The travel was slower than Niphru was happy with, sidering that one person was hobbling and another being carried, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. The more w thing was how noisy the group was. While the group of mages he usually spent time with were far from silent, they at least didn’t sound like this.

  He had no doubt that anything in the area capable of hearing knew where they were. And there was only so much that he could pay attention to, so he was almost expeg an ambush. Surprisingly, over an hour passed without i, and he jumped up above the opy with his force magic again. Seeing that they were still heading in the right dire, he desded back to the unfortunate band of warriors.

  The tinued peaceful travel worried him immensely before he reminded himself that maybe the problem was just something he didn’t sider worth his time. He had o spend an abnormal amount of time burning various hazardous pnts, after all. The bumbling fools surely couldn’t hahose, and he was mystified as to how they made it this far into the wildero begin with.

  With how they just stumbled through the vegetation, the bded ferns would have torn their legs up in no time ft with how dehey were. The emberblooms would have burhem and their armor badly. The lightning creepers would likely have dropped them as well.

  At least with his group, they actually paid attention, and he didn’t have to burn a path, merely remove occasional dense areas. He let out a huff as his foxfire ied aangle of vines and shook his head. Unfortunately, he had chosen to try to rescue these idiots before he realized how badly out of their depth they were.

  Oail of that thought, he heard rustling ing from downwind and stopped, turning his attention to it. The humans nearly walked into him before they turo look as well, and a momehe bushes parted to reveal a badger. While it looked normal, his ability to sense mana was screaming at him for the first time in ages.

  The group he was leading did at least have some intelligence as they immediately spread out and treated it as a real threat, but there wasn’t much they could do without good ons. Niphru sidered ign them for a moment before sharing a warning, “This has a huge amount of mana radiating from it; something is wrong!”

  With a growl from the badger, Kira, as well as the person carrying her, were both blown from their feet by a bst of air. The leader of the group stepped between them, her mace raised at the ready. Instead of tinuing towards them, the badger swung its gaze to Niphru even as he sent fire toward its head.

  As it began to burn, the creature thrashed its head about for a moment before it mao leap clear of the foxfire with an incredible burst of speed. Immediately after it nded, Niphru could feel the air being drawn toward it as a rge ball of water densed from the air. The blob of water then lowered to soak the badger, leaving it dripping, with even more water held against its head.

  As his foxfire rapidly moved toward it again, he formed an intense, pressed nce of fire and threw it at the beast. Against his expectations, it seemed to spsh against the fur, instead of burning it or even simply evaporating the water. The wall of force he smmed into it did seem to impact, however, though the badger only swayed to the side slightly before the magic shattered.

  Seeming to decide he wasn’t a threat, the creature turo face Ralph and pounced. Though it was well over a doze between them, it easily crossed the gap, smming into him. As cws raked against armor, its jaws came down towards Ralph’s throat, only stopped by him hastily shoving his hand in the way. Even as more bolts of fme skittered off the badger’s coat, Ralph wailed in agony as the badger’s jaws cmped down, the crackle of bones breaking ringing out.

  A momehe beast shook its head, and gore sprayed across the ground. Seemingly annoyed by the repeated bsts of fire hitting it, it turned back towards Niphru and growled. Having seen what happened before, Niphru did his best to stop the shockwave with his own magic, slowing it down enough to only be forced to take a few steps away.

  With a pahought, Niphru leapt into the air, f both a ptform to nd on, as well as a steeply-angled wall right as the badger lunged for him. The hing he knew, he was lying at the base of a tree, his back pulsing with pain. His as did seem to have saved him from a worse fate, however. The badger side down and fag away from him, a divot in the ground where it had clearly impacted headfirst.

  As Niphru staggered back to his feet, he saw that the humans hadn’t been idle. The woman with the mace had reached the beast and took a double-handed swing at its head, a dull thud eg through the woods as the on bounced off its skull. A man to the side was holding a lightning creeper like a whip, seemingly without a care, and s forward.

  One of the women to the back had picked up a rge log and took a test swing with it before settling it against her shoulder. The man who had tested if his foxfire burned was midway through cutting up a bded fern with his dagger, the leaves scratg his armor as they shook bad forth. At some point, someone had dragged Kira back away from the fighting, and Ralph was crawling away as best as he could, blood trailing from the mess that remained in pce of his hand.

  That quice seemed to be all the time he had free, as the badger finished flipping itself bato its feet. He hadn’t been idle while he was looking around, however, and the rge ball of fire he had been produg flew toward the beast. Unlike before, he held his will around the fme even after he threw it. As it approached its target, Niphru felt like he hit a wall, and the fme split around the badger, though he was able to hold it ih some effort.

  This time, the waterlogged coat of the creature hissed from the fire against it, steam rapidly rising into the air. Niphru quickly pulled the air toward himself, dragging the steam away from the badger in case it might be able to de again. As the beast opes jaws in his dire, he used force magic to shove against the inside of its mouth, causing it to gag and stagger.

  An instant ter, it was fttened by a log smming into it, embedding it into the forest floor, a small spray of water ing out from uhe wood. Right as the log was raised, bded leaves skittered across the creature’s skin, and the man wielding the pnt cursed as he jumped babsp; As the badger pulled itself to its feet and she shog vine snapped against its head, and it whirled to face the one holding it.

  Aware that he had caught its attention, the man threw himself backward to attempt to dodge its lunge and raised an arm. His as bought him a moment as the beast’s jaws closed on his bracer, snapping the bone below like a twig, with one cw catg him across the face as the other sliced into his armor. In this moment, a mace smmed into the badger from below, lifting it into the air, though it didn’t open its jaws, twisting the wound, resulting in a shriek from the man below.

  Niphru shoved his force magic against the badger’s eye even as all of his foxfire mao catch up with it ale around its head again. With a sudden hiss, the creature opes jaws a away, leaving more cw wounds on its former target as it mao outrun the fmes once more, its head slightly singed.

  Since his fmes were already there, Niphru switched his focus to healing and spread them over the man’s wounds, other than his badly broken arm. As he threw another bolt of fire at it, the badger jumped toward him, only to be swatted out of the air by the woman wielding the log, sending it tumbling across the ground.

  With it well out of reach, everyoensed, waiting to see who it would lunge for . Instead, it shook itself before walking bato the damaged foliage with an uned gait. A moment ter, Niphru leapt into the air and watched as the badger slowly wandered away from them.

  “It is actually leaving. I ’t believe that thing,” he shouted to the group as he dropped back to the ground.

  Now that he wasn’t worried about getting away, Ralph rolled over to his bad sat up, keeping his mangled hand away from the ground. The other man groaned as he y there, letting Niphru’s foxfire heal the cuts he had suffered as he twisted his arm back the right way.

  “That was a disaster,” their leader excimed as she put her mace ba her belt.

  “Not that I’m pining or anything, but why did it just leave? It seemed to be winning, much as I hate to say it,” remarked the woman with the log as she tossed it over her shoulder to thud loudly into the ground.

  After gng at the others, Niphru replied, “I’m not sure, but I’ve never seen anything like that. My magic spshed off it. Fire is not supposed to spsh. And it could evade my fmes. That was an absolute monster!”

  As the athered in shocked silence, he tried to focus himself on the wounded, gng over at the mess left on the forest floor from the atta Ralph. There was no way he could even try to fix that, but he could at least seal the cw wounds oher man.

  Shaking his head, he told Ralph, “I ’t fix it this time, all I do is stop the bleeding. Maybe one of the people that I came with , though, I’m not sure.”

  The man simply sat there staring in shock at what was left of his hand. One of the others looked arouied one of their pouches, and began to collect the pieces that had been torn off, looking somewhat nauseous.

  As one of the wounds on the man he was w on reached a point he felt was safe, Niphru sent one of his fmes to Ralph’s hand. He couldn’t hope to fix it, but he could at least stop the bleeding.

  Silence fell over the group as they sidered what they had just been through.