his Earth ability, he would form a giant boulder from the rocks and drop it on the wolves head.
"Your energy is now 100/320," the system informed Zander.
"Crap, I never thought about that and the suns covered by all these trees." Zander said.
Cyrus was also tired as he finished up the last two wolves and ran to Sophie, who was hunched over and panting, and her Phoenix eyes stopped glowing.
"You ok?" Cyrus asked.
"Yes, but I'm exhausted. My whole body hurts. I need some sunlight. All this forest is making it harder for me to recover." Sophie said.
That's when she noticed a much larger wolf, with a darker coat of grey fir, growling at her and Cyrus.
"Shit," Cyrus said. "I'm drained too, where's Zander?" he asked.
Zander flew over and shot two fireballs at Sophie, to which she immediately ate. It made her able to stand and breathe more easily, but didn't heal her or boost her energy enough to get back into a fight.
"That took 10 energy so I have 90 left, I'm going to have to take some risks, they both look burnt out." Zander thought.
Zander swooped down as the wolf charged at an incredible speed.
However, Cyrus stepped in front of Sophie, and managed to kick the wolf slightly off course but was cut on his right arm and blood began to drop from his wound.
Thinking quickly, Sophie ripped Cyrus' shirt off and wrapped it around the wound as Zander had dive bombed the wolf and tackled it.
"170/210 health. You do not have enough energy to self heal and are not in sunlight. Wound detected. Your left leg is bleeding. You will lose 5 health points every minute. 80/320 energy remaining," pinged the system.
Zander scanned his systems skills while defending himself from two more wolf swipes, which took off 25 health each and realized he needed to act as blood began to pour out from his mouth.
"Zander!" Sophie shouted.
Cyrus had passed out from the wound as she knelt down by him, using every ounce of energy she had to heal him as best she could. She eventually stopped the bleeding but collapsed too.
"Sophie, Cyrus, damnit, what the hell is your problem wolf we did nothing to harm you!"
The alpha laughed and said, "you took away a nice, free bear cub lunch from my pack and thought you could get away with it," he said as he snarled and licked his lips.
This bought Zander enough time to charge fire and ice on one arm, mud and lightning on the other and kicked out his feet, sending a water ball at the wolf, to which it laughed.
"Thanks for the bath, you'll make a nice meal," the wolf mocked and he charged forward.
Zander used his wings to jump back about twenty feet, first firing a lightning bolt to electrify the water, which the wolf charged through despite the pain. Zander then shot 4 ice prisms at the wolf's legs, and two managed to pierce its legs and the wolf ran into his mud wall.
As the wolf fell over, he took one last swipe, leaving Zander's HP at 30/200.
With his last 20 energy, he spent 15 of it to use a new skill he found in his system under fire, "Incinerate. Cost 15 energy. Set the target ablaze for 20 seconds. More effective if the enemy is damaged."
Zander collapsed to the ground as he heard congratulations from his system.
"Quest complete. Slay the hoard. 2500 experience points gained. You slayed 9 D rank beasts. 1000 experience each. 2000 experience for the first time defeating this beast.
You have obtained 5 rank D beast cores. 12,000/25,000 experience. Quest complete: defeat the Alpha. Rewards: 5,000 experience points. 3000 experience for defeating a C rank beast. 5000 experience for the first time defeating this type of beast.
Secret quest complete, saving someone you didn't need to save, reward, 2500 experience points for rescuing the bear cub.
You have now reached level 20. Evolution process will begin," the system stated.
Zander was already in so much pain and noticed that Sophie and Cyrus had collapsed.
Before his transformation began, he saw one large bear and five bear cubs rushing toward Sophie and Cyrus and one really large bear rushing toward Zander.
"Well, I guess we find out what happens when we die, Sophie, my love," as he drifted off into an unconscious state in his white space, where Zintan was laying down too.