A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

It was chaos.

Rather than the relatively calm atmosphere he'd left behind, the entire courtyard was now in an uproar.

The second-ranked guards, faces twisted in fury, had once again conjured their magic circles while they barked out warnings: "Let her go, right now!" "We won't ask again, bitch!" "Don't you dare hurt her!"

Across from them stood Astrid and Seraphina, weapons drawn, and equally prepared to attack. Or at least, Astrid was, as Seraphina was only barely paying attention. Instead, her head was turned to look at what was behind her. "Dammit, Emily!" she exclaimed helplessly. "Don't harm him!"

Astrid, on the other hand, remained focused on the danger in front of her, but also yelled over her shoulder, "I understand your anger, Emily, but let's just wait for Erik to get back!"Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Meanwhile, in the back, first-ranked survivors appeared to be gathering silently, as if trying to use the chaos for a comeback.

As for the cause of all this chaos, that was located in the middle of the courtyard. There, a man and a woman were suspended and restrained by a wall of thorns and branches.

The man was roaring and struggling while his body was in a constant state of near transformation as he attempted to break free by changing his shape, clearly identifying him as a shapeshifter. Unfortunately for him, anytime he tried, the branches would strangle his body harder, causing him to roar in pain, until he was forced to stop, lest he destroy his own body.

Meanwhile, the equally restrained woman next to him had silvery magic circles on her hands, conjuring similarly coloured wind blades that attacked the wall fruitlessly. At the same time, she was pleading for mercy from the raven-haired woman standing in front of the struggling man.

This was, naturally, Emily. Pitch black magic circles floated in front of her hands as she looked at the man wide grin and somewhat crazy eyes. Around the man's legs, a pitch-black substance was slowly advancing towards the man's jewels, while he screamed in pain and panic.

"L— Leettle lady! Y— You must forgive Dimitri! I was only giving compliment! Pleese, don't dissolve sacred parts! Very important parts to me!" the man pleaded with a light Eastern-European accent while struggling uselessly against his restraints.

"Shut up!" a seething Emily screamed at her surroundings, before focusing back on the man in front of her. "You dared to try and defile my temple to Master, and there's only one punishment for that!"

To punctuate her words, she clenched her left fest and caused the black substance to crawl up a little further, causing the man to scream again, although whether from pain or terror was unclear. Emily was clearly taking her time, but her darkness was now only inches away from its target.

Besides her big sister stood a surprisingly stern Emma. Her hands were pointed forward, and light green magic circles were floating in front of them. She was using her second-rank nature spell, something she'd unlocked on their journey to London, which did as exactly as shown. It restrained.

Whether by accident or design, Emma was clearly drifting towards a defensive specialist with some healing slapped on.

Emma stayed quiet, but that, and the aid she was giving, clearly indicated her stance of support towards her sister, despite having been the one to warn Erik.

As Erik took in the scene, a headache began to throb at his temples. He groaned and rubbed his forehead, while almost able to piece together the events that led to this chaos. In this mind, Elora giggled, "Looks like we found Dimitri."

"Right…" Erik grumbled to himself. However, right now, he didn't care that he didn't have to go searching for the man. Rather, his anger was rising quickly over what Dimitri may have done to cause his kind of reaction in Emily.

His expression became stormy, and he quickly moved in the direction of Emily and her adversary. However, now just his expression became stormy, even his surroundings did. Electricity sparked around him, as the temperature took a dive. Tiny grains of thundersnow swirled around him.

Everyone instantly fell quiet and stopped what they were doing as they felt a shift on the battlefield. A conduit of power swirled around an angry Erik as he moved across the courtyard. At the same time, he slowly changed into his wolf form, and activated his Runeguard, which quickly spread across his body, allowing Eira to begin supporting him.

Everyone watched him in intimidated silence. They all felt like a claw-filled hand was pressed against their throats, causing his enemies to gulp and tremble a little.

So far, Erik hadn't actually fought here yet, so they hadn't truly realized the difference between him and them. But now they did. Erik had already entered the power level of third rankers, and none of them could compare.

The only ones who simply smiled were his wives, as even Seraphina looked at him cautiously, somewhat afraid he was going to hurt Dimitri.

Finally, he reached Emily. The raven-haired woman appeared to have calmed down significantly after his arrival, and even looked up at him with excited glee, as if she barely cared about Dimitri anymore. "Look what we caught for you, Master!" she grinned at him, seemingly looking for praise.

Her chirpy attitude caused him to calm down a little, but he still narrowed his eyes at the struggling Dimitri, who now looked at him with a glimmer of hope, despite the obvious anger.

"Ah! Y— You are… Who?" he stammered, with a shake half-smile, still scared to death of the dark substance clinging to his legs. "Could you, ehm, ask those two very formidable ladies to, eh, let me go, please? Yes?"

"Please don't harm him!" the woman next to him, who was also encased in the thorn wall, pleaded with Erik. "He didn't mean any harm! Please don't let there be more death because of me!"

Neither of them knew who he was, but the power they felt coming off him, combined with Emily's clear deference, caused them to realize he was the one they needed to speak to.

Erik shortly panned his gaze towards the woman with a curiously raised eyebrow. He had some suspicions about who this was, and while he wondered why she was there, he had other priorities right now. So, he turned back to Dimitri, and scoffed, "That depends on why you're up there."

He turned to Emily and demanded, "Show me what happened."