The Place Where Everything Begins

At another side of the riverbank...

"Hold my hand!"

Morgan said aloud as he reached out his hand towards Jeremy, whom had just arrived at the creek's edge.

After hearing so, Jeremy also reached out his hand and let Morgan pull him up ashore.

*Huuu...*

"It is more tiresome than I've initially thought," said Morgan after pulling Jeremy up from the water.

Meanwhile, the water-soaked Jeremy only nodded his head as a response. In fact, he didn't feel tired in the least, but he had to play along, pretending to heave in and out like he had just finished exercising.

"Look at the other side!"

Someone within the group suddenly shouted as everyone else, including Jeremy, started turning their heads back to look at the place where they had just come from a moment ago.

There, they saw many wolves emerging out from the green forest one by one until more than twenty of them were present.

"It's indeed a wolfpack..."

"Morgan's decision to cross the river is right."

"Yes, I think they can't cross the river that easily..."

"Yeah, or else we will have to battle... What the fuck is that thing?"

"It's... it is not a wolf..."

While everyone was conversing between themselves, they suddenly spotted a two-meter creature wearing leather armor emerging out from the temperate forest.

At first glance, the creature looked pretty strong, and its muscles were bulging out of the leather armor.

After everyone saw the gnoll arriving at the riverbank on the other side, situated around fifty meters away from this site, they gradually saw something within the dog-humanoid creature's hand...

"Kurt..." said Morgan as he turned to look at the team's lookout, Kurt.

Meanwhile, Kurt, who had also seen a round object within the monster's hand, closed his eyes shut tight, not wanting to look at it for even one more second.

At this time, while the two sides standing before the two riverbanks were having a standoff, someone's sigh promptly rang out as he said,

"She had sacrificed herself to help us..."

"..."

"..."

When everyone had heard the words, they could only shake their heads in bitterness.

It was no new experience for them to lose their companions so that they could get over it somehow.

However, for Kurt, it was entirely different as he had some deep feelings for Jessy.

As a result...

*Thwish*

The noise of a bowstring being released resounded out from Kurt's bow as the arrow traveled through the air in a projectile's trajectory...

It was clear that Kurt was the one who had fired the arrow, and the arrow was aimed accurately at the dog-humanoid creature standing at the other side of the river.

Everyone's eyes were focused on the arrow...

As the distance between the two riverbanks was around fifty meters, the arrow needed to travel roughly half a second to reach the other side.

It was only a brief period of only one blink, but everyone seemed to be seeing the arrow move in slow motion as they were extremely focused on it.

A split second later, the arrow finally arrived before the dog humanoid...

To everyone's astonishment, they saw the muscular creature suddenly raise its great sword before its face.

*Clang*

The clanging noise rang out as the arrow hit against the steel sword before dropping to the ground momentum-less...

When everyone saw the sight, they could only look on in shock, not knowing how such a thing as deflecting a high-speed arrow could happen such effortlessly.

For them, the scene from earlier seemed to be derived directly from a movie...

After deflecting the arrow, the gnoll promptly growled in a low tone at the twenty wolves standing behind it.

Simultaneously, the wolves also barked and snarled back in response before jumping into the water, heading towards the other side of the river, followed closely by the gnoll.

"What are you waiting for? Fire the arrows at them!!" shouted Morgan as he nocked an arrow into his crossbow before shooting towards the swimming wolves and gnoll.

"Fire!"

"Shoot at the big guy first!"

"Kill them!!"

"Don't let them cross the river."

Shouting and yelling voices resounded out from the group incessantly as they shot arrow after arrow to the other side.

Excluding Jeremy and the other two people holding heavy weapons in their hands, more than seven people within the group had their own bows and crossbows, so they hurriedly fired the arrows at the incoming wolves at almost fifty meters away.

It appeared that the distance of fifty meters would require those wolves roughly two or three minutes of swimming before they could reach this side, so they died off, one by one, by the arrows.

Not even one minute later...

The gnoll was seen to be pierced on its left shoulder by an arrow as it growled in annoyance.

Simultaneously, it raised its head up high before finally bellowing,

"Woooof!!!*

Upon hearing so, the surviving fifteen wolves started turning 180 degrees to their back before swimming back towards the shore.

Having seen the enemy gradually retreating, Morgan sighed in relief before shouting,

"Stop firing!"

Their arrows were pretty limited, and they might encounter another ambush in the near future, so as the group's leader, he had to give out such an order.

When everyone had heard the order, they promptly stopped firing the arrow as they only looked at the enemies swimming back silently, waiting for the other side's next move.

When all the wolves came back ashore, the wounded gnoll promptly turned to look coldly at the human side before pulling out the embedded arrow on its shoulder.

Red blood dripped out from the shallow wound on the creature's shoulder before it howled aloud into the air,

"AWOOOO!!"

Upon hearing their leader's howl, the wolves simultaneously howled back before all of them ran back into the forest without turning back even once.

Some seconds later, the wolves' silhouettes couldn't be seen by the people anymore as all of them went back inside the green forest, leaving behind almost ten corpses of their companions.

They appeared to be very well-disciplined, and they might even be more disciplined than the humans and kenkus.