I felt my body tensing up as I started sweating from worry and anticipation that began to deepen in my mind, and my heart started throbbing strongly, reflecting my emotions.

I attempted to put the best determined expression on my face, yet I felt that said expression was strained. Just because I am a beast now, doesn't mean I had abandoned all reason. Yet here, even then, my reason and knowledge as a former human and my new instincts as a Thorny Alraune both agreed that I have either fight or flight.

The feeling of qi approaching increases, and I can sense that it was nearly five times the amount of mine, and it felt predatory.

No wonder my hair was standing up. My first opponent was something that was far stronger than me, and I had only a day to acclimate to being reborn.

It didn't help that being a plant-beast, I am usually weaker against those on the same level when I am only a Normal-ranked beast.

I need to grow stronger if I survive this, for sure.

The beast moving towards me had finally appeared. With a growling, drooling mouth and slitted eyes, it appeared, and my heart seemed to increase its speed as I immediately noticed this creature if only by my instincts and its appearance alone.

A Normal-ranked Level 4 Black Wolf. It was rather intimidating, if I was honest, though how much of that was due to my instincts is up to debate. I looked at its black fur and large fangs, and the tail that I am sure can pack enough power to break tree branches.

'Hey, hey. This is so unfair! Why do I have to fight something that is more than twice my level right away!?' I cursed inwardly, trying to calm myself as my body shivered, my qi surging to defend me as well as possible.

The wolf seemed to look at me with hunger, and a part of me wondered if I can try to stop it by using my nectar as bait.

Yet I didn't have enough time to see if that was possible as it crouched, and I felt its bloodlust in the air. I have no more time to think.

'Here it comes!'

The Black Wolf pounced in the air with a speed I barely could track, throwing itself towards my chest, no doubt planning to bite my chest off my body along with the nectar on it.

Thankfully it had attacked my upper body, since I could -barely- dodge by moving myself to the left. Even then, its claws had given me a scrach on my abdomen.

"Aahhh! It burns!" The injury really did! It felt so horrible! My blood, green and vibrant, spilled with the smallest of amounts, though thankfully the nectar still on my body was already healing the wound.

And yet, even then, my body still counterattacked.

The Black Wolf had by now reached the ground, its claws holding the small quantity of blood I had, mixed with my sweet nectar. I had no time to wonder if it would lick its arm to show superiority, or if it would just keep attacking me first.

Instead, five of my oversized leaves, already pointing towards it and coated in qi, separated from my body, guided by my will and instinct, rapidly flying through the air towards it.

Growling with fury, qi seemed to enemate from its body as it leapt to the air and backflipping, avoiding one of the leaves, its claws sharp enough to just rip to shred another leaf. Its mouth bit the third one and the tail managed to rebuff the fourth.

The fifth leaf though managed to barely graze its neck, though it isn't enough to count as truly helpful.

"How troublesome!" Annoyance mixed with adrenaline, or my new body's equivalent thereof, and I found myself retreating as best as I could, though it was only enough to allow me to increase the distance with a couple of meters at most before it had reached the ground once more, and turned around, jumping at me again, this time seemingly moving faster than it did at the start.

'Let me see if you can dodge in the air then!' Another five leaves rose targeting it, and I made sure to put more qi in each of them than before, and they moved faster than I unleashed them a moment ago as they went directly towards its head.

Yet, while this did injure the Black Wolf directly in the mouth, blood spurting as its skin was cut from ear to ear, and a wound on its forehead, that did little to stop its momentum from moving to bite my freaking head!

I couldn't evade it by moving to the left or the right like before. Its arms and claws are too wide for that. I also can't crouch my upper body since even then it could hit me with these claws. Retreating back is also a no, since even if I had enough time to do so, it would just hit my abdomen or even my lower body instead.

Either way, retreating spells my death.

Thus I did none of that. Instead, I used the vines I had to rapidly bind the beast, imbuing them with qi to empower them.

Arms, claws, body, neck and legs. The Black Wolf ended up being bound, just mere few centimeters from having its teeth sunk into my head.

'That was so freaking close!' I thought as the blood leaking from its body hit my face, heart pounding as it howled right into my ears, though it felt strained due to the injuries.

Its eyes looked hatefully at me, and I could almost hear its thoughts, the sheer hate for me for not dying like the prey I was, and how dare I not obey the pecking order.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Its Qi started to rise, not as significally as before due to the injuries it had gotten, yet it was still more than enough to break free from the vines with just brute force.

Good thing that I didn't plan to watch then.

Bam!

I may not know how to fight properly right now, and I am mostly only fighting with instincts and my new supernatural senses along with qi and whatever defense lessons I had watched from my previous life, but I know how to punch something. So, I punched this thing right at the neck with as much power I can muster!

Even if this beast still has easily twice the amount of qi I had at the start of the fight, the power difference isn't so large that a hit in a sensitive and fragile area could be ineffective.

The Black Wolf made a strangled sound as its arms freed themselves, cutting the vines binding them, and blindly slashing at my head and body alike.

Even with leaning my upper body back, I still got marks on my chest.

"Damn you!"

Bam!

I headbutted it with as much force I can give, and I felt rather satisfied to hear something crack inside its head.

Something between a wail and a furious howl echoed, but it felt far weaker since I had just hit its damn neck.

In its desperation, it had managed to free itself from the remaining vines, but not before I attacked it again, giving it a cruel poke in one of its eyes, and pushing it away as he fell to the earth in an indignified manner.

Yet, it still glared at me even as it was shaking, suffering head trauma, and more. No doubt being too used at being a predator, so much that it loathed the mere idea that I might force it to retreat. The level difference between us should have made it imposible for me to even injure it. That's what I understood from its expression.

'Still, this is really bad, isn't it?' I thought grimly. I had managed to severely injure it, but frankly, my energy reserves are quite low. I doubt I will be able to fight for more than another minute at most.

I also am still a lot slower, and its limbs are quite intact. All it would need is a direct and good hit and I am done for.

Time to risk it all then.

A vine of mine had moved, and the beast immediately got alert, at least from what its body language was telling me. But I had no intent to use the vine to attack. Instead, as qi passed through the vine, a honey-like, sweet liquid started to materialize and swell like an oversized water drop, and its smell no doubt enticing and powerful, the vine moving softly right in front of my second and giant mouth.

Yes, I had created my nectar through my vines. One might wonder why I would use a nectar that could heal this enemy, and call me an idiot, and I would agree.

Except...

The wolf decided to just gamble it as well, rushing towards the nectar. It no doubt had decided that even if it didn't get to taste the nectar, it would at least eat my lower half, and thus kill me as well.

Unfortunately for it, a Thorny Alraune like me can also use poisons, and I can also decide to make a nectar that tastes as sweet as my healing one, yet full to the brim with poison.

Of course, since I had done this so quickly and while low on qi, it isn't a great amount of poison, but that's what the second mouth is for.

As the Black Wolf had reached the honey, my second mouth opened, expelling toxic pollen at large quantities. Paralyzing poisons, sedative ones, whatever I had managed to create from the few plants I had eaten yesterday and when I had woken up hours ago, I had thrown at this creature.

It faced the pollen cloud head-on, just a few inches away from biting on my lower body. The remaining vines I had had managed to catch it, just as I had allowed the poisonous nectar to enter its mouth.

I was honestly surprised by what the wolf did next.

I had expected that this beast, having a concussion, multiple wounds, a large depletion in qi reserves, and a brutal damage to its neck and eye, would just bite the vine and go back to attacking me, assuming it hadn't been affected by my pollen right away.

Instead, it had... started to greedily lick on the vine. It didn't even seem to care about the pollen being inhaled at all.

I was genuinely shocked by this action. Was my honey truly that sweet and delicious?

Still, I was only baffled for a few seconds before I decided to use this chance, spewing more pollen through my lower mouth, and poisonous, yet sweet nectar through my vines while I slowly started to increase the presure on the captured limbs.

The Black Wolf did not even bother even as its eyes seemed to have difficulty in staying open, and it was choking every now and then, yet it continued to consume the nectar I so generously gave.

And then it went limp.

Turns out that even as a predator, it still was only a being following only instinct. It may have been smart in the sense of fighting, yet it was unable to restrain itself from consuming what it deemed to be delicious food.

Should I have just given my nectar from the start then? No, I didn't think that would have worked, and I also didn't know for certain if it wanted to eat me along with my nectar before this fight began. I felt that I did the correct choice in fighting.

'Yes, I chose correctly.' I told myself. I would have ended up fighting some beast or a warrior down the line. This fight isn't as safe as I wanted, yet beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

Though, now that the Black Wolf was unmoving, I didn't take any chances, and I immediately unleashed two of the remaining five leaves directly at its neck.

Blood spurted as its head separated from the body. Definitely dead. And no qi can be sensed as far as I can feel, no heartbeat from its chest. Now, the Black Wolf is truly dead.

I might have overdone it, but I must always double-tap when it comes to these things. Last thing I need is for it to suddenly be alive while inside of my second stomach (lower body) then slicing me from the inside.

With that, I finally decided to eat this thing.

My large tongue along with the vines dragged the severed head and corpse into my second mouth as I started to chomp on the hard meat. It would take a while for it to be digested fully, seeing that it was much higher level than me and the amount of energy it had, but this was rather expected.

My body had finally relaxed just slightly, and the feeling of pain from the still healing wounds made itself known to me now that I wasn't being pumped adrenaline in my system.

"Oww..." I whimpered, the feeling of being injured being clearly not a liked one.

I used my roots to take some nutrients from the ground to revitalize myself and qi, and I used that to generate healing nectar from my mouth before gently rubbing it on the areas of damage.

With that, I gave a long sigh.

I had fought my first ever battle, and won! A Normal-ranked Level 1 Thorny Alraune defeating a Normal-ranked Level 4 Black Wolf. That must be one hell of an achievement for me.

There were moments where I could have died, that much is obvious. I am really thankful that my body could react as well as it could, even if it barely managed to do so when the wolf was still healthy. My instincts also helped greatly, since they allowed me to use my body effectively. If any of these two was lacking, I would have been the one being eaten right now.

I took the moment to enjoy my victory, even if I still used my qi to sense what other being might be around, but thankfully, there seemed to be none. I knew that I would have to go back to practicing my Natura Aeterna Nirvana technique as well.

I need to open the remaining 'barriers' in my qi pathways as it would give me more access to qi and boost my amount as well. Plus, it would also probably expel the impurities I might get from digesting the Black Wolf's body! I might even transform into a Bronze-ranked beast if I am lucky!

It's a win for me either way!