The walk had been uneventful for several hours when Loran stopped, turning back the way they came.

"Some wolves are-" suddenly, he turned in another direction, "wait there's another-" he began glancing in random directions, eyes wide with panic. "Wh-what the fuck is this."

Soze was confused and worried, "Loran calm down, what's wro-"

Soze, Yin, and Zed all turned stone still as their own heightened senses noticed what Loran did.

"Okay," Yang was somewhere between scared and frustrated, "can one of you explain what the fuck is-"

"WE'RE SURROUNDED!" Soze shouted, "WOLVES, DOZENS, BATTLE FORMATIONS NOW!"

An instant later the horde of Moss Wolves was close enough for Alexx and Yang to see. They approached in relative silence, but now that they were close enough to see they did away with stealth. The six players were suddenly hit with a deafening cacophony of barks, growls, snarls, and howls.

'Sis!' Any fear that Yang felt drained out of her as her body began to move on its own.

With the wolves only tens of feet away, Yang dropped her ax and shield, grabbed Yin, and threw her with every ounce of strength she had towards the opposite side of the river. Yin barely had enough time to think of protecting her quiver, to save as many arrows as possible, before Yang's 25 STR launched her almost the entire way across the river, landing with a loud splash. Grabbing her ax and shield again, she turned her attention back to the wolves.

As soon as Yang looked up, a pair of wolves were coming at her from above and below. She activated [SHIELD BASH] as she came up from the ground, catching the one above her in the jaw and launching it back. The other wolf she swung her ax at, causing it to retreat but not without catching the edge of the weapon and receiving a cut along the shoulder.

Yang tried to assess the situation, letting her armor handle the wolves as she looked for the others. The Moss Wolves were a constant blur of green and grey all around them, causing Yang to feel like she was standing in a river of fur, claws, and fangs.

Zed stood out the most. When the wolves arrived he must have charged to meet them, and was now far away from anyone else. Despite being surrounded he was dodging the Moss Wolves by barely a hairs width, attacking and deflecting with his spear. As he turned Yang saw that his eyes were wide and a manic grin was plastered on his face. Zed was having the time of is life.

Loran and Alexx had tried sticking close to her, maintaining the original plan to relieve the pressure on her.

Loran played to his strengths, dodging and hooking the wolves with his picks. His damage was low but he was clearly covering for Yang while she got Yin out of harm's way. Noticing that she was now paying attention to the fight, he began using her as an obstacle for the wolves as he gained some much-needed breathing room. Yang raised her shield just in time for a wolf that was diving at Loran to smash its face against it.

'I guess we're not exactly following the 'protect Yang' plan right now,' Yang thought grimly, knowing fully well that taking the pressure off of her wasn't an option. There were simply too many attackers, and all of them needed to be giving their all if they wanted even a chance at survival.

As Loran ducked out of Yang's line of sight, Alexx's open hand swung in to replace it, catching a Moss Wolf in the snout and caving its skull inwards. The brawler's attacks were as deadly as ever, carrying far more destructive power than his already impressive physique showed off. Rather than punching, Alexx swung his arms around like whips, drawing wide arcs through the air that intercepted anything that came close to him. If caught by his palm or backhand, the target was dealt a crushing blow, but when the wolves were grazed by the edges of his fingers the force they carried left deep cuts in their bodies.

Yang couldn't see Soze amidst the chaos, and she quickly gave up trying to search for him as the never-ending tide of beasts kept her arms and legs in constant motion.

'Fuck! I hope he didn't get trampled by these things already.'

*Woo WoOwOO WoooOwowoOowOoOO WOoOowoOoowowoooOwowoOo*

Just as that thought passed through Yang's mind, a loud, piercing howl could be heard over all the others. It was not like the howl of a normal Moss Wolf, it had a strange warble to it. Yang felt like there was some kind of pattern to it, but couldn't be sure. All she knew was that something about that howl was ominous.

The moment the howl cut off, the movements of every single Moss Wolf changed simultaneously.

The wolves that had been recklessly charging Zed and Alexx suddenly stopped. Before, due to the chaos of the battlefield, the wolves were unable to notice how deadly these two were. But now they were all more cautious, nipping and harassing them instead of truly attacking.

Several of the wolves jumped Yang at once, she was able to knock a few away, but those that remained clamped their jaws around her arms and legs, weighing her down as they started to claw at the gaps in her armor. The damage was negligible, but the fact that they were getting through her armor at all was worrying right now. Even worse, as more grabbed onto her, she could feel the pressure on her leg growing. It was bearable for the moment, but it would break if the situation continued.

A handful of wolves also tried to jump Loran but left him an obvious escape route, one that would take him further away from Yang. However, he had no choice. Loran couldn't even attempt to tank the attacks of that many wolves, and so he dodged. More wolves began to attack him, leaving openings to pull him away from Yang like he was caught in the current of a raging river. He fought hard to get closer, but there was only so much he could do without throwing his own life away.

Yang attacked the wolves as well as she could, but there were more than just the ones clinging to her. So many more. For every wolf she pulled off her body, three more lunged at her. Worst of all was that her head was basically unprotected since Rika hadn't been able to make a decent helmet out of the Maple wood yet. She already had a few claw marks along the side of her face and along her forehead, and one wolf had nearly ripped her hair out with a bite. It took tremendous focus to make sure they didn't hit her eyes.

*Thwip*

Suddenly, one of the wolves clinging to her ax arm fell over dead. Turning to it, Yang saw an arrow sticking out of its neck.

'Still saving my ass,' Yang thought solemnly.

Yin had managed to situate herself on the other side of the river and was now able to calmly take shots at the sea of wolves. With how many there were, Yin could probably close her eyes and still land a headshot, but right now her priority was aiding her sister.

With Yin using arrows to take out the wolves clinging to Yang's body, Yang was able to focus on the rest of the wolves around her. She had dropped her ax at some point, but her bare hands were enough to prevent the bulk of the beasts from latching on in the first place.

The battle had reached a kind of equilibrium. Although Soze was nowhere to be seen, Loran, Alexx, and Zed were able to handle themselves fairly well amidst the chaos. Zed was happy to have a neverending supply of fodder, although his pace seemed extremely frantic to Yang, and once Alexx and Loran noticed that Yin was able to support Yang, the two young men were able to focus on their own offensives, causing the wolves to be wary enough that defending themselves was not exhausting.

As for Yang and Yin, they did have to deal with a limited supply of arrows, but fortunately, Yang took note of this immediately and made sure to grab any arrows she could reach, throwing them across the river whenever she had the chance. The biggest problem the two had to deal with was the low quality of Yin's weapons compared to these higher-level wolves. Yin was accurate enough to make them still usable, but the damage was just low enough that if the arrow hit anywhere other than the head it wasn't enough to kill, or even critically wound. The fight was exhausting, but it seemed like they could turn the tide if they were able to keep this up.

'At this rate,' Yang wondered, 'can we make it?'

*WOwoooowoowooo Woowooo WooowOwooOwoOOowoowOoo*

Then that piercing howl returned, and this time Yang was certain that there was some kind of pattern in it. Once again the movements of the wolves changed, and the situation that had just stabilized became worse for them again. Most of the wolves remained the same, but the one's around Yang began biting and clawing at her right hand.

'They're trying to break the arrows!'

It wasn't just the ones in her hand. The wolves even managed to snap a few of the arrows that Yang hadn't managed to pick up yet.

Yang then noticed that the wolves clinging to her weren't being killed. When she turned to check on Yin she saw the other change to the wolves' strategy.

Using their high AGI to build momentum, three of the wolves were able to leap across the river to begin attacking Yin. Yin was able to pick off the beasts quickly enough, but that was when another trio of wolves attempted the jump.

Yin, wanting to conserve arrows, grabbed a pair of large rocks from the riverbank in one hand and quickly threw them at the flying wolves. Amazingly, both rocks connected with the wolves in midair, and carried just enough force to make them fall into the river.

While Yin dealt with the wolf that made it across and Yang threw the arrows she managed to gather, Yang took notice of the wolves that had been knocked into the water.

'They can't swim?' she thought, slightly astonished.

The pair of Moss Wolves were flailing madly as they drifted with the current of the water. They seemed utterly incapable of getting to shore, in fact, they were in deeper water than when they started.

'Wait, if they can't swim, then...' An idea quickly formed. Forcing as many wolves off of her as she could, Yang began edging deeper into the water. When the wolves attacked she had been about ankle-deep, and soon the water was up to her shins.

Then her knees.

Her thighs.

By the time she was up to her hips, the Moss Wolves had given up on attacking her, instead, they barked, growled, and snarled at her from the river bank. A few of the ones that had been clinging to her were able to crawl out of the water. As Yang caught her breath, she stared back at the wolves, wondering why they couldn't swim.

'Dogs and wolves can swim in reality, why can't they?' she wondered, 'Could it be the moss?'

The more she considered it, the more she was sure that the moss was the reason the wolves couldn't swim.

'I don't know much about plants, but soaking moss doesn't seem like a good idea. Even if it doesn't kill it, it would probably loosen it from their fur.'

To be on the safe side, Yang chose to go deeper, and eventually, she was up to her chest in the river. The current wasn't that strong, and the water even made her armor lighter, taking more pressure off of her leg.

Once again, the situation stabilized, and this time the piercing howl didn't return.

'The guys are still in the shit, they seemed to be doing fairly well before but how long can they keep that up...' Yang cupped her hands around her mouth. "GUYS, TRY TO GET TO THE RIVER! THE WOLVES WON'T GO IN!"

There was no response, although with how loud the wolves were, there was no way to know if they heard her or vice versa.

'There are just too many of these damn things,' Yang thought bitterly. 'Maybe if they had kept throwing themselves at Alexx and Zed it could work out, but they're being too cautious for that. It's all that howling one's fault.'

Yang didn't understand how, but something was clearly smart enough to organize and lead this massive pack, and it was clever enough to counter their own battle tactics.

'If we could take that one out, the rest might fall apart, like when I took out the Alpha the other day,' Yang clenched her teeth in frustration, 'but where the hell is that fucker?!'

Unfortunately, Yang fully understood that there was no way that she could go after the leader, even if she knew where it was. The moment she left the water would be the moment she gets swarmed and buried, especially now that she lost her ax and had no way to actually threaten the wolves.

'Hopefully one of the guys can figure something out,' she took a deep breath to calm herself, 'for now, let's focus on what I can do from here.'

Staring at the line of wolves on the river bank, Yang readied her shield and approached the shore.

"Come on little puppies," Yang said playfully, a wicked gleam in her eyes, "let's go for a swim."