Alan flicked his wand forward, and the five Thunderstorm Orbs expanded in a synchronized ring, encircling him and the centaur troop. Though the werewolves were frenzied and bloodthirsty, they weren't mindless; seeing the humming spheres of electricity, they instinctually veered away.
The orbs didn't pursue them. Like anchored stakes, they drifted to their predetermined coordinates and locked into place. The werewolves, having bypassed the physical orbs, believed they had evaded the threat and accelerated their charge toward the center of the circle.
However, the moment a wolf passed between two orbs, a high-voltage current loop snapped into existence between them. The lead werewolves hit the invisible barriers like running into a metal tripwire. They were either violently repelled by the discharge or caught in the middle, their bodies locking up in a state of agonizing electrocution.
The wolves caught directly in the circuit suffered the most. One was struck while mid-leap, his body becoming a conduit that fixed him in mid-air. The Stormeye cloud above sensed the surge and joined the fray, raining down three consecutive lightning bolts in a matter of seconds. The werewolf was carbonized instantly, the final strike shattering his upper torso into ash.
"You fools! Avoid the space between the orbs! Jump over them!" the werewolf wizard screamed, his fury mounting as he watched another subordinate die.
The remaining wolves took the advice, coiling their powerful hind legs to leap over the perimeter loops. But the reality was far more complex than they anticipated. The five Thunderstorm Orbs were arranged in a pentagram, and the circuits didn't just form along the outer edge. The interior was a web of interconnected currents, forming a lethal five-pointed star.
The combination spell was devastatingly flexible. Two orbs created a single line, but every additional orb increased the number of loops exponentially. Alan had used five to conserve his magic, but he could have scaled it into a grid that sealed the very sky.
Several wolves made it over the first line only to land directly on a diagonal circuit they hadn't seen. One was bounced off a loop only to hit another, ricocheting back and forth like a frantic rubber ball—a sight that would have been comical if not for the smell of burning fur.
Alan wasn't idle while his traps did their work. He surged with magic, systematically delivering finishing blows to the trapped and paralyzed wolves. The current loops weren't designed for lethality; they were tools for crowd control and immobilization, turning agile predators into stationary targets.
"Beam Lightning! Sectumsempra!"
Alan fired the spells in rapid succession. Now that he possessed the counter-curse for Sectumsempra, he used it without hesitation, the invisible edge decapitating a wolf in a single stroke. Beam Lightning, a single-target offensive charm he had developed, followed. It was a concentrated spike of high-voltage energy that possessed both terrifying speed and piercing power. The silvery-blue bolt hit a trapped werewolf with a sharp *ping*, punching a bowl-sized hole through its chest and cauterizing the edges of the wound instantly.
Within seconds, four werewolves were dead. The werewolf wizard, realizing the orbs were the source of his pack's ruin, aimed a Blasting Curse at the nearest one. But Alan was faster; a flick of his wand covered the orb with a Protego. The explosion shattered the shield, but the orb remained huming and intact.
Alan ignored the wizard for a moment, refocusing on the trapped wolves. He fired two more Beam Lightning bolts, dismembering another predator caught in the star-shaped web. His cold, clinical efficiency finally sparked a flicker of fear in the remaining wolves. They stopped their charge, circling the perimeter of the array, unwilling to test the lightning again.
The werewolf wizard watched the boy, his mind racing. Based on the power of the spells and the boy's reflexes, he realized he couldn't win this fight quickly.
"Human! Why are you meddling?" the wizard shouted, trying to buy time. "Why protect these half-breeds? Do you understand the cost of provoking the pack? If you step aside now, I will overlook the deaths of my kin. Leave, or face an eternity of retaliation!"
"I'm not here for the centaurs," Alan said, his smile as cold as the moonlight. "And I don't care about the consequences of provoking you. You were simply unlucky enough to become my target."
"Despicable poacher!" the Centaur Elder shouted, though he was half-kneeling, propped up only by his spear as the sedative clouded his mind. "It is over! Your scheme has failed! Flee now, or only death awaits you!"
Alan turned his head, fixing the Elder with a sharp, annoyed glare.
"If you can't say anything useful, then stay silent. I've been tracking these animals for an entire day. I'm trying to catch them all in one sweep, and you're over there encouraging them to run. If a single one escapes because you couldn't keep your mouth shut, you'll be the next person I deal with."