I followed Art to our position at the back of the group. Talking out my bow, I looked at our adversaries.

The Gnolls were… Hideous. Their skin was full of matted-long fur, and an elongated snout occupied their faces. The snout, full of sharp yellow teeth, was turned into a sneer as if they were mocking us. They also were tall, as tall as Black Eye, and built like Hugo, with big muscles that showed under their thick hide. They wore torn leather armor and held a small wooden shield and a long wooden spear.

The attacking Gnolls were about a dozen. But our saving grace was that they were disorganized. They even pushed each other as they ran to kill us.

Fear started to take hold of my heart. I almost dropped my bow but managed to keep a weak hold. ‘At the first sight of our group crumbling, I’m going to get the hell out of here,’ I thought.

The madman Hugo didn’t leave his position as the group’s defender. His ability “Phantom Muscles” turned his skin into muscles. Sevaris also stayed put. He was shoulder-to-shoulder with Hugo, not allowing any space to be in between them. They both had their shields in front of them when…

WHOOSH

An arrow shot through the air into the eye of a Gnoll. The Gnoll’s body continued running for a second before registering the attack and falling to the ground. Immediately another arrow came, but this time accompanied by a spear. The arrow and the spear were directed at a single Gnoll, who put its shield in front of itself for protection. Unfortunately for the Gnoll, both the arrow and the spear changed direction in midair and hit it, giving it lethal wounds.

I was starting to get confident as the numbers were evening out when…

“BEHIND YOU!!!” Neymar shouted.

I turned to see the worst thing imaginable.

‘They are surrounding us!’

There were three Gnolls behind us. They were charging me, Art, and Naya. Naya managed to shoot one of the charging Gnolls before she dropped her bow and took a spear out. Unfortunately, the shot was done hastily as it wasn’t lethal. Art too had his spear out, ready to meet the charging gnolls.

One of the Gnolls charged me as I fumbled to get the spear that Art had given me from the ground.

“Hehehe,” I heard a wicked laughter.

‘God dammit, even the Gnolls are laughing at me. I better get my shit together if I don’t want to die.’

Thankfully I managed to hold my spear and aimed it at the charging gnoll. The spear tip was a bit wobbly because of my shaking hands, but it had to do.

A few seconds later, the gnoll reached me. Its reach with the spear was longer but I had a trick up my sleeve. As the gnoll shot his spear at my heart, I didn’t avoid it. The spear tip tore through my chest and came out the back. The gnoll expected me to drop my spear after getting my heart skewered but was surprised to find itself impaled on my spear instead. After getting impaled the gnoll’s momentum wasn’t assaulted, so it hit me like a racing horse. We both fell to the ground rolling a few times until we came to a halt.

Unfortunately for me, the monster was on top of me at the end of the roll. It was disoriented but managed to recover faster than me. I was in a state of shock by the hit and only got my head back in the fight when the gnoll bit into my neck. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t as my neck had transformed.

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

I squirmed around for my sword as the gnoll was chewing into my neck, but I didn’t find it in its sheath. ‘It must have fallen from its place when I was rolling!’

When I started to feel a huge mana drain, I panicked. My ability was trying to save my life, but it wouldn’t last long.

‘I need to find my sword, now!’

At that moment I saw my sword, but not through my eyes…

‘What the hell is this?’

I saw it through a sphere of perception the size of a toddler. The sphere, oddly enough, was outside my field of vision but still allowed me to perceive everything within its confines including the sword. Also, I got an intuition about the sphere’s location in prospect to myself.

‘Lower left!’ My intuition was pointing me in that direction.

I extended my leg to the left and using my foot I managed to draw the sword closer to me. But as I was about to reach with my hand and hold the sword, I felt that my mana was on the brink of bottoming out.

‘I have to end my transformation or I might lose consciousness!’

I punched the gnoll in the face. The beast was surprised as it thought I was in my death throws and couldn’t muster enough strength to oppose it. Then, I shoved my forearm up its mouth before it could bite my neck again. Finally, with all my will I put all my thought into a single wish, ‘End this goddamn transformation.’

“AHhhhhhhh.”

I shouted as pain flooded me. Pain that was turned off as my ability was working. My right hand was getting grounded inside the beast’s strong jaw. I ignored the pain and with my other hand reached for my sword. Thankfully the sword was small or I might have not been able to leverage it in this awkward position.

My sword entered the neck of the gnoll as it was jerking its head left and right with my hand in its snout.

Whimper

The gnoll started to whimper like a dog. The sword, still held in my hand, sled out of the wound as the gnoll got off me. Blood started gushing out fiercely, showering me.

‘It seems I hit something important.’

I tried standing up but fell to my knees. Assessing the situation, the gnoll was lying on the ground with a pool of blood under it. It still had my spear sticking through its abdomen. The spear wound was life-threatening on its own, and even without the sword wound the gnoll wasn’t going to come out of this alive. It was still kicking in its death throws but it won't be long til it died. I took a look at my hand and…

‘I’m going to die of blood loss if I don’t treat this quickly!’

My hand was like a chewed piece of bread that was spat out and then chewed again. I didn’t know how to stop the bleeding so I looked at the group for help.

Naya and Art were still fighting their Gnolls so they couldn’t help me, and when I looked at the main group, I was... shocked. The party was fighting a huge gnoll the size of two bulls. The huge gnoll was bleeding from many wounds and had many dark marks on its body. All around it were the bodies of more than a dozen dead Gnolls.

The big gnoll was trying to escape an encirclement of the melee fighters, when a blue fireball tore through the air and hit it on the chest, leaving black marks. I looked at the source of the fireball to find it was the Count. After the big gnoll got hit, it tried to charge the Count but was met by Hugo’s shield. I was surprised that Hugo didn’t manage to stop the monster’s charge. He only diverted the behemoth to his right where Sevaris stood at the ready.

Sevaris crouched low and then jumped. Bashing his shield into the monster's head. Before he jumped, I glimpsed green rings forming at his ankles. ‘Is that an ability?’ I thought to myself. The behemoth got dizzy after the hit, which made the other melee fighters close in on it to take a few swings with their swords. The swords left shallow wounds on its skin, even Neymar’s sharp claws couldn’t penetrate the hide. Only Black Eye’s weird sword made the monster spill blood.

‘What should I do? The party can’t help me they are busy with the fight,’ I thought, scared that I might die before help arrived. But at that moment the dungeon’s voice appeared in my head.

-1 liter of Lio has been rewarded to Haitham for: Gnoll elimination.

Lio counter: 1 liter.

"What the hell is this? Am I hallucinating because of blood loss? I’ll ask Art later." And speaking of Art, I saw him running to me.

“We need to get you a potion fast!” Art said with a worried expression.

Art laid me on my back saying, "Don't worry I'll be back in a heartbeat." Then he immediately set off running. I was starting to get dizzy and unfocused.

‘Am I going to die?’ I thought, doubt filling my heart.

‘I don’t want to die!’ I thought, trying to reject reality.

Tears started forming in my eyes, ‘I want to live!’ I thought, scared.

But what I wanted didn’t matter, that was how life worked.

My vision started to darken and my body felt cold. My thoughts were fading into nothingness.

‘Anyone, save me! God, save me!’ was my last thought before all lights went out...