The trolls twitched and jerked, slowly getting back up. The imploded one’s chest kept inflating like a grotesque bellows, its breaths accompanied by wet crackles as bone and cartilage reassembled. The charred one’s blackened shell split, as glistening muscle pushed through the carbonized crust. The two half-trapped in Lina’s clay writhed and bulged, the earth around their limbs swelling as their regenerating bodies tried to grow around the restraints.

  And from the east, behind a low rise, the second group arrived.

  Their emotional signatures were clearer than Nick expected. Focused, and not just hungry, which was a bad sign, since trolls were supposed to be among the dumbest creatures.

  This weird mutation must be caused by the dungeon. The ones in the grassland didn’t regenerate this quickly. It’s more like the Moss Oni, though that one was more powerful on its own.

  “The second wave is here,” Nick warned, pointing to the approaching monsters.

  “Lina, hold onto what you have. Joran, finish burning that one. Mikel, you’re on the new group. Willow, keep the shields raised. We don’t want any surprises," Raphael ordered.

  He didn’t step in, even though he could have taken out the monsters himself.

  Nick was already moving, unwilling to give the enemy any more advantage. [Jet Stream] came as naturally as breathing. Thin, invisible lances of howling wind coiled, ready to cut through tendons and joints and relieve the monsters of their limbs.

  Raphael’s hand closed on his wrist. “They can do it,” he said, never taking his eyes off the charging trolls.

  Nick stared. “They obviously can’t, the rate of regeneration alone—”

  “They. Can. Do it,” Raphael repeated, and there was steel under the words.

  For a moment, Nick considered yanking his hand away and attacking anyway, as every instinct in him screamed that this was the moment things would go wrong.

  Then he looked at Lina’s stubborn set jaw, Joran’s narrowed eyes, the tense line of Mikel’s shoulders. Willow’s hands were already moving, sketching a ward in the air, her face pale but determined.

  You’re not the only one who needs field experience, idiot.

  Nick exhaled through his nose. The [Jet Streams] unraveled at his command, and their mana dispersed back into his channels with a faint tingle.

  “If one of them actually gets a blow in, I’m telling Tholm it was your idea,” he muttered, stepping back. The adventurers shuffled nervously, clearly unused to being forced to stay put as an enemy approached, but they had the good sense not to interfere.

  Monte stood by him, watching the trolls with a grim look. “If this is what’s out here,” he said quietly, “on the outskirts, not even under the dungeon’s direct effect yet…”

  He let the thought trail off, but he didn’t need to finish it for Nick to understand.

  “Inside will be worse,” Nick confirmed. "Much worse.”

  Monte’s mouth tightened. “And if Tholm hadn’t come?” he asked. “If it had just been us locals trying to hold the line? What would have happened to our lands, our people?”

  Nick didn’t answer. They both knew.

  House Hone would have been the only one with a powerhouse’s backing and the will to commit the necessary force. They would have heroically pushed back, sacrificed men, and accepted the grateful submission of everyone within reach.

  On the field, the trolls surged, uncaring of the political implications.

  Lina growled and slammed both palms into the ground, causing the clay around the trapped trolls to thicken, with dark veins of denser earth weaving through it as she pushed more mana into the matrix. The trolls struggled, muscles bulging grotesquely, but for now, she kept them at bay.

  Joran flicked three more beads of green fire toward his troll in quick succession. They struck the slick new muscle as it grew, searing and flaring to life. Green fire blossomed again, this time burrowing deeper and stubbornly clinging to anything trying to regenerate.

  The troll shrieked, voice cracking, and collapsed, rolling in the mud as its own regrowth fed the flames.

  “Stay down,” Joran hissed through his teeth, fingers trembling.

  Mikel stepped toward the new arrivals, his bracer glowing. His mana surged, causing the air beneath the lead eastern troll’s knees to twist as space itself crumpled. The terrible sound echoed again, and both of its legs collapsed at once, the femurs snapping inward like dry twigs. The troll pitched forward, its own momentum turning into an awkward tumble.

  “Willow!” Raphael called as the last troll reached them.

  “Already on it,” she gritted.

  Her earlier ward thickened into a dome as the troll slammed into it, its club bouncing off an invisible barrier with bone-jarring force, finding no purchase.

  “Supports!” Malik yelled, but he held his ground.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The troll at the shield’s edge snarled, claws scrabbling at nothing, searching for a crack.

  Lina, sweat streaming down her forehead, shouted a wordless curse and jerked one hand upward. The clay binding her original two trolls surged higher, bulging into columns that engulfed them from the waist down.

  “Damn it, die,” she growled.

  The trolls tried to defy her, but with their lower bodies encased in rapidly hardening earth, they weren’t going anywhere quickly. One managed to wrench a foot partially free, but at the cost of tearing most of its own flesh off. It roared, then immediately began regrowing the missing meat.

  “You’re disgusting,” Lina informed it.

  The still-regrowing imploded troll, half-risen, lunged.

  Mikel swore and twisted his wrist, redirecting some of the bracer’s accumulated charge. The air above the troll’s head clenched inward, smashing it back down. The creature’s skull flattened, then began to pop back out again almost immediately.

  “They are so damn persistent,” Mikel muttered, breath coming faster.

  The troll hammering at Willow’s shield found a rhythm. Each impact sent a visible ripple through the ward, and Willow’s fingers shook as she held the sigils steady.

  She could probably hold for longer, but it was clear the situation was getting out of hand.

  Bronze bands on the three apprentices’ forearms flared.

  Nick straightened. He’d noticed the simple-looking bracelets of dull metal around each apprentice’s wrist earlier, but he’d assumed they were more experimental artifacts that had yet to be finished, since they didn’t feel overtly magical.

  He should have known better.

  Runes that had been previously invisible flickered into gentle, earthy gold, which seeped into the ground below.

  The soil shuddered.

  “Tholm,” Nick whispered, as he sensed the annoyingly subtle Archmage’s signature in the magic’s weave.

  The ground in front of the shield bucked like a living creature. Thick, gnarled roots burst from the earth, slamming into the troll at the barrier’s edge, and the one that had been imploded behind it, wrapping around torsos, arms, and legs. The bark hardened, and its thorns sank deep, making the trolls roar and struggle, but their claws skittered off the enchanted wood, leaving only shallow gouges that healed in seconds.

  More roots burst up around the partially standing, burned troll, pinning it in place.

  Every apprentice’s bronze band was glowing now, channeling mana into the network of living restraints.

  Nick studied the roots’ nature as they dug in and was surprised to find it very similar to [Vitality Drain]. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can steal skills.

  They drank deeply of the trolls’ mana, siphoning the thick, regenerative power that tried to knit flesh and bone, until the trolls’ auras began to thin. Their regeneration faltered, then slowed to a crawl.

  “Now!” Raphael barked.

  Joran threw more beads, this time targeting only soft tissue. The green fire that erupted burned more fiercely, hungrier now that it didn’t have to fight constant regrowth.

  Mikel caused another series of implosions, and bones cracked, flesh tore apart without any hope of saving.

  Lina pulled her clay prisons tight, compressing trapped limbs until they snapped like twigs inside a vice. Where the meat tried to sludge back together, roots were already there, drinking it.

  The battle was over, but Nick could sense the apprentices’ frustration before seeing it on their faces. The experience must not have been that good. Since they only won thanks to Tholm’s artifacts, it makes sense.

  The bronze bands on the apprentices’ arms cooled, their glow dimming. For a few seconds, no one spoke. The only sounds were heavy breathing and the faint crackle of dying green fire.

  Then Lina let out a long, heartfelt groan. “Oh, come on,” she complained. “We could have done it.”

  Joran flopped onto a nearby rock, chest heaving. “We definitely had it,” he agreed, then immediately grimaced. “Mostly. Probably. Eventually.”

  Mikel stared at his band, expression sour. “We barely got half the experience we should have,” he said quietly.

  Raphael rolled his shoulders, trying to hide the tension there. He hadn’t been exactly rebuked, but his call to let the others handle it was now in question. He turned to Nick, hiding his discomfort to explain, “It’s the gift he gives all of us when we pass his first-year exam,” he said. “A little insurance if we’re ever out in the field without him.”

  Nick deliberately lifted his bare forearm, choosing to give the older apprentice an easy way out for once.

  Raphael smirked. “You don’t have one because you’re still too young. Besides…” His gaze flicked to the Shard hovering at Nick’s shoulder. “You brought your own overpowered artifact.”

  “That’s fair,” Nick admitted, feeling a bit smug. He bent over one of the dead trolls, poking its ruined jaw with the tip of his boot. The tusks faintly shimmered beneath the blood and grime, thick and ivory-white.

  “At least we get trophies,” he said. “Troll tusks are worth something, especially from dungeon-adjacent variants. They might even be useful for forging weapons.”

  Malik, already pulling out a knife, grinned. “Now you’re speaking my language.”

  They set to work. Tusks were carefully pried loose, cleaned as thoroughly as possible, and placed into spatial rings—much to the adventurers and local noble scions’ surprise. Any bones that appeared unusually dense or oddly colored were kept aside as potential materials for crafting. The remaining flesh, skin, and organs were gathered together and then set on fire.

  The pyre burned intensely with a thick, greasy smoke rising into the clear sky.

  Raphael watched it for a second, then looked away. “Let’s go, we’ve delayed enough.”

  No one argued. They retreated into formation, quieter and more contemplative, as the adrenaline of the fight faded, leaving a sense of exhausted satisfaction and growing determination.

  The sun rose higher. Heat spread across the savannah in a shimmering haze, and after a few hours, the first hamlet came into view. From afar, it looked completely normal.

  It was a cluster of small houses surrounded by fields, with fences dividing plots where legumes climbed makeshift trellises. A few larger buildings, probably barns or shared storage structures, were closer to the center. People moved slowly among the rows, bent over, tending the plants.

  Raphael slowed them on the last low hill.

  “This is the northernmost settlement on the list,” Willow said softly, consulting her notes. “They were supposed to be on the edge of the dungeon’s old boundary, before the Tower Master’s purge.”

  “Meaning they should have had warnings,” Monte added, eyes narrowing. “And time to evacuate.”

  “And yet,” Malik said, “there they are, planting beans.”

  “Something feels off,” Yvonne muttered.

  Nick agreed and decided to see if that gut feeling was right, and let [Empyrean Intuition] unfold. At a glance, he observed about a hundred souls in motion, mostly men and women, with a dozen children. They worked, hauling water, checking plants, and carrying baskets, but their signatures did not resemble those of humans.

  Lycanthropy had a taste he recognized all too well now. It was a wild, metallic tang, like iron and cold moonlight, and the sound of a distant howl. It wrapped around souls in jagged loops, sinking hooks into flesh.

  Here, that pattern affected everyone. Some bore faint, fresh imprints that still half-resisted, mostly the children. Others had thick, settled ones, with the curse woven so tightly that it was hard to tell where the person ended, and the monster began. A few, clustered around what had to be the hamlet’s center, burned brighter and stronger, probably the pack’s most powerful members.

  None of them had transformed, but that didn’t mean a good chunk of them couldn’t.

  Nick’s awareness brushed against the edges of the hamlet and dipped into the ground. The ghosts of cattle lingered there, carrying the memories of hooves and warm bodies in pens, but they were all gone.

  Recently devoured, at that. The echo of that feeding rested in the soil like a greasy stain, sour and dense.

  If they were regular humans, they would never have slaughtered everything at once, but a full moon had just occurred, and newly turned werewolves were unlikely to be able to control themselves.

  Nick drew a slow breath and shaped a whisper of wind. “Raphael,” he murmured, sending the words to his senior’s side. “They’re all lycanthropes. This is a pack.”

  Raphael stiffened almost imperceptibly, eyes never leaving the scene below.

  “All of them?” came the quiet answer, the wind carrying it back.

  “Yes,” Nick replied grimly.

  He pushed the wind to Monte, Malik, Yvonne, Willow, and the other apprentices, one after another. Each jerked slightly as the silent words brushed their ears, then schooled their expressions.

  “Keep acting like nothing’s wrong,” Nick added, “Don’t spook them. But be ready. When this goes bad, it’s going to be an all-out fight.”

  Their scent had already been caught, so there’d be no running away.

  He casually let his hand drift toward the Shard on his back. “All right,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Let’s see what kind of welcome the neighbors give.”

  45+ chapters: