'Girls, get yourself together! Come here!' I messaged my bodyguards.
They perked up immediately. Whatever illusions were in their mind, at least they still recognized their dad.
Meanwhile, I hovered in the air near groaning Tamsha. As I tried to catch something from his thoughts, the man sat up, muttering something that *definitely* sounded like curses.
The chitin on his face was torn badly. Half of a plate was torn off his cheek, and there were gashes in other places. Blood poured all out—rivers of it! But his eyes were both whole and clear.
He looked around, said something, swore again, and thought clearly enough for me to catch.
'What… What is going on?! You, you damned—liars, sorcerers, ugh! Accursed visions and demons…'
Yeah, Tamsha was going through some *bad* stuff with these pheromones.
At least, as far as our limited experiments suggested, the pheromones affected creatures for a different amount of time, depending on their size. A bee would be affected for around 8 hours, but a human should be fine in a dozen minutes.
The dragons will probably be affected for half an hour, or for twice as much if I'm lucky.
I pointed a hand and Tamsha and messaged sternly.
'Don't think about what you see, Tamsha ma Hamatsk. This is just some special sorcery I was saving for a tense moment one. It caught you with its edge, but you will be fine in a few moments. Better hide somewhere before you lose your face for sure!'
After all, the fight was still going on around us. But with three more dragons being dead or incapacitated, Malevolence's forces had a much easier time fighting off the rest.
'Father, are those… Pheromones? I see… Giant bees,' Destroyer messaged me. Her face was almost pained.
I flew closer and reached out to give her a half-hug. It was the most I could do in such a short time… But she was some of my closest daughters, in a way.
Other bodyguards usually worked in shifts—I had around 30 of them in total, and they changed with each generation of more upgraded bees—but Destroyer took upon herself to be my shadow. Even if I asked her to take breaks for her health… Well, being workaholics was in bees' blood.
Destroyer protected me as much as she could, even though a personal morphotype made me into a powerhouse more dangerous than any Beemarine could be.
'Just focus on me, Destroyer. We've almost won here… And then you and the rest will sleep it off.'
She nodded and returned a usual stoic expression to her face.
'Of course, Father. This… this was just a moment of weakness, but I'm past it.'
I nodded and turned to the rest of my bodyguards.
'Come on. This battle is almost over! Focus only on me and don't think about anything else.'
'This is what we always do, Father! No, we also think about threats to you… but mostly you, Father!'
I chuckled and turned away from them.
It was time to fly and sting!
The two hypnotized dragons were still too confused by the fight and the hypnosis to even fly away.
I dashed toward them, and they didn't even look at me when I approached. Their thoughts were just a jumbled mess where I couldn't distinguish a single word.
As I got close enough to hear these thoughts, I also got close enough to shoot the dragons dead with my stinger. When the beasts weren't moving, their eyes the size of houses made excellent targets.
The two dragons died within a single minute. Tamsha stepped away and leaned on a pillar mountain.
Another dragon stopped swooping at a Tamsha's servant to try to get Tamsha himself, but this just let a group of Beemarines to pounce on it from behind.
I joined the fight, too, dashing at the nearest hostile dragon. Now I didn't need to use the hawkmoth pheromones again, because with extra bees to help and distract the dragon, my stinger was more than enough!
The tide of battle changed, and soon…
"They flee! The cowards!" Malevolence shouted, raising her hammer. "The victory is ours, sisters!"
The last surviving dragons were flying away from the fight—too bad we couldn't chase them. But they, too, dared only to give us their last vengeful screeches from the distance before flying too far to see.
Six dead dragons were left lying on the ground. The humans were all wounded to various extent, although Tamsha got it the worst.
The bees were all alive, too. Many got bruises, but those healed quickly on Beemarines. A dozen got broken bones, but other soldiers already tended to them, making splints from spare wood and putting on bandages.
My bodyguards cheered up when there were no dragons in the vicinity, too.
But I couldn't feel fully happy yet.
'Malevolence, help everybody out and watch out for more attacks. The fight has scared off everything from the area and the wind has blasted away insects, but they will return quickly. I will check on our humans.'
Since we didn't have a proper Physician, especially one who specialized in humans, I was the one most versed in human medicine here!
I flew to Tamsha, who was gingerly touching his wounded cheek with a bloodied hook-finger.
'Stop touching yourself with dirty hands!' I chided him. 'Put on some bandages, Tamsha, before you lose too much blood. Have your servants do it, if *you* can't.'
The man jolted, looking at me, then at his servants. These two men already approached Tamsha, saying something—I guessed they wanted to help him themselves, although they had untreated wounds, too.
'But the sorcery!' Tamsha protested. 'The things—I still—they are still… Winged humans! Abominations…'
I sighed and flew to his nearest servant and caught some of his thoughts.
'What is going on with Master Tamsha? He's saying strange things…'
'Ignore that, oh mortal. Help your master's body and you will help his soul!'