Chapter 28

Nick regained consciousness, his head was spinning and his body was in terrible pain. At first he couldn't understand what had happened, but then he remembered that he had been badly injured in the fight with the monster. He was able to open his eyes and tried to lift his head, but it was unsuccessful. A long moan of pain escaped his lips. Linella came up to him and stroked his head.

"Forgive me Dylan, I can't help you now, we're left here by the river. I didn't want to put you in more danger. I wouldn't have been able to fight off the predators with you in my arms. You're very lucky to be alive."

Nick thought about it and admitted that there was some logic to her words. Protecting him in the forest from predators would be a bad idea, but he couldn't figure out what would change if they stayed here. His head was in a fog and he couldn't remember much of what had happened, he tried to say something, but his mouth didn't even open. Nick focused on his spiritual sense and tried to find his sword, it was in Linella's hands. Nick's life force was dangerously close to the bottom mark. Gathering all his strength, he said one word in a very hoarse and quiet voice.

"A sword."

Linella, who was standing next to him, barely heard what he said. Not understanding why he needed the sword, she placed it in his hand and squeezed his fingers around the sword. Nick gathered all the will he had left and tried to draw in the life force from inside the sword. It didn't work right away and every time he made a mistake, he panicked more and more. Finally, when he managed to pour the life force into himself, his head cleared up and the pain subsided a little. Nick was able to fully remember and think about what had happened. This was his first battle in which he did not have an unfair advantage over his opponent. In the heat of battle, he panicked a lot, but due to the feeling of hopelessness, his rational side prevailed over panic. He clearly remembered that when he lost consciousness, he was terribly afraid of possible death and completely forgot about the ring on his right hand, which was supposed to protect him. Lying down thinking about this, he felt his experiences that were mercilessly suppressed by cold logic. Losing his arm was a bigger blow to him than he wanted to admit. Throughout his new life, he often dismissed his experiences as unimportant, or illogical. He often faced danger with a cold face, or a slight smile on his lips, now he could tell himself that he was arrogant and simply did not face a real threat that could scare the hell out of him. The only thing left for him to do was to overcome his mental trauma, it would take him some time, but he was sure that he could handle it.

Nick thought the fight through more carefully and was proud of himself for his tactical decisions and cold logic, he was of course very lucky that his will magic was able to act on Linella's spell and change it. This slightly raised his spirits despite the terrible pain. After lying down for a while, Nick realized what a fool he had been.

What the hell are these well-thought-out decisions? We could have escaped with Linella's illusion magic after she cast the pink mist... Although the beast could have found us by the blood trail. And when Linella ran out of mana, we definitely wouldn't have won. God, how lucky I was that I never thought about retreating. If I think about it, my hotheadedness saved my life. But of course the beast might not have found us , who knows? Mmm, live and learn. Next time I'll try to think it through better.

When Nick began to feel a little better, he spoke to Linella.

"Linella, how long was I unconscious?"

Lynella sat next to him and looked into his eyes while stroking his head. She thought about his question for a moment and decided to answer honestly.

"You were unconscious for 3 hours. I hope they can find us, or we're lost."

Damn, in this condition I won't be able to walk for a few more days, let alone fight monsters.

"As I understand it, we hope that they will find us and take us to the camp."

"Yes, but our main problem is your severed arm, I'm not sure it can be reattached to the body."

"Yes, it will be very difficult to manage without an arm for some time. But let's hope that my race and my racial skills will be able to make the healer's job easier, if he can still restore my arm. Where is it by the way?"

"She's lying two meters away from you, by the way, why did you need a sword and how were you able to fight for so long despite such a mortal wound."

Nick thought a little about what he should tell and decided that there was nothing special about it, so he would tell the truth.

"This sword wasn't taken from me because I made it myself, it can store mana and life force for me." Linella whistled in response.

"Strong and how much life force do you have left?" Nick took a closer look at the sword and was upset by what he saw.

"Half of my current pool."

"That's a pity, but how much mana do you have left?"

"Only 1000 MP in the sword."

"I have a mana pool of 2000 MP, and only 500 MP left. It will last for a long time, but there is no point in creating exact illusions like I did then."

Nick was surprised, illusion magic was certainly not as expensive as strength or healing magic, but the fact that she spent so little mana on so many spells put her very high among the ratings in the class.

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"Are you that good at magic?"

"Yes, unlike the power mages, I just create something from light, but of course precise illusions spend a lot of mana, but the main characteristic of my class is mental control. The rest is not so critical, but after our fight, I realized that I need intelligence and perception if I want to fight such strong monsters. It would be nice to learn a couple of attack spells."

"Oh, and I need to learn how to optimize my spells, I've developed a bad habit of that. My spells are very powerful, but they cost an inexorable amount of mana.... By the way, I wanted to ask do you, could we escape from the monster?" Nick asked with a sour expression.

"I honestly wanted to offer you this, but in the heat of the moment I quickly agreed to your plan. Perhaps we could have run far enough, or maybe the beast would have found us because of the blood. I don't know, but let's consider ourselves lucky."

"Yes, you are right."

Nick was glad to be distracted by the conversation, but because of the severe pain he couldn't think too much, it was hard for him, so he decided to rest. He might not be able to sleep, but at least he wouldn't have to strain himself any more.

"Sorry, Linella, I would love to talk to you more about magic and tactics, but I'm too sick. We'll do it later."

"Okay Dylan. You can rest now." Lynella said and patted his head.

***

The prince who was in the new camp near the river began to worry a lot. Lynella and Dylan had not returned to the group for 4 hours. He asked the other groups to find them, but so far this has not brought any success. Evander understood that they should be somewhere nearby and should be found soon, but he was still worried, in such a situation time was very valuable. Although Dylan and Lynella had their own oddities, he managed to like them. He would be very sorry if the rings worked, in which case he would not be able to see them for a long time.

Never mind, the main thing is to continue searching. It's unlikely that any beast will be able to kill them both. In the worst case, they can always escape. We need to send another group to search for them.

***

Cassandra and Seth were looking for the missing couple. She wanted to think that the two were having fun together and had completely forgotten about time, but no matter how bad she thought of this slut, she had to admit that it was unlikely. Dylan, in her opinion, although very arrogant, had enough common sense to understand that such a long sex would make the group send people to look for them. Walking further through the forest, Cassandra smelled human blood, her sense of smell as a vampire for blood was very good. In this regard, she was like a shark and could smell blood at a distance of 10 miles. She changed her pace to an easy run and after five minutes she was able to see from which direction the smell of blood was coming. She picked up the pace even more and began to run quickly, Seth was no longer able to keep up with her and she had to slow down, a minute later they heard the sound of water. Coming out from behind the trees to the river and walking along the stone, she was convinced that the smell of blood was very close. The river went through large rocks that limited its exit to the shore, but because the rocks were not even, she could not inspect the entire area, having climbed the highest rock, Cassandra began to look out for what could have such a strong smell. In the distance, about 200 meters away, she saw pools of blood. She did not like what this could mean at all, there was so much blood that it would be deadly even for people like them. Taking Seth with them, they approached the puddle, having felt it and tasted it, Cassandra was convinced that it was Dylan's blood. Being a vampire, she had many features and this was one of them, she could easily understand whose blood it was if she had been near this person at least once. Having inspected the place, she saw another handprint not far from this puddle, and Dylan's blood was splashed everywhere. Having sniffed more closely, she discerned the smell of some kind of animal's blood. There was not as much of his blood as Dylan's, perhaps Dylan was able to inflict a few minor blows. Having tasted the beast's blood, she did not find it familiar. With these samples, she could easily find both the beast and Dylan, but she had already discarded the possibility that Dylan was in this trial, he would not be able to survive the loss of such a large amount of blood, even with his race. Going around the circle, she smelled Dylan's blood further along the river. Deciding to follow it, they came to a flat area of stone, sniffing she was sure that there was about the same amount of his blood, 10 meters from them the illusion dissipated and Cassandra and Seth saw a healthy Linella and possibly dead Dylan. Cassandra quickly approached, she was very angry and began to feel Dylan's pulse. The first thing she asked was about what she could not understand.

"Why didn't you run away?! With your magic it would have been easy." She asked in rage, she even started to growl in anger seeing Dylan's injuries. "He's almost dead, how could you let this happen?!" Lynella could understand her anger so she answered more calmly than Cassandra might have thought polite.

"We couldn't, the creature tore Dylan's arm off in seconds. He would have found us." Cassandra was taken aback by this statement and it dampened her anger.

"And how are you still alive? How is he still alive? He's been unconscious for a long time? Why didn't you take him to the camp?" She asked and began to pour blood into Dylan.

"Cassandra calm down, he just fell asleep. I didn't know where the camp was and carrying him in that state would have been a bad idea. Dylan was able to kill the monster with his arm torn off, but as you can see it was hard on him."

"And what kind of animal was able to wound him so badly in the first seconds?"

"I don't know. The notification said he was [Ceros][Rare] Lvl 78. The creature was very fast and strong, with big claws. Nick managed to catch him off guard and rip his neck open."

"Okay, we'll discuss that later. Aside from the fact that he has very little blood and his arm is torn off below the elbow. His body was working at its limit, his entire body is suffering from severe overload, many organs are damaged, his wrist on his right hand is cracked, the same arm is twisted, a large amount of muscle tissue is severely damaged. How is he still alive? I see that he used magic to close the wound, but it was not very successful on his part, it does not explain how he survived."

"It's Dylan's secret, when you wake up you can ask him thyself." At Linella's answer, Cassandra growled in anger, but decided to remain silent.

Cassandra had spent almost all of her mana while silently healing Dylan, and she had only been able to stabilize his condition. Cassandra was not a true healer, so she had spent too much mana and life force on such ineffective spells. She could do nothing with the arm. Picking it up, Cassandra noticed something strange, Dylan's arm had not lost all of its life force and had not begun to decompose. It was torn and torn, over time it would begin to decompose, but this also meant that it could be repaired. Drawing blood from her hands, she created a spell that would supply the arm with the oxygen it needed. Her blood flew out and sealed arm in a bloody cocoon. Taking the soft red cocoon in her hands, Cassandra felt that her spell was stable, this should be enough to sew the arm back on later.

"And that will help save his arm?" Lynella asked.

"Yeah, that should be enough. We need to wait until Dylan recovers a bit and then we'll head to camp tomorrow." Lynella and Seth nodded in response.