Before Dominic could do more than blink, he was already flying up into the air involuntarily, his front right quarter and several ribs screaming in pain.

  Automatically extending his wings to catch the air underneath them, Dominic growled in pain as his ribs felt like they were on fire at strain of the motion. But at least it slowed his descent and gave him a bit of breathing room. And he needed it – the abrupt impact and toss into the air had rattled his brain enough that his thinking was muddled and his brain struggled to catch up.

  The ulla had evidently charged from a stand-still, leaped over the pit, and slammed straight into Dominic. Somehow not hitting any other members of his Pride on its route through, the bison-like beast had continued to charge long enough to move the leader’s battle off to the side of the Pride and into an open space. That was a relief, at least – Dominic didn’t know how the System would take incidental attacks. If it judged them as interference….

  Now, with Dominic still gliding in the air, he could see that a fight had already broken out between Nyx and the ulla – Dominic’s ally had wasted no time in following the two of them to the new space. The massive female ameshek was moving out of the way of those sharp horns with surprising grace. However, the ulla was also surprisingly quick and agile, able to whirl around on a penny. But even when one of his blows took Nyx by surprise, her armoured outer layer deflected the attack. Clearly, she was well able to take care of herself.

  Their other opponents were only now catching up with the action already happening, very much like Dominic himself. The trodil and the wild dog were quickly running in, their gaze warily fixed on the sky. The cockroach-like harash was much slower, but trundled in the same direction too.

  Dominic grit his teeth and forced his wings to beat, flying towards the approaching leaders. If he could take one of them out before they even got in the fight…. But his ribs were killing him and he could only fly maddeningly slowly – he had never thought that injuring his ribs would hurt this much. His regeneration was slowly taking care of them, but in the meantime it was unpleasant. Maybe it was because he was trying to fly with them like this that was making it even worse. Hopefully it won’t mean they’ll heal wrong, he worried. If they were just cracked, it would probably be fine. If they were actually fully fractured….

  No time to worry about that now.

  Getting into range of the wild dog and trodil, Dominic filled his mouth with acid and spat it at one canine and then the other. To his frustration, both shots missed – one because his aim was poor, the other because the trodil leaped out of the way in time.

  He tried it a second time, but soon had to give it up as a bad job – the canines had made it to the fight and were harrying his ally. Dominic shot a final acid ball at the slower harash, only to be disappointed again – that time it landed, but just slid off the carapace of the odd-looking creature without causing any notable damage. Damn.

  ‘Can you keep the ulla occupied while I deal with the other three?’ Dominic checked with Nyx.

  ‘For now,’ she grunted in return a moment before a complex movement of the ulla’s horns which threatened to gouge the side of her neck and then twisted to rip at her stomach with the other tip caught under her armored plating and ripped off a small piece.

  Dominic, fearing that his distraction had prevented her from dodging properly, sent her a wordless acknowledgement and then dived down, his eyes fixed on the two canines who were attempting to circle Nyx to strike at her back legs while she was occupied with the ulla at her front.

  His mouth full of burning acid, Dominic spat another load at the trodil while he dived at the wild dog with his paws outstretched, claws bared. Unfortunately, both targets dodged out of the way at the last moment. His claws buried themselves into the ground instead of the canine.

  A moment later, the trodil leaped at him and bit at his flank – its speed was impressive; its teeth sharp. At least its bite didn’t seem to be enhanced in any way – only a small sliver was ripped out of his health bar as a result. The same couldn’t be said of the wild dog’s attack – when Dominic felt those teeth, a red blood drop appeared over his health bar and it began warring with his regeneration, his health dropping and then rising with every second that passed. At least his ribs were feeling better by now.

  Unabashed, Dominic whipped around in a Tail Strike – even if he didn’t have his tail mace at the moment, his tail alone would still do quite a bit of damage.

  Yelps met his ears as his thin tail whipped his attackers. He had to keep a snarl to himself too – that hurt. Fortunately, it had the effect he had wanted as his Spatial Awareness told him the two canines were backing off for a moment.

  In that moment of respite, Dominic darted a look at Nyx, concerned about how her battle might be going. Nyx was managing to hold her ground though she wasn’t exactly dominating the fight: both she and her opponent were bleeding, blows apparently having made it through on both sides.

  Abruptly, Spatial Awareness registered a warning just a moment before a ripping pain on his back paw grabbed his attention. Twisting around, Dominic saw that it had been the harash: the small creature was pressed to the ground, almost indistinguishable from the rocks around. This close, he could see that it was more turtle-like than a cockroach despite the appearance from afar and its antennae. Its blood-covered bony beak, however, was clearly not to be ignored.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Feeling the trodil and wild dog coming in again for their own attacks, Dominic decided to change the battleground – he leaped up into the air again, spreading his wings at the zenith and firing off more acid balls at the leaders to keep their attention on him.

  They couldn’t strike him in return, but the two canines at least were still forced to pay attention to him while acid was flying through the air. It gave him enough breathing space to check on how things were going with the Pride.

  They were currently embroiled in a fight with the army of beasts. They had pulled together and were using the defences that the elves had created prior to the fight; the only reason they weren’t currently being overrun by the army of beasts. For now, the Pride was coping fine, Sekhmet and Isis directing everyone like seasoned generals.

  Dominic was relieved that the elves were managing not to interfere – another concern he’d had even though he’d warned them not to. He could see that it was a strain, though – their hands were clenched tightly around their raised weapons, their skin pale versions of whatever their normal shades were. They were clearly ready to fight anything that broke through the Pride’s line of defence, but they weren’t offering more help than that – just as he had asked them to do.

  But that wasn’t going to last for long. Already, Dominic could see groups of harash using their sharp beaks to cut the hedges away at their roots, making their way through the bushes. Once there was an easy way around the Pride members, they’d be surrounded unless Sekhmet and the Isis were able to direct enough Pride members to counteract the move. Or Dominic managed to remove some beasts from the equation.

  He suddenly realised that his short moment to take stock of the situation had turned into far too long – he needed to end this Challenge fast. That was the only way he could help his Pride. He needed to get his head in the game – he’d been caught on the back foot and had been fighting half-stupid ever since.

  He needed to get back into the fight and he needed to actually work with his ally. But maybe there was something he could do to help everyone first.

  Opening his mouth, Dominic Roared loudly, doing his best to fill his allies with hope and strength, and his enemies with fear. Hopefully the fact that the Challenge included both, leaders and followers, would allow him to impact his Pride’s battle too.

  In reaction, he saw several members of his Pride straighten, their health bars gaining the ‘inspired’ icon. Fortunately, Nyx and Sekhmet were both beneficiaries of it. At the same time, his Roar sent several of his enemies into disarray, some of the weaker ones even turning to flee.

  In his own battle, the trodil and wild dog momentarily cowered low to the ground, the fear clearly affecting them too. Dominic had a sudden wave of inspiration which told him exactly what they needed to do.

  ‘Nyx, new plan!’ he ordered, sending his ally a wordless impression of his idea.

  Without hesitation, the massive ameshek rounded on the three smaller leaders, trusting that Dominic would have her back.

  And that he did. Diving from the sky with Airborne speeding his descent instead of helping him to remain in the air, Dominic fell onto the ulla like a ton of bricks. If those bricks had sharp claws and teeth.

  The large bison-lookalike tried to dodge out of the way, but unlike the smaller wild dog who had succeeded, the bison was just too big and taken by surprise at the change in opponent to fully avoid Dominic’s strike. Nonetheless, it was big and tough enough to not take much damage even with Dominic employing all of his boosts. The fact that his attack ended up ripping a gash down the ulla’s flank rather than landing squarely on its spine probably didn’t help either.

  Landing neatly on his feet, Dominic dodged back from the ulla’s responding strike, and then the next. Though he couldn’t spare anything but the slightest attention for the rest of the fight, he was well aware of the vibrating thrum of Nyx’ Sonic Attack – the main reason for choosing to switch.

  Clearly she hadn’t been able to get a moment to focus on her Ability while dodging the goring blows of the ulla, but now, facing weaker foes, even if they were more numerous, she had the opportunity to do so.

  But Dominic had his own fight to focus on. Feeling a bit like a matador, Dominic started using his wings almost as a red cape, distracting the ulla and diverting its attention away from his body. Using Spatial Awareness, the lion was always aware of exactly where his opponent was, especially its horns, allowing him to dodge the ulla’s strikes and attempts to bash or gouge him with fluidity.

  Of course, dodging wasn’t enough to win this – he suspected that the ulla had more stamina than he did, even with Enhanced Stamina working on his behalf. But the wing movements weren’t just to distract the ulla.

  Bit by bit, the ulla’s surges forwards and goring strikes slowed as the beast fell under his spell. When the ulla almost tripped over its own hooves, Dominic would have smiled were he capable.

  ‘Attack the ulla!’ he ordered Nyx. She whirled around and opened her jaws, letting free her vibrating howl which immediately pierced the hypnotic state Dominic had put it in, but also pinned it in place just as firmly. Powerful as the ulla might be, it was almost certainly a much lower level than Nyx; even alone, her howl started tearing at its health bar.

  Immunity preventing his ally’s attack from hurting him, Dominic took full advantage of her cover to charge at the ulla directly. Pounding the ground, he triggered Momentous Charge to increase his weight and momentum with every footfall – even if it was only by a little, every bit would help.

  The ulla, completely consumed by Nyx’s attack, was in no fit state to overcome the illusionary effects of Dominic’s Ability and so the lion hit it full force in the front shoulder. Though the impact of more than half a ton of lion striking a solid wall of muscle and bone was painful for Dominic too, the ulla definitely came off worst.

  It was sent flying to the ground on its side, one of its wide-set horns digging deeply into the earth and twisting its head painfully – for a moment Dominic wondered if its neck had been snapped, but the way its hooves continued to scrabble at the ground indicated that it was fine. Dominic, limping slightly from the impact, quickly followed up by setting his teeth into the ulla’s throat, threatening more than actually carrying through.

  He felt the howl which Nyx had kept going throughout all of that finally die away. No doubt she was going back to fighting the three others. A quick communication between them reassured him that the distraction hadn’t cost her too much – even if the other three had managed to attack her hindquarters, they hadn’t got through her armour on her legs and were too short to reach anywhere else.

  ‘Surrender or die!’ he snarled at the ulla, sinking his teeth even more deeply into the herbivore’s throat as it started trying to kick him away. Its stiff legs were unsuited for the motion but were dangerous nonetheless – even wild kicks could connect, and if they did, Dominic didn’t doubt he’d be suffering broken bones. Or worse. ‘I won’t tell you again!’ he warned as the ulla didn’t immediately respond. Blood filled his mouth as he bit deeper and deeper with every moment that passed.

  here!