There was no time to think. Endless waves of voranders assaulted my position, and the only things keeping them at bay were the voranders from my beast space, circling around me like a living wall. The thick stench of blood clung to me like a second skin, irritating me even further than the enemies that never seemed to stop coming. I focused on my surroundings, looking for any unique monsters that might be troublesome, but I proved lucky in that regard, as the waves of non-stop enemies were basically cannon fodder.

Hence, my assault from ‘within’.

Whenever it appeared that my living barricade of tamed monsters would be overrun, I directly and violently ripped the blood right out of them, a visceral sense of satisfaction rushing through me each time. The pool of blood at my feet grew thicker and murkier by the second, as I did my best to suppress my gag reflex while I moved the blood next to my head like a sphere of ammunition. While my tamed army bought me time, I was doing what I could to lessen the numbers surrounding my location.

There was a bit of mental feedback from each of my tamed that allowed me to differentiate them from the wild monsters that were mixed in with them, but I didn’t have enough control to accurately discern the difference in such a chaotic battlefield. It was all I could do to scythe through the rear ranks of the voranders with blood constructs from my relatively defensible position.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I felt a spike of pain lance through my shoulder. The pain immobilized me, preventing me from reacting beyond a simple scream that tore at my throat, forcing me to my knees. I could feel the projectile still inside me, radiating death. Unfortunately, my shoulder pain was quickly eclipsed by something sharp piercing into my arm repeatedly, enveloping me in a sea of agony. I tried to pull the blood of whatever was snacking on me, but the thing kept preventing me from casting by drilling down into my arm every time.

My tamed voranders wouldn’t and couldn’t abandon their position. If they left the frontlines to help me, they would quickly be overwhelmed, their retreat unprotected. I was certain that the goddamn dragonkin was watching from somewhere, but I didn’t have much, if any, faith in her. Certainly not enough to leave my life in her hands. Thankfully, there was someone more reliable I could call on.

A green set of antlers pierced through the monster that had almost reached my internal organs, providing me some much-needed relief as I listened to its cries of pain instead of my own, for once. I finally had a moment to spare. It was a herculean effort to roll onto my back, but I managed to do it while the sounds of Spearmint stomping on my attacker faded in and out.

The painkiller spell quickly took effect, and a numbing sensation spread throughout my entire body soon after. The pain was still present, but muted to a level where I wasn’t reduced to a sniveling mess. I desperately wanted, no, needed to retreat to heal, and was about to do so when all of a sudden –

“No retreating, disciple. Get back up and finish them off. You’re more than halfway done.”

Any hope of a peaceful coexistence with that asshole of a dragonkin was shattered when I felt the vow’s effects bind me, a surge of hatred clouding my thoughts.

“I thank all the stars and ancestors I don’t have to listen to that dragonkin," Spearmint said, our link making us both aware of the other’s feelings, both his relief and my frustration towards my ‘mentor’.

“And tell that little fawn not to bother helping if he’s that slow. He needs to work on his speed. If he hasn’t improved by the next time we meet…” Reela’s voice came down like a bolt from the heavens, threatening untold destruction on my first companion.

“Thanks for the help, buddy, but you’d better get back inside. That dragonkin said you’re too slow.” I appreciated his quick response when my life was on the line, but the threat of the dragonkin instilled a large dose of terror into him.

There was no hesitation as he let out a braying sound in fear, immediately bowed his head to where he assumed Reela was watching from, before sprinting back into the beast space.

I tried to get up, but twinges of pain shot through me every time I made an attempt. I was almost certain that I was bleeding internally, not to mention the damage to my back, shoulder, and arm, and I would have preferred to have a safe environment to heal myself, but orders prevented me from doing so. I had to make do with slowing down the blood flow in the affected areas and basically slapping a magical band-aid on all my wounds. It wasn’t pretty, and it wouldn’t even hold for that long, but it was all I could do in the moment.

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I turned back to see how the fighting was going, and things were about as I expected. Nearly a third of my forces were decimated, no doubt while I was getting nibbled on. I had some thoughts on the nature of my taming ability, but they would have to wait till after the battle.

Since she hadn’t forbidden it, I simply released twice as many tamed voranders from my space as I did the first time, unleashing them on the feral monsters that were closing in on me. I made sure to include some winged species this time, and ordered them to scour the skies and the deadened canopies of the trees for any other monsters.

I was confident that the dragonkin would stop me from simply overwhelming the monsters with numbers next time, as that wouldn’t exactly be teaching me anything, and she was ostensibly my teacher, at least in name. Still, I needed the quick win so I could heal. The only thing I had learned so far under Reela’s dubious tutelage was that my situational awareness could be better, and that my blood sense wasn’t infallible.

And that I couldn’t trust dragons, or their kin, when my life was at stake.

I tried to improvise some type of seismic sense with nature magic, similar to my blood sense, but there was no way I could do that. I would need the specific affinity for something that precise, and unfortunately, I was limited in what affinities I had access to. Still, I did my best to keep my senses on the lookout for any other enemies, though most of that focus was spent on looking overhead. My mind couldn’t help but drift, as my ‘guard’ had now swelled to a much larger number, giving me a sense of security.

I could somewhat understand why none of the sapient races had taken direct action against these vorander nests, if the rest of them were similar to this one. The environment itself was actively in their favor: dark, muggy, humid. There was, rightfully so, a feeling of danger all around, as well as the feeling of being watched, which by itself could trigger a person’s fight or flight response. I hadn’t laid eyes on them yet, but what I assumed were the now-empty breeding pits themselves reeked of unnatural chemicals, and I could hear the characteristic sound of sizzling as something corroded, even in the distance and through the din of the fight.

The battle seemed to be coming to a close, as I could only discern sounds of combat from further away, though there were plenty of bodies between my position and the rest of the fight. As I usually did, I pulled all the blood into the air, forming an impossibly large sphere, heating it until it boiled to remove any infectants, and sent it into my beast space for later use. I checked the surroundings for any enemies left over, having learned my lesson from the battle against the sea beasts. I couldn’t detect anything that hinted at possible ambushers, though I still kept ten voranders around me for protection.

While my army was mopping up the remnants of the enemy, I collected all the vorander corpses, both those that had fallen for and against me. My mind was too weary to think of the reason why, but it was possible the space would work its necromancy magic again on the dead bodies. Even if it failed, the monster meat would be good enough as a food source for my living voranders.

Any thoughts of resting were dashed as soon as I heard Reela’s voice from next to me. She must have teleported over once the battle was done.

“That was pathetic,” she declared. My anger spiked even more at that casual statement. “But, I suppose that’s only to be expected for a half-trained human like you.” She paused to look me over, even poking me once with her tail, which elicited a cry of pain and a glare from me, before continuing.

“Sigh. I was hoping that you’d make more progress by yourself, but it looks like I’m gonna have to spell it out for you. Don’t worry about the nest, either. I’ve cleansed dozens of them, and before long you will too. In the meantime you better get to healing. Looks like you’re as fragile as the rest of the humans on this rock. What a shame. Seems I need to add defensive spells to the lessons. Oh,” she paused once more. “All combat restrictions are lifted for now. You can go back to your little space and heal up. But, don’t take too long. If I start to think that you’re delaying your healing just to get out of –”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Just tell me when I need to come out, but until then…”

I waved her off, pulling myself into my beast space so I could properly rest without the dragonkin breathing down my neck every second.

I deeply regretted not spending money on proper armor, as it would have helped soften the blows that were currently making themselves known.

Well, you know what they say. Regret is how you know you’ve grown from the past.

Unfortunately, any chances at acquiring armor would have to wait until I reached the elven lands, if I was ever allowed to go there. I assumed I was persona non grata in the human continent, thanks to the king, and any beastfolk armor would assuredly be too large for me to wear.

I willed my clothes off, and the space complied, removing them from my body and materializing them next to me. I cast the painkiller spell once more, almost enjoying the numbing sensation spreading, then started the delicate process of healing all the damage that had been caused by my negligence.

And that bird monster’s talons.