Noa ducked, scrambling under the airborne cat, dodging its pounce with a final leap to carry him further away. He whipped his head back, dust kicking up as the beast landed, and grimaced when he saw that his mentor was not so lucky. The man, fortunately unmauled... imauled? The lucky bastard escaped with his life, but was lying among the stones, unconscious, head bleeding.
Whipping back to the cat pushing through the dust, Noa stumbled, nearly falling. A spear thrust into its side, Noa barely registering the whistle it made beforehand. As the creature made a guttural cry, collapsing, he yelled.
“Get it off!” he screamed, the beast crushing Armael’s legs. Curses! Curses! Curses! he thought, leaping over, and just as quickly jumped back when the cat’s maw snapped at him. Noa’s form shook at the sheer size of it. Its jaw could easily bite him in half.
As it struggled to get back, Noa backed further away. He glanced at Armael, gritting his teeth. I need to do something now! he thought, slowly rounding the beast to get a better look at Armael. While the creature inched towards him, Chief flew through the dust, and stabbed the spear further into the lion, which howled and writhed.
“Get it off!” Noa pointed at Armael, and Chief scowled, ripping her spear out, then sparing no time to pick it up and toss it aside.
“Heal him! I must return to battle!” she said.
Battle? he thought.
Shaking himself out of it, he cast on the head wound first, doing a [Lesser Mend] without an examination to stop the bleeding. He flinched at the howls he heard, glancing towards the trolls. It was fruitless to see anything through this haze!
Focus!
Noa looked at Armael’s legs, and let out a sigh of relief. They weren’t crushed as he expected them to be. Instead, they’d been protected by the stones around them, he assumed. Still, he cast [Lesser Assessment].
System [Lesser Assessment] level 10 → 12.
Only one injury to worry about, and a dozen other bruises. Bruises? Noa raised his brow at the new sense. He could tell that the bruises, though superficial, were bruises. Huh, maybe leveling this spell was improving it after all.
Looking at the head wound, Noa grimaced. How did one tell if something was broken? [Lesser Examination] was fruitless, telling him it wasn’t superficial and that there was damage to the skin.
“You don’t say?” Noa hissed.
System [Lesser Examination] level 23 → 24.
When [Lesser Appeal] took to the wound, the aether affixing over it, Noa assumed something was broken. I hope you’re not a vegetable or something when you wake up, he thought, almost sincerely.
As he fed [Lesser Mend] to the wound, Noa grimaced at someone bellowing, the pained voice echoing across the sky.
“Hurry up!” he hissed at the spell.
System [Lesser Mend] level 53 → 54.
System [Lesser Mend] level 54 → 55.
“Healer!” Chief bellowed.
“Ugh!” Noa spat, withdrawing and running into the haze. He blinked dust from his eyes as the wind picked up, but it did clear up some of the dust. There were six shadows, Magenta coming into view first from where he laid against the boulder.
The troll held his bleeding side, the violet color grotesque from the way it stained the troll’s entire hand and the stones below. “Noa Bard,” Magenta grunted, grimacing.
Damnit, Armael, Noa gritted his teeth, casting [Lesser Appeal]. It took to the wound like a roadmap showing him how to knit the flesh together, only that it would take to one nasty laceration at a time. This is going to take forever! he thought, feeding the wound [Lesser Mend].
System [Lesser Mend] level 55 → 56.
System [Lesser Mend] level 56 → 57.
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One laceration was healed, and Magenta removed his hand, revealing four more. Already, Noa was well into his first aether stone. With only four in his pocket, he had to do something different.
“I’m going to only mostly heal you!” Noa called above the howling battle. “Can you fight while in pain?”
“Yes,” Magenta nodded.
Moving to the next wound, Noa put half as much energy into it, stopping once the wound was sealed shut.
System [Lesser Appeal] level 15 → 16.
System Class [Mender] level 8 → 9.
His head shot in Chief’s direction as she howled, a lion taking a chunk out of her shoulder. The beast growled as she thrust her spear into it, Aud defending her back from another lion by kicking it back. It flew, smashing into a boulder, and Noa cringed at the snap he heard. Two lions down, two to go. They can do this, focus!
Moving to the third wound, Noa practically begged the spells to work faster, but his own [Aether Shaping] was just too slow!
System [Lesser Appeal] level 16 → 18.
System [Lesser Mend] level 57 → 59.
“Ignore me!” Magenta hissed. “Take care of Chief!”
“How about I trade you two out in a minute?” Noa said, [Lesser Appeal] snapping into place just slightly faster.
System [Lesser Appeal] level 18 → 20.
System [Lesser Mend] level 58 → 59.
Magenta grumbled, and pushed himself up before Noa could cast a fourth [Lesser Appeal]. “I go fight, you take care of Chief!” he said, Noa shaking his head.
“No, no, Magenta, you’re bleeding!” he yelled. Desperate, he practically threw aether at the troll, casting [Lesser mend], followed by a quick second one that... It didn’t take, he scowled. The aether missed, then was lost as Magenta charged headlong into battle.
With a mighty bellow, Magenta thrust his spear into the side of the beast attacking Chief, practically knocking the woman back as he took over. He missed. His damn spear missed. Don’t tell me... Noa thought, deadpanning as the troll missed again. And again. He can’t aim.
Were it not for Magenta’s actively bleeding side and Chief’s torn shoulder, Noa probably would have spared a proper moment for a facepalm. It was simply too ridiculous to watch the two behemoths dance around each other. Everytime the lion came in for an attack, Magenta butted it back with the shaft of his spear.
Noa basically tossed aether this time, the strand moving sluggishly, probably from Noa’s lack of focus as Magenta managed to bonk the lion on the head with his spear. [Lesser Appeal] took to his side, and Noa, again, healed it until it was closed.
System [Lesser Appeal] level 20 → 21.
System [Lesser Mend] level 59 → 60.
Aud was much more effective in her battle, stabbing the lion one, two, then three times. Noa was forced to avert his gaze from the carnage, only to settle on Chief’s mangled shoulder. The woman just stood in place, scratching her head. She was just as unfazed before and after Noa took care of her wound, only sparing enough aether to close it.
It took two [Lesser Appeals] to staunch the bleeding, and start to close the wound, Noa pausing when he emptied the second aether stone.
System [Lesser Appeal] level 21 → 22.
System Class [Mender] level 9 → 10.
Perking up at the second class upgrade, Noa grinned. He looked up at Chief as the woman let out a low grumble. By now, Aud had joined her side, and both women watched as Magenta hopped back and around a rock and the massive cat leapt at him.
“Should we help him?” Chief asked.
“Probably,” Noa stated. “He might die from one cat otherwise.”
“Let’s give him a chance,” Aud suggested, and Noa winced as Magenta and the bronze lion rolled over one another.
“Why did we bring Ma━ahem, Tyrm if he can’t fight?” Noa asked.
“It is for that reason that I hoped he might evolve faster,” Chief shrugged. “He will push himself, and...” The lion finally howled as Magenta’s spear was driven through its body. Chief grinned. “See? He is figuring it out.”
“Gross!” Magenta whined, shoving the lion off of him and failing to pull the spear from it. Noa shielded his eyes after the troll started breaking the lions’ bones to force the spear out.
“But, it seems that none of us have evolved,” Chief sighed, looking down at Noa. “Finish healing us, and we will make our climb down.”
Well, this was rather anticlimactic, Noa huffed, and turned back towards his mentor. Armael was still unconscious, even drooling.
A shiver quaked Noa’s entire body, his ears bursting as a roar━louder than any of the sentinel lions━echoed across the sky. The ground rumbled beneath his feet, and Noa whipped his head around. Atop the boulder where a female previously laid was perched a fully maned bronze titan, an avalanche of boulders crashing to the ground behind it and shaking the whole earth.
Noa grunted, just barely catching himself before he fell, and coughed as dust and debris spat up from the avalanche. Squinting, he made out the shape of the male lion leaping from the boulder, followed by two more males running out behind him.
What? Prides clearly did not work on this world like it did on Earth.
Noa furrowed his brow, backing away as a lioness followed the three males, and another. Backing up further, Noa counted on his fingers until he ran out on one hand, the other occupied with keeping him upright against a boulder.
Eight lions, he paled.