There were other creatures in the Book of Solomon that I could summon. I had chosen the bear, since it was my best choice for my zombie battles. Instead, I could summon a pack of hellhounds, a strange animated tree that attacked with its branches, a giant lizard that, like a crocodile, could swim in the water, two giant spiders capable of shooting poisons about a meter or two away, several small forest imps that could send magic attacks at my opponents, and so on.
Also, there were a few other interesting animals whose summoning diagrams I had copied from the library the last time I trained with Nathan, and whose summoning and control I was still practicing.
Soon I found myself in a new hall full of demons. As usual, I started with my crossbow, fired, and began to reload, during which time my bear attacked the demons. Seconds later, I spotted two demons that had apparently remained hidden to my scouting rats and fairies. They held bows in their hands and began to shower me with arrows.
I threw myself to the side and one of the arrows missed me, but the other stuck in my shoulder. The pain wasn't that bad and it wasn't even that unexpected. But it definitely hurts, let's say - a 50 times more than for example - getting blood drawn for a medical test or having an anesthetic put in at the dentist.
I knew I had to take cover very quickly before they had time to shoot again. I looked around frantically and spotted a rock pillar and hurried to hide behind it. I could feel my heart pounding like a hammer in my chest and tried to calm down and focus.
I took a deep breath and sent my magic rats in the direction of the archers, my imp darted towards the center of the clearing, making loud screeching sounds as the little fieries scattered in different directions.
I looked at the arrow that was stuck in my shoulder and grabbed it with my hand. Good thing we had practiced situations like this during our morning drills and I knew what I had to do. A mana slid down my arm and wrapped tightly around the arrowhead. Then I braced my muscles and began to pull the arrow out, maintaining my mana control all the while..
"Arrrrgh!" I cried.
The pain was unbearable and for a moment my eyes went black. However, I kept pulling and soon managed to somehow get the arrow out. Then I examined it. "Good thing it was an ordinary arrow!", I thought with relief. "Let's hope it's not poisonous!" I got the magical healing powder from the alchemists I kept at all times and spreaded it over the wound. It hurted like a bitch but my wound quickly closed and I was again ready for battle.
My bear had killed one swordsman and was heading for the second. At that moment, two arrows stuck into its body. I appeared from behind my cover and began throwing magic balls at my enemies. During this time, my imp was circling around shooting weaker fireballs to the archers.
I focused on my connection with the bear and was relieved to find that it was still combat capable. Even though it was losing blood and was in severe pain, it smashed its entire body at the swordsman, as he also wounded it with his sword. I mentally screamed through our bond with the bear, not to stop to finish its badly wounded opponent. I was pushing it forward with my will and forcing it to keep moving!
During that time, the demon archers reloaded as best they could and fired at the fast-moving bear. Thus it received one more wound and crashed into the group of archers. I shot another bolt which stuck in the back of one of the archers and frantically started reloading my crossbow again.
You may not know, but on Earth, bears are capable of moving more than 50 kilometers per hour, especially when attacking.
Despite its wounds, my bear was enhanced with magic and came from a magical world. This made it much faster and more durable than an ordinary forest bear. Therefore, despite its wounds, it was able to handle herself in close combat with the archers.
The last archer was armed with a curved sword that further injured my brave creature, but its immense mass, tough skin, and mana channel system allowed it to continue fighting despite its severe wounds.
Seconds later, the last archer went down. My bear, who was barely supporting itself slowly lay on the ground, breathing heavily and looking at me with its big eyes. I hurried to release it and it disappeared in a puff of smoke. I then looked around at the wounded demons and immobilized them with my crossbow.
Then I sat down and tried to calm myself down. For the first time I was getting such serious wounds!
My pain, however, made me think of my more pressing problem, and I set about dressing my wound. I knew that all the normal classes in the game had received a week-long survival course. I had missed that opportunity, but I had purchased simple cloth bandages.
When I finished, I eagerly began to absorb the life energy of mortally wounded or dying demons, as well as the necrotic energies left behind after their death.
The process was long and painful. But the combination of stolen life energy, my mana-enhanced body and the healing powder helped for the moment.
After absorbing every drop of mana and life energy from the demons, I got up slowly and started summoning a new bear. Then, a little more reassured by its presence, I set about examining the demons' weapons and bodies.
After a brief reflection, I decided it was better to rest and give my body time to heal.
I walked back to the strange door I had come from and, seeing no new enemies, sat down and began to manage my mana. During one of the morning lectures with the combat classes, we had learned a few tricks to increase our body's natural regeneration. However, it was a long and painful process.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Two hours later I felt much better, my wound was partially healed and I opened my backpack - I have kept most of my packed food and water supplies I had started with. They were considerably lighter, more calorie dense and filling. Instead, I was buying food from the store or later from human cooks.
I had damaged quite a few of my crossbow bolts and I spent some time carefully repairing them. I had a whole bag of arrowheads and the proper tools. However, I only had about 40 percent of the bolts I had started with left. In addition to those, I also had a set of 20 poison-smeared arrows enhanced with simple runes that I kept for emergencies.
I looked at the door and “intuitively” knew that if I walked out that door, it would disappear and I wouldn't be able to finish the dungeon. I knew it was those different spaces where time flows differently and is somehow separated from the central world.
My shoulder was still sore and it was not a good idea to put any strain on it. I decided to spend the night here, next to the door.
The light remained unchanged and I often woke up to check on the beings that guarded me. Periodically I had to summon them anew as they grew weaker with the time spent on our plane of existence. With my current skills, my bear was losing 15-20% of its strength after about an hour and half of its strength after two hours.
After spending nearly 14 hours in fragmented sleep, summoning, and brief, periodical healing practices, I set off down the tunnels again.
The bodies of my opponents had begun to stink and I hurried forward and soon came upon a small stream that descended from a hole in the wall, forming a small shallow pond before disappearing through cracks in the walls and floor.
After trying it out with my summons and finding nothing wrong with it, I hurried to quench my thirst and replenish my water supply.
I continued on, and after checking a few tunnels and empty halls, I came to a new group of demons. This time I decided not to risk too much, I released my bear forward and after shooting a bolt I immediately took cover. I aimed my imp up towards the ceiling and my faerie forward towards the hall. My rats also ran forward with their little legs.
Thankfully, my familiars found no hidden enemies, and the demons were preoccupied with the attacking bears. I stayed covert and only showed myself after consulting my imp's senses and firing arrows and spells from the entrance of the hall.
I was trying to attack the demons that were farther away than my bear and I knew that if they came at me, my bear was much faster than them and would attack them in the back. A tactic that worked very well against zombies by the way.
The demons were generally quite cautious and defensive. I think my huge monster didn't give them much time to think about tactics and strategies.
They had a high resistance to my magic, but not to my bolts. However, my magic balls moved much slower and the demons often dodged or blocked them with their shields.
Hall, after hall, I advanced and slayed the demons within them. Then I rested and absorbed their life force and their mana.
Things continued to be quite dangerous. In my third battle I was met by a bolder than normal spear-wielding demon who stepped up and threw his spear at me. However, I was on my guard and hid in the entrance of the hall in a flash.
The battles were tough and I always had to summon another bear after them. My control over the bear and my tactics with it were getting better and better, and it was fighting my armed opponents a little more effectively.
That was good, because I was soon to face my first big trial. My rats found a group of demons who were collecting the gray mineral with shovels, and a huge enslaved creature was smashing the wall with an enormous pickaxe.
I decided to rest and prepare myself better, then I attacked the demons. My bear targeted the weaker demons, and I began to blast the creature with my poison arrows.
I knew the necrotic poison was going to start slowing the creature down, but its destructive effect wasn't particularly strong.
The huge creature roared in a thunderous voice after my first arrow slammed into its belly. It charged towards me but the chain that was tied around its neck stopped it and it almost fell to the ground. I shot a 2nd arrow at it and it started pulling furiously at the chain with both hands.
"So far so good," I sighed. My plan was, if the first few seconds of the fight didn't go well, to remove the weights I'd been walking with for a while (including training days for my meditation training) and use my mana to run straight to the exit and out of the dungeon, leaving my summons to cover me.
Since the chain held, I fired three magic balls at the creature and hurried to take cover and reload my crossbow.
During this time my bear was killing off the demon miners one by one.
Two of the demons that had backed away from my bear and got too close to the hulking creature and it leapt towards them and attacked them. They didn't stand a chance, barely managing to cry out before losing their fragile lives.
"This thing is pretty strong," I told myself as I kept at it with arrows and spells.
They didn't have a particularly big effect, but the wounds were piling up. My bear had better luck with the demon miners, who didn't have swords but only ordinary shovels. When I was done with them, I surveyed the situation and decided to test my bear against the monster bleeding from its wounds.
Before that, though, I gave it time to breathe and reactivated all the possible speed and strength buffs I could offer it.
The bear then charged towards the creature, which also charged towards it. At the last moment I made the bear lower itself down thus avoiding the monster's first blow. Thus my summon managed to plunge its whole body low into the monster's belly, and soon they were rolling in a death struggle. The fight was extremely brutal and despite its bravery, my bear soon began to lose and suffer multiple wounds from the huge monster.
Soon my bear's life began to fade, and the beast kept pounding it into the ground. I hastened to hide, leaving my familiar and the small animals behind to keep watch, and began summoning a new bear.
The creature had received multiple wounds and I could hear it howling in pain. When I finished my summoning , I immediately sent my bear to attack the creature. Despite its wounds, however, the creature did not die so easily. This time the battle lasted a full five minutes. In the end though, my second bear also lost its life, but not before inflicting multiple grievous wounds on the creature. I decided to finish it off with my spells, and after it died, I summoned my third bear for the battle and set about absorbing the mana of the dead.
I was meditating, the last battles were constantly repeating themselves in my head and I was learning from my mistakes. As said earlier, the demons were as strong as the average human on Earth, meaning that any capable martial artist, or seasoned ancient warrior, could easily handle one, two or even three of them. My bears though, were having difficulties. And maybe my tactics were lacking. “Maybe I should try sending my imp first to lure them with fireballs and then make some kind of traps and ambushes? Or try to keep my bear hidden and ready, and then try to use some sort of attack and running tactics with my crossbow and magic?...What will a seasoned litrpg reader do in my situation?”