《I have Nine Lives》 Chapter 1: Last day on earth 16th September 2021, Japan, in a small village an old woman was slowly walking towards the train station, she wore simple autumn clothes that kept her fragile body away from the cold breeze, she had a surgical mask on her face to protect her from the deadly virus that lasted to this day. It was an unfortunate event that happened one year ago but most people already became used to wearing a mask and using an unholy amount of hand sanitizer to keep the virus away, the death''s from the virus also stabilized and became very rare. The woman was called Tsuru Mazawa and she was on her way to visit one of her friends that lived at the train station, most of the young people moved away from the village due to work, her children did as well, they were one of the early deaths due to the virus. She was heartbroken at first but with the help of her friend she started to move on, she didn''t have much to live for besides this friend and she couldn''t abandon him as she saw him grow up since he was very little. Tsuru walked slowly but this was the fastest speed her old legs could take her, after 20 minutes of walking she finally reached the train station and she called out: "Felix-kun come out, I have brought dried squid!" Out of the train station come out a fat orange tabby cat, he walked with a gait as he meowed towards Tsuru, and he started rubbing his head on her leg in a show of affection, Tsuru crouched down and gave him small pets on the head as she had a small smile on her old wrinkled face. A buzzing sound could be heard from the sky, but Tsuru ignored it until it became too loud to ignore, she looked up and in the sky, there was a gigantic flaming rock of death! It was moving closer and closer to earth to the point that Tsuru could smell the fire, the meteorite hit, and Tsuru hugged the cat Felix closely, a piece of concrete from the station exploded as everything burst up in flames. The cat didn''t get injured at all as Tsuru protected it with her whole body but both of Tsuru''s legs were crushed by the concrete, the Earth started shaking so hard that lava started to spout out of different locations, there was one thing for sure, the planet didn''t have much time left if any at all! Tsuru almost passed out due to the pain from her crushed legs but she looked at the tabby cat in her arms and it meowed sadly as it licked her face, suddenly out of the corner of her eye she spotted a small glowing silver portal, it was very small, she wouldn''t be able to fit even if she cut her legs and entered it but Felix could squeeze through even though he was quite fat. She didn''t know how many seconds could the Earth last, and all she wanted was for her lovely Felix to survive, he was the only family that she had left, she wouldn''t be happy in the afterlife if Felix died with her! With all of her remaining strength, she threw Felix inside the glowing portal and the moment Felix''s tail disappeared from Tsuru''s vision was the moment that the Earth exploded! The explosion engulfed the whole earth, the meteorite hit the core and it was also quite big so it triggered an immediate chain reaction that made the earth explode soonly after. Where Earth stood nothing remained besides some random bits and pieces that turned into ashes soon after. The moon didn''t remain whole after the explosion as three-quarters of it was affected by it as well. Earth was decimated by an asteroid, nothing remained the legacy of humans disappeared from the universe forever... But there was still something out there that came from Earth, even though it arrived in a different universe the legacy of Earth as a whole wasn''t fully destroyed, but humans were surely done. Felix hissed as he got up from the ground and looked around, he was a normal cat with nothing special to him, as he looked around gigantic trees could be reflected in his pale green eyes. The cat didn''t know where he was so he started to meow, he felt both scared and hungry as he didn''t get to eat the dried squid that Tsuru prepared for him. His meows attracted something out of the woods, it was a white rabbit but it had deer antlers, it was a jackalope! If a human was in Felix''s situation he would have wondered where he landed, but to Felix this was dinner! Even though Felix was a normal cat, he was a stray feral cat that Tsuru took care of since he was small so he was only good around her, when Tsuru couldn''t come to feed him due to the weather he would be hunting, he caught small rabbits and birds before so he thought that he could catch this rabbit as well, even though it looked strange and he never met such a rabbit before he was too hungry to care! The cat moved slowly as he made himself as small as possible so he wouldn''t scare his prey away, the jackalope smelled the air then immediately charged towards Felix''s location, Felix jumped towards him trying to go for a quick kill, his mouth went directly for the neck but the Jackalope''s antlers entered his big furry stomach and exited the other side! Felix was dying slowly, nothing was flashing to his eyes, his pupils turned a white shade as life left him. Suddenly another Felix popped out of the air and launched himself at the rabbit who was now eating the carcass of his kill, the rabbit didn''t expect such a thing to happen so Felix''s sharp teeth entered it''s small and fair neck drawing blood. The rabbit wanted to cry out its death throes were muffled because Felix went directly for his throat, the white rabbit''s eyes turned a deep crimson as he used his last amount of strength to run his antlers into Felix''s chest again, effectively killing him again. Both bodies fell to the forest ground, a deep pool of blood on the ground coming from three bodies. Out of of nowhere another Felix appeared and slowly went to the body of the rabbit, he smelled it a bit then he started to dig in. Meat was eaten quickly as bones crunched under his teeth, even though the rabbit was deadly and faster than Felix, it''s defenses were quite weak since he was defeated by a normal cat, however, this type of rabbit could even kill humans if they were unprepared! After Felix finished his meal he smelled the other two carcasses which were his former bodies, but he wasn''t interested in them, he felt sleepy and he didn''t want to sleep on the cold hard ground of the forest so he climbed a tree. He found a tree with a good shading that also let some sunlight in and directly went to sleep there, he started purring as he enjoyed the meat that now stayed in his big stomach. Strange blue energy from the meat was traveling inside his body-altering it, however he was now sleeping and even if he was awake he wouldn''t have understood what was happening to him. After all, he was just a cat. Unknowingly to him the smell of blood and the sounds of fighting had attracted two burly figures to the forest grounds... Chapter 2: 6 lives left Felix was sleeping up in the tree but the commotion below alarmed two burly figures that came running in the direction, the duo was made up of a male and female, they were humanoid but had bear ears instead of human ears, they also had fluffy brown bear tail near their butts. While their physique was burly it was more of a combination of muscle and fat, it wasn''t fully muscle, they both looked around warily then looked down at the two corpses on the ground, the male said with a sneer on his face: "Trash from the cat tribe died on our grounds again Sheila." The woman Sheila looked at the corpses and analyzed them a bit but they weren''t recognizable because they sat too much time in the blood and the blood dried leading to this situation, their fur was wholly cacked in blood so they were both dark red, their intestines and organs were hanging out full for view and the bear-like humans were both extremely disgusted, they had the inherent trait of normal bears, they didn''t eat corpses. The male bear buried both of them in the ground while the female bear looked around and smelled the air to find any clues about who could have killed the two cat tribesmen. She smelled something but it was out of her range, Felix was quite up in the tree, around 3 to 4 meters and there was also the fact his new body didn''t have any injuries. The female bear shook her head as she looked at the male bear and said: "I''m not sure who did this, maybe they were younglings who failed their age trial?" The male bear snorted as he said: "Most likely, the trashy cat tribe who only knows how to use tricks and poison were the only ones who could die to the beings in this forest, it could also be one of our more radical tribesmen but it''s most unlikely as they don''t hide after the deed is done, they must be just two trashes who died to a horned rabbit." The female bear nodded her head, her companion''s thoughts made sense to her so there was no reason to question him. The male bear''s words were also an attempt to anger any hidden cat tribe members but it seemed he didn''t have much luck as no one showed up even after a while passed. The female bear shook her head as she told the male bear: "Let''s go Bugi, we should return to our patrol route, there''s nothing here, the perpetrator should have escaped by now and there isn''t any reason he would return here, anyways we will just report this to the chief, I don''t think anything will happen, either way, the corpses are from the cat tribe, who cares about them?" The two humanoids then fully transformed into two brown bears as they disappeared into the woods, while the conversation went on, Felix was just sleeping up in the tree enjoying the rays of sunlight that dropped at the crown of the tree he was currently sitting on. After a few hours of resting Felix woke up and stretched himself for a short while before he looked around, he wasn''t familiar with the environment but that didn''t scare him much, he started to jump from tree to tree athletically even though his form indicated that he couldn''t do such a thing. The muscles and organs inside Felix''s body changed after he ate the horned rabbit, they became stronger but not by very much, however already being a cat made him have an inherent grace regardless of his bodily proportions, the combination of strengthening from eating the horned rabbit just made him be in tip-top shape. Felix''s stomach alerted him that he was hungry again, his green eyes wandered around as he looked for another type of prey, he thought that he easily took care of the rabbit before as he didn''t understand what happened, for the most part, his cat brain couldn''t understand the concept of dying and reviving, he just felt that he easily ripped into the rabbit''s neck and ate it quickly. Felix wandered around the forest by jumping from tree to tree searching for food, and he didn''t have to search for much time, the forest was full of different type of animals but Felix avoided the big ones that made him feel threatened and only stalked those small ones that he knew he had a chance to kill. It was the innate hunter instinct that he had in his blood from being a cat, cats were very perceptive of their surroundings when they were in their ''hunting mode'' so Felix immediately eyed another horned rabbit, it was bigger than the other one, that meant that the one that Felix ate must have been a young adult or even child among the horned rabbits. But Felix didn''t care, he felt his instincts tell him that he could catch this rabbit and eat him, on Earth Felix would have still been full if he ate one whole rabbit, but things were different in Felix''s current location, it was unknown why but he became hungry quite fast since he was hungry he would eat, that''s what his instincts told him and as an animal, he would always follow his instincts, even if they were wrong. Felix slowly got down from the tree then he crouched on the ground and observed the horned rabbit, it was a bit bigger than Felix itself but not by much, there were no dried leaves on the ground as it was around summer at this time so there wasn''t anything that could alert the rabbit of Felix''s presence. Felix made his way towards the rabbit slowly while being crouched down, his speed was a little bit faster compared to his first hunt and he was also a bit stronger, this was due to the energy that spread around his body after he ate the child rabbit. Felix''s body arched up as he ran at full speed towards the rabbit, his claws went directly for the rabbit''s neck but the rabbit turned his back to him and hit him with hind legs! The impact from the rabbit''s hind legs wasn''t strong, the horned rabbit''s main attacking method was his antlers, however, the rabbit didn''t want to kill him, he hit him with his hind legs first to stun him then he jumped towards Felix''s stunned body with his head forward, his antlers ready to impale him in the stomach as the other horned rabbit did before. Felix dodged by a thin hair, the antlers grazing his stomach and almost opening it up. The rabbit wanted to dash again but Felix''s paws went directly to his eyes slashing one eye out with his claws! The rabbit cried out in pain as he thrust his antlers forward, however, due not having enough momentum the antlers didn''t pierce through Felix''s body by much, but they did draw blood and Felix started to become weakened. Both of the former death''s were instant kills but this was the first time Felix felt his life force slowly leaving him, it wasn''t something that any living being would enjoy so in a last-ditch he directly used his mouth to snap the rabbit''s neck, however, this action furtherly opened his injuries and made him slowly bleed out to death on the ground. Out of the air another Felix popped out and he went towards the rabbit''s body, he now knew that something was wrong but since he couldn''t think much about it he just ate the rabbit''s body and left, he still didn''t have the intelligence to realize what happened. Out of the woods, the same bears as before came, their eyes narrowed as they looked at the scene in front of them and they morphed back into their humanoid forms as they warily looked around, there wasn''t enough time for the body to be cacked in blood so now they could see Felix''s carcass fur color and both of them were skeptical as they asked: "Stripped orange fur? From what tribe did this cat come from? I don''t recall any of the tribes around the forest, or any of the known tribes to have cats with orange fur..." The female bear Sheila nodded at his words and she didn''t know what to say here, where did these cat corpses pop out from, and now there was an unknown cat corpse with an orange fur? The male bear Bugi buried the cat and said: "We must go and report to the chief right now, I know that we would be breaking some rules as there still time before we are out of the shift, but this cat shouldn''t have died to a horned rabbit, there are more blood patterns around here that suggest that there was a tight fight, this cat tribesman died from blood loss, I wonder why we''re all of the cat tribesmen in their weakened forms when they died, this is very strange..." The duo left the place behind them as they returned to their village. While the bear duo left Felix found another tree that he agreed with and went to sleep, as a cat he liked three things, eating sleeping, and getting pats, however, he didn''t find any trustable human that could give him pats, he wondered what happened to the nice old lady that came to him and gave him dried squid, he would have liked her to be with him right now, he was missing her touch and her nice words to him, even though he couldn''t understand them he liked them. Felix closed his eyes as he went to sleep, when he would wake up again he would be a little bit stronger and also hungry again. Chapter 3: First encounter with the cat tribe Felix woke up then stretched his body as he lazily sunbathed at the top of the tree, while he sunbathed he also cleaned himself with his tongue. Felix''s stomach was requiring food again since Felix couldn''t think about why he was hungry so often and only acted on instinct he just went with the flow and started to hop from tree to tree to find more prey. Felix''s speed increased again and it was even a little above a young horned rabbit now, but not by much, however, the increase would be a substantial improvement towards his fighting ability. The horned rabbits were the weakest and most often found animals in the forest, they were the benchmark of the strength of the youths of some of the weaker tribes that lived around the forest area. If a youth killed a horned rabbit by himself, then he would go through the adulthood ceremony and unlock his first special racial ability, most of these types of abilities would be tied to one''s bloodline and race, so 90% of the tribe''s people would have very similar abilities with common effects. Felix dropped down from the trees after he found another horned rabbit, with his new speed and his overwhelmingly increasing hunger he dealt the rabbit a fast blow that immediately killed it considering that it wasn''t an adult, as the stronger predator Felix won easily, the improvement of his body made it so that the younger rabbits wouldn''t be able to kill him. He quickly got rid of the body by eating it. Even though he wasn''t killed by the rabbit he still was a little bit injured as small drops of blood dropped on the forest ground, Felix started licking his wound as he walked aimlessly in the forest. Suddenly out of some nearby bushes some noises were heard as a wholly black cat jumped out, the black cat eyes widened in surprise and also puzzlement as it looked at Felix and it opened it''s mouth and a feminine voice came out: "Where are you from brother?" Felix didn''t know this type of speech so he only warily looked at the cat and smelled the air if it was a human he would have ran away by now but since it was a cat he decided to go forward and interact with it. The black cat looked strangely at Felix as it didn''t understand why would Felix not respond to her, the cat tribe being one of the weaker ones was tightly knit together with no internal struggle. Felix went around her for a few times and the black cat said: "Is there something wrong with you? Haven''t you been sent to the forest to prove yourself?" Felix was around 1 year old and 6 months, in human years he would be almost 18 to 19 years old. The people of this world aged differently and Felix''s body was accomodating to it, as long as he continued to eat beasts of this world he would adapt to the world and strengthen his body, so in theory, Felix was a youth comparable to the black cat in front of him, as long as his body fully adapted to this world he would start aging like a human and if he grew stronger he would even be able to live longer. The black cat narrowed her eyes as she jumped backward, even though she never saw an orange furred clansman before, the body shape and looks couldn''t be faked, she was 100% sure he was from the cat tribe, from what branch or where he was from it was a mystery, that''s why she asked him, but he acted strangely to her, almost like he had no social etiquette or knew what personal space was. Felix just walked closer to her but the black cat didn''t know what he was up to so she ran away, Felix was puzzled as the black cat suddenly disappeared from his vision, he wondered where she would have run to but he ignored her afterward as his body needed food again. Felix was started to get hungrier and hungrier as he ate more and more horned rabbits, at some point even after he ate one whole rabbit his belly was still rumbling! However, there was a deep improvement to his speed and reaction time to the point that he could be able to easily fell an adult rabbit in one shot, he was still deadly to these type of rabbits as they had no defensive ability, his speed has increased by an extreme amount but that was the only thing that increased, the wounds that he sustained would also heal shortly after he finished eating a rabbit but he just ignored this type of thing, if he felt that he was hurt somewhere he would lick that place, if he didn''t he would just laze around, but considering he was always hungry, he was now fully in predator mode constantly. Felix started to realize with time that horned rabbits wouldn''t fulfill his needs anymore so he wanted to eat something else, something that would make him feel full for a while, since he wasn''t sure what else could he eat, he decided to use his instincts to fell the other weakest thing that was comparable to the rabbit but in a bigger size so he could eat more. What he found was a yellow snake, it was almost 3 meters long and it slithered around the trees, this wasn''t the first time that Felix was tree hopping but most of the time he would hide if he felt anything that would threaten him, but now he felt that the snake wasn''t as threatening as before, he didn''t know why but he believed in his instincts. Felix stalked the snake for a while and suddenly attacked! His claws went directly for the head but the snake suddenly blew a fog of yellow towards the cat as it hissed and said: "What''s wrong with you cat trash?" The yellow fog almost hit Felix but he felt that something wasn''t right with it so he dropped down and avoided it, the combat instincts he got from fighting rabbits kicked in along with the newfound speed from eating them. The snake''s green pupils looked at Felix as it hissed and spat out more fog, Felix dodged it but the fog increased in quantity and some of it still touched his fur. The yellow fog then started to spread on his fur quickly as it ate away at his skin and infiltrated into his body, it was highly corrosive poison. Felix died shortly as he became a puddle of yellow not even leaving any bones behind. The snake shook his head as he murmured to himself: "This trash from the cat tribe, are you tired of living? Why don''t you go and hunt horned rabbits?" Suddenly he felt something was wrong as he looked behind him only to see a claw that went directly for his head, the claw went through as it blinded him taking both of his eyes out, Felix used his claws to slash more and more at the snake''s head as it started trashing on the top of the tree, but after a while, it died. Felix didn''t know what the 5x heads that stood at the corner of his vision meant, ever since he came to this weird forest he could see x9 heads that resembled his but he looked at them for a while and then started to ignore them. Felix looked at the snake''s body and started to smell it, it looked at its head and then went to the tail and started to eat it from it, his stomach bulged as he ate the whole snake only leaving the head out, he smelled something wrong within the snake''s open mouth. Suddenly Felix became drowsy as he wanted to sleep, his body plopped down on the tree branch like a dead brick but he didn''t die. The snakehead with its open mouth and eyeless sockets was still looking in the same direction, it had rage and anger and bewilderment in its gaze, it remained in the same expression after it''s death, it just continued to look to the horizon where more trees spanned. Felix''s body twitched and moved as it''s elasticity and flexibility changed, his strength also increased by a little bit, but the biggest difference came to his brain, his small brain started to increase little by little as cognitive thoughts started coming to him, what he ate wasn''t a simple forest snake, but a member of the snake tribe! Felix didn''t know nor did he care, he was hungry and he hunted, in the end, he killed him and got his prize of lunch. The changes inside of Felix body came from some blue energy that sat inside the snake''s body, every creature in the world had this type of energy inside of them, this was what lead them to evolve in their current forms that could be able to switch from their original animal forms to their hybrid humanoid forms. This type of energy was now starting to gather and reconstruct Felix''s body according to the bodies of the people that lived in this world, but the blue energy didn''t stick inside his body like the natives, the energy was exhausted after it remodeled his insides and his stomach started to rumble again. The stronger the body the more energy it needed to work, the more energy it needed the more Felix needed to eat, the more he ate the stronger he became, it was a continuous cycle of eating and sleeping that even if Felix knew about if he didn''t want to die he would still need to continue it, who would know when this cycle would stop? Felix woke up as some thoughts came to his brain: "Where am I? Who am I?" But then his brain went back to its primal instincts of self-preservation since he killed one snake he wanted to kill more! The same snakehead from before sat there as it started rotting, Felix looked at it then he put his paw on it, the head fell from the branch into the forest. Felix ignored the falling head as he started to search for more snakes, he was hungry and he needed to fulfill his stomach''s needs! 50 Kilometers away from the forest a black cat returned to her tribe, the buildings were made from stone and it looked quite primitive, most of the people were in their humanoid form, some of them had white cat ears and tails, some black or brown, none of them had orange ears. The black cat morphed into a young beauty around 18 years old, she wore a black skirt that neared her knees along with some black combat boots, under her skirt she wore combat pants, even though most of the buildings were primitive the cat tribe wore sophisticated clothes, unlike the bear tribe who wore crude clothes or from time to time no clothes at all. The young woman entered the biggest building in the tribe and met with another cat man that looked be around 30 years old. She told him about this strange encounter with a clansman with orange-colored fur and how he acted extremely strange around her. The cat man didn''t know what to say as he started thinking about it but he came with a verdict very soon: "You should go and take him to our tribe, who knows? Maybe he must have lost his memories, orange-colored fur is also extinct in our tribes, I heard a few legends about this type of fur but I will tell them to you later when you come back with him, maybe if he heard them as well some of his bloodline memories would be awakened. Go now and come back with him!" The young woman nodded her head then bowed in a sign of respect of the cat man, afterward she left the building and turned back into her cat form as she started to run at quick speeds back into the forest. The cat man sighed as he looked at her receding form from the door of his house and muttered: "An orange furred tribesman huh?" Chapter 4: Observation The black-furred cat female tribesman was running at her quickest speed towards the forest in her cat form, she was both looking forward to talking with Felix and also scared at the same time, she didn''t know what he could do to her, he looked and felt very wild and foreign to her, his actions puzzled her a lot but her curiosity took the better of her. Felix was traveling the forest at his own pace as he looked around for food, from time to time he would jump directly down from the trees and kill a horned rabbit by landing on it snapping its bones. He became stronger and smarter and he started to think about ways on how to kill faster, however, most of the time he was still following his instincts and he didn''t have any certain thoughts in his mind besides, needing to eat and sleep. His mind wasn''t strong enough to compute any further thoughts yet. Felix continued to eat and sleep until he was found by the black-furred cat, the cat approached him slowly and Felix looked at her the same way as he did before, he still wasn''t sure who she was but since she wasn''t a male cat he didn''t attack her on the spot, he started to become rather territorial after staying in the forest for a few days. The cat morphed into her human form and this startled Felix quite a lot, he immediately jumped up in the trees and started running away, but the now humanoid black cat started to chase after him with a speed that was quicker than his by quite a lot! Felix didn''t know what to do as he found himself in the woman''s grasp, he tried to scratch her and he did succeed in drawing blood, but the woman frowned as she kept a tight grasp on Felix and she said: "What''s wrong with you, why are you acting like this?" Felix didn''t understand what she said so he still struggled in her grasp, the woman didn''t know what to do as Felix continued struggling in her grasp, so she started to pet him, she knew that some of her clansmen had a weak spot on their heads that made them calm down if it was stroked. Felix started to calm down after he was petted, it reminded him of the times on earth when he was a little kitten and the woman would come to him with milk. Felix started purring as he closed his eyes, he just had a meal but he still felt hungry, but being pet felt nice, after the woman made sure Felix calmed down she introduced herself: "My name is Sahee, I''m a new scout of the border cat tribe, do you understand me?" Felix gave out a meow and Sahee shook her head as she looked down at him, she didn''t know what he said at all! Felix jumped down from her grasp as soon as she let her guard down, but he didn''t run away from her anymore, she reminded him of the old lady that gave him dried squid, even though she smelled different to him, his developing brain associated her petting with the other woman''s. Felix started to hop from tree to tree and the woman followed him slowly, she wasn''t sure what he wanted to do but she felt like he wanted for her to follow him. Felix was quite hungry right now and he had a bigger target in mind, he wasn''t sure why but he felt like he could take on something stronger when this woman was with him, he looked at her for a little time before he looked down from the tree they now stood in. A big grey wolf was sunbathing a few meters below the tree, it was enjoying itself at the moment but suddenly his eyes opened as he started to smell the air, he felt that someone was spying on him! Felix crouched on the tree branch that he sat on and the woman transformed into her cat form, Felix looked behind him and he wasn''t sure why the woman from before disappeared and one of his kin appeared but he still felt like he could take on the grey wolf. Felix didn''t drop down from the tree as he watched the grey wolf look around and smell the air from time to time, he even looked up to the trees but he didn''t find anything as both Felix and the black cat moved a little bit backward to make themselves invisible due to the heavy foliage. Felix slowly made his way forward on the tree branch as the wolf let his guard down, he thought that it was just a false alarm. Bam! Felix dropped on his head as his claws went directly for his eyes, the black cat followed tacitly from behind as she morphed into her human form and claws grew out of her hands, the claws went directly into the wolf''s neck killing it instantly. Sahee was breathing quickly as she looked at her first kill, the canine clans were a heavy enemy of their feline clans, it would be a great honor if word came out of her victory against such an opponent, but she wouldn''t have been able to kill it alone, she looked down at Felix and her eyes widened as she saw him quickly chew through the wolf''s heavy and thick body, he was just like a meat-grinding machine as the wolf''s meat started to quickly disappear into his seemingly limitless stomach! Sahee didn''t know what to say as she watched him devour the wolf carcass in minutes, most of the tribesmen wouldn''t eat this much in weeks! The cat tribe didn''t need to eat much due to their weak constitutions, but from what she could see, Felix ate around the same quantity as the bear tribe did! Felix finished the wolf in around 5 minutes, the energy from the wolf was higher than the one from the snake, Felix and Sahee were both lucky as they took him by surprise, if the wolf morphed into his humanoid form, there was a high chance of both of them being killed. Felix started to get sleepy as the energy from the wolf started to travel around his whole body cleansing and strengthening it from the inside to the outside, he slowly swayed until he fell to the ground as he started to sleep soundly, the energy from the wolf was extremely strong to the point that he couldn''t even find a safe place before he was knocked out by it, his instincts also told him that Sahee was someone he could trust, so he fell like a sack of potatoes. Sahee thought there was something wrong with him as she quickly got near him and checked his pulse, but then she realized he was just sleeping, she tried to shake him awake but nothing happened, he was sleeping like a stone, she didn''t know why he suddenly went asleep, could the wolf have had a poisonous gene? Most unlikely, grey wolves had almost no chance of developing poisonous genes. The woman took Felix into her arms and looked around, she gritted her teeth as she started running out of the forest in her human form. Most of the time, traveling was done into one''s animal form when it came to the small and weaker tribes, their smaller animal form would give them an advantage at hiding if anything cropped up during their travels, only those strong enough or daring enough would travel using their humanoid form. Sahee couldn''t drag him around using her small cat form so she had to use her human form to take him back to the tribe. While Sahee was putting her life in peril to get them to the cat tribe where they would be relatively safe, Felix was dreaming. A small kitten ran towards an old Japanese woman that was making sounds of "pss, pss, pss", it was a small orange kitten that was quite skinny, the kitten meowed loudly as it looked at the woman, the woman had a small smile on her face as she took a bowl out of the bag that she was carrying with her and a bottle of milk she put the bowl down and then filled it with milk. Time passed and the woman came with meat and other products for the cat as it grew up, the woman would even come with toys to play with him from time to time, sometimes he would be sad when he was expecting the woman to come and she wouldn''t due to the heavy weather. The kitten grew up into a fat orange tabby cat that liked to laze around, but due to the circumstances when the woman didn''t come to feed him, he learned how to hunt and survive on his own. Felix looked around as he felt something wasn''t right, a gigantic red rock was suddenly dropping from the sky, the woman that he knew and liked suddenly grabbed him and kept him safe, he looked up at her pained face as a little bit of blood dripped from her chin, she gritted her teeth as she turned her head a little and looked up, suddenly her eyes started to shine as she used her last strength to throw him... Darkness, that was what he saw, for the time being, a lot of darkness. Felix started to have questions, he was the one who saw all of this happening? What were those images, were them his memories? Due to the heavy influx of energy from the wolf, Felix''s brain was rapidly gaining sentience to the point that his brain rivaled an average 18-year-old human, some would think that this meant he wouldn''t be smart, but how many 18-year-olds would go through what Felix went up till now and not put up some questions? Felix felt that something wasn''t right with himself, he tried to move but he couldn''t, he felt pain through his whole body when he tried to move so he stopped trying, some type of voice in his head was screaming to him to just let it be and wait so he went ahead and did what the voice told him. The voice was none other than his animal instincts, even though his brain improved, his instincts didn''t die out as he started as a normal animal, even though his brain could be considered to be rusty compared to the average being in this new world, atleast he started to think for himself. Felix woke up groggily after his body didn''t ache anymore, as he looked up and saw Sahee''s bleeding face, she was struggling to get up as two burly figures were blocking the road ahead of them, it was the two bears from before! Sahee glared at the both of them as she said with a shaking voice: "Why are you doing this to me, the treaty between tribes said..." The bears both gave out a big laugh as they said: "Sheila, this little cat thinks the treaty applies to their trashy tribe as well, very funny don''t you think?" "Yes Bugi, what a comedian little cat we have on our hands, and look she has an injured comrade in her arms, isn''t this a two in one situation?" Stronger races liked to bully weaker races, it was a world where natural selection prevailed, after all, all of the beings in this world evolved from animals, however, the evolution removed most of their animalistic instincts in favor of giving them intelligence, with the intelligence, came pride, greed, lust and other emotions that weren''t that good for the interracial relations. Sahee gritted her teeth as she tried to get up but the male bear put a hand on her shoulder and a breaking sound could be heard, he looked closely to Felix who was still feigning that he was sleeping and said: "Wait a little bit, this cat looks familiar, Sheila didn''t we see a similar corpse a few days ago? Very strange." Sheila got a little bit closer as she eyed Felix''s body and she said: "Yes that''s right he is very similar but how?" Before she could say anything else, Felix sprang up from Sahee''s embrace, with a quick flick of his claws that were way sharper than before due to the bodily improvement from the strange energy in his body, his claws went directly into Sheila''s eyes who was nearer to him due to her wanting to inspect him better. Sheila growled and shouted in pain as her eyeballs were slashed out and blood started to seep out from her now eyeless holes, she started to attack randomly as a punch hit Bugi who was near her and made him fall to the ground. Sahee grabbed Felix and she started to run away at high speed, even though her arm was broken her legs were still ok. Both Sheila and Bugi were extremely disoriented after what happened, so before they could hold their gather their bearings, both Felix and Sahee disappeared on the horizon as they rushed to the cat tribe location. Bugi got up from the ground as he looked at Sheila with pained eyes, she was blind now! He growled as he stopped her from rampaging by hugging her and whispering in her ears: "It''s ok Sheila, I will make sure the clan chief will raze the cat tribe to the ground, you understand me!" Instead of tears, blood came out of her eye holes, she knew that she didn''t have much time before she bled to death as Bugi held her close to his body, her pulse became weaker and weaker, Bugi''s eyes started to water as he held her close to his body and waited for the inevitable. After a short while Sheila''s pulse stopped forever as her body grew cold and pale, the bear tribe''s clansman was dead, killed by a cat tribe clansman! Bugi hugged her body as he carried it princess-style towards the settlement of the bear tribe to give her a proper burial on her people''s land, he muttered to himself with a dark expression as he looked towards the cat tribe''s location: "You will regret this..." Tears dropped non stop from his eyes as he said this, he thought that he stopped crying but his eyes betrayed him, and remembered a saying ''even a rat would bite once cornered''. Bugi frowned as he walked back towards the tribe and thought about how they should handle the cat tribe, but it wasn''t his place to say anything, only the leader could command the tribe''s fighters... He didn''t know if the leader would act if he knew that they were the ones who provoked them first, after all, the bear tribe would only accept fair leaders. Bugi''s emotions were clouding his thoughts, he only wanted revenge for his mate and he didn''t think what would happen if two tribes went to war. Chapter 5: Puzzlement Sahee looked at Felix who was now on her good shoulder, she looked at him with strange eyes as she asked: "Can you understand me now?" Felix looked at her and couldn''t understand a thing of what she was saying, even though he gained some intelligence now, that didn''t mean he could understand the native''s language, maybe he could understand Japanese back on Earth but certainly not their language. Sahee looked at him in the eyes as she ran towards the tribe, her running speed was only a little bit slower due to her arm injury, however, she was still certainly slower than her animal form in free running. After around 6 hours of running, they finally left the forest Sahee almost fell due to the exhaustion of enduring the pain from her broken arm and running around for such a long time without any rest. Sahee coughed a bit and Felix sat near her, he wasn''t sure why she wanted to befriend him but he felt her have something familiar that he couldn''t describe in words, maybe it was his new brain playing tricks on him but he thought that she resembled his former human. Sahee sat on the ground as she gritted her teeth and looked at her broken arm, the bone needed to be adjusted so it wouldn''t heal crookedly, she put her good arm to use and pushed the bone back into the right socket as she almost shouted in pain, her face was full of cold sweat as she bit her lips. Felix didn''t know what to do in this situation so he only went near her leaned his head on her in a show of support. Sahee gave out a weak smile at him as she ripped some cloth from her skirt and used it to tie her arm, fortunately, in a few weeks the bone would connect and heal, even though the cat tribe had inferior healing compared to most other tribes, it was still faster than a normal human, the process could also be quickened with herbs. Felix watched her and opened his mouth to say something: "Who are you?" Sahee looked at him with wide eyes as jibberish came out of his mouth, Felix was speaking broken Japanese and she also couldn''t understand a thing from what he said, she didn''t know what to tell him so she only patted his head. Felix didn''t say no to free pats so he leaned his head into her hand, he felt the somewhat familiar touch that he was missing in this world, he also wasn''t as hungry as before after he ate the wolf, he wasn''t sure why. Sahee got up from the ground and almost fell again, they were in an open field now and they could be easily caught by the bear tribe if they sat here for too much time, but her body was too exhausted to continue, she needed rest, but she didn''t know if any pursuing team would come for them, after all, Felix killed a bear tribesman. Felix saw that she couldn''t go on and his instincts didn''t tell him they were in any kind of danger so he used his head to push her down so she could rest, Sahee saw through his intentions, even though they couldn''t communicate with words, they were somewhat of kin and they understood their body language. Sahee chuckled as she sat down and looked around to make sure there wasn''t anyone spying on them as she said: "I know you don''t understand me, how should I even teach you our language..." Felix cocked his head to the side and blinked his eyes cutely at her, Sahee chuckled as she patted his head, this was one of the charms of the cat tribe, they were very cute, this could save them in some situations but that would lead to them being enslaved, however, they had it less rough than the fox tribe. Felix sat near her as he made himself into a ball, he was woken up by the fight between the bears and Sahee so he could still use a bit of sleep, Sahee needed to rest as well and Felix believed that his instincts would wake him up if any danger came to them. Felix closed his eyes as he went to sleep and Sahee started to rest as well but she didn''t sleep, she kept one eye closed and one open, her instincts weren''t as sharp as Felix''s so she needed to be aware of her surroundings or she wouldn''t be able to feel well knowing what they had done, she wanted to have enough time to run away with Felix if anything happened. Fortunately for the both of them nothing happened, Felix woke up after 6 hours of sleep, and Sahee also rested enough time for her to take Felix to the cat tribe''s settlement. In the Bear tribe, quite a lot of bears were singing in their animal forms as they let Sheila''s body down the river inside a burning raft, they sang their tribal songs to let the spirit of the departed reach afterlife safely, most of them had steely expressions on their faces, even the females, no one was crying, however, there was a somber aura that enveloped each one of them. Bugi was the one that had the worst aura, his body hair was disheveled and he was breathing roughly as he watched his mate''s corpse burning into cinders along with the raft and disappearing in the river. The leader and shaman of the bears were dancing on his hind legs in his animal form as the other bears sang and beat drums, the raft disappeared completely as the fire burned out completely. The leader turned back into his humanoid form as he bowed to the earth heavens and the river and said in a loud voice: "May Sheila''s voice and body rest in peace in the embrace of the Earth''s father and mother, may her soul rest in the heavenly skies along with the ancestors and creators." With his eyes closed he could already feel Bugi coming for him, he already explained what happened to them and he knew what he wanted to ask of him, his voice came out before Bugi could ask: "No." "But shaman Rafaka, the cat tribe trash killed Sheila! How can''t we retaliate?" "Bugi, you must understand that the cat tribe wouldn''t attack us randomly, from what you told me I know you lied to me, you attacked them first and Sheila died due to letting her guard down, as the leader of the Bear tribe I cannot attack the cat tribe in such a situation, it''s your word against theirs and you have no proof of them attacking you first, most of the other weaker tribes would side with the cat tribe in this situation when we will send a challenge letter to the main tribes in the savanna." Bugi eyes were deep red as he roared: "So Sheila died for nothing?" Rafaka shook his head as he said: "She died due to yours and her hands, you don''t have to bully the weak for no reason, but I guess telling you this is already useless, most of the clansmen think the same as you do." Bugi didn''t know what to tell the shaman, after all, he was a man deeply connected to the ancient spirits and he was also quite erudite, he was an advocate of peace and learning from each other, trying to extort war out of him with feelings would do nothing. Bugi wanted to raze the cat tribe near them to the ground but their warriors wouldn''t follow him without a word from the shaman, it would be useless to tell them his story, they would see through it immediately just like the leader did. Bugi sighed as he left the leader behind and went to his cave, maybe he was wrong bullying the cat tribesmen but that didn''t mean he didn''t want revenge, his emotions were still clouding his thinking, if he couldn''t get the tribes to war, he could atleast kill the peculiar orange cat and his dark-furred companion, he wanted atleast one of them to feel the pain that he was currently feeling! Felix suddenly woke up, something wasn''t right to him, he could feel a chill going down his spine, seemingly like someone was locking onto him from somewhere, he looked around while circling Sahee, but after a while, he couldn''t sense anyone and the feeling disappeared. Felix didn''t know what to say, his instincts weren''t wrong, that meant something else was at play here, maybe it was some of the strange energy that was changing his body? He couldn''t feel any more energy in his body as his sleep devoured the last vestige that remained and fully changed his body, he could also see that he now had 6 heads in the corner of his vision instead of 5, he still didn''t know what they mean so he ignored them. Sahee got up from the ground and cringed as her broken arm moved a little bit, she looked at Felix and motioned for him to hop on her good shoulder so they could leave. Felix complied and jumped on her shoulder, Sahee gave him a small strained smile and started running towards the cat tribe. Their surroundings changed as they reached the plains that sat near the forest, they were long plains with only a few trees here and there that provided shade from the heat of the sun, as it was around spring to summer currently the heat in the plains was quite big so you could see cat tribesmen chilling under the shade of some trees here and there. The cat tribesmen were immediately alerted when they saw Sahee with her broken arm and an unknown cat tribesman staying on her shoulder. Two middle-aged men rushed to support her and looked with puzzlement at Felix, they never saw an orange tabby cat in their lives so they wondered from which tribe he came from. They wanted to question him but Sahee coughed a bit and said: "Our friend here isn''t from around these parts and he doesn''t know our language, I want to take him to the leader as he might know what we can do to help him." The middle-aged men scratched their furry ears and helped Sahee to the doctor of the village while they wanted to lead Felix to the leader, however, Felix refused to leave Sahee''s side and sat on her shoulder. Sahee looked at Felix and understood why he didn''t want to leave with the middle-aged men, he didn''t trust them, she wasn''t sure why he trusted her in the first place but she decided to comply with him and told the two middle-aged men: "It seems he is concerned about my health until I get patched up properly he should stay with me, we will go to the leader afterward, however, you can go and inform him that we arrived, I will report to him myself about what happened to me." The middle-aged men didn''t say anything, Sahee was a promising youngling and she was also ready to take their adulthood ceremony if she unlocked a good enough ability she might be taken in by their cousin tribes to become a scout, this was the dream of most of the people from the cat tribe, to be taken as a scout for the Lion, Tiger or Puma tribes, even the Jaguar tribe would make them happy, even the lowly hyena tribe would be better than what they had to endure. Sahee walked by herself to the doctor''s cottage, the cat tribe wasn''t really rich so the doctor gave her a few pain-numbing herbs as her life wasn''t in peril and let her go since she fixed her arm herself she didn''t need any more help from the doctor. Sahee then walked to the leader''s house and met with him, the leader didn''t know what to say as he heard Felix talk, he decided to first try and teach him talking manually but he realized that he would first need to learn his language before he could even teach him anything, this project became dead in the water in the first few seconds of thinking about it. There was another way Felix could be taught their language but it was quite annoying for the leader, however, he wanted to know where Felix was from, he knew very few records about the orange furred ancestors and he always looked up to them as they were one of the strongest people from the cat tribe, unfortunately, their lineage died down because around 80% of the orange furred tribesmen were males and only 20% were female, with time the genes of the orange furred ones were assimilated and their bloodline died out. There were still clansmen out there with a latent orange fur hidden in their bloodline, they only had patches or small tufts of orange fur around their body but they could be considered the highest talents of the cat tribe, they took high positions in the army of the cousin tribes and were even equal to their high ranking tribesmen. The leader wondered what kind of talent would Felix have considering his body''s fur was fully orange? He took out a scroll made from the skin of an unknown animal and started to recite the words on it. Light started to engulf Felix very quickly and dispersed as quick, new information came to his mind as he learned the common language of the Tarot continent that he was now on. Felix opened his mouth and asked: "So who are you, people? What do you want from me?" The leader was extremely happy as he understood what Felix said and he wanted to ask him a myriad of questions, but before he could open his mouth Sahee walked forward got near Felix, and started to exchange information with him. Chapter 6: I dont know Sahee gave a small smile as she started talking with Felix by asking: "Do you know your name?" Felix took a pondering expression on his face, the woman from before always used to call him Felix or Felix-kun so that might have been his name? Felix opens his mouth and responded to her: "I think my name is Felix." This was a good beginning since Felix knew the language they both understood each other so Sahee introduced herself again: "My name is Sahee." Felix nodded at her, Sahee continued to ask him things so she could try to help him recover his memories: "Do you know where you are from? Any hints about the tribe, also could you try to transform into your humanoid form?" Felix looked at her strangely, he didn''t remember anything about any tribe or humanoid form, he wasn''t sure if it was normal for beings like themselves to transform into humans as he never saw the woman from before transforming into a cat, maybe she could do it but she didn''t do it in front of him? Seeing Felix''s lost expression Sahee didn''t know what to ask, here the leader intervened by coughing and said: "My name is Lucian, leader of the eastern cat tribe that resides in the plains, I think I can help you a little bit with your situation, after all, we are kin and we should stick together." Felix nodded and Lucian started to explain about the cat tribe and its ancestral ways: "Our cat tribe isn''t anything special, we all follow the methods left behind by our ancestral shamans, we of the cat tribe are experts into stealth, scouting, and other miscellaneous things that the other tribes do not really use anymore these days." From what Lucian was talking about the cat tribe was a breed of killers, but their settlement looked quite pathetic, would cold-blooded killers live like this if they could help it? Seeing the strange expression on Felix''s face Lucian could understand what he was thinking about, most of the children of the tribe would also think like this after they learned how to talk and developed enough to think freely, but after they experienced the ways of the world they would understand why the cat tribe had a lowly standing. Lucian shook his head as he explained the circumstances of most of the cat tribes scattered around the Tarot continent, he wasn''t sure if the other continents cat tribe''s lived with the same situations as the communication between continents was cut off long ago. Felix was interested in the tidbits and legends that Lucian was telling him, he found them to be quite interesting, suddenly his stomach rumbled loudly, Lucian gave out a small smile seeing that Felix was hungry and he told Sahee: "Go and get some food for our guest while I keep talking with him, Ok?" Sahee nodded and left to get some food, she saw how much Felix ate so she went to their storage room to get enough meat, even though the cat tribe was weak, that didn''t mean they were starving, they had enough food to keep everyone filled as they lived near the forest which was full of food, even though some of their hunters might be bullied to death if they were found by the bear tribe, they could use their stealth techniques to hunt and return quite easily if they were careful enough. A cat tribesman dying to a bear tribesman happened extremely rarely. Lucian sat down in a chair as he talked with Felix, while Felix sat on the nearby desk that the tribe leader would occasionally rest on. Lucian sighed as he couldn''t get any responses from Felix besides I don''t know, and he didn''t feel that he was lying, were his memories this fragmented? Lucian wondered what happened to him. Felix decided to tell him what he knew, about the woman that took care of him and the giant red ball of death, also about the portal, when Lucian heard all of this he was disbelieving for a few minutes but then he understood that Felix might not even be from the same continent, maybe he was from a different one that got destroyed by a calamity and the traveling to the Tarot continent damaged his head? Some of the ancestral stories had been talking about a calamity that reshaped the world and separated the continents, however, it was very descriptive, at least their tribe couldn''t get their paws on the whole story. Felix didn''t describe how the woman looked so Lucian thought that she was the same as them, considering that Felix didn''t go through his adulthood ceremony so he must have a harder time to transform from his primal form, once one went through their adulthood ceremony they would gain the ability to transform into their humanoid form along with an ability that could evolve along with them. However, people that we''re blessed with wisdom and talent could gain the ability to transform into the humanoid form earlier, some even could do it once they were born, but Lucian never saw such a thing happening and only heard rumors about it. Since Felix didn''t go through his adulthood ceremony on his former continent, Lucian wanted to help him go through it, his explanation was truthful so he couldn''t get any information out of him, it was the cat tribe that needed to give him information, however, Lucian was a believer of helping those in need, especially those of the same race. Lucian rummaged through his desk drawers as he took out a brown painted pipe made out of hard black wood, the pipe was inscribed with words in the Tarot runic language that meant ''Ceremony'' ''Adulthood'' ''Ability'' ''Bloodline'' ''Ancestral memories''. Before one would go through the ancestral adulthood ceremony, one would need to successfully hunt at least a horned rabbit and eat it''s meat to assimilate its Hex energy. Most living beings could house energy in their bodies called Hex, this energy would run through the bodies of individuals just like blood, in actuality it flowed in the same vessels as the blood and with time fused with blood strengthening the constitution of the person. Depending on the constitution of the individual, people could handle more or less hex in their bodies and there was an upper limit in which their bodies would get strengthened, the cat tribe had one of the weakest upper caps of Hex strengthening, but that didn''t mean they were necessarily very weak, there were beings that had yet to evolve to the point that Hex would strengthen their bodies and the Hex energy would just flow into their bodies aimlessly, the horned rabbits were a prime example of these type of animals, they were intelligent but not very, they were seen as cattle to most other intelligent beings. Lucian knew that Felix ate more than a horned rabbit, however, it was strange that there was no Hex energy currently in his body, seemingly as he didn''t eat anything, but Sahee told him seeing him eating a whole grey wolf. Speaking of Sahee she came back with a bountiful amount of meat, most of it came from a horned rabbit with very few coming from poisonous snakes, just a few slabs of meat came from the poisonous snakes while the majority was from the horned rabbits. Felix started salivating unconsciously as he started being quite hungry. Sahee gave him a smile as she told him to dig in and her eyes wandered to the pipe, she thought that Lucian would try to make him go through the adulthood ceremony but it was quite soon considering how much it would weaken him, she also had to go through her adulthood ceremony as well! Lucian gave her a small smile as he told her: "You both can go through the adulthood ceremony at the same time, even though I will be exhausted for a few days, I should be able to recover quite fast, the doctor found a recovering Shu mushroom, it should be able to fix me right up." Sahee became less agitated after she heard about the Shu mushroom, she cared deeply about the leader of the tribe because of two reasons, he was strong enough to protect the whole tribe and he was wise and gentle with all of the tribesmen, when she was younger, the leader even helped her around with chores that she couldn''t do due to her weak body, she saw him as a big brother and she cared about his wellbeing quite a bit. Lucian reassured her he would be ok, then his eyes widened as he saw no more meat left, Felix ate all of it while they conversed, and their conversation was quite short not even exceeding 4 minutes! Felix patted his fat belly a bit, he wasn''t quite full but it would suffice for the time being, later he would go and hunt in the forest again, he decided to live in the settlement with the other cats as he felt more comfortable here. Lucian took the pipe and put it in his mouth as he started to blow into it with closed eyes, he was concentrating while muttering a mantra that both Sahee and Felix couldn''t understand. After a short while, the mantra finished and Lucian became quite pale, the smoke that came out of the pipe engulfed both Sahee and Felix as strange patterns appeared on their bodies, Sahee was quite talented as she became able to transform earlier, with closed eyes, her form altered between her cat one and humanoid one as she was gaining her ability. However nothing was happening to Felix, the patterns around his body wavered and faded after a short while, the energy that Lucian used to summon the smoke returned to him as the smoke surrounding Felix disappeared, Felix stood there with a puzzled look on his face as he asked: "I didn''t feel anything, what was this thing supposed to do?" Lucian didn''t know what to answer as he had a troubled look on his face, maybe people from the other continents couldn''t go through the same adulthood ceremony as those from the Tarot continent, this was the only logical explanation that Lucian could think about, would Felix be stuck into his primal form? Felix didn''t mind staying in his cat form at all, Lucian thought that he would be disappointed when he heard the explanation from him, he started to clean himself using his tongue. Lucian sweatdropped seeing his casual reaction, most clansmen would find it dreading to remain in their normal form because of the deadly situations they could find themselves in the outside world, after all, the humanoid form had a higher battle power compared to the primal form, the primal form was used more for traveling and running away. Lucian sighed as he looked at Felix, he knew that he was an anomaly due to his superior bodily strength, he didn''t understand how he was able to kill a grey wolf, even with the help of Sahee, it would have taken at least 3 or 4 adults from the cat tribe to take down a grey wolf, and at least half of them would die in the attempt with a 50% chance of the wolf escaping. Lucian didn''t know if Felix coming to their tribe was a calamity or a blessing considering he was quite talented, would he get the attention of the upper tribes? Sahee opened her eyes as they turned into a deep yellow color from their normal green, Lucian eyes widened as he saw her eyes and asked: "Is that the?" Sahee smiled as he looked into his eyes and said: "It should be the advanced stealth combined with the nocturnal vision enchantment." Lucian gave out a burst of hearty laughter as he looked at her, finally, someone from their tribe got a good ability that branched into aspects of stealth, most of them would gain one ability and the unlucky and untalented ones would maybe even get half of an ability that they would have to develop into a full one. Sahee looked at Felix and she wondered what kind of ability did he get but Lucian responded before Felix, telling her the special circumstances that surrounded Felix, Sahee was quite disappointed as she wanted to spar with him, the cat tribe was also quite competitive, at least the younger generation sparred with each other quite often, while the elder generation had to get food and protect the young ones so they could grow strong enough to replace them, the elders would enjoy their remaining life span by lazing around their porches while sunbathing waiting for the moment they wouldn''t be able to open their eyes anymore. Sahee knew that Felix was still considered quite strong even though he didn''t have an ability she wanted to test hers on someone, the other young people were still outside training and hunting while she and Felix were the only ones left in the settlement. Sahee gathered her courage and asked Felix for a spar even though her shoulder was broken she was a little bit too excited because of the awakening of her new talent so she kind of forgot about it, Felix stretched his body but he didn''t get up from the desk as he said: "Maybe later, I need to sleep after that meal, actually maybe even later, I want to eat later and maybe sleep some more." Even though Felix had killer instincts, he was still a cat so he wanted to do what a cat wanted to do, since he found a place that could give him food he regressed to his old ways, however, if they refused to give him any more food he would go to the forest to hunt. Sahee didn''t know what to say at Felix''s attitude, the cat tribe lost this lazy personality of theirs in such a cruel environment and only their sneaky and hunter personality remained instead, however since Felix came from Earth his lazy personality remained, even though he gained intelligence, it was in his blood to wait for others to serve him and sleep a lot. Sahee decided to let him sleep since he saved her life, but after he ate the next meal she wanted to fight it out with him if no one came back from their hunting or training. Even though she gained a pretty good talent she didn''t think she had enough experience to fight with the older hunters that remained in the village to protect it. But if Felix refused her again she could only ask the older ones for a spar. Felix''s tail moved left and right as he slept, he didn''t know why but he was seeing some images that he never saw before after he closed his eyes, this was something that he didn''t understand but he didn''t want to wake up either so he decided to watch them unfold in front of him. Chapter 7: Memories Felix''s eyelids moved from time to time and Sahee wondered what he was dreaming for there to be such a visible reaction coming from him, Lucian looked on wondering the same thing, maybe the adulthood ceremony gave him something else? Felix didn''t sleep soundly anymore as he started seeing images that he couldn''t remember in front of him, there were memories but no his own, they were forcefully injected into his soul by an unknown entity. The memories showed cats similar to him in a great horde, most of them remained the same while a few started to morph, they either gained a human arm or leg, however they were treated as outcasts by the horde and either beaten to death or eaten. Very few that mutated would be able to leave and continue their lives, just like all living beings they continued to mate and pass off generations, in the end, their descendants still resembled those from the main tribe. Eras passed as the same happened with a myriad of races, they evolved and after a certain, while some talented people started to switch to a fully humanoid form, they were the ancestors of the current animal tribes scattered across the Tarot continent. With the humanoid form came the elevation of intelligence, even though they were pretty smart before as they were sentient, they now started to develop deeper, they started to create civilizations, buildings, and languages. The cat tribe strength wasn''t very high but they were extremely stealthy and deadly in the night, along with their innate talent of concocting poisons or being able to emanate poison from their bodies, they became a power to be feared, after all, you couldn''t keep your guard up forever and the moment your guard slipped you could be assassinated by a cat tribesman. The cat tribesman was unique to a few points, they were one of the only tribes that based their techniques on breathing, breathing affected their killing techniques, stealth techniques as well as how much power they would use when they would slash someone''s neck with their innate claws. The other clans put less focus on breathing and more on their physical bodies strength, breathing affected the Hex energy in the air that would go through one''s body, but it could also be ignored if one''s body was strong enough and could handle a lot of Hex energy. In this regard, the cat tribe would use skills to counter brute force and they kept their breathing technique a secret from everyone if the stronger races knew their breath technique their tribes would be crippled or even destroyed, after all, this was what put them on equal grounds with the others. Felix watched as the ancestors of the cat tribe breath in and out rhythmically while hunting or assassinating their enemies, he was entranced by their powerful but steady breathing. He unconsciously tried to mimic their breathing and he realized that he immediately started to run out of air! Even though the cat tribe had a relatively weaker body compared to the other races, their body was still considered way stronger than Felix''s current body. The current cat tribe was way below their ancestors in all aspects, body, and technique-wise, Felix could understand it from a single glance, his instincts were telling him that if he fought any of those people he would certainly die! He stopped trying the breathing techniques that he saw but he memorized them, even though his body was too weak to practice them now he just had to get stronger! The breathing techniques weren''t an innate ability, those innate abilities were completely different and they were like passives in video games. Felix couldn''t gain an innate ability due to him not being a native from this world, the ancestors who were called upon by the pipe that Lucian used saw this and decided to give him the breathing techniques through a soul linkage, even though none of them appeared in front of Felix''s face he realized that this must have happened due to the adulthood ceremony. Felix wasn''t sure if he should share the breathing techniques with the cat tribe, if their ancestors wanted them to know the techniques wouldn''t they have already sent them down via the same method? More images appeared in front of Felix... the cat tribe was betrayed by one of their cousin tribes after rumors appeared about their breathing techniques, it was impossible to keep a technique that they used everyday hidden from everyone. The breathing technique disappeared with time, from the whole continent, something happened that Felix couldn''t truly understand as the Tarot continent was ripped away from the other continents, the other continents also ripped away from each other creating four continents in total. They weren''t named as Felix watched on the memories started fading, but one voice told him what he needed to know: "You have the closest body to the ancestors, you can try to teach the breathing technique to the others, however, there is a very high chance they won''t be able to grasp it due to the changes that happened to their bodies with time." The breathing technique was created with the primeval ancestor''s bodies in mind, since the technique was discontinued it couldn''t evolve along with the bodies of the cat tribe so it was a broken technique for those of today''s age, however since the cat tribe was so nice to him he decided to teach Lucian and Sahee the technique at the least, if they couldn''t learn it he wouldn''t teach it to anyone else. The images faded completely along with the voice as Felix woke up, he looked around and both Lucian and Sahee were looking him with a worried expression as Sahee walked a little bit closer to him and asked with trembling eyes: "Are you ok? You almost suffocated in your sleep, you suddenly started breathing weirdly and you almost went limp due to oxygen deprivation, both I and Lucian were almost scared to death." Felix''s tail was swinging aggressively for some reason, he felt the sensation of death and it''s cold fingers splayed around his neck as soon as he opened his eyes, it seemed that after he breathed in that pattern in his dream it also made him breathe in his real body, at the corner of his eye he could see that there were 5 heads of his instead of 6, what did that mean? As he gained intelligence he wanted to know what those heads meant, seeing him spacing out but Lucian and Sahee didn''t know what to tell him, but after a short, while Felix looked at the both of them and told them what he experienced, Lucian was in ecstasy as he asked: "Might you be able to teach us the breathing technique?" Felix didn''t mind teaching them, however, both of them failed as their faces turned purple and froth started to come out of their mouths if Felix didn''t help them both by pressing on their chest with all of their strength they would have both died at the same time. Lucian was extremely disappointed while Sahee didn''t know what to say because of her close encounter with death, Lucian already met with death a few times so he wasn''t that affected but Sahee was silent, this was the first time she was this close to death, even though her fight with the bear duo made it close, she was still conscious and didn''t lose much blood, she was only in a very big amount of pain at the time, now she almost died! Both of them still felt weak as they took in big gulps of air and Lucian said: "It seems the warning is true, well we can''t say we didn''t give it a try." Lucian got over it fast as he looked at Felix and asked: "Since the ancestors gave you the technique they think that your body can handle it? However, even by our current standards your body isn''t very strong, I guess you could be categorized among the children around 8 years old, it''s quite impressive you were able to kill so many things in the forest with such a weak body, I wonder why?" The reason Felix was able to do such killings was extremely simple and it could be explained in one word, instinct! While all of the other beings focused on their innate talents and different skills, they all forgot about the most basic killer ability of them all, instinct! Lucian decided to not bother Felix anymore as he got a few answers to his question about history from his explanation, Sahee wanted to spar with him and Felix agreed, even though he couldn''t use the breathing techniques, he could try and copy the movements of the ancestors. Felix stood in front of Sahee as she transformed into her cat form, but she winced as her bandaged arm didn''t heal, she forgot in all her excitement that she was injured and not lightly. Sahee transformed back into her humanoid form and looked down with an embarrassed look on her face, her cheeks were pink as she said: "Uh, maybe we can spar after my arm healed..." Felix didn''t mind as he could still practice the stealthy movements by himself, it would have been better to practice in live combat but he could try by himself. Felix lowered his body to the ground without impeding his movements as he walked slowly in the training area of the tribe, the younger children of the tribe were looking at him with wide eyes as they talked with each other and some of them were tried to mimic him, they were all in their cat forms as it seemed there weren''t any geniuses who unlocked their humanoid form early. Suddenly Felix disappeared from their vision for a split second, they blinked their eyes and Felix appeared again, they had seen such a situation before when the other older tribesmen trained their stealth ability so they thought Felix was doing the same, even though they didn''t recognize him because of his orange-colored fur, since he was also a cat they weren''t wary of him. Felix looked down at his paws as he thought: "What was that sensation...?" Felix wasn''t sure what he did as he only followed the movements that he saw in the memories step by step, he copied them but he didn''t learn anything, after he became invisible he became startled and broke his concentration thus his stealth was canceled. Felix decided to continue his training as Sahee looked at him for afar, she was a few meters away from the children as she hid herself behind a house, she felt a bit too awkward to stay near him now after she told him that she wanted to rest, but she wanted to see what kind of stealth technique he was practicing, it looked like the normal stealth ability that most cat tribe people used, but she couldn''t feel him using Hex to activate it. She decided to come forward and watch him directly instead of making a fool of herself. However, Felix didn''t even see her as he concentrated on his training trying to simulate the same feeling from before. Sahee wasn''t sure if her eyes were deceiving her as Felix disappeared and appeared randomly around the training grounds, this was a high level of stealth that was comparable to her innate ability! She didn''t know what to say as she watched him continue, the only thing that she found comforting for her self esteem was that his stealth broke very often and it wouldn''t be useable in a real fight, she could already use her ability as she tried it before when he was sleeping and as long as she had Hex powering it up she would remain invisible. But it seemed Felix''s technique must be linked to those breathing techniques that they couldn''t learn, she found it quite interesting and she wondered if she could incorporate it in her arsenal as she watched trying to find any hints on how the technique was used. However she found it very hard to understand what happened to him as he disappeared, Felix was disappearing because he was erasing his presence using certain steps that used the myriad Hex energy that was around him to cloak his whole body, but it took a high amount of concentration to do it. The ancestors of the cat tribe created this technique to layer it over their innate ability and then strengthen it with their breathing technique to become the ultimate assassins, however, they still ended up losing to the others due to the limits of their weak bodies, if their bodies were stronger who knew if they wouldn''t be the leaders of at least one of the four continents? Felix started coughing as he made a wrong step and the Hex energy in the air rushed into his body instead of cloaking it and started to damage his skin and muscles, however, the energy quickly dispersed from him after a few seconds because he stopped using the steps from the technique if he continued the wrong way he would have been battered by the Hex energy to death. Due to her awakened innate talents, Sahee could see very thin threads of Hex energy in the air and she was startled once they started attacking Felix, but then she relaxed as the threads quickly dispersed away from him, she wasn''t sure why that happened, the realm of controlling the Hex energy in the air with bodily movement disappeared a long time ago from most of the tribes existing on the Tarot continent. Felix knew that he made a wrong step so he had to start again until he got it right, he wasn''t sure why he wanted to get stronger but it felt nice, it just felt better to have strength, maybe it was this dog eat dog world influencing his thinking but he felt that if he was strong he would be able to do anything he wanted, so he decided to continue training instead of lazing around, he was going against his innate personality. Sahee got inspired by watching Felix train so hard so she decided to go and train with her new innate ability as she couldn''t get anything from watching Felix train any further, she left with serious eyes under the children''s admiring gazes. Felix continued his training unknown to him that he was observed from a distance by a very angry bear tribesman who swore revenge against him and his new home. Chapter 8: Revenge While Felix was training his new techniques, Bugi was observing him from afar, his eyes were glowing a full white as his pupils disappeared, his face had a scary expression on it as he looked at Felix''s training and he muttered: "Yes, exhaust yourself first before I will cut off your head!" The more he gave in his emotions the crazier he became, his dormant instincts kicked in, fusing with his emotion of intense hatred and crazed him even further. Felix felt something was wrong as his instincts were constantly warning him of something, he looked around with his eyes but he couldn''t see anything, he tried smelling the air but Bugi was a bit too far for his scent to be smelled since both of these things didn''t work Felix closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, he didn''t use one of the breathing techniques, his ears started twitching as he suddenly heard the uneven and coarse breathing of someone. Felix knew he was monitored, there was no one else besides him and the kids here and he didn''t feel any killing intent from the kids, which meant the rough breathing should come from afar. Felix looked into the horizon but all he saw were plains and a few trees, Bugi was currently hiding in a tree and looking at Felix''s training while he waited for the kids to run away so he could enact his revenge. He knew he couldn''t kill all of the kids in one attempt so he didn''t want them to run back and get reinforcements as there was a high chance he would die even though he would be able to take a few cat tribesmen down with him, he was crazed but his rationality remained somewhat, at least enough for him to not give his life away, he knew that Sheila only died because she had her guard down against the orange furred cat. The kids started to get bored looking at Felix''s training, they had a short attention span and they already saw such type of training before, it wasn''t anything spectacular or shiny that would interest those at their age, so they started to leave one by one after the last kid left Felix looked around and felt the killing intent from before converging and approaching him at extreme speed! Bugi appeared in the training area with red eyes, he didn''t say anything as he rushed towards Felix and tried to kick him into the stomach, the body strength difference was enormous so one kick from him would surely kill Felix transforming him into a piece of gore onto the ground. Felix dodged hastily, even though the bear was fast it wasn''t as fast as a cat tribesman, his heavy body weighed him down and made him have slower reactions in fights, he could run fast on plains but when it came to combat he was slower. Felix dodged the kick by jumping backward then he ran between his legs and at the same time used his claws to scratch his shin leaving a deep bleeding mark on them. Bugi howled as his muscles tightened and the bleeding stopped easily, his calf''s muscles enlarged as he increased his speed trying to kick Felix again and again. Felix dodged expertly as from time to time he would disappear and give out another slash on the behemoth''s body, however, all of the wounds inflicted by Felix would seal up fast and there was no lasting damage done, all it did was made him exhaust a little bit of energy. Felix was already winded because of his training, combined with this fighting for his life made his body feel heavy and his breathing became rough and uneven, he didn''t know how much time he could dodge so he tried to shout for help. However the training fields were quite far from one another, Sahee was training in the other field and she couldn''t hear him, especially now that he was out of breath and his voice couldn''t travel very far. Bugi started laughing as he finally caught him by the tail and he started spinning him around like a helicopter, Felix''s body started to hurt immensely as his skin bones and muscles started to be ripped apart by the centrifugal force, after a short while only Felix''s tail remained in Bugi''s hand, all other parts of him were scattered around the training field painting a grisly sight. Bugi laughed loudly as hard as he could as he looked around, he fell to his knees as he looked at the sky and said: "Sheila, do you see this? I avenged you! At least a little bit." Before he could get back up he looked down at his neck only to see a thin red line drawing over it, a fountain of blood exploded from his neck as he clenched his hand over it trying to stop the bleeding, he looked around then his eyes widened in horror as he saw Felix appearing in front of him, didn''t he throw him around like a broken ragdoll with all of it''s stuffing coming out? Felix looked with cold eyes at Bugi, this was the first time his brain felt the true pain and feeling of death and he didn''t like it one bit, being ripped apart by the centrifugal force by being swung about by his tail wasn''t a pleasant experience at all, he looked in the corner of his eye and saw 4 heads remaining, he realized what those heads meant right now. Bugi''s throat made a gurgling sound as blood freely dropped down from it in a high amount, his eye rolled in the back of his head as he used his last amount of strength to try and grab Felix that sat in front of him, his muscular arm was slowly getting towards Felix but his complexion was turning paler and paler. His arm fell to the side of Felix as he dropped to the ground dead, he had some thoughts about the orange furred body that he saw before but he wouldn''t think that anyone could die and come back just like Felix did, he thought at most that it might be Felix''s sibling or relative who died. Felix looked down at the fresh corpse and his mouth started to automatically water, his instincts were kicking in overdrive for him to eat the body, so he could get stronger, so he could live a life that he could control. Felix got closer to the body as his small mouth opened and he bit in, the body was quite hard as it was full of muscles but Felix chewed through it slowly, eating it from the skin to muscles and even the bones weren''t spared, the Hex energy that was still flowing through the dead body found a release as it all poured from the devoured flesh and blood into Felix''s body! Felix shouted in pain as he rolled on the ground, the extreme amount of Hex energy made his fur fall off as he remained naked and another batch of fur appeared on his body, this process repeated three to four times before he stopped and remained gasping on the ground. His stomach was hurting extremely hard, it was almost like a new one was creating and gnawing at his old one! The same could be said about his organs, muscles, and bones, they were seemingly gnawed at by tiny people and new organs muscles, and bones were created accordingly by the Hex energy. Two more heads popped near the other four in the corner of his vision before he blacked out. While his consciousness wavered and started sleeping his body didn''t stop working, 2 times, the process of organ bones and muscle renewal took two whole times, fortunately, he wasn''t awake anymore or the pain might have turned him a little bit unhinged. This was one of the disadvantages of having a whole consciousness, extreme pain could damage it back to what he had before or even make him into a monster that would mix both his killer instincts along with crazy thoughts. Fortunately, his mind shut down before this could continue. Felix''s body twitched from time to time as he started to grow, he became as tall as an average dog meaning he would now tower before his previous form, if you would number his previous bodily strength it would be around a 2, Bugi''s would be around 19. His bodily strength now stood at a 7 and it was the average of an elite adult from the cat tribe. Felix groaned in his sleep, he was quite lucky considering the bear let his guard down after he thought that Felix died, his emotions overwhelmed him at that moment and Felix could deal him the finishing blow, even though his body was extremely strong the throat was still a weak spot where his tightening his muscles wouldn''t stop the bleeding, the bear tribesmen couldn''t do that but other tribes didn''t have any bodily weakness. Felix woke up with his head hurting a lot, his body was heavy and unfamiliar to him feeling like it wasn''t his own anymore, he tried to get up from the ground only to leave a deep imprint in the earth, he looked down at it and then at his paw that was quite bigger than before and didn''t understand what happened. He tried moving around to feel what happened to his body, he could feel that he was stronger and faster than before, he also was taller. Felix looked at the ground where the bear''s body stood before and remembered how his instincts kicked in and he ate the whole body. He didn''t feel anything about his actions, he only felt it was natural the eat the body of the loser, he was attacked and the attacker failed to kill him so he could claim his body as food, after he ate the bear his body finally acclimatized to the new world, he wasn''t that hungry anymore and he could do by with the same amount of food as the cat tribe netizens from now on, any excess energy would be turned into Hex energy that would refine his body further. Sahee ran quickly to the training field, her body was full of sweat and sweat even dripped from her forehead, she came as soon as she smelled the intense smell of blood from the training field, her eyes looked around and saw bits and pieces of orange fur along with small organs and bones, she knew that Felix must have died, but then her eyes wandered to the now taller Felix contemplating something in the middle of the training ground. She looked down and saw a poodle of dark blood on the ground in front of him, something must have surely happened while she was training. Felix took in a deep breath as he disappeared from where he was, Sahee eyes widened as she couldn''t feel him at all! Felix appeared in front of her and she almost fell on her butt, Felix chuckled as he saw her haggard appearance, Sahee was a bit mad because he scared her but she was still concerned over what happened so she got up from the ground and asked what happened. Felix told her what happened quickly and concisely, his brain was also fully evolved right now and even though he didn''t have much information in it he could be considered to be averagely intelligent in the ways of the world now. Sahee eyes widened as she heard about Felix''s fight, maybe Felix''s special ability was coming back from the dead? This was an unheard-of ability that not even their oldest ancestors had, she already realized that this happened after he saw Felix''s organs and other pieces around the training field. Felix ignored her shocked look as he started to cleanse himself with his tongue, even though he gained intelligence his old instincts were still ingrained in his consciousness and he also felt nice while doing it. Sahee found this part of Felix to be quite awkward and primitive so she kept her mouth shut as she wanted to go and report what happened to Lucian. Felix decided to follow her, he wasn''t sure if what he did was right but he didn''t care much about it either, if the bear tribe attacked because of him he would fight it out with them, that just meant more food for him to eat. Lucian sighed as he heard what happened and told both of them: "It''s very unlikely for the shaman of the bear tribe to attack us, I know him well as we were friends in our childhood, he is a peace idealistic person and if he heard that you only defended yourself he would just let bygones be bygones even if you ate his tribesman body." Then he frowned as he thought about something else and continued: "However there is also a radical faction in his tribe that wants overturn him and take the shaman position from him, however, his strength is very high and they wouldn''t be able to defeat him even if they poisoned him and ganged upon him, as long as he remains in power peace is certain for us." Lucian examined Felix''s new body and was quite awed, this was a different evolution path compared to the one''s that the ancestors took, also his evolution was quite fast as the ancestors had to go through quite a few generations before they learned how to morph into human form, however, it was unknown if Felix could get a human form or not since he took a different path. Lucian admired him for a little bit before he said: "Since there won''t be any trouble as long as Rafaka exists I think it''s time for the two of you to leave the tribe to gain experience and get a better life, our cousin tribes already sent their promising youths to the lion tribe, the tiger tribe the puma tribe and the other smaller tribes." "The closest savanna to our settlement is the hyena tribe, they are quite the bastards and not much stronger than us but they respect the strong, and they are quite close to the lion tribe as they were their first subordinates if you want to get to the lion tribe you need to go through their tribe first and get some recommendations from their leader." Felix listened to his words for some time but he didn''t feel like leaving the tribe, however, he was also interested in seeing the world, his whole former life he lived in a very small area, he didn''t mind it back then as long as he got food and shelter but now a sense of adventure and thirst of knowledge appeared in his mind, he wanted to get stronger and see what the world had in place for him, he had no particular goal, he just wanted to enjoy himself! Sahee nodded her head as she looked at Felix and said: "So when do you want to leave?" Felix responded: "I don''t have anything tying me to the tribe, as long as you are ready we leave." Sahee looked at Lucian in the eyes and said: "Then let''s go now." Lucian escorted them to the exit of the village and waved at them, but before they fully left his sight he threw them two big bones that were inscribed with unintelligible characters to Felix. Lucian explained to them while they walked away: "These are tokens for the hyena tribe, give them to the guards so they will let you in the tribe grounds, the characters on it are in the hyena language so don''t bother to read them." Sahee waved at him using her good arm and put her bone inside her clothes, Felix didn''t have anything to hide his bone so Sahee asked him to lend it to her until they reached the village and Felix agreed, he didn''t want to carry a useless bone on his head until they reached the tribe. Both of their silhouettes disappeared over the horizon as Sahee transformed into her cat form as well and they started to use their full speed. Lucian sighed as he watched them leave and muttered: "The hopes of our tribe..." Chapter 9: Cousins Sahee and Felix''s running speed were quite high, Felix was even running faster than her after he ate the bear''s body and she had to use her innate ability to keep up with his new speed. They already left the plains and the sun overhead was starting to grow hotter and hotter, reaching the savanna wouldn''t take them much time considering their current speed. Their surroundings started to change as yellow tall grass sprouted from the ground, trees became rarer and changed their shapes, they were quickly nearing the savanna and it took them only around 6 hours of travelling at their quickest speed. Felix smelled the air and he could feel that the air around these parts was arid and hard to breathe, the sun overhead was beating down on both of their bodies and their fur didn''t help their situation at all, Felix started to sweat along with Sahee. They ignored their physical condition as they trudged towards the hyena tribe, after some more time of travelling in the sun they finally reached the hyena tribe that was based around an oasis. Their buildings weren''t that different from the cat tribe''s the only difference was that their''s were made of pale white bones, most of the people from the hyena tribe wore primitive clothes and acted simply, from time to time you could hear their laughter echoing, the moment Sahee and Felix appeared they were met with the bone spears of the guards. Most male hyena''s had a dumb look on their face but they were good at doing what they were told. The biggest guard retracted his spear that was pointed at them and asked: "What you want? Friend or foe?" Sahee was in her humanoid form and they recognized that she was from the cat tribe, even though they were cousin tribes no one was trustful of strangers these days. Sahee took out two bones from her clothes and pointed at herself and Felix then said: "We came here as representatives of the cat tribe that stays near the big forest." The big guard scrunched his face as he tried to remember who they were then he said: "I don''t know, I must go talk with a female, wait here." Sahee waited with Felix in the sun while the big guard left them, the other guards were eyeing them warily while pointing their bone spears at them. The hyena tribe was matriarchal, the females of the tribe were the brains while the males were the brawn, due to the evolution of the hex energy in their bodies they lost some of their extra members and gained a higher intelligence, the male''s remained the same in the intelligence department but they became stronger, averagely a hyena male adult elite would have a bodily strength of 14, their mouth and teeth were their killing weapon as they could break bones with them quite easily. The big guard came back with a female hyena that transformed into her humanoid form as soon as she saw Sahee and Felix, she eyed Felix not understanding why he wouldn''t transform into his humanoid form but then decided to talk with Sahee: "I heard from this big lug here that you have come with the invitations for the great hunt, you almost came too late, the great hunt will start 2 days from now." Sahee was puzzled, as well as Felix, what great hunt? They weren''t told anything about that. Seeing their puzzled looks the woman took the bones from Sahee''s grasp and looked them over for a few times before she started laughing: "A male must have given your leader these bones, he didn''t even bother to explain to you what they were about, whatever, people from the cat tribe always come to our tribes to join the lion tribe as scouts since we are one of the first subordinates they always want to butter us up, whatever let me explain how this works." The woman threw both of the bones away as a bunch of male hyenas in their primal form pounced on them as cracked them with their teeth. Sahee didn''t know what to say but the female hyena started to explain: "My name is Shinda, I''m the guard''s leader, you can ask me questions later, the great hunt is a way for the lion tribe to find good subordinates and it''s quite a simple endeavour, all of the contestants are pitted against each other in a deathmatch and only the remaining 10 survivors are allowed to join the lion tribe, based on their performance they would be assigned different positions in the lion tribe along with strategical resources and protection of their tribe." The woman waited for questions from them but they were both quiet as they digested the information, Felix didn''t mind, he wanted to stretch his body and fight to the death, Sahee didn''t agree with Felix, this was quite harsh for her so she asked: "What tribe''s are in this contest?" Shinda thought for a bit before she answered: "Mostly from the cat tribe like you two, however, there are a few contestants from the black bear tribe this year, there are also a few from the Emu tribe, even though they are fence-sitters most of the time when it comes to resource division they now sent people to join the lion tribe, very strange if you ask me." "There is also a contestant from the Elephant tribe, this is considered quite strange as Elephant tribesmen are pacifists, why would he join such a contest?" While she was telling them the contestants, she was also explaining her doubts about some of them, both Felix and Sahee listened quietly after she finished rambling they realized that she finished telling them about the tribes, there weren''t many tribes and most of the people were from the cat tribe, Felix wondered why? Seeing Felix''s expression Shinda could guess what he was thinking about: "The other tribes feel that they would look down on their ancestors if they joined the lion tribe, after all, even though the lion tribe is strong they aren''t invincible, it just that they are very balanced and they give great opportunities for their subordinates, as long as you are talented you wouldn''t end badly in the lion tribe." After she finished explaining everything to them she pointed towards the nearby oasis and told them: "You can rest for a while at the oasis with the others, some of our younger tribesmen will also want to officially join the lion tribe, even though we are their subordinates we are only given very few quotas for our youths to join the event due to our scavenging nature..." Hyenas couldn''t stop themselves from eating, they would eat until nothing remained if they were hungry, they would do anything for food and they wouldn''t care if it was rotten or not, the lion tribe looked down on this behaviour of theirs and when they became their direct subordinates they didn''t give them many quotas they could use to join the event. The difference between them and the other stronger races was that the lion tribe would admit them even if they didn''t have invitations! If someone from the tiger tribe decided to join their tribe they would invite them in a heartbeat regardless if they were very talented or not, however, this was very unlikely considering the bad blood between the Tiger and Lion tribe, along with the fact that the tiger tribe lived in the mountains that were quite a long distance away from the savanna, even if a tiger cub wanted to rebel and join the lion tribe he would be caught on the way to the savanna and sent back home to repent. Felix walked to the oasis with Sahee and waited, from time to time he would drink some water to quench his thirst, there were 10 other youths with the features of a hyena, 6 males and 4 females, they were all looking at the outsiders warily, hyenas were twice as strong as the cat tribe in bodily strength, but they lacked refined techniques and they only fought haphazardly, they were also quite reckless so back in the day a lot of hyenas died to the hands of the cat tribe ancestors, bodily power didn''t necessarily mean killing power, and in life and death situations those with better experiences and techniques would win. Of course, with lesser bodily power it also meant that you could only go for kills and you couldn''t try to capture your opponent or you might be the one who ate a loss, killing someone was easier than capturing them. None of the hyenas interacted with Felix and Sahee, they knew that they would end up slaughtering each other sooner or later so they didn''t want to interact with their future victims. Sahee and Felix understood them so they just sat there, from time to time eating some of the things prepared from the tribe when they were hungry and drink water when they were thirsty, the both of them didn''t exhibit any of their techniques as they saved them for later. After 2 days passed they were both ready to go towards the event site, they were led there by another woman from the tribe who didn''t tell them what her name was. The examination site was around 200 kilometres away from the hyena tribe and it was a place full of bones, the male hyenas couldn''t control their saliva as they gulped heavily when they looked at the bones. Laughter could be heard as the two people from the black bear tribe approached the event site. A big fat fellow came as well, he had big floppy ears and a giant trunk instead of a nose, he was the one from the elephant tribe, he was silent as he ignored everyone. Hundreds of people from the cat tribe appeared in groups of 2 or 3, most of them looked quite haggard and weak as if they were ready to drop down after a few seconds, but Felix could feel that they were only acting. Sahee looked around and saw some guys who were sticking their heads in the ground, those must have been from the Emu tribe. Suddenly a deep majestic voice could be heard coming from above, a big fellow dropped from the sky, he had lion ears and big whiskers along with a beautiful mane for hair, his tail was swinging from side to side as he eyed every participant and then he gave a toothy grin showing his sharp teeth to everyone and stated: "You all know the rules." He stomped on the ground and all of the bones from the area caved in as a hole appeared on the ground, it was an underground arena! The man explained shortly: "This arena was created by the mole tribe and it spans around 100 kilometres, it''s like a maze, you will all have to go down there and fight for 10 days, normally our tribe would only recruit the last 10 living people but we made an exemption this year, as long as you are alive by the time the 10 days are up you will be given the scouting job in our tribe, based on your performance on how many people you killed your rank will increase to the maximum of lieutenant in the tribe." "Anyways go now, I will be waiting here for the whole 10 days, you will also be disqualified if you killed someone after the 10 days are up." The man traced with his finger on his neck when the word disqualification left his mouth, most of the people here understood that disqualification meant death from his gesture! Felix looked down in the underground arena, this type of arena would be advantageous for those of the smaller sized tribes, the big black bear tribe and the elephant tribe would have a harder time, even the Emu tribe was considered quite tall for the arena, the arena was made by the mole tribe so it made sense it was quite small. The lion tribesman looked around and seeing some gazes that told him they thought the arena was unfair for them he laughed and pointed at the two black bears: "What do you guys think of the arena? Pretty great right?" The black bear duo didn''t say anything as they looked down, the lion''s aura was fully engulfing them and that made their bodies shake in fear! Seeing that both of them didn''t say anything the lion took back his aura and said: "The winners will be taken by me to the lion tribe city, you will be given further information if you are still alive after the 10 days are up." Felix and Sahee were one of the last groups that jumped down in the underground arena as there were few single people from the cat tribe that wanted to team up with them, Felix and Sahee refused all of them as they couldn''t trust anyone in this situation, who knew when they would backstab them? Both Sahee and Felix were considered to be quite smart, especially Sahee as she had more knowledge of the world than Felix, she used to do quite a few chores that needed her to travel around in her youth due to her obvious potential, she needed to learn how to deal with different situations so she could learn how to read people well. Felix just didn''t want to team up with anyone because they all felt weird to him, they had a strange smell and he could feel they weren''t sincere at all when they asked to team up. Both of their silhouettes disappeared into the underground arena as the lion tribesman surveyed the now empty area, the hyena woman that led them to the place already left before the lion tribesman arrived. The lion-man sighed as he looked down at the hole in the ground and muttered: "Our lion tribe fell so hard that we need the help of this type of people, so embarrassing!" Chapter 10: Fighting to the death Felix looked around as Sahee sat near him, both of them were now in the underground arena, and due to their feline traits they could both see well in this dark place. They could see that the walls were imprinted with some runic scribblings that glowed a deep blue, they weren''t sure what they meant, as it wasn''t written in the common Tarot continent language. Suddenly out of the dark a silhouette attacked them, however with their eyesight they easily parried his attack and slashed his neck, the figure clutched its bloodied neck as he died slowly on the dark ground. Felix got closer to him and he realized that it was one of the people from the hyena tribe, Sahee frowned as she looked around, where were the others? Suddenly out of the ground a hyena popped up and slashed at Felix, another two came from the dark and tried to decapitate Sahee with the same method. Sahee''s body disappeared as she used her innate ability, Felix''s did the same, they were still there but the sudden disappearance made the hyenas miss their mark, Felix''s claws went directly through the hyena''s head reaching its brain and killing it instantly. Sahee hesitated on killing the Hyena, she killed the horned rabbit for her adulthood ceremony but she thought that it was an unintelligent being, she was hesitating on killing someone that she knew and could think like herself. The hyena however wasn''t hesitating, he smelled the air silently and cursed when he found no odor, however since Sahee froze up on the spot his claws found a mark directly in her thigh by luck and slashed a deep gash into it until the bone was seen, the other hyena smelling blood immediately attacked Sahee after he identified her location. Felix seeing his partner being distracted and injured jumped quickly while being invisible and landed on the hyena that was ready to chomp Sahee into pieces, his claws went inside the hyena''s skull killing it immediately. The other hyena saw how its brethren died and slashed his claws on his head in a downward motion trying to cut into Felix along with the corpse of his comrade. Sahee stopped hesitating to see Felix was in danger and thrust her claws in the hyena''s direction, the hyena felt the sloppy attack and seeing that it was the only one alive remaining from his group he decided to retreat, after all, he only needed to survive, even though he was dumb he understood at least this much. Felix sighed as he escaped death, it wasn''t permanent but he wasn''t sure what will happen once all of the heads in the corner of his vision disappeared, would he truly blackout forever and disappear? Sahee gasped in pain as she took out some bandages from the inner pockets of her skirt, she gritted her teeth and placed some herb ointment on the wound then applied force to stop the bleeding and bandaged herself, she walked wobbly for a few steps then put some more strength in her leg, it was obvious that the damage did to her thigh was quite high, however, she didn''t say anything as she started to walk around, Felix didn''t say anything as he followed her. The dark surroundings were perfect spots for ambushes unless you were from some type of feline tribe, the only ones who were at disadvantage here were those from the Emu, Black Bear, and Elephant tribe. Felix realized that they had an advantage as this test was mostly used for cat tribe members and this type of environment could be used for them to unleash the most of their ability, in this type of environment only those with superior stealth abilities would win and this would point out the more talented people in this kind of event. Felix smelled the air, but his nose told him only blood was around, from all directions, someone must have died, even though this was a survival test the others wanted a higher rank in the lion tribe, the more kills one had the better resources and protection their tribe would get once the test ended. Animals weren''t greedy but once they evolved into their humanoid forms they started to devolve into human emotions, greed, anger, lust, hatred, envy, gluttony, they developed things that their minds weren''t accustomed to but acclimated to them in time, however, this type of emotions would appear in the harder times of the people of the Tarot continent, these type of emotions would intensify under a situation such as this one. Felix didn''t know where to go so he used his hearing instead of his nose, he could hear shallow breathing from some directions so he decided to avoid it along with the injured Sahee, she helped him back then so he decided that here would be the time that his favor would be paid. Sahee knew Felix was avoiding the competition for her sake and this made her feel trust him more, her sense of kinship with him also increased by quite a bit as all he did was to ensure her safety. She also felt bad that she froze up and this cost her an injury that almost disabled her for the course of the event, if Felix and she would be ambushed and Felix couldn''t deal with the others quick enough there was a high chance of dying for her, she felt that she was ready for the real cruel world out there but it seemed she was mistaken, she was severely lacking in experience... she even wondered why Lucian sent her out this early and started to doubt her capabilities. Felix didn''t know what she was thinking about as he used all of his senses to navigate around the underground arena, he knew that he couldn''t meet with any big group of contestants or else while he would be fine, there was a very high chance of Sahee meeting her doom, it wasn''t that this would impede him from winning, but he felt that he owed her one because she took him off the forest floor after he passed out, even though he ''saved'' her back then when he slashed the female bear''s eyes out, he also saved himself so he didn''t think that one counted. Felix''s ears moved a little bit as he heard whispering coming from behind a wall: "This damn test is suited to the cat tribe, what can we do here brother?" The voices were strong and loud even though they were whispering: "Calm down, all we have to do is wait, since we are also dark in color it will be harder for some of the participants to find us, and if they do, do you think the cowardly cat tribe will attack us while we are like this?" Felix turned on his stealth mode as he motioned with his paw for Sahee to keep quiet and wait, he jumped over to the top of the wall and looked down seeing the two Black Bear tribesmen staying with their backs to the wall while looking around warily. Felix could feel that from this angle he could instantly kill one of them, he had the stealth advantage along with the fact that both of them weren''t looking up, and even if they did he was invisible to them, combined with the darkness of the underground arena they shouldn''t be able to feel him at all. Felix''s eyes hardened as he dropped directly on one of the black bears and his claws dug through his skull trying to reach his brain, suddenly his claws stopped one centimeter away from the Black bear''s brain and he could feel his stomach being squeezed by a strong hand, his claws broke and blood dripped down from his paws. He couldn''t help himself from coughing blood that dropped from the ground, the Black Bear used his other hand to check on his head and saw that he was bleeding severely, however it wasn''t a deadly wound if the bleeding would be stopped. The black bear looked at Felix''s body and sneered while saying: "You thought that you could break my head so easily?" He clutched Felix''s body harder and his spine snapped, Felix''s body dropped to the ground lifeless and bloody. The black bears nodded to each other and waited for any other attacks. A new Felix appeared behind the wall, his eyes were wide and Sahee didn''t know what happened, she heard only a muffled thud and nothing else as she was in her humanoid form her senses weren''t very enhanced, they were above human standards but the wall before them was also quite thick. Felix didn''t want to talk about what happened and he only motioned for her to avoid this wall at all costs, Felix just felt death for the first time with his newly evolved brain, and he could say that it wasn''t a nice feeling. The feeling of falling in the abyss, darkness everywhere, suddenly there was a light at the end of a tunnel, however, after that light appeared he blacked out and found himself behind the wall, it was lucky he didn''t appear in front of the bears or he would have died again, 5 heads remained. Sahee didn''t question what happened, she didn''t want to anger Felix after all he goes through for her right now, so she kept quiet and followed along while making sure she didn''t hold him back even more. A bunch of Emu tribesmen ran around at quick speeds and Felix could feel that he reached a dead end because of them, the Emu''s were in front of him so he decided to go back and avoid them, however, if he went back who knew if the Black Bears would notice something? He could see that Sahee was quickly getting exhausted with time, it''s been around 3 days since the bear incident and he knew that they must have gotten bored and started walking, what if he went back and they saw him along with Sahee? He gritted his teeth and went ahead with Sahee while using their stealth techniques to the maximum, they avoided the running Emu''s and tried to go further but Sahee breathed out too hard before they could go behind a corner and disappear from the Emu''s vision attracting their attention. Felix cursed under his breath, now they had to fight with the whole batch of Emus, they were around 8 and all of their eyes immediately targeted the injured Sahee, Emus were cowardly creatures but once they attacked they were hard to defend against, they were also very fast a little bit faster than the cat tribe, however, they couldn''t control their bodies as well while attacking. Sahee blinked and 4 Emu''s were on her, she dodged by jumping backward but she cringed as she landed on her wounded leg and almost fell, she leaned backward as a hand almost grasped her neck. Felix was having a hard time fighting 4 opponents faster than him, however, his body was agile and smaller than theirs so he could dodge their attacks and even retaliate from time to time, but the wounds he left on their bodies were shallow and could be easily recuperated from. He knew that if he wanted to kill them he had to surprise them, Felix disappeared but the Emu''s were on high alert, they knew of the talents of the cat tribe so they all went back to back to create an impenetrable defense. Sahee was on her last legs as she tried to dodge an attack that was ready to claim her life, but her attacker suddenly fell to the ground while grasping the back of his neck which was now severely bleeding. Felix motioned to her and they both disappeared in the dark, the Emus entered into a defensive stance but quickly realized that both of them retreated, the injured Emus tended to their injuries while the others kept watching the surroundings for ambushes. Felix got Sahee to a safe location before he told her: "I''m not sure if I can keep you safe anymore..." Sahee''s face started to darken as she looked down at her skirt, she knew that she was a burden and that she messed up bad, will Felix abandon her here? Felix looked at her and didn''t know what to say, they were lucky the Emu''s didn''t pursue them for some reason, maybe that was their territory? Felix didn''t know what to do in this situation, he had more lives but he hated the feeling of death, it was something that marked him considerably and he didn''t want to feel it again unless he was the one who was making the mistakes. Felix sighed as he looked at Sahee and disappeared from her vision, Sahee started to struggle, she sat down to rest but now she realized that she was too weak to get up, it seemed Felix saw that as well as he left her alone, he knew that she couldn''t follow him anymore and staying in one place with a small group of two like theirs was technically suicide in this situation. Sahee''s hot tears dropped to the ground making small dripping sounds, she knew that she was a burden, she knew that, however she couldn''t believe that Felix would abandon her like this, she wanted to struggle and follow him again, but she just couldn''t her injury didn''t heal much and her energy was sapped, she was dead weight! Then she became angry as she realized Felix had more lives, she only had one, she knew that she had one, she wasn''t special like him, she wanted to shout and make him help her again, but her voice remained blocked in her neck as her eyes darted to the side. Two black bears appeared as they looked around and smelled the air, Sahee''s injury opened a bit after she struggled to get up and follow Felix and the duo of black bears appeared with their nose in the air! They were both splattered with blood and feathers, the sounds of bones crunching could be heard from their mouths, they killed the Emu tribe! Sahee wanted to get up and escape but she was at their mercy in this situation. The black bears got closer and closer to her, even though they couldn''t see as well as her in the dark their noses didn''t lie to them, their ears could also hear her shallow breathing. The injured black bear took a better look at her as he got face to face. He whistled as he looked down at her body and said: "Isn''t this woman quite fine brother? What do you say should we share her?" His brother came nearby as well and looked at her features and snorted: "Share this cat tribe trash? If you talk about eating sure, but if you talk about something else you can have her all for yourself." His brother scratched the back of his head and winced as his head injuries weren''t fully healed, he remembered the pesky cat tribesmen who injured him and his eyes turned a little bit red then he looked at the woman in front of him and said: "I''m a bit frustrated brother, why don''t you go and keep watch while I play with her to death?" His brother shook his head as he left the two behind, the bear tribesmen smiled creepily as his hand touched Sahee''s cheek and said: "I will enjoy this..." Sahee wanted to scream but her mouth was gagged immediately, hot tears dripped from her eyes as she looked around wanting for Felix to appear and save her. But no one was coming, her clothes were ripped and the Black Bear started to play with her, his breathing roughened as well as he played with her for ten hours then looked down at her still body, her injuries worsened and her wound opened, she bled out to death, the talent of the eastern cat tribe died today. The brother of the bear tribesman came back and said: "You can eat her alone, you already unloaded yourself so many times in her, disgusting!" The violator''s appetite dropped as well and just took one last look at her before he covered himself and left along with his brother. Felix was nowhere to be seen, he was already far away from Sahee''s location, he knew that what he did was selfish but he didn''t care much, he valued his life more than others and did his best to return her the favor, she would have died anyway if he didn''t wake up. While he thought that his help at that time didn''t count, he changed his tune really fast when it came to his life and death. Felix sighed as he looked behind him, it was for the best if he lived. His animal instincts told him so, his self-preservation instincts won over his new human emotions. Chapter 11: Guilt and remorse There were just 2 days left before the appointed time would be up, the lion tribesman looked down in the hole and muttered: "Let''s hope that only the cream of the crop survived." Felix was hastily running through the underground maze as he tried to keep himself hidden and kill others if there was the opportunity, up till now, he already ended the lives of around 20 other cat tribesmen that tried to kill him, but he could sense that there were fewer and fewer people around, it was also easier to hide now. Felix didn''t know if he was unfortunate or not but he met the bear brothers again, fortunately for him, he was in his stealth and unless he attacked them they wouldn''t be able to find him. The one that he injured scratched his head and told his brother: "That damn trash did a number on my poor skull, fortunately, its almost healed by now." He looked around and told his brother: "Bro, that cat woman was very good, it was really unfortunate these hyena women were acting like they tried to please us, I like it more when they struggle and bite!" Felix''s eyes widened as he heard about the cat woman, but it could also be the cat woman from any other tribe, after all, there were a lot of women from the other cat tribes. But his gut was telling him that the one they were talking about was Sahee, he went in the opposite direction the bears walked in and looked around, he felt that something was upsetting him, he wasn''t sure why but he felt his stomach hurting even though he wasn''t hungry, it was like phantom pain. He didn''t know why he felt like that but as he looked down he could feel his cheeks becoming wet, was this what remorse felt like? Felix didn''t like the feeling at all, he knew that what he did was bad, especially because she was one of the very first people that he knew even though not well, they had somewhat of a bond and he broke it, but after he started to remember what death felt like his eyes clouded over. His body stopped as he just sat there in the dark thinking: "Was it right to leave here alone? But the feeling of death... the constant darkness that I can''t see through, the feeling of my body disappearing, the light it felt nice but it was burning..." Felix contemplated and shook his head, he felt wrong but he would have done the same if those events happened again, his instincts were just shouting at him at the time, he just wanted to escape and not feel death again. His new intelligence was a blessing and a curse, if he lacked intelligence he wouldn''t fear death as much as he wouldn''t understand it, even though he would still obey his instincts, in some type of situation his instincts may contradict with his thinking. Felix''s eyes narrowed as he watched a cat tribesmen betray his last colleague, the man was clenching his teeth as he ran his claws inside his colleague''s throat, his teammate had wide eyes as his face turned wrathful for a few seconds before his head fell, the cat tribesmen who done the deed had a crazed look on his face he wanted to laugh but he didn''t want to leak his location. Felix appeared above him and his head rolled to the floor, he had the same crazed expression as before as he didn''t understand how he died. Felix looked at the betrayed teammate and saw that his eyes were both wrathful and fearful at the same time, was that the same expression Sahee made when she died, he wondered. Felix shook his head to clear his mind, it wasn''t time to think about Sahee anymore, but he remembered that he had to go back to the village with the guards sent by the lion tribe when he got his rank, the lion tribe wanted to parade their recruits and there were a few tribes between the cat tribe and the lion tribe. Felix put those thoughts to the back of his head, he will see what he would do once he arrived at the village. One more day passed and it was the last day before the death battle royale would end. Felix was currently hiding in the darkness looking around, he could feel the ground shake under him as his ears fluttered, he heard the footsteps of a rather big creature! Felix narrowed his eyes as he thought for a few seconds before he realized that it was the fellow from the elephant tribe that was coming through! Felix made himself as small as possible as he used his stealth technique and hugged a wall, the elephant tribesmen walked in front of him, he was 2.5 meters tall in his human form and his head almost went through the ceiling of the underground maze, he had the head of one of the bear brothers in his hand, he clutched it in his meaty arms then crushed it letting a spray of blood go on the ground and Felix''s body making it appear in the behemoths presence! The elephant looked down at Felix and gave him a small smile as he said: "Hello, there cat tribesman quite unlucky for the blood to spray on you isn''t it?" The behemoth looked to be friendly at first glance but Felix could see something in his eyes that unsettled him, it was a pure unbridled rage that he couldn''t understand where it came from, he never interacted with this person in his life. The elephant wanted to scoop Felix in his arm but Felix dodged easily, the man was strong but slow and his huge clothes made swishing sounds when he moved his body making his moves easily traceable. The elephant smiled as he created a hole in the wall that Felix previously hugged, in his hand was the other bear tribesman who was roaring and struggling to get out, the bear tribesman was also big standing around 1,90, but the moment the behemoth elephant clutched his neck and ripped him through the wall he became cannon fodder! Felix watched on with wide eyes as his head was ripped from his shoulders and a shower of blood ensued, Felix jumped backward to dodge it, his stomach growled as it had been some time since he had seen so much meat and blood, the black bear tribe was at least 2x stronger than the brown bear tribe! The elephant looked at the downed body then at Felix who was almost salivating, he shook his head as he saw Felix''s state and he said: "All carnivores are the same, sigh, and I wanted to let you go, unfortunate." The elephant arms traveling speed suddenly increased as he almost caught Felix, however, Felix wasn''t as big as the bear and even with the increased speed he was still able to easily dodge him, but the thick meat and muscles protecting the elephant''s body meant that there was no chance for Felix to kill him, after all, there was a high chance that even if he slashed his throat he would be able to stop the bleeding! Felix wanted to escape but he was dirty from the blood and his stealth became ineffective, he wanted to run away but the Elephant charged down walls without care as he followed him, at the rate he was going the whole underground place would collapse! Felix knew that the only way for him to survive was to collapse the underground maze, the Hex enchanted dirt would kill him but it would also heavily injure the elephant, he had more lives but the elephant didn''t. Felix ran around making the elephant destroy the supporting beams of the underground maze, combined with him going through the walls as well the whole underground started to shake, the remaining survivors didn''t know what to do as they could feel the ceiling above them ready to cave in and bury them alive! There weren''t many survivors but they were still above ten, however, they were all hiding deep in the maze to avoid the others as the time wasn''t up yet. The elephant knew that he fell into Felix''s trap, he became too angry as he realized that all meat-eaters were the same so he wanted to end Felix quickly, but he was lead by the nose to this happening! The elephant chuckled as he saw Felix stop running away, they were quite far away from the exit and he could feel that the ceiling caving in on him would kill him even if he reverted to his primal form which had even higher defenses! The mole tribe used the immense Hex reserved in this particular piece of land to create this underground maze, normally speaking the tunnels would have collapsed without the support of the hex energy which strengthened the dirt to the point that it was truly like a granite maze. The elephant sat down as he looked at Felix and asked: "Why do carnivores eat so much meat?" As a herbivore, the elephant couldn''t understand why the carnivores couldn''t eat herbs like them. His mother and father were both eaten by the Lion tribe and he refused his elder''s instruction, he wanted to get into the Lion tribe and assassinate the fellow who killed his parents. It seemed he would fail to keep the promise to his deceased parents. The elephant sighed as he felt the room was getting smaller, he grasped his big ears and he frowned as he watched Felix warily looking at him and asked again: "Why do carnivores eat so much meat?" Felix didn''t know what to say, he looked down at himself then at the behemoth in front of him and told him: "I''m not sure, when I''m hungry the first thing that I think about is eating meat, in the past, I have tried to eat some herbs as well when there was no meat, but my body started to get weaker, I could feel that eating anything else besides meat would weaken me..." The elephant started laughing as he clutched his stomach and said: "This is understandable, even we from the herbivore tribe wouldn''t want our bodies to weaken, but why would you kill someone unarmed who was only protecting their child?" Felix frowned, he never killed someone that didn''t attack him first, well if he excluded the birds, snakes and rabbits that he ate when he was younger and when he first came to this world, however, he was very hungry back then... Seeing that he had no response and the underground cave was ready to fall on his head he shook his head and looked down while he muttered: "Mother, father, little Banjui is coming to visit you soon." Felix''s eyes widened as he could feel his air leave his body, his body was trapped under the debris as hard rocks were slowly crushing him, he could be considered quite unlucky as the impact of the ceiling crashing on him avoided his head and he would live to endure the pain of being crushed alive. He looked in front of him and saw the elephant who had his head caved in, he died instantly due to the impact, Felix mouth started watering as he watched the mountain of flesh, he wanted to approach it and eat at least a little bit of meat from him, but his body was slowly getting crushed while only his head was free, he could feel his internal organs turning into mush as his brain was being deprived by clean oxygen. His turned purple and red as he vomited a mouthful of blood, he could feel death closing in, and it was even more traumatic than his previous experience, he could feel the strength leaving his body as his soul did the same thing. The darkness appeared, the void, the deafening silence, he could feel his soul going straightly down towards the light from before, however before he could black out he could feel someone''s arm grasping the back of his neck and throwing him away from the light! When he woke up the lion tribesmen looked down at him from above, he looked around and realized he was half-buried in the debris and bones. The lion tribesman grasped his paw and took him out, he looked around and realized that there was no one else who could have escaped from there and he sighed as he eyed Felix and ordered: "Transform into your humanoid form!" Felix fell into an awkward situation here, he tried to do some poses or stretch but the lion man just furrowed his brows as he asked: "Are you making fun of me?" Felix shook his head quickly, the trauma from his death was still there and he couldn''t think clearly, so he answered directly: "I can''t..." The lion man''s eyes narrowed as he asked: "Why you can''t? Haven''t you gone through the adulthood ceremony?" Felix told him what happened at his adulthood ceremony while missing some details such as masking the techniques that he got as his ability and that he grew to his current height instead of gaining a humanoid form. The lion-man grasped Felix''s body as he poked him around the neck and stomach area before he said: "Very interesting, you are telling the truth, you are also missing Hex energy from the body, but this could be attributed to the fact that you haven''t eaten much in the days that you were underground, coupled with the exhaustion it means that you can''t absorb Hex energy anymore." However he still felt that there was something strange about Felix that he couldn''t put his finger on but he decided to ignore it, he was the last survivor and that meant he would gain a rank in the lion tribe, however, he knew that someone who couldn''t even achieve the humanoid form didn''t have much talent, but he also survived the whole 10 days so he couldn''t give him the basic scout rank. The lion-man caressed his mane for a little bit before he said: "Come with me to the lion tribe, you are now a tier 1 scout of the tribe and you will be given the appropriate resources, you will also need to go through the rank ceremonial appointment which consists of showing some of our protectors where your village is and escort them there while also walking through the villages of the other subordinates of the lion tribe, do you understand?" Felix nodded his head, he sighed as he looked down, the lion-man knew that something was bothering Felix but he didn''t give him any encouraging words as he picked him up and started running at quick speeds towards the capital of the lion tribe, encouraging words were for the weak and there was no place for the weak in the lion tribe, the old and sickly would be thrown away like trash while the younger generation would be protected and nurtured. Felix was contemplating what he could tell Lucian and started to doze off, the lion-man didn''t say anything as he let him sleep and kept running... Chapter 12: Bringing back news Felix awake groggily and looked around, the lion-man looked down at him as he placed him on the ground and said: "We are here, don''t make a fool of yourself, also my name is Landers, don''t forget it, when you will need something in the tribe you will have to use my name to get it." Landers walked forward as he exited the tent they were currently in, Felix checked his body and felt that all of his exhaustion disappeared, there was no one else around in the tent beside him and Landers already left. Felix walked out of the tent and found himself seeing a lot of people, they were from the lion tribe, bear tribe, emu tribe, and other mish-mashes ranging from the hyena to the dog tribe. It could be said that the lion tribe accepted anyone as long as they were skilled enough. Landers patted Felix''s head and told him: "The others know about your rank already, I informed the higher-ups and all you have to do is meet with the protectors and march with them, anyways let''s get you an outfit that would say you are from the lion tribe." Landers took Felix to their armory, the guards stationed there saluted respectfully and let him in, Felix had to wait outside for his outfit, Landers didn''t take much time to come out, he came approximately 2 minutes later with an outfit for Felix''s feline body, it consisted of a light leather vest that covered his whole body that was colored a deep yellow color with the crest of the lion tribe inscribed on the back. Felix was an assassin so he needed light armor so he wouldn''t waste stamina and lose speed. There wasn''t anything else in his hands, Felix couldn''t use weapons and most of the cat tribe used their claws as their weapons, they were retractable and grew stronger along with their owner, they were the perfect assassination weapons as they were one with their wielder. Landres helped Felix to don the vest and took him to the guards building, Felix looked around and saw how boisterous the capital was, the buildings were made of a wood that he didn''t recognize but they were shining a deep red, there were quite a few buildings in their capital as the capital''s size spanned almost 900 kilometers in a circle, they were now in the middle of the capital and everything around them was lively. Felix and Landres quickly got to the guards building and Felix looked around inspecting the guards, Landres nodded seeing what he was doing, a scout needed good vision for people. Felix was disappointed with the quality of the guards, they were all youths that were even younger than him, Landres seeing his disappointed gaze told him directly: "They are youths who will go outside to gain experience, they aren''t that strong but who would dare to attack them as they are backed by the lion tribe? our only enemy won''t even be able to reach your village without going through us, they are safer going out than staying here." Felix understood what he meant, but he was still disappointed a bit, after all, what if the people that would attack would ignore their backing and just massacre everyone? He felt remorse about what he did and he didn''t want the villagers to die as well. Felix sighed as Landers patted his head and whispered to him: "You don''t have to worry, they also will have one elder who will protect them from the shadows, after all, we from the lion tribe protect our youth, unless it''s an extremely deadly situation he won''t show himself so they can temper themselves, we won''t be stingy with the protection of your settlement, after all, you are the only one who remained alive." Then Landers''s eyes narrowed as his hand transformed into a claw that grasped Felix''s skull tightly, he continued whispering to him while the recruits looked at them with wide eyes: "How could you have survived? While you were exhausted pretty badly your body was clean and there were no injuries, extremely strange if you ask me, it could be explained if you were a coward who ran away all of the time but I can smell the decay of death coming from you, meaning you had quite a few kills." Felix didn''t know what to say without explaining his ability so he bluffed: "I killed those around the entrance and camped nearby, I was extremely lucky that I did that..." Lander''s eyes remained narrowed as he wasn''t sure if Felix lied or not, Felix was currently using a simplified breathing technique that was meant to hide his heart fluctuations, this was in case you were captured and needed to lie your way through or make it though for those who interrogated you to see if you were lying or not. Landers decided to trust him, then he stopped clenching his skull and told him: "I remember seeing you entering the maze with a little beauty, I''m sorry for your loss.." While the lion tribe threw out their old and sickly, they still went out to burry their bones if they ever found them while traveling, death was sacred to them and they thought that everyone should get a burial, however, this only applied to their tribe. Felix''s eyes glazed over when he heard of Sahee, he still felt guilt, not as much as before but he felt bad, however, his instincts kicked in and slashed his emotions to pieces as they told him: "Why would you die for nothing? She made a mistake and that cost her life, do you want to feel that sensation again? DO YOU?" Remembering the sensation of falling in the void and the cold hand that grasped his neck before he could fall into the light made him shudder, Landers thought that he hit a sore spot when he made him remember the passed woman so he left him alone and told the youths: "You will accompany him through the Emu, Hyena, and Eastern cat tribe, you will remain at the eastern cat tribe to train and guard the tribe until you will get a hawk tribesmen to relieve you of your duty, do you understand, soldiers?" All 20 of them saluted as they put on their iron helmets over their heads and banged their shields with their spear while shouting, Landers gave out a smile as he saluted as well then told Felix: "You are ready to go, you are outfitted and they will carry the food and water as well, your body has already been charged by the Hex stone so you won''t need the food or water for a while, anyways as a grade 1 scout you will report to me in the future and you can find me in this guard building, if I''m not here you can report to the lieutenant, just ask for Simortha and he should be around, he doesn''t leave the place usually as he takes care of the logistics." He pushed Felix out of the building along with the 20 guards and told them: "You guys have your orders, cat tribesmen, it''s embarrassing but I forgot to ask for your name, might you tell me so I can finish your paper registration?" Felix nodded and said: "My name is Felix." Landres then continued: "Yes, Felix, you will return after you march with them to your village, I will have a new mission for you, it won''t be hard as it will be your first and you are only a scout even if you are a top scout, anyways, go on!" Felix nodded and saluted by putting his paw on his head as he saw the others, he looked quite cute when he did that. The 20 guards wanted to snicker seeing Felix''s pose but a glare from Landres stopped them. After a short while of meeting with each other and casually chatting, they set out for their destinations. The hyena tribe was the nearest and they were welcomed with open arms, the hyena women even tried to hit on the guards but the guards looked down on them, even though hybrids existed in the world they were either looked down upon or exalted into the skies based on their talents, however, there was a 95% chance of the hybrid being talentless so most of the common folk looked down on interbreeding. Nothing happened as they left the hyena tribe, Felix had to talk with the matriarch of the tribe for a bit only for him to be dismissed quickly after, she only asked for his name. The Emu tribe was a little bit different considering that they were almost thrown out of the tribe before they could enter properly, Felix and the guards then had to go through their rite of passage which wasn''t that hard but annoying, they had to stick their heads in the sand! The proud lion tribe wouldn''t ever do that but the Emu tribe guards were old and experienced thus easily making them put their hands in the sand even if they didn''t want to. Felix had to do it as well, even though the sand irritated his fur he quickly got rid of it and then they were able to enter the tribe, the leader of the tribe talked a little bit more with Felix but in the end, they were led out, most of the lion guards were angry at the way they were treated by the Emu''s, however, the Emu tribe was more like an ally rather than a subordinate, an Emu elite could stale and almost defeat a lion tribesman in one on one, unfortunately, Emu''s couldn''t fight well in groups and the lions could, thus the lion tribe had a huge advantage on them. The young lion guards only lost to the Emu elites because they were too young and also inexperienced, if they even got a little bit of experience under their belts, the ones who would have their heads stuck into the sand would have been the Emus. Felix sighed as they got closer and closer to the cat tribe, he could even imagine Lucian coming out of his study wanting to hug Sahee and prise her for what she had done... It was just as he thought, Lucian quickly came out of his study when he heard that Felix returned with some lion guards! He looked around with an excited expression on his face that only turned sour very quickly, he looked at Felix in the eyes and Felix told the guards that they could do what they were ordered now as they reached the location. Lucian invited Felix back into his study, he had a hardened gaze as he asked Felix: "Felix, where is Sahee?" Felix shook his head, Lucian knew what that gesture meant but he just couldn''t believe, the young Sahee who used to jump around yell at everyone that she was going to become strong to protect her tribesmen? The young Sahee who got a special talent and that was ready to become an important person in the lion tribe? Lucian just couldn''t believe it, he fell to his knees as he grasped Felix''s paws and asked: "How? How did she die??" The pain on his face couldn''t be faked, he cared deeply about Sahee just like she was his little sister, he even vividly remembered how he helped her with chores when he was a youth and she was just a little bubbling kid. Felix''s guilt and remorse intensified as he saw his pain-filled eyes and he averted his gaze from his and said slowly: "She hesitated when it came to killing someone of the hyena tribe, this made her slip up and she got injured, she started to slow us down, she became so exhausted that she couldn''t move, you know that I can''t morph into a humanoid form so I couldn''t carry her without becoming extremely exhausted myself, so I had to let her go...." Lucian''s eyes widened for a few seconds before his fingers grasped so hard at Felix''s paws that it made Felix hurt as he visibly recoiled back from his grasp, Lucian started pounding the floor of his study as small cracks appeared on it, his aura turned malevolent as he slowly whispered to Felix: "You have more lives? Why didn''t you sacrifice some to save her?" Felix gritted his teeth as he said: "I have limited lives, I cannot resurrect forever, I would have wasted them and she would have died anyway..." Lucian grasped his hair as he glared at Felix: "No you are wrong, you didn''t even try, how could you know what would have happened?" Lucian knew that he was grasping at straws at this point, he could feel that Felix was telling the truth but his strong emotions were clouding his reasoning to the point that he wanted to jump at Felix''s neck and snap it! Felix didn''t move as he sat there, Lucian knew that killing him would mean nothing as he could resurrect, his village would also be punished severely to the point that it might even be exterminated if it was found out that he was killed, and 20 lion guards were working around the settlement now! He waved his hand as his voice turned as cold as it could become as he said: "Just leave, leave and don''t come back, I know I''m at fault as well for not training her more, at this point I know that I''m even more at fault than you, I should have made her get more experience in such matters but I thought about protecting her from the real world of our people, I failed her, however, looking at you makes all the words you said reverberate into my soul, it makes me remember her and it also makes me rage to the point that I almost can''t control myself, only the cold hard reasoning that killing you would lead to me and all of the villagers dying stops me from jumping at you, I know that what I''m feeling is wrong and biased, but I truly cared about her..." Hot tears started falling from his cheeks as he fell to the ground into a fetal position and he muttered: "Sahee, Sahee, your big brother will help you carry those grain sacks, let me do it!" Felix felt like he was in a boat in the middle of the ocean during a storm, emotionally speaking, he left Lucian''s study behind and started to go towards the forest direction. He reached the same place where he first met Sahee and just sat there for a while thinking, he asked himself again: "Would I abandon her to escape if I could go back in time?" His face scrunched up as three voices started to battle inside of him, his emotions, his cold reasoning along with his instincts, images popped in his head with Sahee and then the cold void, the hand, the light, in the end, it was two versus one and combined with the continuous images that popped up in his mind when he thought about death lead to the answer which was one word: "Yes." Chapter 13: First mission Felix looked down at the ground and his face straightened up as he started walking away from the place where he first met Sahee, he was leaving behind the memories of her saving him along with those that he made at the village. He thought that it was childish, they didn''t even know each other that well, who cared if they were from the same tribe? After all, they didn''t know each other that well, even though what he had done wasn''t right, he just couldn''t find any other justification for abandoning her besides his fear of that sensation. Felix sighed as he didn''t talk with the other lion guards, he left them at the village while he went back to the capital of the lion tribe, he avoided the other tribes as there was no need to visit them anymore, they wouldn''t be happy from a sudden visit from him anyways. Felix reached the capital in 3 days without any hitches, there he directly went to the guards building and tried to meet with Landers, fortunately for him Landers was there and he met with him in his office. Landers looked at Felix''s body and nodded his head, he could feel that he was more decisive than before, he wasn''t sure what changed him but it was good quality for a scout that had to make split-second decisions if he was ever found out. Landers looked through some papers on his desk and found what he was looking for after a few seconds of paper ruffling, he decided to tell him the contents of the paper directly: "You are assigned the trade route between the tiger tribe and the cheetah tribe, you have to intercept their messengers if you can, and if you can''t do that you have to report whatever happened if you are found out, this is both a reconnaissance and assassination mission and you will be rewarded nicely if you complete it, anyway, this is your first mission and we have to give you a Hex communication stone, remember that the communication stone won''t work unless you are around 100 kilometers away from the capital or another Hex communication stone." Landers stuffed the small blue Hex communication stone inside one of the pockets of Felix''s leather vest and then told him he was ready to go, Felix wasn''t sure where he was supposed to go so he asked for something to help him and Landers used one of the scrolls that Lucian used before, but instead of learning the language, he learned about the map of the Tarot continent, the tiger tribe trade route was quite far away from the lion tribe almost 1500 kilometers away, it would take him around half a month at full speed to reach it. Felix saluted and left, while the world was full of tribes they were all thrown around and gathered in specific locations that agreed with their needs, while Felix was traveling the 150,000 kilometers he didn''t meet many new tribes, he met a few poorer cat tribes here and there, some from the dog tribe, the koala tribe, and the kangaroo tribe, there were also different variations of the snake tribe, but the snake tribe was quite ruptured because of internal problems. Felix fought along the way and ate his fill of bodies to the point that he gained another life meaning he now sat at 5 lives, but this didn''t make him happy at all, another life meant another torturous experience if he slipped, but he didn''t want to know whatever would happen if he fell into the light, he didn''t get a good feeling from that light. Felix reached the trade route after a long while of traveling and fighting, there were quite a few rogue members of the previous tribes that he met that tried to attack or kill him due to their grudges with the lion tribe, even though his leather vest had the lion tribe''s symbol on it, it was a double-edged blade. Fortunately, Felix didn''t have to worry about anyone else as he fought his way through those rogue members, he could play as he wanted, retreat if he was overwhelmed, or go in quickly for the kill if he found an opening. The travel route was between the nearby mountains and the plains, the cheetah tribe lived a few tens of kilometers nearby and used the mountain pass to their advantage to trade with the tiger tribe, there were a few tree''s scattered here and there along the mountain pass so Felix jumped into one and used his stealth technique. He watched below for any sudden movements and after a short while he saw a cheetah making it''s way up the mountain pass, it''s speed was blinding but Felix could calculate where it would go using his instincts. The cheetah was focused on sending the thing that was tied to his back so he wasn''t aware much of his surroundings, he also went through this route countless times without any incident popping up so he was pretty confident in his ability to send the package to the tiger tribe unscathed. The cheetah was almost out of the mountain pass when suddenly Felix dropped down from the tree at a high speed, immediately the cheetah could hear the sound of wind being slashed from above him, he looked up only to see nothing he scratched his ear only to feel blood. The cheetah eyes widened only to feel a splitting headache then blacking out, Felix''s claws retracted back into his paws as he looked at the body of the cheetah, his mouth started watering again, this was one of the strongest opponents he felled and it was done so easily as well, if the cheetah was more aware of his surroundings and didn''t stop for that split second he would have been able to dodge and retaliate, meaning there was a high chance for Felix to lose a life here, after all, the cheetah''s body was stronger and faster than Felix''s. Felix''s eyes lighted up as he cut the strings that tied the package to the cheetah''s body and then went ahead to feast. The blood in his mouth was ever so familiar but also different, he could feel the tender bones crunching and breaking under his strong teeth, the smell of the cheetah''s heart was ever so tempting as he took a big bite out of it, his stomach was bulging and recovering by the second as he ate the being that was way bigger than him. He could feel his muscles strengthening, his bones hardening, his vision clearing up along with his ears hearing even better than before, his current body evolution was happening live as he continued to eat from the cheetah''s body. He ignored the package that sat nearby as he continued to dig in ravenously into the cheetah''s body, he was like a starved animal that hadn''t eaten for weeks maybe months, but he ate some rations earlier, it was unknown what was making Felix so hungry and primitive when it came to the bodies of those that he killed. Maybe it was the Hex energy that he was lacking and the world was forcing his body to make it up for it someway, maybe it was his instincts churning up in him as they were scattered and reconstructed in his brain after the travel to the new world, this was a dog eat dog world per se. The body of the cheetah quickly disappeared under Felix''s eating habits, Felix seemingly woke up from a trance as he looked down at the dried blood on the ground, it took him more time than he thought to eat the whole body, after all, the cheetah was big and even though he also became bigger after his last evolution he couldn''t control himself when it came to eating so time passed quite quickly without him realizing. He looked at the package right of him and he became curious, what would the cheetah tribe trade with the tiger tribe? He wasn''t sure why but the package had holes in it, but it wasn''t his job to look into the package, his job was to deliver it back to the lion tribe. He somehow put the package on his back and tied it with the remainders of the strings he cut then he started to run back, he did his job and it was now time go back and get his rewards, he wasn''t even sure why he was doing this, he had no one in the lion tribe that he cared about nor anything like that, Sahee was dead and Lucian was hating him, but that didn''t mean he couldn''t make any new friends, he just a felt a little hollow after everything that happened. With the increase of his speed after he ate the whole cheetah, he got back to the lion tribe in half the time and sent the package directly to Landers. Landers opened the package with Felix watching, the package was a strange black rock that was seemingly breathing, Landers''s eyes widened for a few seconds before he started laughing and said: "You have done a great job, Felix, a very great job, your rewards will be doubled and you will be promoted directly to the next military rank of sergeant, you will be excused for now as I will have to talk something with my lieutenant, go and enjoy the capital." Landers threw him a bag that landed on his back and Felix realized it might be some type of currency that he could use, the bag was pretty heavy which meant he got a lot of things that he could buy. Felix wasn''t sure what to say so he left Landers. Landers then invited a youth around 23 years old inside his office and talked a bit with him about the contents of Felix''s mission, then he gave him the black rock and told him to send it directly to the blacksmith of the capital along with his regards, he also sent him to report to the shaman of the tribe so he would go and work with the blacksmith. Landers sighed as he watched his lieutenant leave and muttered: "Dark Hex ore, the tiger tribe really found the vein, it seems we will have to advance the war date, we can''t let them excavate more or they would be able to quickly make use of it and if that happened." Landers shuddered as he thought about it before he left his office, he had his own things to do. Felix looked around the capital, it was quite lively with food stalls around along with merchants who sold their wares, the animal''s tribes weren''t much different than humans besides that they weren''t that scientifically advanced, but they had something that made up for it, Hex energy! The hex energy created countless wonders that replaced science in this world, it wasn''t that they created trains that worked on Hex energy but they had their way of transport, which was quite expensive and only those of higher rank in the lion tribe could use, Felix saw a few lion tribesmen flying in a what looked to be a hot air balloon, but it was way quicker than one and also way easier to maneuver, it didn''t have a high battle capability but it was quicker than running around on foot. Felix decided to enjoy the capital for some time before he was summoned back to do missions, who knows, he might even be able to find someone that he could befriend, after all, he felt quite lonely by himself, he also needed to get himself a place where he could live. And it didn''t take him that much time to find someone that he could interact with, it was a young lion tribesman that joined the military not long ago, the moment he saw Felix he quickly ran towards him and asked: "Might this cat brother answer me a few questions?" This was interesting considering the innate pride of the lion tribe would make them unable to act like this, Felix was interested in this lion-mans character and decided to answer him. Chapter 14: Friends Felix watched the lion man in front of him with interest, he was around Felix''s age and he wore the normal military uniform which consisted of a blue armor that covered his whole body, he didn''t have his helmet on. His head was full of a golden mane and his deep blue eyes were gazing at Felix with a gaze that said that he wanted to learn something from him. Felix motioned for the lion man to come near him so they could find a less populated place where they could talk, after all, the military talk shouldn''t be shared with the civilians, even though most of the tribes were warmongering people that didn''t mean they didn''t have civilians, actually up to 70% of the population of the tribes was made up of civilians who either weren''t blessed with a good enough physique or they didn''t have a talent for fighting. Felix took the lion man to a nearby restaurant where they were served some meat of unknown origin along with some fruit wine, Felix motioned with his glance as he asked: "What do you want to ask me?" The lion-man coughed as he stopped stuffing his face with the food and blushed while scratching his mane: "You see I was quite hungry and I saw that you just got your salary and I..." Felix shook his head, he just couldn''t do anything about that as he couldn''t put the pouch of currency anywhere else on his body as it was too big, when he would finish some of the money he would be able to stuff it into one the pockets of his vest. Felix decided to treat the lion-man to some more food as he chatted with him and asked: "So you must have joined the army right? I''m not familiar with the inner workings of the lion tribe, might you be able to tell me a few things about the tribe?" The lion-man gave out a toothy grin as he took a big gulp of the fruit wine and said: "Sure thing brother, after all, you have treated me to a good feast." The lion-man then introduced himself: "Sorry I didn''t introduce myself earlier, my name is Lindo and to answer your question I can only tell you the basic knowledge that everyone knows, after all, I''m not privy to the upper secrets of the tribe." The lion-man swallowed the last piece of meat on the table and patted his stomach as he said: "The military ranks go through from scout rank 9 to rank 1, then sergeant, lieutenant captain and general, generals are the highest ranked and rarely appear in public as they are people who can fight thousands of people alone either with their wits or physical prowess." When he talked about the generals his eyes shined brightly as he thought he would be able to reach their prowess one day. He continued his explanation: "To advance in rank is very easy, if a superior thinks you have enough potential and did a few important missions you can gain a rank up till below his, so technically speaking a captain can only promote you to the lieutenant rank." "There are quite a few captains out there but there are only 10 generals, I''m not sure what even their names are, as there have been quite a few years since they had to move out and fight, they are like legends of our lion tribe, as for the captains, they have a number in the hundreds and they each have their ranking." Felix nodded his head in understanding and asked one more thing: "Do you know which rank does captain Landers holds?" Lindo scratched his chin for a while before he said: "Landers? Hmm, I think he is around the middle rankings, not too high but not too low either, he is a conservative fellow and I don''t know much about him, after all, I''m not in his squad, is he your captain?" Felix nodded and said: "Thanks for the information Lindo, by the way, my name is Felix." Lindo gave out a laugh as he patted Felix''s head and asked: "Are you shy? Why don''t you turn into your humanoid form?" Felix decided to not answer and just left the money for the bill on the table, the currency of the lion tribe was some bronze bones inscribed with letters that made no sense to Felix. Lindo seeing that Felix wanted to leave jumped up after him and said: "Brother Felix, don''t be in a rush, since we filled our bellies I think we should spar as well, after all, in the lion tribe it''s customary to have a good fight after we eat some good food." Felix didn''t have anything to do and he wanted to see at what level he was compared to the youths of the tribe so he took the invitation to the spar. Felix followed Lindo to the walls of the capital where the sparring ring where the army members could spar to their whole heart''s content. Felix appeared silently on the sparring field and Lindo''s eyes widened in surprise, he couldn''t even hear Felix''s footsteps, even though he was a cat and his paws were meant to hinder sound there were still some very low sounds that the lion tribe could hear, but Lindo could not hear anything from Felix''s steps, he was also very fast! This fired up Lindo quite a lot as he jumped on the other part of the field and entered a fighting stance, he was quite puzzled as he was that Felix was still in his normal form and said: "Felix, are you looking down on me? Why don''t you transform into your humanoid form?" Felix decided to answer him this time as there was no harm in telling him, Landers knew anyways and he must have reported his condition to the upper echelons: "I cannot transform into a humanoid form, you see my situation is quite peculiar..." Lindo''s eyes widened as he heard his explanation and then nodded his head as he seemingly understood something: "Indeed, you are quite bigger than normal cats, at first I just thought you were extra fat but it seems I was wrong there, sorry!" Felix''s right eye twitched at the fat remark and sighed as he turned invisible, Lindo turned around and kept his nose up to smell anything but he couldn''t find Felix''s silhouette anywhere! Lindo kept his guard up as he felt that something wasn''t right when he heard something above him, only to see Felix dropping down on his head with his claws ready to impale his head! Lindo narrowly dodged the attack by rolling on the ground and then counterattacked with a spin kick. However, Felix quickly dropped to the ground the moment he rolled on the ground and disappeared again, thus Lindo''s kick hit only the air. Lindo continued to keep his guard up as he looked around for aerial attacks as well now, he even looked down to make sure Felix wouldn''t pop out from the ground. Felix''s attacks missed here and there but Lindo''s attacks didn''t do anything either as they couldn''t reach Felix''s body. Felix''s speed was getting closer and closer to a cheetah''s, him eating the body of that cheetah increased his speed marginally however he still wasn''t as fast or strong as one, but the changes were visible in the fight with Lindo. Suddenly Felix appeared under Lindo''s stomach as his claws were very close to his stomach, ready to cut it open and spill his guts on the floor. Lindo gave out a hearty roar as his stomach hardened and Felix''s claws left only some shallow marks on it. However, blood still dripped continuously from the marks even though they were shallow. Lindo grasped his stomach as he hardened his muscles to the point that they sealed the scratch and gave out a toothy grin showing his sharp fangs and said: "You almost made me spill all the food you gave me." Felix didn''t say anything as he entered in his killing mode, in this type of mode he would attack only the vital areas but since they were sparring he would stop once his claw was centimeters away from claiming his life. Lindo realized that Felix''s actions turned deadly as he narrowly dodged one slash from his claws that almost made him lose his head! Lindo dodged the slash by moving his head backward but there was still a small slash on his neck that made him start bleeding, Lindo became serious as he put his hand over his neck and sealed the bleeding spot. His mane turned up as it started to glow a deep blue color, he was starting to use his innate ability along with Hex energy! Felix felt that danger was coming his way so he immediately disappeared again and Lindo started roaring! His roar created shockwaves that cracked the ground around him making Felix drop out of his stealth a few meters away from him, he wanted to clutch his ears but he couldn''t as he had to dodge his physical attacks. The roar was constant and he only stopped when he ran out of breath, it seemed his Hex capacity was also quite big as Felix was starting to get dizzy from the damage done to his eardrums. Felix could feel that there was a small delay before he took in his breath and created the roar, he used his instincts along with a small calculation to discover the opening and then dived right in! Lindo''s eyes widened in surprise as he was finishing taking in his breath for the roar when he saw Felix''s claws almost reaching his eyes! However just before his eyes were clawed out he pushed his hand forward to punch Felix and throw him back! Felix coughed up a mouthful of blood as he dropped to the ground, he could feel his lungs burning as the punch landed on his upper half. Lindo stopped his roaring attacks as he quickly went to Felix and helped him up, then said: "Sorry, sorry, I forgot how fragile the cat tribe''s bodies are, let me make it up to you." Lindo took a satchel out of his armor and out of the satchel he took a red herb that he turned into a paste with his hands alone, then he put the paste around Felix''s injured area, Felix couldn''t move properly after he was injured but after the red paste was absorbed by his skin he could feel his lungs quickly healing. Felix made a few steps and he could feel a little pain when he took in breaths but it was quickly fading away leaving only a cool sensation on his chest along with his healing lungs, it was just like eating mentos but instead of feeling that sensation in the mouth you would feel it in the lungs. It wasn''t that nice but at least it wasn''t painful. Lindo scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he said: "Anyways, I think we fought enough, you are very strong for a cat tribesman, you aren''t a scout anymore are you?" Felix nodded, he was a sergeant, Lindo''s guess was quite accurate, even though he looked like a newbie on the surface he must have got some experience under his belt or he wouldn''t have been able to knock Felix away at the last second, he would have either panicked or dropped to the ground to dodge, however, if he dropped to the ground he would have been open from an above attack that could have reached his brain, Lindo''s counter-attack was beautifully executed and perfect for the situation. Felix stopped checking his body as he asked: "What''s your rank, Lindo?" Lindo immediately replied easily: "Sergeant, what about you, brother Felix?" Felix just responded with the same, Lindo laughed as he patted Felix''s head again, Felix didn''t say anything as he enjoyed the sensation, Lindo finished patting him and then told him: "I think I will have to go now, my captain will kick up a fuss if he doesn''t see me in the camps tomorrow, anyways let''s keep in touch, I know where Landers''s office is so I will come if I want to hang out, if you want to hang out just go and ask about Drodio''s camps, I should be around there 80% of the time the other 20% would be used for missions." Lindo waved at Felix as he quickly disappeared, he went further and further into the capital leaving Felix alone. Felix walked slowly as he left the training field behind, he wondered where he could spend the night considering he had so much money on him, there were almost 2500 pieces of bronze bones left in his bag. He wasn''t sure if that was enough to buy a house but he could at least find a place where he could pay rent for a night, he didn''t want to sleep outside with all of this money visible. Felix then went to find a place where he could sleep and it didn''t take him much time at all, after twenty minutes of searching he found an inn where he booked in a room and went to sleep. However, his sleep wouldn''t be peaceful this time around... Chapter 15: Nightmare Felix sat neatly in a well-lighted sparsely decorated room as he dozed off slowly into slumber, he already paid the bronze bones to the innkeeper which was a rather sharp-looking lion woman. The light in the room started to dim as night was slowly coming, up till now Felix didn''t have time to sleep as he had to go through a lot of things, he didn''t even sleep when he went back to the cat village, after that he was immediately sent on a mission and his nerves were stretched taut, this was also one of the reasons he was hit by Lindo, normally speaking he should have been able to dodge the strike even mid-air using his nimble and acrobatic body. Felix''s eyes were slowly closing as he fell asleep on the big bed in the inn room. Felix woke up to find himself back in the underground arena, he looked around and found nothing strange but he was puzzled why he was back here, didn''t the underground arena collapse? How come he was sent back here? Was it a dream? Felix started to walk slowly in a random direction, he tried to smell or hear but there were no smells or sounds around, there was only darkness that even his feline eyes couldn''t see through very well, it felt rather strange for him, someone who could see through the dark to fumble around just like the other creatures without nocturnal vision. Felix finally bumped into something after a while, he felt his paws getting wet as he inspected them he could see that there was a crimson sticky substance on them, he finally could smell, the overwhelming scent of blood and despair stuck into the air, it was reeking of it. Felix quickly looked around and then looked down only to see Sahee''s naked and violated dead body! Felix jumped backward multiple times to avoid her body, he was scared out of his mind, what the hell did this mean? However, the smell followed him around, the acrid smell of despair combined with the overwhelming iron scent of blood that touched the inner palace of his nostrils, every time this type of smell would enter his nostrils he would be happy and would even go ahead and eat but now the iron smell only brought him disgust and a tinge of sadness. He looked down again to find nothing below him, he sighed as he felt that he ran away from the body only to feel a cold pale hand grasp his head, he looked up only to see Sahee with no eyes, in place of her eyes were two dark voids, she was bloodied and naked as she looked at him and said slowly: "You left me alone..." "You left me to die..." "YOU KILLED ME!" The last one was a screech as her mouth contorted open at an angle that wasn''t humanly possible, in her mouth existed tons of razor-sharp teeth that were ready to slash Felix''s body open and then she would eat Felix in one gulp! Felix fur was full of cold sweat as he was eaten by the monster that took Sahee''s looks, he didn''t know what to feel, it wasn''t the feeling of death, it wasn''t like the void, he was just back in the underground arena... Felix looked around again only to see more bodies, they were all Sahee''s, and they started to twitch and moan, even shriek, a big body was pressing against her for hours on end ravaging her pure form until the wound on her leg opened up and sprayed blood everywhere, the brute didn''t care as he continued until he wore her out, she passed away with wide eyes filled with pain and sadness, also anger, anger at herself for being weak, but more anger at Felix for abandoning her while he had more lives which he could burn through! Suddenly her head was decapitated and floated in front of Felix as a soundless shriek came out of her mouth, Felix felt his fur stand on end as he jumped 3 times backward but the head followed him and then it headbutted him while shrieking: "YOUR FAULT!" Felix fell backward and then started to fall, seemingly as if he was experiencing death again! Felix wanted to shout but his voice couldn''t be heard, he wanted to say anything, call for help, he wanted to move, even try to escape from the endless void that surrounded him, the cold darkness and the light that was slowly unraveling below him, but it was no help. Felix gasped for air as he slowly approached the light that started to burn his whole body, his skin was roasting while his fur burned. Leaving him naked. He could feel a being standing in the fire beckoning to him, trying to quicken his fall into it, it had a wide small on his face and Felix could see some horns on his head, but his figure was rather obscure and couldn''t be seen clearly, he would have to fully fall into the flames to see him. Suddenly a mighty arm grabbed Felix by the scruff of his neck, the arm was pure jade white and had no scars or blemishes, there were no accessories on it, it was a normal gigantic human arm, however, it felt like it wasn''t big when it grabbed Felix, it felt that it shrunk to his size to grab him properly. The hand was cold, freezing even, but it felt better than being roasted in the flames, Felix''s fur grew back in an instant as he felt that he returned back into the underground maze, he could see Sahee standing there, she didn''t have the same horror visages from before, it was the same young woman who found Felix in the forest and wanted to befriend him in hope that he would be able to help the cat tribe out of its lack of talents. She slowly walked to Felix and then patted his head as she said slowly: "I resent you for what you have done to me, leaving me alone to die, I was even sullied by those beasts, even though they followed behind me soon after, at least my soul could get some rest because of their deaths." Felix''s eyes widened as he watched Sahee talking without any problems, his head trembled as he asked: "It''s really you?" Sahee gave out a sweet smile as she continued to pat Felix''s head and nodded while responding to him: "Of course it''s me, you know I''m still mad at you but I guess I will forgive you, I saw what happens to you when you die, it''s not a good experience, actually if I was you I don''t think I would have been able to resist more than one or two times before I became insane." She sighed as she looked up and the underground arena disappeared as they returned into the forest, she looked around slowly for some time before she said: "I will have to go home, I just wanted to talk to you one last time before I left, I want to tell you that you don''t have to blame yourself over what happened anymore, I have made a mistake and paid the price, at first I was angry with you, disappointed, even hated you, my hatred for you even surpassed the one that I aimed at the black bear tribesmen, but after I saw what you went through I can understand you." Sahee gave Felix a small hug as she slowly went towards the same path that she took when she returned to the village with Felix in tow. Felix looked as her silhouette started to flicker and said with a firm tone: "Let me escort you home." A giggle could be heard as Sahee stopped and waited for Felix while she beckoned with her hand to him quickly: "Come, come, this is the last time you will see me, you can''t follow me inside but you can escort me to it." Felix started to walk alongside her as they slowly made their way to their village, it didn''t take them much time, at most 10 minutes of silent walking. Felix followed Sahee as she walked to her house, it was a shoddy house at the outer rings of the cat settlement, Felix''s eyes widened at the sight as he asked: "This is where you lived?" Sahee nodded and asked: "You thought that because I was friends with the Shaman of the tribe that I would have gotten preferential treatment?" Sahee shook her head: "He wanted to give me a better house but I refused, I wanted to get a house for my own merits instead of him gifting me one once he became the Shaman of the tribe, I wanted to elevate the status of the cat tribe with my ability alone, you should have seen how happy I was when I got that rare ability..." Felix felt awkward as he didn''t observe her back then, he was preoccupied with his thoughts. Seeing his ashamed look Sahee shook her head as she slowly went to the entrance of the house and told him: "This is where we part ways, I''m happy that I got to talk you with one more time and I hope you will not blame yourself over my death anymore in the future, I have one request of you can you fulfill it?" Felix nodded quickly, he wanted to get rid of the sharp feeling that he had in his chest, his heart was beating quicker as Sahee opened her mouth to tell him: "Take this and give it to Lucian, he will understand and he might even forgive you, I just hope he won''t be too hard on you, he did love me quite deeply, after all, I was his cheeky little sister!" One last smile was given as she opened the door of her house, bright light unlike the one Felix felt engulfed her, Felix could feel that the light in front of him was pure, unlike the one he felt when he was falling down which was corrupted and hurt him, this type of light from Sahee''s house gave him the feeling that he wanted to walk into it. Sahee waved her hand as she slowly disappeared into her house, Felix was enticed by the light and took one step towards it, however, the light immediately turned in the same one that Felix felt and a burst of deep laughter could be heard from behind the door, Felix jumped backward and everything started to break around him. He didn''t understand what happened as he woke up, his body was full of cold sweat and he could see at the corner of his eye four remaining heads, was it just a dream or something else? He looked down at his paw and he could see a horned rabbit necklace, it was made from the horn of the rabbit and it looked quite shoddy. Felix''s eyes widened as he took a better look at the necklace, it was Sahee''s! That wasn''t a dream at all. Felix ate the breakfast prepared by the innkeeper and decided to hit the road, he wasn''t summoned by Landers yet so he thought he still had some free time that he could use by going back to the cat village and give Lucian the necklace, even though he told him to never come back again he couldn''t help it as he promised Sahee. Felix looked at the sky as he was on the road towards the cat village and closed his eyes for a bit while thinking: "Sahee, wherever you went, I hope it''s better for you there, I can''t promise I will help the cat tribe as it was your dream, but I will surely give Lucian the necklace!" It took him around 5 days to get back to the village, his body was adapting to its changes quite quickly and he even started to use the breathing techniques that he learned from the ancestral memories he was given, even though he could use them only for a few split seconds before his lungs would start burning, it was still something that could be useful in battles. Lucian was at the front of the village as he looked down at Felix and said: "Didn''t I tell you to never come back?" His eyes were covered by his hair which was now pretty messy, he stood there for a few seconds and waited for Felix''s response, his aura was heating up and he was getting ready to fight! The moment Felix would explain his reason for coming back he would attack viciously! Felix took the necklace off his neck as it was getting covered by hir fur and Lucian couldn''t see it well. Lucian''s eyes widened as he saw the necklace and then he slowly started to get near Felix, his aura mellowed down until it disappeared thoroughly. Now they were ready to talk. Chapter 16: Forgiveness Lucian took the necklace from Felix''s neck and cradled it in his hands like it was a baby, it seemed he still didn''t get over the fact that Sahee died. His eyes narrowed as he moved them at Felix and asked: "Where did you get this necklace from, you explained to me that the underground arena collapsed, you couldn''t have gone back there to scavenge just so you can give this back to me?" Felix shook his head as he told him: "I had a dream about Sahee, but it wasn''t a dream you see..." He started to explain his dream to Lucian and his eyes widened in both surprise and sadness, but then a smile appeared on his face as he said with a weak tone: "At least she would be able to meet with her parents and the ancestors, this is a nice thing..." He closed his eyes as his face turned up to the sky and muttered some things that Felix couldn''t understand, the necklace in his hands then started to glow with a blue fervor as it transformed into particles of the same color and disappeared. Felix looked at Lucian who was visibly less angry at him and said: "My job is done, I will have to go now." Lucian waved his hand indicating that he wanted to tell him something before he left: "Even though I still hate you, Sahee told you those things so I will take it easy on you, however, that doesn''t mean I have forgiven you!" Lucian then started walking back to his house while he ignored Felix, Lucian''s back was shaking as tears dropped from his eyes to the ground, he quickly left Felix alone disappearing from his sight. Felix sighed as he watched him disappear and decided it was time to leave as well, the lions were doing patrols around the settlement, and sometimes bursts of hearty laughter could be heard around, it seemed they were taking this as a vacation. Felix looked around the village for one more time before he left it behind, it wasn''t a certain thing if he would ever come back to the village or not. The travel back to the lion capital didn''t take much time, up to 4 days as Felix''s body grew stronger and finished devouring the cheetah''s Hex energy fully, his muscle, and bones fully absorbed the Hex energy from the cheetah and gained some similarity to the cheetah''s but they were also a little bit different. Felix arrived in the capital and was pretty bored so he decided to go find Lindo, but unfortunately, it was one of the rare times that Lindo was doing a mission so he was pretty much left alone in the capital if he didn''t make any new friends. So he tried to make friends with someone from his guard squad but they weren''t that welcoming of him even though he was Lander''s protegee. The lions were innately looking down on all the other tribes and not many like Landers and Lindo would act normally around people like Felix, after all, the lion''s pride was inscribed deep in their bones and they wouldn''t want to make friends with someone of lower standing than them. Felix sighed as he left the guard building and decided to aimlessly walk through the streets, he looked around and saw the multitude of races busily making their way around, however now if he looked closely at their eyes he could see that everyone was wary of everyone, they were scared of each other but they didn''t express it with their body language, but their eyes wouldn''t be able to betray their emotions as they were the gate to the soul. Felix sighed as he walked back to the training field where he sparred with Lindo, maybe he would be able to increase his breathing technique usage time if he trained some more in it, there weren''t that many techniques passed down to him but there were a few that could be very useful for someone like him who wasn''t able to use Hex energy and they were: 1st Breath: Disappearance, it was a normal stealth technique and it was supposed to increase the effects of stealth, combined with the footwork technique that Felix knew it would make him pretty much unable to be seen unless he made a mistake. 2nd Breath: Enhancement, this type of breath technique was used to increase the power of the muscles in the body, this would increase the power of the user as well as the sturdiness of their bones, however, this breath could be used to Enhance most Hex abilities increasing their power by at least 50% and innate abilities. 3rd and last breath: Combat, this wasn''t a normal passive breathing technique, this was the trump card of the ancestors of the cat tribe, if they used this breathing technique combined with some special battle moves they would be able to create a combo that was deadly to most of their enemies, while the user of this breath kept using it their claws would naturally secrete poison, most cat tribesmen who lived in this world had a gland in their paws that would be triggered with certain breathing techniques to secret poison, however, it was unknown if Felix could do it due to his different anatomy. Some small tricks could be used with the breathing techniques such as hiding your heartbeat from your enemy or making yourself able to stay underwater for long times by accumulating a huge amount of oxygen in your lungs. Felix tried to use all of the three main breathing techniques but he failed spectacularly, the only he could employ for a few seconds was the disappearance breath and it made his lungs feel like they were on fire after 3 seconds, even though his body and organs were strengthened due to eating other beings that didn''t mean they were especially sturdy. In terms of strength, he wasn''t that high but his battle power was what he made him special, he had no hesitation when it came to killing as if it was natural to him, coupled with his innate hunter instincts it made him a tough opponent in 1v1 situations. The icing on the cake was his ability to revive and take others by surprise. Felix''s body almost fell over from lack of oxygen as it twitched on the training ground, fortunately, there weren''t any people on the training ground left as it was around noon, most of the people would train in the morning and afternoon. There was also the fact that they could be on missions. Felix got up from the ground as the sun bathed him in its heat waves, his fur was starting to stick to his body due to sweat, he was unknowingly sweating huge amounts due to the breathing technique. He didn''t dare to use the technique again as his lungs were still on fire, he sighed as he sat down to rest, he needed to strengthen his lungs more before he would be able to even try to master the breathing technique. After a few more hours of training Felix became a bit too exhausted to train anymore so he decided to take a rest back at the same inn, he paid the bronze bones got some food from the innkeeper, and then went to rest. This time he had a dreamless sleep, he didn''t even feel it when the sun raised and he woke up. He stretched his body as the communication stone in his pocket started shaking and bleeping, Felix pressed it and a message could be heard coming from it: "Sergeant Felix of Lander''s unit you have been summoned to the general meeting grounds of the army for your next mission, as a sergeant you now have to prove yourself worthy of the rank!" Felix was then given instructions on where the general meeting grounds was and since it was an order he had to go even if he wanted to or not. It took him around 5 minutes to get to the general meeting ground and there he met with a blue-eyed lion woman, she was quite the looker as she wore tight armor that highlighted her curves and her hair was done in a ponytail, she was looking down at him from her seated position, the general meeting grounds were situated around the middle of the capital and on them stood a yellow-colored building of medium size, after Felix entered the building the first thing he saw was the woman who sat behind a purple-colored desk. The woman''s eyes were analyzing Felix slowly before she said: "I don''t see why Landers promoted you for that retrieval and scouting mission, you don''t seem that impressive to me..." Felix looked at her and asked: "And you are?" The woman snorted as she caressed her hair and said: "I''m your superior, Lieutenant Sandora, even though I''m not from your squad I''m still your superior!" "Anyways, I have a mission here for you, it''s a different one compared to your previous one as it''s a straight-up battle mission, you have to eliminate a few targets, you can even call this an assassination mission if you want to, I know you, cat tribe folks call yourselves assassins or whatever..." Felix listened to her and nodded his head as he left, the woman was quite interested in his lack of reaction but decided against commenting again as she waved her hand at him. Felix''s first target would be around 500 kilometers away from the capital in the settlement of a branch of the tiger tribe, it seemed a traitor of the lion tribe took shelter in their settlement and he was supposed to have some crucial intelligence of the tribe in his hands that Felix had to recover or destroy along with him. Felix sighed as he left the capital and started running at high speeds towards the location of his mission, this would be only the first target but Felix''s instincts told him it wasn''t going to be an easy endeavor. With his new body speed, it didn''t take him much to appear at the settlement, it was similarly looking to the cat tribe settlement, the only difference was the two sturdy men with striped ears protecting the entrance. Tiger tribesmen! Both Tigers and Lions were one of the relatively strongest tribes, that was in combat techniques and strength, however, they weren''t at the peak of strength as the elephant tribe existed. Felix''s silhouette started to disappear as he used his footwork stealth technique, it was time to start another mission! Chapter 17: Double assassination Felix wasn''t sure which approach would be better in this situation, should he kill the guards, or leave them alive while he searched for the traitor? He was pretty tempted on killing them, but there was also the fact that he wouldn''t be able to eat their bodies, if he tried there was a chance he would be found out and the whole settlement would jump to kill him. Even though he felt that he was stronger than before he was sure that he wouldn''t be able to handle more than 2 tiger tribesmen in open combat, he wasn''t sure of the talents of the tiger tribesmen so he had to play it cool, revealing himself in this situation wouldn''t bring him any benefits. Felix easily slipped around the guards making no sound as he walked further into the settlement, the buildings were made from rock and hardened mud infused with Hex energy, a combination that insured their sturdiness. Felix looked around while he listened to the villagers, there was a high chance the villagers knew that the traitor of the lion tribe was situated in their village, there was also a high chance that they would talk about it sooner or later so all Felix had to do was hide around and wait. A little tiger cub was sitting on his mother''s shoulders as he asked her: "Mommy it''s true we have a lion tribesmen in the village?" The mother immediately motioned for him to shut his mouth and glared at him, the tiger cub immediately shut his mouth and didn''t say anything else, he was always scared by his mother''s stern expression along with the side-eye glance that she would usually give him. Even though he didn''t get the location of the traitor he got the confirmation that he was indeed situated in this settlement. Felix continued to wander around the village while keeping his ears up for any information. Unfortunately, it seemed the villagers were instructed properly so there was hardly any chance for him to stumble onto someone who talked about the location of the traitor so all he could do was try to search by himself. He looked through the windows of a few houses but didn''t find anything besides old men sleeping or children playing, there were also some adults drinking or doing some ''exercises''. Felix sighed, he could recognize the difference between a lion and tiger tribesmen by their ears and tail, however, up till now, all he saw were tiger tribesmen. Felix decided to look into the biggest house in the village before he would go to the storage buildings, the biggest building in the village had numerous windows that Felix could look from, however, he didn''t find much if anything by looking through the windows, the building was quite big and some parts of it didn''t have a window so he had to get inside! Felix tried to find an open window but he wasn''t able to find one as they were all locked, so he threw a rock at a window softly making a small sound that alerted the person that was inside the room. The window opened and rather young tiger tribesmen appeared, Felix immediately jumped inside and tackled the young tribesman to the floor, the tiger tribesman wanted to shout for help but Felix quickly pressed his chest hard enough with his paws so he couldn''t breathe making him unable to scream. Felix put his claws directly at his neck as he said slowly: "Make any sounds and you will die, I have some questions for you..." The young tiger tribesman looked like he was ready to cry but Felix''s claw slowly inched to his neck which made him harden himself if he cried his neck would be slashed and he would certainly die! Felix gave him a small nod as he asked him: "Tell me where are that traitor of the lion tribe and I might let you go." The young tiger tribesmen eyes widened in fear as he looked at Felix and started struggling, his hand went directly to Felix''s paw trying to offset it from his neck, however, he made a bad move and Felix''s claw that was centimeters away from his neck slashed his Adam''s apple making him bleed. The younger tribesman clenched his hands around his neck as the life was slowly leaving his eyes, his glare was on Felix''s body as he murmured something under his breath: "You won''t get anything out of me." Felix frowned as he looked at the lifeless body of the young tribesman, he assassinated the wrong target, Felix shook his head as he took him as an extra. The young tribesman body reverted from his humanoid form to his tiger form and Felix''s eyes started shining, his ears perked up as he waited for any sounds indicating that there was anyone else in the house. He could feel someone in the room above and someone below, however, it seemed that they were either resting or doing something else as their breaths were quite faint. Felix immediately went ahead and started to eat the body as the smell of blood would attract the others quite fast so he had to get rid of the and leave! Fortunately, the slash on the neck wasn''t that deep so not much blood flowed from the wound, however as his Adam''s apple was cut his oxygen supply was also cut and blood flowed inside his neck practically drowning him. Felix immediately went to work as the low sounds of crunching could be heard in the room, bones, organs, skin, appendages... Felix made quick work of the young tiger tribesmen leaving just a smudge of blood on the floor that already hardened a bit. Felix could feel energy rapidly coursing through his body improving his whole body, he could also see one more head in the corner of his vision which meant he now had 5 lives. Felix quickly restored his stealth technique as he continued to wander in the house, the house was big and it was decorated similarly to Lucian''s house, even though Lucian''s was smaller they all had the same things around, books, pendants, scrolls, etc, they were all thrown around and there was also a kitchen and a living room, the room where Felix killed the youth was one of the bedrooms and Felix realized that the youth must have been the son of the shaman. Felix did feel something else when he ate the youth, maybe that was the reason his life count also increased, maybe the youth was special in some way or another, after all, his lives didn''t increase after he ate the cheetah, or maybe he just had filled his stomach enough for another life to appear? Felix would have to work more with his ability before he would realize all of its requirements. Unfortunately, Felix didn''t find the traitor inside the building, he tried to look around in the rooms that had people in them as well, however, he realized that if he was found out it wouldn''t end up well for him, but he could infer from their breathing that they weren''t from the lion tribe. Each tribe had their own way of breathing as everyone''s bodies were different, Felix already memorized the way Lion tribesmen breathed so he knew that both of the people resting in their rooms were from the tiger tribe. Felix then went to the last building after he cleared the traces of the assassination. The storage building was a medium building that was going underground, in it things were stored varying from food to weapons or even Hex treasures, however, it was most unlikely such a small village like this had anything besides crude weapons and their food. Felix slowly went inside the storage room as there wasn''t anyone near it, the guards that were supposed to stay near it must have either dozed off somewhere or just went to get something to eat. Felix realized that things were quite lax around this village, but it made sense, it wasn''t even a village near the mountains where the capital of the tigers was situated. Felix slowly made his way into the underground storage room and used his nocturnal vision to look inside the dimly lighted room. He could feel that the lion tribesman should be here but he wasn''t sure where... Felix''s ears suddenly moved as he dodged to the side, an old lion tribesman slowly retreated after he failed his attack, he sat in the dark and stopped breathing loudly as he internalized his breath. Felix narrowed his eyes, how did the old man see through his stealth technique in this dim environment? The old man didn''t say anything as he threw himself again at Felix, seemingly realizing where Felix was without even having to see or sense him. Felix dodged again, after all, the old man was quite weak as he was advanced in age, combined with the fact that he got a boost from eating the tiger youth made him unable to be hit by the old lion tribesman. Felix jumped after he retreated and pushed him to the ground using his whole body weight, his paw''s claws were ready to decapitate him but the old man finally talked: "Stop please, please stop, hear me out!" Felix wasn''t sure what to do as he wasn''t supposed to bring the old man back alive but since he was pretty much defenseless in this situation he decided to hear him out. Seeing as his throat was still uncut the old man coughed a bit then said: "Please don''t kill me lion tribe assassin, you should understand how us old fellows from the lion tribe feel after we became old we are discarded like trash even after we have done our duties for our whole lives!" "Please don''t kill me!" Felix shook his head, was that all he wanted to say? There was nothing that made him sympathetic or relate to him in any way, and even if it did, he would still put his mission first. Felix claws were slowly inching towards his neck ready to claim his life but the lion old man continued: "Please, I will tell you the information, please don''t kill me! The information might be useful for the tiger tribe but it should be as..." The old man couldn''t finish his sentence as Felix slashed his neck open making his blood flow freely to the floor under him. Felix didn''t need to hear about the information, if it was useful for the tiger tribe that meant it wasn''t useful for him, if the lion tribe thought that he would be privy to the information he would be told about it if they didn''t want him to know the information they would dispose of him. Felix easily sliced the neck clean and took the head of the old man before he rolled it into a ball of cloth that he found in the storage room and tied it to his back. The assassination mission was a success and it was time to go back to the lion tribe to get his reward. Felix easily left the storage room just in time as the guards were coming back, they could smell something fishy in the storage room so they went to investigate, Felix didn''t do anything to the blood and didn''t eat the body as it was too old and he felt that he wouldn''t like it for some reason, his instincts were just telling him that he could do without the frail body in his stomach. There was a sudden shout as the tiger tribesmen found the body and ran to the leader''s mansion to give the report. There was another shout at the leader''s mansion as he couldn''t find his youngest son anywhere! While the tiger settlement was looking for the culprit of the double assassination, Felix was already on his way back to the lion capital to get his rewards, fortunately, he had wrapped the head well, or else there would have been a blood trail that would lead his enemies to him. Felix sighed as he looked ahead of him, now wasn''t the time to think about what-ifs, he did a good job and he deserved a reward, he hastened his speed as he ran towards the direction of the lion capital, he wanted to just go back, report the mission and go to the inn to get a rest and some cooked food that his mouth would enjoy. Chapter 18: War Felix didn''t need much time to get back to the capital and submit the head of the lion traitor, Landers was especially happy to see him as they met at the mission quarters. Landers looked as Felix submitted the head and gained another pouch of bronze bones then he came closer to him and patted him on the head while saying: "It seems you are doing hard work out there." Felix nodded at him and tied the pouch to his neck, seeing his situation Landers decided to give him some advice: "You should have enough money to buy this thing, it should help you carry stuff around." He pointed towards the bag tied to his bag and told him his functions, it was basically a bigger bag that could fit a lot of things, it was created from Hex infused cloth and it could handle more things than usual, it also had some hex runes inscribed into the cloth to make it lighter. It cost around half of Felix''s savings and the headquarters could supply it for him, since he was in the army he was getting a discount as the bag costed more than that. Felix now had a new brown bag tied to his back which was filled with his money, he looked like a cute traveler with his current outfit and the bag on his back. Felix thanked Landers for the advice than did some small talk with him, after a while Landers decided to invite Felix to dinner as it was getting dark outside and both of them didn''t have food to eat yet. Landers found a restaurant that was nearby the headquarters and entered along with Felix, both of them sat at a table with Felix needing a different chair as he didn''t have a human form. After the waiter came with a taller chair and food, Landers waved him off while he threw him a bunch of bronze bones as a tip. Landers''s eyes hardened as he took a better look at Felix and said: "It seems you have grown stronger from this mission, I can''t say what''s different from you as I haven''t touched your body but your aura intensified, it''s strange considering your body doesn''t have Hex in it." Felix started to sweat inwardly as he was exposed to Landers''s full aura, he felt way stronger than the people he had killed up till now, if he continued getting pressured by the aura he might even forget how to breathe. Suddenly the aura disappeared as Landers started eating slowly, between dishes he would do some more small talk with Felix, finally, they reached the last dish and then drank some wine, it took Felix more to drink considering his feline body, even though his body was bigger than a normal cat he still couldn''t drink even half a cup before he was satiated. Lander''s aura engulfed the duo as the surroundings darkened around them, Felix wasn''t sure what kind of ability was this but he realized that he couldn''t hear anything from the outside and if his guess was true the others wouldn''t be able to hear what they said either, fortunately, the restaurant was empty bar the waiters and cooks. Landers''s fingers started to tap on the table in front of him as he observed Felix, then he shook his head and said: "This news shouldn''t have come for you yet but there is a talk about war coming, since you are in the army you will surely be conscripted for fighting." Felix wasn''t surprised by this, the air around the capital was extremely tense and he had seen the tigers acting strangely in their settlement, it was obvious something huge was going to happen, so it seemed it was war. Landers took in Felix''s reaction and nodded, it seemed he wasn''t wrong about him, he had what he needed for his unit. Landers stopped tapping his fingers on the table as he told Felix with a straight face: "With my captain authority I can recruit people for the war in my squad, I like your growth ability combined with your strength, even though you are only a cat tribesman you are even stronger than some of our youths in true fights, I would like you to join my squad." Felix was surprised by Landers''s invitation but he also realized that it only made sense, after all, he was basically his underling so he could forcefully conscript him, so why would he ask him to join his squad? Seeing his puzzled look Landers explained to him: "You see, the war squad units will be appointed by the Shaman of the tribe and the shaman uses a different measuring unit for the soldiers of the army, thus he uses that measuring unit to create squads, however, captains and above can create special squads with their most trusted subordinates, while I do not know much about you, I can see that you are a rather truthful and strong fellow, You give out an odd smell that tells me you will be our lucky star during this war." Odd smell? Felix wasn''t sure what to say about that, he smelled the air around him but he couldn''t feel anything, could this be another ability of Landers? Felix also didn''t know much about being truthful, he only said what came to his mind. Felix asked him but Landers just gave him a side glance and said: "Would you tell me about your abilities?" Felix froze as he realized that he made a mistake, it was quite rude of him to ask him about his personal skills if he didn''t reveal his, however, if he revealed his skills there would be some major problems popping up and this information here wouldn''t make up for it. Felix decided to not ask about his personal abilities anymore, after all, he wasn''t that close to Landers even though he was the captain of his squad, he only did solo missions and Landers was always either doing paperwork or missing, they weren''t related nor friends, at most friendly acquaintances, then why did Landers act as he knew him? Landers chuckled as he looked at Felix and said: "You are asking yourself why do I know so much about you?" Felix knew that a response would come quickly so he just nodded his head instead of saying anything else: "You see, the Hex communication stone that you have on you is also monitoring your location and vital signs, this is a way to make our soldiers be obedient and not desert after all, bad things happen to deserters and traitors, you should know about this thing firsthand." Felix watched as Landers stopped explaining and then looked at him waiting for his response, would he join his squad or not? Felix didn''t feel well considering all of his moves were seen by the lion tribe, however, now that he was in the army he couldn''t abandon his post or he would draw the ire of the higher-ups and he would be hunted down, he could die and get a new identity but he didn''t know how to change his appearance and the lion tribe had a huge information network, if he was ever found out to be alive they would realize something about his ability and things wouldn''t end up well for him, who knew if they would try to experiment on him to take his ability away so they could have warriors who could revive? Felix pondered his invitation for a few more seconds and decided to accept it, it made sense to join the squad of the captain where he would be able to protect himself, even though there was a chance for though missions ahead there was not much he could do in this situation, he joined the lion tribe without much information, normally he would have blamed Lucian but remembering how he looked so happy when he sent him off along with Sahee made him realize that he couldn''t blame the man as he didn''t know what he threw them into, maybe he thought something different would happen? Seeing how Felix had blanked out for quite a while, Landers knocked on the table for a second, breaking Felix out of his reverie, Felix nodded at him and told him: "I accept your invitation." Landers''s lips curved up as a smile appeared on his face and he told Felix: "Good decision, the war is already brewing to start soon and the battlefield has been decided beforehand, both sides had already laid out traps in the battlefield and things won''t go well for you if you don''t know the location of your traps." Landers threw him a booklet which had all of the information he needed and then told him one more thing: "You are strong enough to survive the war right now, that''s the only reason I want you in my squad, I need a squad of survivors..." There was a dark look on his face when he mentioned survivors then he shook his head at the barrier around them dispersed and he left, Felix looked at his back as he left the restaurant and sighed, he felt that things wouldn''t be as easy as before from now on. After he left the restaurant Felix returned to his inn and decided to take a nap, resting was important for his ever-growing body and he could feel that after he went to sleep, the energy from the tiger''s youth body would fully activate itself to strengthen him. Felix''s heavy eyes started dropping, the energy that was kept in his body which was locked inside started roaring as it launched itself at full speed through his veins, muscles, organs, and bones. Felix''s body even started to glow softly from the energy as he shuddered in his sleep, it seemed that even though he was sleeping he could feel the changes that were undergoing in his body. Chapter 19: Preparation While Felix''s body was agile it was quite lacking in pure strength, however, that didn''t lower his combat strength by much as he was an assassin, considering he could already kill people above his physical strength what would happen if he increased his physical strength as well? Technically speaking he would be able to fight it out with people who had strong special abilities that he wouldn''t be able to gain due to his unique constitution which was something that has been seen quite rarely in his new world. Felix''s muscles were starting to move as the Hex energy stored in his body was attacking them continuously like sharp needles trying to break through them, they were getting damaged and restored at high speed due to the Hex energy properties. Along with his muscles, the same could be seen at his bones, his whole bone structure was changing and strengthening itself as his body was growing ever so slightly in his sleep. However, these changes didn''t give him any extraordinary aura or changed his outer looks by much, besides growing to a medium dog''s size he remained the same cat that he was when he came from Earth, green emerald eyes combined with a slick fur coat of stripped orange, he was still looking quite fat even though he was basically exercising every day. Felix''s bodily changes didn''t stop his from sleeping and as time passed the changes in his body exhausted all of the Hex energy he gained from eating the tiger youth, morning came and he woke up then stretched his whole body, after having a hearty breakfast at the inn he realized that his communication stone was beeping! After he pressed the communication stone with his paw he could hear Landers''s voice coming from it telling him: "Come to our guard building, it''s time for some training before the war starts, and being frank with you we don''t have much time!" Felix quickly started to run towards the guard building and shortly meet there with Landers who was instructing the lieutenant on what to do while he was away. Seeing that Felix came he finished his instructions promptly and motioned with his hand for Felix to follow him. Felix followed him out of the building and blinked his eyes as he saw him appear around 100 meters away from him, Landers gave him a side glance and a smile as Felix understood what he meant. Felix started to run after him but he couldn''t get near him at all! His speed was so high that Felix could only eat his dust, as they left the capital behind them Felix saw his surroundings change multiple times as they went through a forest, a plain, and a few more villages and cities of the other tribes. It took almost 3 days of running to reach their destination, they reached a clearing where a big mound was standing there, out of the mound came the aura of bloodlust and death, suddenly Felix could feel his fur stand on end as a sweet voice could be heard: "Oh isn''t he cute Landers, why did you make him join us?" Landers came in front of Felix and shielded him from the intense killing intent which was aimed at him and said: "I wanted him to join us due to his unique talents and ability to grow, you might not see it now but as long as he will fight with our squad, his power will quickly increase, I''m not sure if he will become captain worthy before this war, but he would be at least a lieutenant!" Another voice came from the mound that chilled Felix''s blood in his veins that said: "Aren''t you overestimating a cat tribesmen''s ability to grow? Even though his whole fur is orange colored I''m not sure if his potential is up to par!" Felix could feel that there were around 3 more people inside the mound but they didn''t say anything as they only observed. Landers crouched to his eye level and told him to lessen the pressure on his shoulders: "They are all captains of the lion tribe, even though they aren''t from the same tribes, I became friends with them after we did missions in our rookie days and kept in contact, you won''t be joining us per se but the people below us." Landers then got up and looked at the mound while saying: "Where are your protegees eh? Also, why don''t you come in the light so my disciple can see you." Two snorts could be heard coming from the mound as they left its darkness, it was a cute woman with long fangs and bat ears, she wore a purple skin-tight outfit that hugged her hourglass figure, she looked cute on the surface but Felix could see that she was quite bloodthirsty inside. The other one was a rather stalwart man who wore a suit that seemed to be sewn to his skin, he had a curly mustache and he gave out a cool air around him, the other three people didn''t come out as they were still observing. The woman gave out a cute chuckle as she bowed slowly and said: "My name is Varra from the bat tribe, nice to make your acquaintance little cat." The man twirled his already curly mustache as he gave Felix another glance before he said: "I''m Penzo from the Penguin tribe of the north." Penguin tribe? Bat tribe? Felix didn''t have much knowledge about all of the tribes of the Tarot continent so he only nodded his head while he gave back his greetings. Landers knew that Felix was rather uncultured so he decided to give him a special scroll with all of the races on the continent so he wouldn''t make a fool of himself in the future. Varra wanted to come closer to Felix but Landers walked in front of her and said: "You know what happened to the other apprentices who you got near, you can''t get near him." Varra licked her red cherry lips as she backed away from Landers, it was obvious she was quite scared of him from the way her eyes dilated when she looked at his face and muscles, at least that''s what Felix thought. Landers knew that Penzo wasn''t really interested in Felix besides questioning his qualifications so he only gave him another nod before saying: "If you think Felix isn''t worthy to join our apprentice squads why don''t you get out your apprentices to spar against him? I''m pretty sure he would surprise you." Penzo snorted as he clapped his hands and a youth that looked similar to him ran out of the mound clumsily, he also had a suit that was seemingly sewn onto his skin, he had a clump of dark hair on his head that made it look like a bunch of hay freckles on his face. He looked quite awkward standing behind his teacher twiddling his thumbs and not making eye contact with anyone as he was seemingly scared of everything that moved. Varra snapped her finger and a bat came out of the mound behind them the bat formed into a cute girl that looked to be around 18 to 19 years old, she had a dark outfit on her that consisted of combat pants and boots along with a long-sleeved leather vest, her crimson eyes made her look quite cute in the sunlight along with her blonde hair. The other three seeing that it was time to compare students also came out of the mound, they were respectively from the Pig tribe, Komodo Tribe and Flamingo Tribe. The pig tribesman was obviously quite fat and wore a big chain armor on his body that protected him from any attacks regardless of angle, he had a helmet under his arm which indicated that his armor could protect all vital points, he looked to be middle-aged and bald and he had the normal features of the pig tribe, a big snout, and flappy ears, his curled tail was hidden under his armor. The Komodo tribesman was a 30 years old male who wore full army-style leather armor that was made to camouflage his body, he had scars along his face and one of his eyes was gouged out, however it could be seen from his expression and posture that his blind side wasn''t a weakness! The Flamingo tribesman was a flamboyant woman who stood on one leg as she wore the strangest outfit out of all of them, she wore a pure pink dress that had no special advantages it was a dress made from a material that Felix didn''t recognize so maybe it had his uses? Her pink hair was fluttering in the nonexistent wind as she stood there. Behind them they each had their students, the student of the Pig tribesman was a cocky looking fatty who wore the same type of outfit as his teacher but he didn''t have a helmet, he was around the other''s age but for some reason, he had white hair. The komodo tribesman student was a large youth that was fully packed with muscles, his tail was moving aggressively behind him and surprisingly he was from the crocodile tribe! However he had a lazy disposition as he yawned and was ready to go to sleep, his fluffy dark hair was almost covering his eyes. Last but not least was the student of the flamingo woman which was a flamboyant youth that was looking very similar to the woman so he must have been some kind of relative to her, son, grandson? Landers already explained to them that Felix didn''t have a human form before he even told Felix about the training so they weren''t surprised at all seeing Felix remaining in his cat form, it was a very rare occurrence but people who couldn''t transform into their humanoid form still exited up till this day, they mostly remained civilians as their battle power was subpar. That was one of the reasons Varra and Penzo were looking down on Felix, they both thought that his normal cat form would drag his battle power down along with their students. Landers nodded seeing everyone coming out and clapped to take everyone''s attention, it seems he was the leader of their squad: "Ok now that everyone made acquaintance since the two of you don''t think that Felix is up to par why don''t we make our students fight for a few rounds? What do you say?" Penzo gave out a gentlemanly smile as he nodded his head as he was accepting the proposal, Varra put a finger on her lips for a few seconds before she smiled showing her fangs while nodding as well, they wanted to see how much their students improved on the battlefield, after all, they were students in name only as they weren''t taught much by the captains, the captains only took them in as students after they saw their records and growth. The other three still just observed, they were the passive party in the squad and they would only go to work when orders from above were instilled, they were also vassal tribes to the Lion tribe, but they liked to use the term ''allies''. Landers decided to become the referee in this situation as his student was the one issuing the challenge to prove himself. They made some good space into the clearing as Lander''s came to the middle, the first to come up to fight Felix was the bat-girl, she skipped towards her part of the battlefield and gave out a sweet smile to Felix as she waved to him, she found him pretty cute. Felix nodded to her as a sign of respect between comrades and Landers started by telling the rules: "No crippling is allowed, no deadly blows or techniques allowed, this is purely a spar between squadmates to compare our techniques and battle power, the fighter can give up by tapping the ground below them with any part of their body 3 times if the fighter becomes unconscious he loses, if the teacher of the fighter intervenes in the fight the fighter loses. These should be all of the rules, any comments?" No one said anything, the rules were fair and unbiased so the fight was ready to begin. Landers waved his hand as he started to count down: "10,9,8....0" Felix became invisible as he used his stealth footwork and disappeared from everyone''s eyes, the teachers narrowed their eyes seeing such an impeccable stealth technique but Verra chuckled as she watched her student and said: "Stealth maybe good in most situations but my student is quite special even among my kin, show her what you are made of Korro." Korro''s big bat ears were constantly twitching as she tried to locate Felix, it seemed she had an extreme sense of hearing aven among the other tribesmen from the bat tribe. Felix kept himself a distance away from her as he planned his attack, he knew that in this situation instinct won''t help him as much so he had to use his head, however, his intelligence while almost above average wasn''t that high so he could only make a basic plan. He nodded his head as he finished thinking and started to slowly approach her making almost no sound, he wanted to finish this match fast as he didn''t know what techniques the other party had under her sleeves. Chapter 20: Sparring Felix guard was kept up even when he entered his stealth mode since he didn''t know what kind of abilities the bat tribesman had in her hands he could only be on the passive side for now. Korro took in a deep breath as her bat ears moved and twitched, she suddenly pointed her finger at Felix''s location and sent out a small sonic attack from her finger. Felix''s eyes widened as he felt his fur stand on end, he could feel that danger was on his way so he immediately jumped away from the spot he was in barely dodging the sonic attack. Cracks appeared on the ground where Felix previously stood but since there was no blood flesh or fur left behind everyone realized that Felix dodged the attack. Felix knew that standing on the passive side wouldn''t be useful for him if the bat-woman could actually find his position, he needed to attack right now! He dashed as quick as he could towards her but the woman smiled brightly as she turned to her original form and started to fly up, Felix looked around and as they were in a clearing there wasn''t anything he could do to get to her, if he jumped in mid-air he might be able to reach her but he would leave himself open for a sonic attack. That meant he could only wait for her to run out of energy. Felix narrowly dodged another sonic attack which now came from her original form''s mouth, Felix frowned as he tried to make a plan to get to her but he knew that he wouldn''t be able to, there weren''t any trees available and climbing the mound would make him an easy target. Felix frowned as he continuously dodged her attacks, was there anything he could do here? A sweet voice came from Korro''s bat form as she said: "Oh, you cutie, you are so darn cute when you look frustrated, let me give you a hint, you can''t get where I am no matter what you do, why don''t you give up, I''m just a natural counter for ground assassins like you!" Karro was trying to shake Felix''s confidence with her words and make him forfeit the match, it seemed she only did that due to concern but Felix knew that she was innately looking down on him, maybe because he was from the cat tribe, or maybe because he didn''t have a humanoid form, she was the only one who knew what was going through her head. Suddenly Korro''s bat mouth opened wide as an even bigger sonic attack was unleashed, the sonic wave was so strong that it became visible as the air around was getting cracked! Felix knew that he couldn''t dodge normally so he immediately dived head-on in the ground hoping that the ground would absorb some of the sound waves before they hit him. Landers nodded at Felix''s decision, it was the best one he could with his current situation, he was already pretty satisfied with Felix''s performance up till now and the others seemed to enjoy watching the spar as well, they knew that Felix was just in a bad situation due to the matchup and knew that he had some genuine skill, in a battlefield thing won''t happen like this as most people would be fighting in teams so there would be no such bad match up if you had good teammates. Felix''s body appeared out of the ground, his stealth was off as he breathed roughly, the sound wave hit him even though it was nullified a bit by the ground and there was blood trickling down from his nose. Felix glared at the bat above him and Korro just waved her wings at him with a big smile on her face. Felix frowned if he couldn''t reach her with melee attacks he needed some ranged attacks, but unfortunately for him, he didn''t have any hex energy and cat tribesmen didn''t have many ranged attacks they could use, maybe if he had a humanoid form he could master throwing knives or something similar but he could barely do day to day activities with his paws, he didn''t have hands so he couldn''t grasp thing properly. Felix looked down at his paws as he hastily dodged other attacks coming from Korro, he didn''t have hands but he had paws and claws, maybe he could do something with his claws? Felix started to concentrated on his claws as his breathing pattern changed, he was unconsciously trying to use the breathing technique to create a new attack that he could use. He aimed his paw at the bat''s wings and concentrated for a short while, some sonic attacks hit him here and there and he almost lost consciousness but after he took in one more breath two of his claws left his paw and flew at high speed towards Korro''s wings, startled by the sudden attack Korro didn''t dodge and the claws ledged themselves in her weak wings bringing her down to the ground. Seeing that his attack succeeded, Felix didn''t dally at all as he rushed towards her and put his remaining claws on her neck, Korro eyes were wide in fear as she unconsciously transformed into her human form, her red eyes wandered towards Felix''s sharp claws and she gulped. Landers walked forward and put his hand up as he said with a big smile on his face: "It seems Felix won, any objections?" It was obviously Felix''s win so no one objected, however, Korro''s master was fuming quite a bit because of her disciples'' defeat. Felix let Korro go and she hastily made her way to Varra who was now readily scolding her, but in her scoldings, Felix could also see some advice that she could use to not make the same mistakes she did in today''s fight. Felix sighed as he sat on the ground, the fight took quite a bit out of him and he needed to rest for a pit, Penzo decided to postpone the spar until he felt that he was at full power as he didn''t want his disciple to take advantage of his condition, as Landers said, it was only a spar and not a life and death fight. After resting for a few hours it was time to fight with Penzo''s disciple, the awkward-looking young man kept averting his eyes from Felix''s body as he bowed his head and said while stuttering: "le.. le lets haha have a gooo good fight!" Felix nodded at him in a sign that he accepted his bow and entered his stealth stance as he disappeared. Penzo looked at his protegee and told him: "Do your best Ricko, I know you are in your awkward phase but you are strong!" Ricko became another person after he heard his words, his eyes became unclear as he nodded his head multiple times while saying: "Yes yes yes, I will do well for the master!" Felix''s eyes narrowed as he saw this scene, was the penguin tribesman unstable? Or was it the awkward phase Penzo talked about? Did he have a double personality? Felix knew that unlike the woman, the man before him couldn''t find him normally, he seemed to be a melee fighter just like him, he saw that Ricko only attacked randomly after he responded to his master seemingly as if he didn''t care if he had any openings. Felix easily found flaws that he could exploit as Ricko attacked randomly so he decided to attack his weak spots directly! However, Ricko had a huge smile on his face as he headbutted Felix sending him out of his stealth mode and skidding a few meters away from him, how did he know where Felix was? Ricko chuckled as he pointed at his body: "You might not know this but we from the Penguin tribe are extremely sensitive to heat, the moment you get close to me I can immediately find out where your body is, you might be invisible but your body heat is still there, just like the sound of your heartbeat is still there, unless you become a cold corpse you won''t be able to get near me!" The timid looking and awkward looking penguin immediately became a responsible fighter after he heard the words of his master. Felix vomited down the bile that came out of his stomach after he was headbutted, it seemed that under his hay-like hair the penguin had a hard head! Felix knew that he needed to be quicker than him and counter his attacks now that he understood why he was attacked, Felix also wondered why did Ricko tell him about his traits? Was he that confident that he was faster and stronger than Felix? Penzo''s facepalmed at his disciple''s loose mouth, this was a thing at him that he couldn''t correct no matter how many times he taught him, fortunately, this quirk of his only applied to his traits and not to his teammates. Felix disappeared again as he entered stealth and took in a deep breath as he used his breathing technique for a few seconds, his body and lungs felt they were on fire, his body was literally screaming for him to stop breathing like that, 1 second, 2 seconds. Felix appeared behind Ricko and fell to the ground exhausted, Ricko wanted to laugh as he counterattacked Felix''s claw slash from before, but as he looked down at his skin that looked like a suit his eyes widened in surprise as he fell, it was a double knockout! Felix''s body started moving as he tried to get back to his feet, after a short while he got up and looked down at Ricko, there was already a small pool of blood appearing below him, it seemed he didn''t control his newfound strength that well. Felix knew that he would be disqualified from the spar after this but he guessed that he might have made a good impression on the other captains. Landers put his hand up as he walked towards Ricko''s downed form and put a hand over his wrist, listening slowly he nodded his head and said shortly: "It''s Felix''s win again!" Penzo immediately came to argue, the last fight was a genuine win but this time Felix almost took the life of his sparring partner: "You said that there should be no crippling or deadly attacks, why are you protecting him now? Playing favorites because he is your disciple Landers?" Landers shook his head as he motioned for Penzo to get near him and pointed at Ricko''s downed form: "Even though there is a bit of blood dripping to the ground his life isn''t in danger, he only became unconscious because Felix''s attack hit the main oxygen point in his chest which immediately knocked him out, the wound is actually pretty shallow and it should heal by rubbing a few herbs on it." Penzo snorted as he quickly inspected his disciple and after a short while he begrudgingly nodded and said: "It is Felix''s win, what Landers said is true, sigh, It seemed we old folks should be more open-minded to the young people''s talents regardless of what tribe they come from, he won against both of our disciples, what do you say Varra?" Varra wanted to argue but Landers''s gaze on her body immediately left her speechless, unofficially Landers was the captain of their squad, even though they were captains Landers was a lion from the main tribe along with his physical prowess and special Hex techniques he would be able to wipe out all of them here together, however since they were allies and the Lion tribe needed all of the help that it could get Landers had to play the host with them, however, if they argued with him or did something that went against Lion''s tribe benefits they could be punished quite badly. And arguing against Felix''s case would diminish the power level of the squad so technically Landers could dole out punishment to her for this. Varra immediately closed her mouth as she just bowed, Penzo nodded in recognition of Felix''s ability, the pig, komodo and flamingo went along with the flow and accepted Felix into their midst, after all, they wouldn''t fight with him on the battlefield, their disciples would, even though they cared a bit for their disciples, in this type of world they were still disposable if Felix didn''t make the cut they wouldn''t lose anything important. Felix almost collapsed to the ground as his lungs were practically burning up, seeing Felix''s situation Landers quickly ran towards him and took out a vial with a blue substance in it before he made Felix swallow the contents. Felix''s burning lungs immediately cooled down after he swallowed the substance and he could now get up from the ground by himself. Landers smiled as he saw Felix was ok and then told him: "Now that you got their acceptance we are all in a big squad, let''s go into the mound and rest for the remainder of the day, from tomorrow onwards we will start training with all we got!" Felix nodded as Landers took him into the mound, everyone else followed behind. Felix found himself in an underground cave under the mound, Landers gave him his own room and said that he will come to visit later. A few knocks on the door of his room were heard, it seemed Landers came, he also told him he had some instructions for him as he got ahold of his level after today''s sparring. Felix told him he could enter and Landers came in with some food that he settled down on the only furniture in the room, which was a medium-sized stone table. Landers indicated that Felix should eat before they talked as he already had his own meal before he came. Felix hastily ate his meal and waited for Landers'' explanation. Landers took in a breath and opened his mouth to instruct Felix... Chapter 21: Talk Landers''s eyes shined as he looked at Felix, he knew that he was quite talented but today''s events surprised him pleasantly, he opened his mouth and told him: "Do you know why I have chosen you to be in this squad?" Felix shook his head, he thought that it was for his potential just like he told him previously but it seemed there were also other things that Landers didn''t mention before. Landers sat on the ground and said to him: "There are a few reasons and I will list them right now, this is just a confidence boost for you but don''t become too excited: First, your potential to grow while in battle is enormous, I already saw that from before as you always came stronger from a mission, even though you have gone only in two missions you came back stronger from both and this isn''t something everyone does, combined with the fact that you learned a new strategy while fighting Varra''s disciple shows you have a good head on your shoulders. The second fact is that I like you, you are different from other cat tribesmen, from your potential to your strange body that cannot achieve its human form, you are special and the lion tribe is always open to people like you. The third fact is I like your ruthlessness, I remember quite vividly that you entered the battle royale with a woman from your tribe but you escaped alone, I like that you abandoned her so you could live, this is something a lot of people lack, you have put your mission above your comrades and this is something that the lion tribe needs in these times of war. As long as you finish your mission it doesn''t matter what you have to do. The fourth and final fact is that I feel something special when I look at you, something that I cannot understand, even though you do not have Hex energy in your body you can absorb it somehow and it strengthens you I know that the first moment I saw you,when you came with that woman of your tribe you were weaker, you are a different breed, maybe even a mutant, you might even be someone that would lead the continent to better times after you grow up." Landers smiled at Felix as he patted his head, it took him quite a bit of time to explain all of his thoughts and Felix was silent through the ordeal, it still stung him a bit that he left Sahee behind but since she forgave him the wound closed and the only thing that remained was a phantom pain that would disappear completely with time. Landers nodded as he saw that Felix mulled over his words instead of becoming happy and making all of his praise go to his head, it seemed that Felix was quite a level headed individual even though he was quite young. Felix looked up at Landers and asked him: "What kind of training will we do?" Landers''s smile disappeared as he entered into his ''captain mode'' and told Felix about all of the upcoming training: "Since you are different from us and you don''t have any Hex abilities from what I saw, you won''t train with us, the forest that we are currently in isn''t that big but there are a few rogue tribesmen of a variety of tribes gathered inside that would be used to polish our killing techniques, most of the others want to strengthen their abilities first before they go and train their bodies and I won''t interfere with their training nor with yours, the youths will train with the youths and the captains with the captains." Felix nodded at his explanation, it seemed that training with the others wouldn''t give him many benefits, after all, he was an assassin and not a team player, he would be the one that saved the others not the one that needed to be saved, his position made him a lone wolf involuntarily. Landers looked at Felix''s face and responded to his thoughts: "You don''t have to train with them but making a good impression is still needed, you can chat with them before the training starts tomorrow, anyways have a good night." Landers got up from the ground and left Felix behind as he closed the door. Felix sat down on the floor as he drifted to sleep, time passed and it was morning, Felix woke up quickly as he left his room and got out of the mound meeting with the others who were already up. Korro wanted to mock him for being late but Ricko shook his head indicating that he didn''t come that late. The pig, flamingo, and crocodile were also there and the captains seemed to have disappeared as they were all left alone near the mound. The big crocodile yawned as he wanted to make his way into the forest but Korro stopped him and said: "Sandors where are you going? We are a team we must go together to fight those rogue tribesmen!" The crocodile tribesman which was known now as Sandors was pretty annoyed by Korro''s words and wanted to slap her away but Ricko came in front of her and parried his attack, he looked down at his hand and he could see that it reddened a bit indicating that he wasn''t a match for Sandors in a 1v1 fight. Ricko frowned as he got in front of Korro and told Sandors: "Fighting with our own teammates will get you in trouble Sandors, why don''t you back off and let''s continue with our training?" Sandors shook his head as he was too lazy to bother with them, he waved his hand to the pig and said with a full toothy grin on his face that showed all of his sharp teeth: "Hey, emergency food why don''t you come with me?" The pig snorted as he waved his hands awkwardly and got near Korro and Ricko while saying: "Oh you can go ahead Mr. Sandors, this humble Bibo will stay with these teammates." Sandors chuckled as he saw how flustered Bibo was and looked towards the flamingo youth and asked him the same question. The flamingo youth was quite flamboyant as he stood there on one leg, he opened his mouth to respond and from it, came to a negative response: "My master told me to not trust you, fully carnivorous tribes like you are quite sketchy." Sandors scratched the back of his head and left into the forest not bothering to talk with them anymore, he tried to talk with them as his master instructed them, but since his big and bulky figure scared them away there was nothing he could do, maybe after he killed one or two rogues and ate them he would just go to sleep. The others looked at Felix expectantly thinking he would go with them but Felix shook his head as he said: "My master told me that I should move alone to polish my skills to their highest, I will protect you from the shadows while you guys go on ahead." Felix wouldn''t fight with them but he would follow them and attack when they wouldn''t be able to handle their fighters anymore, and if there was anyone hidden that Felix needed to take care of he would fight alone. The others nodded understanding his situation, while Sandors had to fight with them, Felix wouldn''t be that great in group fights due to his techniques and relatively weaker constitution, even though he could be considered a peak cat tribesman and his strength were also quite high compared to others, his toughness was nothing worth about, after all, cats were nimble and fast but their bodies were weak and Felix didn''t have any chance to eat something with a tough body to strengthen his. Felix followed the others from above as they started to run into the forest, the forest wasn''t very big but it was quite wide, the trees were sturdy and Felix had an easy time jumping from tree to tree while following the others, while he followed them he used all of his senses to catch up to them instead of only sight as he needed to train all of his senses to the peak if he wanted to be a good assassin. It didn''t take them much time to find a rogue tribesman which was from the flamingo tribe, he was quite strong and his techniques were fused with a strange dance that made his wings have a sharp attribute to them that almost sliced Ricko''s mouth open, however, he was quite though and there was no lasting damage remaining to him besides maybe a scar. Felix didn''t need to act versus the flamingo tribesman as the other 4 could handle him by themselves, but that didn''t mean he stood idle and watched, while the others fought he scanned the surroundings to make sure no one else would come and interrupted their fight. Fortunately for all of them no one came to disturb them and they finished the fight quite easily, Felix stood behind and waited for them to disappear as he looked down at the corpse of the rogue flamingo tribesman, it was bloody and it was decapitated, his eardrums burst from Korro''s sonic techniques and his head was taken off by the flamingo youth. Felix''s mouth watered unconsciously as he looked down at the corpse and gulped hard, suddenly some bushes around him started to move as the huge figure of Sandors appeared, his eyes were still lazy but they had a certain light in them that Felix recognized, it was hunger! Sandors looked at Felix with a big grin as he told him: "Hey there teammate, why don''t we share this flamingo corpse, I can see that you are quite famished as well." Sandors''s tail was moving erratically behind him as he got closer and closer to Felix, it seemed that if Felix refused he would eat both of them at once! Felix knew that Sandors didn''t work at all for the corpse but he also knew that fighting him here wouldn''t be beneficial at all for the whole team so he told him: "Ok 50/50 what do you say?" Sandors looked as he used his big hands to rip the flamingo corpse into two as he took the upper half and the head and left Felix with the lower half, he started crunching on the body immediately as he talked with his mouth full: "You are quite smart, I like you, cat." Felix finished the lower half of the body quite quickly, Sandors was actually surprised by Felix''s eating speed and smiled at him as he said: "What''s your name, I like people who can enjoy their meal like you do, you should already have heard my name from that woman but I''m not sure what''s yours." Felix looked at Sandors and responded: "My name is Felix." Sandors got closer to Felix and his big hands approached his head, Felix felt threatened by his sudden movement but before he could dodge Sandors petted Felix on the head and started to leave towards the woods, his silhouette disappeared as he left some words behind: "Let''s have a great time on the battlefield!" Felix nodded his head as he used his sense of smell to follow his team, while he talked and ate with Sandors they might have encountered another enemy, and if they were interrupted by someone while they fought there was a high chance he would be blamed for leaving his post. Felix quickly jumped from tree to tree as he used his strong sense of smell to approach the location of the team and found them fighting a tiger tribesman! And they were losing! It also seemed from the expressions that they have shouted for his help quite a while ago and they wondered why he didn''t show up. The tiger tribesman was a youth around their age, he had an X scar around his forehead, his body was quite muscular and he wore nothing but rags, he also seemed to be quite hungry as he always lunged towards Bibo to take a bite out of him, Bibo had tears in his eyes as he ran around shouting for Felix''s name. Felix took in a deep breath as he disappeared, it was time to sharpen his skills even further in life and death situations! Felix quickly approached the tiger from behind but the tiger tribesman suddenly lunged towards him and tried to take a bite out of his head! Felix''s eyes widened in surprise and fear as he tried to dodge the attack before it was too late... Chapter 22: Forging Bonds Felix''s mind went into the haywire mode as he saw the tiger''s jaws getting closer and closer to his head, time seemed to slow around him as his life started to flash in front of his eyes. His emotions and instincts told him that he should dodge but the tiger was already too close to him, there was also the rationality that he developed over time that told him it will be ok as he had extra lives and since he was still invisible, even if he died the others wouldn''t know about his ability. Suddenly the memories of his other deaths started to run through his brain, reliving them wasn''t a pleasant experience at all and he vowed to himself that he wouldn''t want to go there for another time! As time slowed down Felix looked at the jaws of the tiger tribesman that were getting closer and closer to his head, he would just need to chomp down and his head would be crushed in his mouth, however, nanoseconds before the tiger tribesman could close his mouth Felix grabbed onto his rags and lowered his head instinctively barely dodging the attack. His claw went directly into his chest area giving him a scar and opening a wound that started to spurt blood, then he dropped from his body dodging a punch that almost crippled him, and ran a few meters away from him. Seeing how the tiger was wounded and how he attacked the air the others realized that Felix was here, Korro''s ears were twitching as she got a hold of his location, and then she opened her mouth to launch a sonic wave attack at the tiger! Since he was injured his movement speed took a plummet so the tiger could only barely dodge the sound wave which he was able to dodge earlier quite easily. Then Ricko ran forward as he tried to punch him in the injured area only to be almost skewered by the tigers'' claws, Ricko frowned as he backed away, the tiger was too strong for them! Felix calmed himself as he could feel the energy from the flamingo tribesman running haywire in his system, it seemed due to the fight or flight response his body created before the Hex energy from the flamingo''s body started to strengthen him while he was conscious in an attempt to protect him from the danger in front of him. The flamingo youth tried to use one of his dances to slash the tiger away but even while injured the scarred tiger strength wasn''t something to be made fun of, the flamingo youth was someone that the tiger tribesman could eat easily in a 1v1 situation so he could barely escape from his clutches with the help of others, attacking one by one wasn''t going to work. Attacking in a group would be better but no one could hold his attention for more than a few seconds as they couldn''t endure a melee fight against him for more than a few seconds. Felix sighed as he thought about Sandors, he might have been very useful here but he walked in the opposite direction from here! Felix wanted to escape here but considering that the others were also quite exhausted there was a chance the tiger tribesman would be able to kill one of them while they were retreating and this wouldn''t end up well for everyone on the team, after all, their respective captains let them train in this environment because they thought they could survive it. Felix sighed as he started to breathe in, the Hex energy in the air converged on his body as he strengthened his stealth, he wasn''t sure how the tiger saw through his stealth but now he thought that after he reinforced it he shouldn''t be able to find him. The tiger tribesman chuckled under his breath as he waited for Felix to attack, he knew that there was a cat tribesman among them as they were the most adept at stealth so he waited for his attack while fending or dodging the other weakling''s attacks, he could feel that the cat tribesman offensive power was quite good as it pierced through his skin and drew blood giving him a small injury that inconvenienced his movement speed. Felix started to dash towards the tiger however his instincts immediately told him something wasn''t right so he stopped a few meters away and watched how the tiger tribesman attacked the spot he would be in if he continued. Felix frowned and the tiger tribesman did the same, Felix couldn''t understand how the tiger tribesman was able to see through his stealth and the tiger tribesman was now doubting his senses. The tiger tribesman dodged another sonic wave as he looked at Korro and said: "Aren''t you quite annoying you bat bitch, let me deal with your first!" The tiger tribesman quickly jumped towards Korro at a speed that only left an after-image where he stood previously, Korro changed to her original form as she flew into the air and sent out more sonic waves while avoiding Ricko and the flamingo youth. The tiger tribesman now stood between Ricko and the flamingo youth, suddenly his claws attacked the flamingo youth''s left arm tearing it away forcefully leaving the flamingo youth disarmed. He jumped away while he started to crunch on the arm that he took, his savage expression and bloodshot eyes while he ate reminded Felix of himself and Sandors, were carnivores always like this while feeding? Why didn''t Landers look the same, after all, he saw him eat meat that one time in the restaurant and he looked to be pretty proper. Felix shook his head, it wasn''t time to think about such things, he needed to save his teammates here! Felix decided to attack him while he was enjoying the flamingo youth''s arm as he was pretty defenseless himself when he ate the bodies of his enemies. Suddenly the tiger tribesman bloodshot eyes enlarged as he swiped his free hand towards Felix''s direction, Felix stopped again, how was he able to find him without his sight, he also made almost no sound combined with the fact that he could feel that the tiger wasn''t using any Hex abilities made Felix really puzzled on how he was able to feel his presence. The tiger tribesman wasn''t dumb enough to tell him about his only advantage, he was scared of Felix''s attack power so he wouldn''t throw out his only defensive measure. Landers and the other captains were watching everything from above, they already finished their training and they decided to observe the training of their protegees. Both Varra and Penzo had narrowed eyes as they looked at the tiger tribesman below them and said: "How come this type of opponent is here... he is a battle veteran that we captured quite a while ago, who threw him here?" Landers put his hand up as he pointed at himself, Varra and Penzo immediately shut up seeing that their leader was the one who put him in here, even if they bitched about it, it wouldn''t help them with anything besides making Landers look at them in a bad light. Landers nodded his head seeing how obedient they were and decided to explain himself: "You see that tiger there? He has mastered the ability to sense killing intent, you might not see all the scars around his body due to his rags but his preeminent scars on his forehead were given by me! Do you understand? He lived in a fight with me even though I gave him those scars, his ability to sense killing intent is extremely refined." Penzo voiced his doubts slowly to not offend Landers: "But captain Landers, how could our disciples be able to fight someone of such strong ability? They are still newbies and they should fight with people of the same ability gradually so they can improve, no offense to your teaching style, sir." Landers smiled as he responded to Penzo: "No offense taken Penzo, even though what you have said is true, one''s talent would only appear fully in deadly situations, I threw that tiger in this forest for two reasons, one to see if your protegees are worth to go to the battlefield, and secondly to see if my protegee can fulfill all of my standards." Even though Felix was still invisible Landers looked directly into his direction and gave out a smile. Felix was overthinking trying to find out how the tiger was able to find out his location, could he read his mind? It was most unlikely, the tiger was a physical tribe that focused on melee fights, they wouldn''t awaken such a Hex ability normally. Then what was it? Could he read his intent? Could he know where he tried to attack by reading his feelings? Was such a thing possible? Felix was an innate fighter and all the things he learned up till now was with live fights, he wasn''t taught anything by a master or a thing like this, this was how most of the people in the Tarot continent grew stronger, they trained by themselves and learned the basics through live fights, the one with better instinct would go forward and if the upper echelons of the continent liked their talent, only then they would be taught some techniques. Felix was close to realizing why the tiger was able to dodge his attacks but realizing it wouldn''t help him at all, how would he be able to attack him without focusing on him? This wasn''t truly possible for the current Felix. Felix frowned since he couldn''t get near him to attack he decided to use his only long-range attack. He pointed his paws at the Tiger who just finished the flamingo youth''s arm and started to breathe as his new claws launched themselves at high speed towards the tiger. The tiger tribesman felt the attack coming from a mile away and easily dodged it, it seemed ranged attacks were as ineffective as short-range ones. Felix frowned but suddenly the bushes behind him moved as Sandors moved in lazily, his mouth and face were painted red as he yawned, it seemed he ate quite a lot while the others fought with their lives on the line. Sandors face turned into a big bright smile as he looked at the tiger tribesman and questioned: "I wonder how another predator tastes?" The tiger frowned as he saw Sandors, his instincts told him that he was a strong opponent that was near his strength! He might be able to best him in a 1v1 but currently, he was injured coupled with the fact that he was practically surrounded by others, even though injured and exhausted meant that there was a very high chance for him to lose his life here! Felix''s eyes started shining as he saw the current situation, now that he had someone who could take his attention there was a 90% chance of them winning the fight. Landers who was above in the trees shook his head as he saw Sandors: "It seems I won''t be able to push him until the end today, quite sad, It seems he will have to learn during the war." The other captains just kept their mouths shut not interfering in Landers''s business even though it implicated their protegees, and one of them even lost his arm! The flamboyant woman kept herself in check as she looked at her protegee, her hands were clenched tight as she stood there on one leg. Landers ignored the flamingo woman and kept his eyes on the fight, he wanted to see what will Sandors do in this situation, he was a wildcard in his senses. Sandors moved his head left and right as he cracked his fingers, he ran forward to meet the tiger in a head-on fight only to see the tiger trying to run away into the depths of the forest! Korro seeing him trying to escape immediately shot a sound wave barring his way from escaping. Sandors smiled at Korro as his body slammed the tiger to the ground, but the tiger immediately counterattacked by slashing his chest leaving a long narrow scar on his chest that immediately started to bleed, however, Sandors big muscles twitched as his scar stopped bleeding. The tiger gulped as he narrowly got away from Sandors, however, he was boxed in and he also had to stretch his senses to keep Felix in check. Was his end drawing near? The tiger tribesman gritted his teeth as he shouted: "I won''t back away here or else my name wouldn''t be Sumba the third, lets see what you got you damn cowardly rejects!" It seemed Sumba was ready to lay his life on the line at this point, Sandors smiled as he cracked his knuckles and approached him while saying: "Guys don''t attack if he doesn''t escape, I would like to enjoy this fight!" Korro and Ricko wanted to argue, the flamingo youth was especially angered considering the loss of his left arm which practically crippled him and sent him out of the team as he would be a liability on the battlefield from now on. However, Sandors just gave them a chilly smile and told them: "Do I have to repeat myself?" Seeing his smile everyone decided to back off, Felix included. Felix would only attack if Sumba would try to run away. Seeing that the others finally gave him a breathing room Sumba chuckled as he looked at Sandors, he thought that the crocodile tribesman was a fool for ditching his teammate''s help, even though he knew that he was strong, from the body slam and his movements he knew that he was a normal fighter who didn''t learn any fighting techniques, while his bodily strength was extremely high combined with his though skin and aura made him a formidable enemy. But right now Sumba found himself with a chance of winning around 85%. Sumba breathed in as he took a fighting stance, both of his foot stood planted into the ground as one arm stood in front of him while the other was put behind his back, Felix didn''t know why Sumba took the stance but Sandors gave out an interested look as he rushed towards Sumba. The fight between two strong people just started! Chapter 23: Experience and fighting styles Sandors tried to ram Sumba to the ground and then grapple him, hoping that he could snap his neck while in the grapple position with his massive weight, however, Sumba used his footwork to dodge his charge and then grabbed his wrist to throw him to the ground. Sandors laid on his back as Sumba''s claws went directly for his neck trying to pierce it and the fight fast, he knew that Sandors told his teammates to back off but who knew when they would suddenly attack and put pressure on him? Sandors didn''t protect his neck as he rolled to the left barely dodging Sumba''s claw attack, a small opening was made on his thick neck that only dripped some blood for an extremely short time before it stopped. Sandors cracked his neck as he got up from the ground and tried to ram Sumba again, Sumba shook his head inside, while Sandors was extremely strong his attacks were easy to avoid and predict, and with his technique, he could use his enemy strength against him! It seemed that Sandors was a rather unrefined fighter as he fought using his instincts without an ounce of his intelligence, however, due to his bodily evolution his instincts were dulled and not as strong as an actual crocodile so he was at a disadvantage versus someone who was using such peculiar techniques as Sumba. Sumba breathed in and out as he dodged Sandors''s ram again, since Sandors couldn''t control his body briefly after the charge Sumba appeared behind him grabbed him by the waist, and threw him into the ground head first. Felix''s eyes widened seeing Sumba''s fighting technique, however, he immediately found that he couldn''t be able to use them due to his body, his cat body combined with his lack of strength meant that he couldn''t use those refined techniques even if he wanted to, he might be able to steal some footwork so he could sidestep such attacks better but it wouldn''t be that helpful. Felix thought that he could learn something by watching this fight but he didn''t understand much from observing, maybe if he fought himself he would understand better but Sandors specified that no one should interfere... Sandors got from the ground and tried to slam his hands on Sumba''s chest but Sumba grabbed him by the neck and started to crush it under his arm, however, Sandors smiled as he didn''t feel a thing from Sumba''s neck hold! It seemed that Sandors was quite the brute as his muscles were stopping him from taking any damage from Sandors''s attacks, even though he was lacking in experience and fighting style his body was extremely tough! Sandors moved his free arms to continuously pummel Sumba''s stomach to the point that Sumba even spat out some phlegm mixed with blood and retreated 5 to 6 steps behind him. His eyes were red as his body started to heat up, the surrounding Hex energy finally activated itself fully under Sumba''s control. Sandors snorted as he activated his own peculiar ability, scales appeared all over his body increasing his ability to deal and take damage, the scales were spiked meaning that Sumba would have to aim to the empty parts on his body which were very few. Sumba snorted as he controlled the Hex energy in the air and draped it around his body like a red cloak, the cloak covered his rags making him look rather decent now, he could even be called handsome and roughed due to his scars. His speed and strength increased a lot as he disappeared from his spot and attacked one of Sandors''s weak spots making Sandors spit out a big globule of blood unconsciously! Sandors''s eyes widened as he saw Sumba disappearing from before him appearing in the same spot as before. Sumba grimaced as he held his fist, there were some bloody prints left on his knuckles indicating that he didn''t come unscathed from that attack, it looked like Sandors''s weak spots were there only to act as a bite! Sumba breathed in again as the cloak around his body shortened and a hood appeared which he used to cover his face, some of his ragged clothes were now visible due to the shortening of the cloak. Sandors was currently defending his body as he looked around seriously, even though he was lazy on daily basis due to his reptile genes, he was a natural cold-blooded killer with great instincts for fighting that were only diluted due to the bodily evolution that happened in the whole world. Sumba didn''t appear anywhere but Sandors''s body started to move, his guard was broken as his eyes widened in disbelief then his jaw was broken along with all of the spikes around his body, his armor was destroyed and he started to continuously vomit blood as his internals were injured by Sumba''s last attack. Sumba finally appeared but he was breathing roughly as he tried to run away, Sandors couldn''t move as he was currently vomiting his guts out so it was finally Felix''s time to shine! Felix quickly rushed towards Sumba''s retreating figure which was quite slow now due to his exhaustion and injuries, Felix''s body was tensing unconsciously as he approached Sumba, he could see the illusion of a cornered tiger that was ready to pounce and self-destruct along with his attacker behind Sumba. Sumba''s uninjured fist quickly snaked its way to Felix''s neck trying to punch a small hole through it but Felix already knew that Sumba could predict his attacks so he moved in a different direction and didn''t attack. Sumba was flustered as he missed again and felt the killing intent coming from a different point, his arm was already stretched into a punch so his balance wasn''t right, Felix''s claws were centimeters away from his neck only for Felix''s eyes to be blinded by a bunch of blood coming from Sumba''s injured hand. The blood finally revealed Felix''s body to Sumba so he immediately pounced towards him, ready to kill him, since he was able to see him now he didn''t have to wait for Felix to attack him. Since Felix was a cat tribesman with a weak body, his stealth being the only thing that kept him alive in such situations meant that he should easily die in Sumba''s hands, at least that''s what Sumba thought. Felix breathed in as he used Sumba''s footwork from before to dodge his opponent''s pounce, however, there was no way for him to counter as Sumba directly jumped backward to face him, his fist ready to destroy his inner organs as it was aimed at his chest. Felix frowned as he jumped backward to avoid the punch only for a long claw to extend from Sumba''s fist and impale itself into Felix''s chest! Felix started to bleed as he used the momentum from jumping backward combined with the impalement to extract the claw from his chest, Felix put his paw on his chest as he could feel his blood slowly leaving his average-sized body. Sumba was smiling in victory seemingly thinking that Felix would bleed to death so he was ready to run away, however, he fell to his knees as blood started to slowly drip down from his ears, he put a hand to his ear as he felt the blood on his palms and frowned. Korro immediately appeared in her bat form, with her mouth wide open, the flamingo youth was supported by Ricko and Sandors pale face was quickly making it''s way to the changing battlefield, Sandors was extremely mad as he rushed directly towards Sumba who was out of balance and punched him into the ground creating a small crater under them. Felix breathed in and out as his blood was leaving him only to see Ricko quickly closing into him and applying a green bandage over his body, he could feel his chest wound slowly closing due to the bandage but he still lost quite a lot of blood so he felt lightheaded and weak so he wasn''t in any position to fight anymore. Ricko frowned as he watched Sumba slash at Sandors with his claws making him lose one layer of flesh on his arm, Sandors grasping his injured arm in pain made him unable to pain Sumba to the ground anymore which meant he would escape! The flamingo youth charged Sumba as he used his good remaining arm to create a wind blade that almost cut off the tiger tribesman''s left hand off! Unfortunately, the left hand was still clinging with its last hopes and cartilages onto his arm so it wasn''t severed, meaning that it could be fully reattached and healed in the future. The flamingo youth cursed very loudly: "I WON''T REST UNTIL I ATLEAST RIP OFF ONE OF YOUR HANDS, OR MY NAME ISN''T DURIOTE FLAMINGO THE FOURTH!" His left arm stump was bandaged but his shout along with his sudden movements made the wound open again, which made Duriote fall to his knees while having a pained expression on his face. Sumba didn''t say anything as his silhouette disappeared in the forest, it seemed he would be able to escape fully. Landers shook his head as he saw Sumba disappear, he didn''t go after him nor did the other captains as Landers told them to leave him alone, after all, he did promise him he would be able to leave if he survived an encounter with the youth team below him. Landers and the other captains dropped to the ground, most of them had disapproving glances, the pig tribesman even told his disciple who was cowering behind a tree that he should have been eaten in this situation rather than displaying such shameful actions! Landers ignored everyone berating their disciples as he got towards Felix and looked at his wound, he took a red-colored rock out of his bag and cracked it a little bit, ripping some parts of the cracked rock and crushing it into powder he offered it to Felix: "Snort it and it should close your wound to the point that it won''t open if you have to fight immediately." Felix complied and snorted the red powder, the red powder traveled through his whole body before converging on the hole on his chest and quickly activating its properties closing off his wound, and even creating a crust over it means that after the crust dropped he would have healed completely. Felix sighed as he put a paw over his injury and seeing that it didn''t hurt as much anymore decided to slash away the bandages binding him as they were quite uncomfortable, Ricko wanted to berate him seeing his actions, but considering he was already getting berated quite forcefully by Penzo he decided to keep his mouth shut. Landers then put his fist over Felix''s head and told him: "You didn''t do great nor you have done many mistakes but I''m quite disappointed with your current display." Landers sighed as he watched Felix avert his gaze from him, it wasn''t that he was very disappointed with him but Felix didn''t get the proper stage to unleash his potential, Sandors''s intervention threw him off and broke his concentration and accumulation. Landers decided to call off this training as there wasn''t much time till the war will start, they would have around 10 more days before the war started so since they already got some deadly experiences under their belt it was time for them to learn some more sophisticated techniques. Seeing how the tiger tribesman easily beaten all of them with his made Landers realize that it was wrong to let the youths train on their own with their shabby foundations in the fighting. Landers already told everyone of his plans so they started to disperse taking all of their disciples back to their respective tribes to teach them their tribe''s fighting techniques in the remaining ten days. Landers sighed as he motioned for Felix to follow him, they would train near the battlefield to spare time of traveling when they would have to get to the battlefield from training. Landers and Felix started to run at their quickest speeds towards the designed battlefield. It took them one day to get to the battlefield and Felix recognized it, it was around the borders between the territory of the tiger and lion tribes, he crossed the border when he went to deal with the supply route and assassinate that elderly lion. There were already tents and people walking around both of the sides but there was a huge distance between them to the point that no ranged attacks would be able to touch their camps. Landers had his own tent already up because of his rank so he invited Felix in so he could talk to him: "Felix I can''t train you anymore." Felix''s eyes widened in surprise, then why did he have to follow him to the battlefield then? Seeing his puzzled eyes Landers gave him a reassuring smile and opened his mouth to tell him his thoughts and hypothesis on the matter of training him in the lion tribes fighting techniques. Chapter 24: Changing teachers Landers decided to tell him directly without beating around the bush: "Our fighting styles are way too different, I don''t think I can teach you a fighting style that would suit your body, the fighting styles of cats and lions are very different due to our different bodies and innate qualities but don''t fret, I think I have a good teacher for you!" While they were waiting someone entered the tent, it was a cat tribesman from his looks, he had an average height and he wore a dark militaristic outfit which showed he had a decent position in the lion army. He had a small clump of orange in his black hair and his looks weren''t anything to talk about, he wasn''t average nor beautiful his face was kinda forgettable too. Landers walked towards him and slapped him on the shoulder as he introduced him to Felix: "He is your teacher, Captain Carto, he is a very strong cat tribesman from the northern tribes, I think I should leave you alone to get acquainted with each other first, I already told him about your peculiarities so you don''t have to tell him much, just get to know each other personally." Landers smiled as he left the tent while leaving the duo of cats behind. Carto looked at Felix''s body for a short while before he opened his mouth: "His excellency Landers gave me all the needed information to train you, it seems that you have already mastered some of your abilities but you lack a fighting style that you can call your own, Landers also told me you come from a rather poor tribe so I understand why you weren''t trained in the normal catfighting style." Carto sighed as he suddenly disappeared and appeared in front of Felix, Felix eyes widened as he looked at the finger that was pointed towards his chest near his heart, Carto shook his head: "It seems that you are lacking in reflexes as well, all of this can be fixed but we don''t have much time, I just hope you won''t find a captain level enemy on the battlefield or you will join the hero tablet back at the capital." Felix gulped as he followed Carto, both of them left the tent behind as they found an open space where they could train, the other workers around the camp didn''t have time to look at the officers'' training so they were ignored. Carto stood on the spot as he waved his hand and told Felix: "You can attack me and I will point out the flaws of your attacks, I will teach you the cat combat style through fighting as it''s the quickest way to learn it currently." Felix didn''t say anything as he used his stealth technique and disappeared, he rushed towards Carto but Carto just shook his head and easily dodged Felix''s attacks while saying: "It seems you don''t know how to control your killing intent and you can easily be spotted by someone with experience, you might be able to stealthily kill rabble this way but true experts would be able to dodge your attacks and even hit back, but I commend you for stopping a few meters before attacking if you walked forward your chest might have gotten another wound." Felix got the same feeling from Carto as he got from the scarred tiger so he stopped himself from attacking, it seemed it was the right decision. Felix found himself on the ground as Carto sat near him pushing him down with both of his arms: "Another weakness is that you can''t feel killing intent, this a combination that we will have work on, you are also prone to fight people physically stronger than you so getting in this position means certain death." However Carto was surprised as his body was slowly getting pushed up by Felix, his eyes narrowed as he tried to push further but he entered a strength stalemate with Felix! Carto was also a cat tribesman so he wasn''t that physically strong, but he was older and trained more than Felix so he was immediately surprised by the fact that Felix''s bodily strength was equal to his. He jumped backward and nodded: "It seems you have a few hidden strengths, I commend you for that, now let''s continue the training, Be sure to watch my attacks!" Carto entered a stance as he put his arms down around his body and lowered himself to the ground like he was bowing his head. The next second Felix found a claw attack flying towards his head that he barely dodged, Carto nodded at him and said: "I have adjusted the poses for your primordial form as you don''t have a humanoid form so watch well!" Carto entered different stances as Felix barely dodged and had no time to counterattack as his life was on the line, he could feel the breath of death flowing on his back chilling his whole body every time he clashed with Carto. Carto was holding back quite a great deal but he was surprised by Felix''s tenacity and ability to adapt on the spot, he almost counterattacked a few times since the start of the training, it''s been almost 4 hours and Felix was exhausted but he could still find weak spots that he could get advantage off. This type of weak spots became more evident in Felix''s mind the more he fought, his innate animal instincts were starting to take over the more he fought, however before he could continue his stomach started growling as he fell on his back in exhaustion. Carto looked at Felix and shook his head: "It seems we have trained a bit today, however, it''s not enough yet! Eat and let''s continue!" It was around afternoon and Felix had to talk with the tribesmen who were working around the camp for food, since he was a soldier in the army he got the food for free, especially since he was training for the war, he got some extra nutritious food to help him with his training. After he ate Felix had to train with Carto again until he fell on his back and couldn''t move, he slept in the same place that night. Felix woke up to the nudging of a boot, it was Carto who immediately stepped on his tail and made him awake, another day of training went by with Felix remaining the weaker party as Carto unleashed more of his prowess. Time passed by and it was only one day before the start of the war, the skies were turning deep red as the sun bathed the ground, Carto was looking down at Felix''s still form on the ground and nodded to him as he said: "You have learned the fighting style and while you aren''t that experienced with it, if you don''t die in this war you should be able to master the fighting style, as for feeling and stopping the killing intent, it seems you aren''t that talented in that regard, well we did have a short time..." Felix got up from the ground and shook his head, he couldn''t grasp the way of hiding his killing intent nor predicting the killing intent of the enemy, he couldn''t feel it properly yet but he knew it was there. Carto looked towards the horizon as the sun shone brightly in the sky and said: "After this war one of the tribes might be exterminated..." Felix stood there not saying anything, he only worked for the lion tribe because he found them first, he wasn''t that attached to the tribe even though he had one friend inside it, two if you counted Landers, but he could feel that he wasn''t that close to Landers. Felix sighed as he looked in the same spot as Carto only for his eyes to widen, it seemed the Tigers were already getting ready for war as their strongest experts were currently coming right for them! However, Felix could feel the ground shake under his feet as the experts of the Lion tribe suddenly appeared from the biggest tent in the camp and started to rush towards the middle of the battlefield. Carto shook his head as he looked at the meeting in the middle of the battlefield and explained to Felix: "The leaders of both tribes would usually meet each other before a tribe war would happen, however, you can see from our leaders that the tribe is in a precarious position." The aura of the Lion tribesmen was indeed a little bit weaker and if Felix took a better look he could see that the leading Lion was looking quite old! Carto seeing Felix recognizing their Shaman told him: "As you know the Shaman of the lion tribe is old and should have been thrown out of the tribe already, unfortunately, his descendants couldn''t get even half as strong as he is! Meaning that if he was thrown out of the tribe would collapse and we would be enslaved by the tiger tribe." Carto shook his head as he saw the Shaman''s from both tribes exchanging courtesies, most of the time the Shamans wouldn''t have to fight but it seemed the Tiger Shaman was getting antsy seeing the old fossil of the Lion tribe standing in front of him. Felix continued to observe and wait, he wasn''t sure if he would learn anything by seeing their interactions but since he finished his training and didn''t have anything to do he decided to watch the interactions of the upper echelons from both tribes with Carto. Chapter 25: A small scuffle The lion shaman was an old man who wore a white robe that hid almost his whole body, only his face was visible and you could clearly see some strands of his hair framing his face and they were all white, his face was also not as youthful as before and his back was almost bent. He even had a walking stick in his hand that he was using to support himself to the ground. On his right was a man around his early thirties, he was imposing with a golden mane and red eyes, he wore a militaristic uniform and it seemed he had a high rank as his uniform was different from the others, he was most likely a general of the lion army! On his left stood another man but he wasn''t as imposing as the other one, he had a dark red mane and a big smile on his face, his cheek had a small stitcher scar going from around his nose height to his mouth, he looked pretty amicable at first but his green eyes were hiding underlying intentions, he wore the same type of uniform as the other man it only was of a different color. While the man on the right had a blue uniform he had a red one. Felix could see what was happening using his strong eyesight but he couldn''t hear anything that was said over there. The tiger shaman was middle-aged and his body was fully scarred as he wore nothing over his chest, he had some fur pants on and boots, his face was also scared and his visage was almost destroyed, only his bright blue eyes remained unharmed. He also had two people with him, his left and right arm which were also generals in the tiger army, they wore similar uniforms unlike the people from the lion tribe and they seemed to be both battle-hardened veterans, even though there was a huge distance between them and Felix, Felix could feel that if he fought them they could kill him with their eyes closed! The old lion shaman tapped his walking stick on the ground and looked at the tiger shaman with a demure look on his face and said: "Can''t we talk this through? Even though this old bag of bones doesn''t have much time left I''m sure you wouldn''t want to corner me and my tribe." The tiger shaman bowed towards the lion shaman, it seemed the man respected him somewhat as he opened his mouth: "It''s not that I want to fight you and your tribe sir but we have our own difficulties, your son also didn''t inherit most of your shaman blood so you know what would happen in the next generation, we are just saving time..." The man on the right frowned as the tiger shaman''s eyes moved to him when he talked about the incompetent son, it seemed the general was also the son of the Shaman! The shaman put his hand forward in a motion meaning that his son should refrain from commenting on this situation, the lion tribesman on the right stopped his half-open mouth, it was true that he didn''t inherit his fathers'' bloodline fully but he was still plenty strong! The lion shaman looked in the eyes of the tiger shaman as he inquired: "Can you really not leave us alone? This war can be avoided and who knows? Maybe my son would fully awaken his shaman powers down the line..." The tiger shaman suddenly started laughing as he pointed at the mans'' son and responded: "I already know you have tried everything you could to awaken his shaman powers but you failed! This isn''t a talk about the shaman position anymore, even if he inherits and gets some of the powers his bloodline is too weak to handle them! Do you think that we from the tiger tribe would let such a fat sheep go? We live in the mountains while you live in the plains and forests which are full of food!" "You traded with us before but you suddenly cut off the trades because I quote ''there isn''t enough food anymore'', what not enough food? Juts rear some of your subordinates and send them to us! You have the pig tribe, the gazelle tribe, and the flamingo tribe under you, you have plenty of food!" The lion shaman frowned as he told the tiger shaman: "You might not understand it but we from the Lion tribe have started to go beyond the need of eating only flesh to survive, we can feel our bloodline purifying every day and I think this can happen to you as well, you just have to give up on eating only meat and start to eat more balanced diets, I think that..." The tiger shaman shook his head as he interrupted the lion shaman: "Just shut up you doddering old fool, your words made me lose all the respect I had previously for you! Eat anything else but meat? Look at your weak subordinates! Boys show these two what meat-eaters are all about!" The guards that stood on his left and right immediately attacked the lion shaman guards, both of the generals started by defending and counterattacking their opponent''s charge but there was something strange about their opponents that they couldn''t put their finger on properly. The fight between upper echelons wasn''t one that Felix could truly understand, all he could see was shadows and blurs fighting each other and even Catro had trouble following the fight, he didn''t have time to explain to Felix what was happening. The lion shaman shook his head looking at the fight in front of him and he waved his walking stick immediately stopping all four fighters making them split up! The tiger shaman eyes widened but then he snorted: "You think that you can show your might before us like this? Even If I fall in battle I will still take down you with me, since my tribe is stronger we will win!" Both of the lion generals were bruised while the tiger generals uniforms were scuffed a bit but they didn''t have any injuries on their bodies. The lion shaman frowned as he started to slowly return to the lion tribe while saying: "Ay, It''s good to be young and so full of strength, however, don''t be mistaken, if I die you won''t be the only one that I will take down with me..." An intense pressure arose from the lion shamans'' frail and old body, a silhouette of his younger version appeared above him which made the Tiger shaman gulp his saliva but then he closed his eyes for a brief second before he started returning to his camp, tomorrow was time for war! Felix looked at the upcoming generals and shaman, his eyes were wide with both respect and wonder about them, he never saw someone so strong up till now, the way the generals fought left him stupefied as he never saw someone be so fast up till now, they were zooming around in his vision! The lion shaman was frowning as he slowly got closer to the camp then entered it, before he entered the tent he could feel a gaze on him which was blatantly unhidden, his tired eyes looked to the side and saw Felix''s youthful eyes meeting his for a brief second, in that brief second the lion shaman felt something strange happening. Technically speaking as one of the strongest shamans on the continent he would be able to see through the fate of individuals who were born on the Tarot continent but Felix''s fate was void and intertwined with 5 more fates, this was very strange as a person could have only one fate... The lion shaman shook his head and continue towards the tent, he was old and he didn''t have much time left, he had to leave this world to the youngsters as he had to ascend and meet the ancestors after the fight tomorrow! Felix felt something strange when the corner of the lion shaman left eye met his, he could feel that he was seen through both inside and outside his body, it wasn''t a good feeling at all. Catro didn''t say anything as he stood near him and only spoke after the upper echelons entered their tent: "You must be unique for his excellency to glance at you, I''m impressed by your talent but there is nothing that special about you, I wonder if..." His mouth didn''t open again after he said that then he decided to take his leave as he had to rest for tomorrow''s battle, Felix got his own tent and decided to go early to sleep so he could be well-rested for tomorrow''s fight. Before he could go to sleep Landers entered his tent to give him a small speech about the importance of surviving the upcoming war and other things, but lastly, there was one thing that remained in Felix''s mind: "The lion and cat tribe''s are considered cousins so we should help each other in perilous times, however, for the other tribes they are all outsiders so in tough times they should rely on themselves!" After a bit of pondering Felix realized that Landers meant that he should help those of the Lion tribe but not their ally tribes! He wondered if there was something else under the facade of this war besides their shaman growing old but it wasn''t the time nor the place to prod for such answers. All he could do now was rest plenty so he could be at full energy, he had a war to fight and even though he had multiple lives he wanted to lose none through the whole war! Chapter 26: Start of a bloody tribal war Felix woke up quickly as he felt the air in the surrounding atmosphere physically heat up! He got out of his tent and realized a captain of the lion tribe was using his Hex technique to wake up everyone, war was starting! Out of the surrounding tents warriors started to quickly come out, some of them from the lion tribe, others from their subordinate tribes, the only thing they had in common was that they all wore the same type of armor. They wore a white armor made from a metal unknown to Felix, Felix knew very few metals so that didn''t say a lot about it. Landers appeared in Felix''s face as he threw him a special leather armor that was more flexible than what he was wearing currently, his former tattered uniforms were already changed every time he went on a new mission but this new leather was quite special. Felix wore it quickly with a little bit of help from Landers and realized that the leather armor was hugging his body and it was very compact, seemingly as the armor was made for him. Seeing Felix analyzing the armor Landers chuckled as he told him: "It was specially crafted for you, I paid almost 30 silver bones for it to protect you during this war, I just hope we will meet each other again after it." He shook his head as he disappeared, it seemed he was needed somewhere already even though it was very early in the morning and some stars could still be seen in the sky. Felix cleared his mind and decided to walk towards the battlefront where everything will unfold, he met with Carto on the way who gave him a brief nod before disappearing as well, it seemed all of the captains were summoned... Felix reached the battlefront and saw tens of thousands of people preparing for war, there were already defensive structures constructed as the camp was created more than a week ago, there were archers on the top watch towers that looked through binoculars waiting for the army of the tigers to appear. The infantry was situated below the watchtowers, all of them had a spear and shield each and they looked ready for war, every man was looking fierce and there were also quite a few women in the formation, which looked as fierce as the men. Felix didn''t have to wait for much time when his squad met up, minus the flamingo youth who was forbidden to come to the battlefield and fight anymore due to his missing arm. Ricko nodded at him and Korro seemed worried about the upcoming war, Sandors was happy to be there, war meant meat to him! The pig tribesman wasn''t there, Felix wondered what happened to him? Maybe his teacher disowned him? He was rather angry back then at his performance. Felix greeted all of them and they greeted him back, there weren''t many words the squad could exchange as they felt the air around them getting heavier, the warriors started to bang their shields with their spears as they shouted to the skies: "OUR SHAMAN IS COMING!" Out of the biggest tent the Lion Shaman came along with the general duo, behind them tens of captains which included Landers and Carto were following them from behind with a respectful look on their faces, but their muscles were tense and the aura around them was quite intense. There weren''t any other generals around, Felix found it strange, weren''t there supposed to be more? The lion Shaman waved his walking stick in the air and put his hands down indicating for everyone to stop their actions and listen: "Today we fight for the continuation of our race and our allies races, once the tigers would get to them slaughters will start, our meat is harder to chew but our males will be enslaved and the females were taken, we cannot let this happen! Today I will use till my last drop of Hex to keep their shaman in check, my son and my trusty generals will all fight on the battlefront to keep theirs away from the fight between you, if you win the battle of the masses we will win the war!" He sighed as he looked down at the ground, his eyes clouded with worry: "Also... if any of the generals are to fall you are allowed to desert, a enemy general rampaging through your formation would be deadly, if any of our generals fall that means we lost, as long as our tribe lives it doesn''t matter! However we have to live with pride and dignity, we can''t let ourselves become slaves to the tiger tribe, so if we lose we will run, you might ask yourselves why am I saying such things right now instead of pushing through towards our victory?" The lion Shaman shook his head as he continued: "It''s because I don''t want anyone to blame each other if we will lose if we will lose, we lose, that''s all, we were the weaker party, and the winner is always in the right!" He started to walk at the forefront of the army as he waved his walking stick again making the army march accordingly towards the middle of the plains, the archers already sent information that the tiger army was slowly coming and the infantry would have to fight first. In this type of direct war, the ones who were pushed back to their camp would lose, both sides would meet at the middle of the battlefield with their infantry and fight it out and the side which was pushed back to their camp would be the losing one as they would have lost soldiers and they would have to make use of their defensive structures to defend themselves, in this type of situation the war would be mostly lost. The tiger shaman''s eyes were clouded as well as he looked at the face of the lion shaman, he sighed as he put his hand up and then motioned for the war to start! The archers of the tiger tribe started shooting arrows in the melee formation of the lion army, the archers need to be dealt with by the assassins of the army! It was Felix''s job, Landers already told him what he needed to do briefly after they met during the march towards the middle of the battlefield. Felix used his footwork to disappear, he used his agile body to easily avoid the melee fighters who were already duking it out, both sides were losing soldiers slowly, one death here, one death there, but at this rate, all of their soldiers would die in days! Fortunately, the archers weren''t that useful as they had shields, but they were annoying and they made the melee experts split their attention to blocking their attacks, and in some situations, the arrows were even deadly, in such type of fights any split-second distraction would be deadly! The lion and tiger shamans were eyeing each other but none of those below the general level could see what type of fight was going between them. The generals were disappearing and appearing over the battlefield while making sure to not injure their own people. Captains were fighting using deadly attacks that Felix could barely recognize, they were all a few hundreds of meters away from the main fight which was between the two main armies. Felix finally reached the back of the tiger army only to fall into a carefully deployed hole! Felix found himself face to face with an arrow that was ready to punch a hole through his neck! However, using the training that he did with Carto he barely dodged the arrow and counterattacked the archer that was near him decapitating him easily with his claws. He frowned as he now had to make sure the ground around him was solid enough to walk on or else he might lose a few lives this early in the war! The death of one archer made the others be alerted so they scattered, however, this was what Felix needed, them scattering meant they had to keep their attention elsewhere and they wouldn''t be able to shoot their arrows to the main formation, however, something similar was happening to the archers of their own army. Felix couldn''t be in two places at once so he decided to make quick work of the people in front of him and then go back to help if any archers were remaining in their formation, the main phase of the war was lead by the assassins! The assassins which killed the archers faster would be the one that leads their side to victory! This was only one part of the archers as there were more, Felix just got the southern flank while the northern and eastern flanks were taken by other cat tribesmen that Felix hadn''t seen before. In this situation, an assassin should be able to easily kill an archer right? But it wasn''t that simple, Felix could feel the eyes of the archers wander around and try to locate him, however, Felix''s stealth technique improved by a bit, and unless the archers grasped killing intent detection they wouldn''t be able to find him, but those people who could learn such techniques were rather rare. Another head flew into the air as he killed another archer, but his location was thus finally revealed, a bunch of arrows was shot quickly where he last stood only to miss him, but Felix could feel something brush behind his back, it was a familiar fist! Felix looked back only to see the scarred tiger from before, he had a feral grin on his face as he looked around and laughed: "Kid didn''t think you would see me again so soon did you?" In this type of situation when the archers would be targeted by the assassins each squad would have a protector that had to deal with the assassin, it was pure coincidence Felix got to meet with the scared tiger again. Felix frowned deeply as he looked at the scared tiger known as Sumba, things just got complicated with him here, he was a person who grasped the detection of killing intent! Chapter 27: War continues The army of the lions was around 45,000 in total and the army of the tigers was around half that staying around 22,000 give or take. However, the difference between the armies was that the lion tribe''s had quite a few different races in it, while the tiger tribe was fully made of only elite tigers. Each side had almost around 1,000 archers and Felix had to deal with 100 of them, while there were plenty of cats in the army, there were very few which reached a high enough level to deal with the archers while being able to fend off their defenders. Felix was actually considered unlucky as he met Sumba in battle, Sumba was a veteran who was comparable with a captain level individual while Felix was indeed strong he wasn''t even at the lieutenant level yet. The fight between tribes was both bloody and slow at the same time, technically speaking the lion tribe army should have been at a huge advantage due to their numerical advantage but the tiger''s prowess wasn''t something that could be ignored. Every Tiger could take on 2 lions at once and even more, if they weren''t from the lion tribe, the tigers were the epicenter of strength and techniques on the Tarot Continent with the lions being just a little bit shy behind them, the only thing that deterred the tigers from attacking the lion tribe was the prowess of their shamanic skills which were above theirs due to the lion tribe being older, they got to advance their shamanic skills further. The tiger shaman which was fighting the lion shaman frowned as he looked at his army, things were going too slow for his liking, after all, he thought of them as meat-eaters being superior against the herbivores and omnivores, he wasn''t even sure why the lion tribe created the alliance instead of just subjugating the other tribes, he felt that the lion tribe was up to something but he didn''t know what. The lion shaman kept his eyes closed as if he was resting on the spot, he had both of his hands on his walking stick as he stood there hunched, his body was moving slowly side to side, he seemed as if he was ready to fall at any time. The tiger shaman stood his ground and looked on never taking a step forward. Felix frowned as he tried to make a feint, throwing an aerial claw attack towards the head of an archer before trying to slash at Sumba''s legs to lower his mobility. However Sumba easily saw through his intentions and caught the claw in his hand making his hand bleed for a little bit, he also dodged the slash meant to sever some of his tendons and counterattacked pushing Felix back but not doing any damage, due to the training with Carto his reflexes improved by a lot and his counterattacking and dodging took a turn for the better, it was a quick improvement which helped him to fight against Sumba properly, unlike before. Sumba frowned as he felt that Felix''s reflexes were better than before, so he decided to not fight him head-on and just defend the archers, but this quickly became a problem as he got injured by Felix''s long-range attacks and his stamina got sapped. He realized that defending archers would mean that he would die! But fighting Felix head-on was also impossible due to his stealth and new reflexes which meant unless he canceled his stealth it was impossible to catch him normally. The archers also couldn''t help him as they had to focus on shooting the infantry of the lion tribe or else they would lose a huge advantage and their troops would be pushed back and maybe even slaughtered. If Sumba failed to protect the archers and ran away he would be heavily punished and he couldn''t go anywhere else as he was wanted by most other tribes for crimes against them, the elephants would especially love to get their trunks on him then just sit on him. He did eat a few infant elephants in his brasher days. So Sumba gritted his teeth and put on his A+ game as his muscles started to inflate, the armor that he was wearing expanded along with them and his face turned malevolent as he started to attack around indiscriminately! Felix frowned, even though he would lose stamina quickly this way, he was practically blocking all attacks from every angle, if he wanted to kill more archers he needed to incapacitate Sumba first as they were all running around while shooting to disorientate him. Felix decided to take a gamble as he threw his killing intent filled attack at an empty spot near Sumba, because Sumba was concentrated his body innately went to the spot thinking that it was an attack that he needed to defend only to hit nothing, he looked around only to see an archer''s head go up in the air and a spray of blood following after! Sumba bellowed angrily as the hex energy around him started to crackle, he was disrupting the surrounding hex energy! Normally doing such a thing wouldn''t break a cat''s stealth as it was an innate ability but Felix was using special footwork to use the surrounding Hex energy mask him, so he immediately became visible afterward! Felix''s eyes widened in surprise as he started to run away! Since his stealth had been compromised his advantage was gone and fighting Sumba head-on was pretty much suicide! However, Sumba followed him as he left the archers behind, since every unit of archers had one assassin each appointed to them that meant Sumba could leave without the problem! It didn''t take much time for Sumba to catch up to Felix and make him unable to run away, if he went back any further he would run into the camp of the tigers which still had a few sentries left there. However because he left the area that Sumba disrupted meant that he could use his stealth skill again as he disappeared, Sumba''s head veins started to appear as they were bulging, his face turned red as he howled to the sky: "I HATE YOU, DAMN CAT COWARDS!" Felix ran back to the archers and killed around 30 more before Sumba could calm himself and come back, his face was even redder than before and it looked like one of his veins may pop from anger. Felix kept himself away from Sumba and the archers as he watched from a distance, from time to time he would go back and assassinate some of the people from the infantry, however, things moved extremely slowly for some reason. He also felt that they were at an impasse, something wasn''t right here... With the generals fight, the shaman''s son activated his special shaman bloodline ability to dominate 3 of his opponents around him, it didn''t take him much time to kill one of them before he continued to fight with the other two, they were the relatively weaker generals as the other two which came with the tiger shaman at the talk before weren''t to be seen anywhere. It seemed things were going well for the general fight so what was stopping the army from advancing? Felix looked around and realized that a lot of other tribesmen died, while the lions were still at full strength the pig tribesmen were almost extinct along with the flamingo tribesmen, the hyena tribesmen had the least damage in the foreign tribes. The war was slowly but surely getting even, the eyes of the old lion shaman opened for a brief second as his face turned towards the sky. The tiger shaman narrowed his eyes as his scarred face started to hurt, something wasn''t right here! The lion shaman tapped his walking stick to the ground a few times as the surrounding hex energy was channeled into his body immediately rejuvenating it, transforming himself into a middle-aged man with a straight back. He looked towards the tiger shaman and said in a monotone voice: "I should thank you for fueling my ambitions with so many sacrifices, if it wasn''t for you I wouldn''t have been able to throw away so many of our ''allies'' lives." Before the tiger shaman could say anything he looked down only to see a big hole in his stomach and blood slowly dripping out from it, however, the blood quickly disappeared as if it was sucked away by something. He couldn''t say anything in death as he fell face forward. The now middle-aged lion shaman looked at the sky, it was around noon and there were no clouds in the sky but suddenly the sky turned fully red as if it was afternoon and some clouds blocked the sunlight. The lion tribesman pupils turned into triangles as he started to chant: "Oh great ancestors, please bless this old fool with your grace and come down to strike the heathens that decided to attack your descendants!" A lightning strike hit the lion shaman directly in the forehead as he finished his chant, he fell to the ground on his back but got up slowly as a lightning-shaped scar appeared on his forehead, his whole hair and mane turned fully silver as he looked around at the war in front of him and smiled: "It was worth it to use the lives of these people in trade for more years to walk this earth!" His walking stick broke down to reveal a totemic staff with the head of the lion, it was colored fully black with red lines that looked like blood running vertically on it, the lion head seemed to be crying tears of blood. He tapped the ground three more times with the totemic staff before he threw himself in the middle of the army with a savage smile on his face. His totemic staff would hit everyone regardless of what side they were on, the captains from both tribes looked on at the changed lion Shaman with wide eyes, while the generals of the lion tribe attacked the puzzled tiger generals continuously without giving them any pause, they knew about the shaman''s plan! Sumba was trembling as he returned to his normal form, as he looked at the new form of the shaman he could feel his bloodline crying at him to run away! Felix''s fur stood on end as he watched the shaman killing indiscriminately, the numbers of the army were quickly going down and Felix knew that it was time to dip out! Who knew if he would be attacked when he was found? It seemed only the generals knew about the shaman''s plan as they continued fighting, even the captains were now wondering what they should do in this situation. Felix didn''t have many friends in the army but he was a little bit connected with Landers and Carto so he decided to move towards the captains fighting place and make a run away with them, he just hoped he still had enough time, as the total of infantry remaining was around 10,000 total! He wasn''t sure how the man was killing them and absorbing them so quickly but if he wasn''t quick enough he would move to the archers that didn''t escape and then to the captains! Sumba already ran away and he didn''t dare to remain on the battlefield any longer. Felix reached the captains fighting grounds after a short while of running and tried to locate both Carto and Landers... Chapter 28: Lion shaman is interested Felix approached the captain''s fighting grounds and he could feel his surroundings getting heavier as the Hex energy in the air was going under the lion shaman''s control. With the current absorption of the surrounding Hex energy, the lion shaman killing speed increased! Felix''s hidden body started to slowly unveil itself as the hex energy in the air was getting absorbed by the shaman, it was slow but if more time passed by his whole body would be revealed, right now only parts of his fur could be seen if you concentrated a bit but if he moved quick enough he would still be relatively hidden to those that didn''t have good eyesight. Felix tried to identify the location of both Catro and Landers but there were some captains still fighting around and disrupting his senses. He wasn''t sure what to do in this situation, so he decided to do the simplest thing available to him: "CARTO, LANDERS, YOU SHOULD SEE WHAT''S HAPPENING, LETS LEAVE TOGETHER!" Felix''s shout attracted everyone''s attention to his location, but Felix didn''t stay in the same spot after he shouted those words, Landers''s voice could be heard from the distance as he appeared in front of Felix and picked him up putting him on his shoulder: "I didn''t know the shaman would do something like this, it seems the generals were informed but those below the rank are..." Felix continued: "Expandable cannon fodder?" Landers nodded: "Exactly." Catro interjected as he appeared in front of Landers: "It seems we all have been bamboozled by the shaman, it seems that it was all an intricate scheme for him to regain his youth and centralize the power of the lion tribe, I don''t say its naturally a bad thing for us as we are members of the tribe, but it seems the price he has to pay for regaining his youth is a bit extreme..." He looked at the shaman slaughtering the remaining tigers as he gave a toothy smile to the injured lion tribesmen infantry who was trying to back and run away from their now savage leader. Landers shook his head seeing this and decided it was time to defect! There was an extremely high chance for them to get killed as well as they haven''t been informed of this previously, as captains were someone with a little bit of clout in the army if they weren''t informed that meant something wasn''t right. Suddenly the shaman shouted: "ALL CAPTAINS AND ABOVE THAT ARE FROMTHE LION TRIBE ARE EXEMPT FROM THE SACRIFICE IF YOU SACRIFICE A CAPTAIN FROM THE OTHER TRIBES! THIS APPLIES TO OUR COUSIN TRIBE AS WELL!" That meant Felix would have been spared if he could kill a captain level person. Landers'' eyes hardened as well as Catro''s as they looked at the captains that were around them, the lion captains started to suddenly turn unto their allies while the tiger captains tried to flee! There were few cat captains but they existed so they decided to group up with Catro as he was one of the relatively stronger captains. Both Landers and Catro nodded at each other then Landers told Felix: "I will keep you with me, you have done well in this war and I will grant you one corpse so the shaman will spare you, just keep tight on my shoulder and all of this will end soon!" Landers seemed to be intent on protecting Felix for some reason, was he really so impressed by the young cat''s talent or did he have any other reasons that were unknown to Felix? Once Felix was so close to Landers he could easily feel the man''s power as he fought a nearby pig captain, it was the same captain that was with them at the training, the pig captain was heavily sweating in his armor as he said: "Please Landers, be reasonable, we have trained together so many times, please don''t do it!" He had his hands behind his back as he was begging mercy from Landers. Suddenly he launched a sneak attack as a small dagger appeared in his big hands, he thrust it forward towards Landers'' heart without any mercy, he had a sly smile on his face but before he could continue smiling Landers took in a deep breath. His muscles started to bulge for a second as veins appeared on them then his hand immediately went through the pig''s armor as a second later he had his still-beating heart in his hand. The pig slowly swayed from side to side as he fell to the ground dying without making another sound, Landers crushed the pig''s heart as he muttered: "I know about all your tricks, you said yourself about how many times we trained together." Landers said that with a frown on his face as he looked at the lifeless body of his former comrade. He shook his head, it wasn''t time to think about such things, he took look over at Felix who staying passively on his shoulder, and gave him a small nod and a smile as he said: "The next one is for you." Before he could say anything else a punch came from behind him almost taking his head off his shoulders, he jumped forward at the last moment making the hit only brush his back the hit also brushed Felix giving him a small injury on his tail. Felix gave out a small hiss in pain but kept his mouth closed. Landers frowned as he looked behind him only to see the komodo dragon captain, he had a crazed look on his face as he said: "I always wanted to fight you without any stops, isn''t this a good time for it?" His already relatively strong form started to double in height and weight as his muscles bulged to the point that they were bigger than his head, they looked extremely solid as his armor burst apart showing his well-toned and scarred body of a brownish color with spots. He launched himself crazed at Landers, his strength was so high that the air was cut from his punches, however, due to his massive body, his speed was quite low to the point that even Felix could see his movements properly. Landers looked at the komodo dragon with a nostalgic look on his face as he easily dodged all of his hits by waving around them, his opponents attack speed wasn''t something that could hit him even though he had Felix on his shoulder who he was protecting at the same time. He looked directly into the komodo dragon''s crazed eyes and said with a sigh: "It reminds me of our first meeting, isn''t that right Sircho?" Sircho eyes wavered for a second threatening to return to normal but then his crazed expression overtook it as he attacked Landers faster and faster! He was overcoming his bulky form slowing him down by burning the Hex energy in his body to increase his speed, seeing what he was doing Landers'' eyes started to moisten a bit as he gave him a few pats on the back when the komodo dragon tried to look behind him his head started to slowly slide down to the ground, he had a satisfied smile on his face that looked like he finally experienced Landers'' true strength. Felix''s eyes widened as he felt the wind suddenly brush in his face before looking backward and seeing Sircho''s head slowly sliding to the ground and his body deflating like a balloon reaching the same height as before, he didn''t know what type of technique Landers used. Landers looked down at the body and then at the sky as he muttered: "Please guide his spirit well, komodo ancestors." He let Felix down near the body and said: "The shaman should come soon to grab the captain''s bodies, all you have to do is claim the body for your own and he should let you live, I will have to help the others now." Felix''s natural response to bodies wasn''t something that many people know, as he sat near the body of a captain which had an increased amount of Hex energy still lingering in it, combined with its high quality made Felix almost salivate on the outside, his saliva was almost dripping from his mouth as he stood close to the corpse. Fortunately for him the shaman finally finished the infantry and quickly appeared on the captain''s battlegrounds, he easily absorbed the dead captains as they disappeared into himself and then some type of fluorescent light would go up from his body into the skies. Soon he reached Felix and he had a big smile on his face as he asked: "So a little tyke has killed a captain all by his own?" Felix didn''t lie and told him the truth, seeing his truthful confession the Shaman chuckled as the corpse beside Felix disappeared and said: "You are lucky you are interesting and your body doesn''t contain any bit of Hex, but because you are interesting something else will have to happen to you." As he looked behind Felix he could see different threads being connected to Felix''s main soul, he decided to see what would happen if Felix lost one thread. He put his hand forward slowly as he pushed it towards the threads that only he could see and severed it quickly with one chop. The thread didn''t disappear after it was severed as the lion shaman thought, it just started to wander around Felix as if it was free from being chained to him. Felix started to feel light-headed after he watched the shaman chop into his direction for practically no reason. His body started to slowly sway from side to side as his surroundings started to black, he collapsed on the ground with a small thud as he became unconscious. Finally seeing a reaction the shaman started to caress his chin as he shouted: "Keep this young cat safe, I have more things that I need to know from him, you even have to give your life for his!" A few lion captains appeared in front of Felix as they bowed and took him to the camp where he would be kept to rest. A strange expression appeared on the shaman''s face as he muttered: "Is he a person blessed by the gods?" Then he shook his head and continued absorbing the people around him, he still needed to give energy to the ancestors, or his youth would reverse and he would age again, his scheme going to waste and all of the energy he sent and lives he spent wouldn''t come back, since he was so far into the plan he would need to see things through to the end! Chapter 29: Ability out of control Felix could feel his body heating up before he became unconscious, but now all he could see was only darkness around him. It was somewhat of an ethereal feeling as he felt his body but he couldn''t interact with it, he couldn''t see it but he could feel his connection to it, this was the first time he felt such a sensation and it couldn''t be said that he felt bad. It was like swimming in a mildly hot pool, it was a nice sensation for Felix, that was only the darkness started to move up and down around him, it was just like he was in a storm on the ocean, he couldn''t control his consciousness anymore as he was absorbed into the storm and felt that his nonexistent insides were moving around. He felt like he wanted to vomit but he couldn''t as there was nothing for him to regurgitate. It was from a nice sensation to a sickening one and the abrupt change scared Felix quite a bit, he didn''t know what he was supposed to do. How could he escape from this dark region? Felix''s body was twitching and moving in the tent that was reserved for him, no one was inside the tent beside him as his unconscious body would be moving from time to time before staying still once more. Felix woke up only to be in a familiar environment, it was the cave from the test, this place marked him quite a bit and it was strange that he returned to it. Unlike before Sahee wasn''t present at all as her spirit already passed on but there was something strange in the air around him, he could now feel and smell his surroundings, he could even hear the little drips of water in the enclosed space that he was, he wasn''t sure where the water came from as the drips seemingly came from everywhere at once. These types of sounds coming from everywhere started to slowly madden Felix, it was slow but sure as time passed relatively quickly wherever he was, his eyes were wide and bloodshot as he looked around, his body was continuously twitching due to the constant dripping, suddenly a clapping sound could be heard from nearby as two big and black silhouettes appeared. They were the two brothers from the black bear tribe! However, as Felix looked at them he could see that they were transparent meaning they were spirits, they each both had a shit-eating grin on their faces as they looked at Felix and they said in unison: "That old lion really gave us and the others a good opportunity to resurrect, look at him gawking at us not understanding what''s happening!" Suddenly from behind them all of the people that Felix had killed during the trail appeared, they all had red eyes and were looking at Felix with deep anger in their eyes. The only person who wasn''t looking at Felix that way was the Elephant tribesman who didn''t even want to take a part in this, he was a good distance away from the small unit that was opposing Felix. He looked at everything with impassive eyes as he shook his head and disappeared, he didn''t want to take part in any of this, he already died and even though he couldn''t pass on he was still lingering through Felix''s subconscious because both of them died at the same time in the same location. Felix frowned as he looked at everyone around him, he was already quite jumpy due to the constant dripping that was still sounding in his ears, and what he saw didn''t make him any happier, he wasn''t sure if this was an illusion or not but considering what happened with Sahee, what was happening currently was most likely real! Felix decided to not wait around and be squashed by the whole army as he tried to use his stealth technique and seeing how he was able to employ it he immediately disappeared from their eyes. As soon as he disappeared everyone started panicking and running away, it seemed that all their scary faces and red eyes were only a facade they put on so Felix could let his guard down, and maybe with luck they could slay and devour him. However Felix didn''t fall for that and immediately counterattack killing half of their squad in one blow, they transformed into motes of light that were absorbed into his body and he could feel that the severed feeling that the lion shaman inflicted on him starting to disappear. Felix wasn''t sure what happened when the shaman made that motion towards him but he started to understand a little bit now, maybe he ripped the connection with one of his extra lives, considering that the moment he woke up in the darkness he could see that he had a life in minus, but there were some brackets below the 4 heads that remained which had a +1 in it. Felix didn''t know what to think about it at that moment considering he felt quite well he ignored it, but now that he saw what was happening it made him remember and he took another look at his lives seeing that there were 4 and a half heads there with a +0.5 in brackets. It seemed that his connection to his extra lives could be cut by experts that reached a high amount of control on hex energy, it was pretty strange for Felix as he didn''t explore his ability properly before and took it for granted, but there wasn''t much he could learn about it without such incidents anyways. He sighed as he continued his slaughter around him absorbing all of the other souls, he was sure he ate none of these people so why were they used for his extra lives? He thought that the extra energy from eating corpses granted him extra lives but it seemed he was wrong about that one. As he started thinking he came to a small realization while eating the corpse would activate the extra life he maybe needed soul energy at first to condense it or something like that, he wasn''t even sure where these thoughts came from but they seemingly popped in his head as he thought hard enough about it. The black bear brothers were left for the last as they tried to beg Felix for forgiveness, but he just decapitated them and absorbed them into his body, the Elephant tribesman finally appeared after everyone was slain and he sighed as he looked at Felix: "It seems you have finished them, what are you going to do with me?" Felix looked at him for a few seconds and didn''t know what to say, the man wanted to join the lion tribe for revenge, he just wanted to avenge his parents and this was a thing he could respect, everyone had to look for their own, even though his emotions weren''t fully developed Felix could understand some of them and he couldn''t get to hate the elephant in front of him, he just felt him be pitiful as he was the one who created the collapse after he chased him, so he basically killed himself there. Felix wanted to let him go, but he didn''t know how, so he approached him and jumped on his shoulder, Felix was the same height as before even in his mental space but size didn''t matter in here. Seeing Felix acting this way made the Elephant shed a few tears as his body started to dissipate on his own, he had a small smile on his face as he looked towards the ceiling of the underground that was currently collapsing as well around them: "Father, mother, I''m coming back to your embrace." He dissipated into light that didn''t enter Felix''s body as he just started to go upwards and out of Felix''s body that stopped twitching outside. Felix felt himself to be back into the darkness and as he looked around him he felt that his body was waking up and his consciousness was also getting injected into it. Felix found himself in the tent of the camp, he felt his head was hurting quite a bit and as he looked at the corner of his eyes he saw 5 heads remaining without any brackets below them, if the lion shaman was here he would see that the part that he cut from Felix attached itself right back and it wasn''t running around his body wildly anymore. Felix shuddered for a little as he felt someone approaching the tent, this was strange, when did his senses improve to such a high degree? The tent flaps opened as Landers entered, his eyes lighted up as he saw Felix was conscious and he approached him before petting him on the head a few times while saying with a worried tone: "I heard you have collapsed in front of the shaman, I thought this war took a lot out of you but you already woke up so soon! I guess you are stronger than you look on the surface." A smile blossomed on his face as he looked at Felix, it seemed Landers truly looked upon Felix as kin or a close friend, Felix wasn''t sure why the time they had together wasn''t that long and they didn''t have any special experiences together, he just found these things to be strange to him as he didn''t know that deep bonds would be created between two persons in life and death situations. Seeing Felix''s puzzled expression that appeared on his face after he got petted, Landers thought he was wondering what was happening outside so he decided to inform him: "The shaman already finished with everyone, a few captains escaped from both sides along with a few generals from the tiger tribe, also the son of the shaman got injured quite a bit and he will have to rest for a long while before he would be sent for any missions." Landers sighed as he kept Felix company and briefed him about most of the events that unfolded after he went out cold. It seemed the shaman absorbed everyone and stabilized his youth while the light from the skies receded after it got enough energy, the loses of both tribes were immense both in troops and in captains, the tiger tribe was basically done for as some of the generals from the lion tribe went to their mountains to capture all of their civilians and relocate them closer to the capital of the lion tribe to be monitored 24/7 as they would be forcefully integrated into the lion''s society, the ones who didn''t want that would become slaves. Also considering that most of the troops of the subsidiary races under the lion tribe were annihilated they lost most of their clout and became true underlings under the paws of the lion shaman, he could do whatever he wanted with them now. Felix shook his head as he heard everything, the tent flaps opened again as Catro entered with a stiff smile and said while ignoring Landers: "The shaman is requesting for the hero Felix to come and meet him in the main tent, he seems to want to talk about some things with you." Felix got quite the bad vibes from the shaman but considering his current situation he wouldn''t be able to run away even if he wanted to, so all he could do was comply and follow both Landers and Catro towards the main tent and talk with the shaman, he just hoped he wouldn''t do the same thing as before as he didn''t enjoy the whole event. Chapter 30: Some truths Felix reached the biggest tent in the camp accompanied by Catro and Landers. They didn''t have to wait for a long before a kind voice came out of the tent and said: "You can enter now." Felix''s eyes narrowed, what was with the kind tone now? As Felix and Landers entered they saw the shaman''s son getting treatment, the shaman was healing him using his palms, a type of red energy was gathering in them as they extracted foreign Hex energy that was inside the man''s injuries and helped him heal at a faster rate. The middle-aged shaman chuckled looking at Landers''s and Catro''s expressions then said: "I was just finishing healing the generals, just wait a little bit more and I should be done, I have some things to talk with the two of you and young Felix down there." His palms stopped giving out the red energy as his son got up from the bloody blanket he stood on and stretched for a bit before he gave a bow to the shaman and left the tent. The shaman then sat on the throne that was a few meters behind him and motioned with his hand for them to get closer, he first pointed at Landers and said: "I have seen your strength in battle and I can say that even though you haven''t reached the general level you are not as weak as a captain either, I shall grant you the rank of marshall and give you a new bigger unit from the future trainees with high potential." Landers bowed and then backed away as Catro was next: "Your skills are quite important to our tribe and I saw your battles as well, you aren''t as strong as landers but your smart thinking and crucial war capabilities make you an important person in the army, I cannot grant you the rank of marshall but I shall give you the rank of superior captain and logistics master." Catro bowed as well, keeping a neutral expression on his face, the shaman smiled at him and the least among them was Felix. Felix walked forward as the shaman looked at him and narrowed his eyes as he said: "It seems you have benefitted from me cutting that tie to you." The souls that he absorbed back into himself that made a light string couldn''t be cute anymore, however, they could still be destroyed by the shaman making him lose a life, the light strings around him that only shamans could see were still tied to his soul, 4 of them were lightly tied while the other one that the shaman cut was now inscribed into Felix''s soul as if it was runes, however, those runes could be broken and removed by an opponent with high enough Hex knowledge and ability. This was still an improvement considering when he lost his life he wouldn''t become unconscious. Seeing the shaman''s eyes which were analyzing him as if he was an experiment made Felix feel quite bad, it wasn''t a feeling that he could explain but all he could think about was that he didn''t want to be in the same room as the man across of him. Seeing how he scared him, the shaman shook his head as he stopped using his Hex-infused eyes to look at his soul, this, in turn, made Felix not feel as threatened as before, but he still didn''t let his guard down. Seeing how tense Felix was in front of him made the shaman chuckled to himself as he shook his head again and told him: "Don''t be so tense, while you are interesting I don''t want to hurt you, why would I hurt someone who was blessed by God?" Blessed by god? Felix didn''t know what to say by this, his face scrunched up trying to think what he meant by that, the shaman chuckled as he saw Felix''s strange look and told him: "This isn''t common knowledge but gods sometimes bless people with more lives, I''m actually quite envying your ability, those type of people are known as half-immortals and their bodies regain their peak ability after they are slain, meaning that if you are injured or old you can regain your prime youth and solve all injuries." He sighed as he looked at his hand and muttered: "If only I had this type of ability I wouldn''t have to rely on those guys up there." He continued to explain: "On our continent... I''m not sure if there are any blessed people, you might be unique, but they weren''t relatively rare when all of the continents were one whole." The lion shaman was a learned individual as it seemed this wasn''t the first time he had done such a ritual of youth recovery. The shaman waved his hand indicating for Landers and Catro to leave as there was some information that he wanted to tell only to Felix. Landers and Catro decided to comply, they were both quite shocked Felix was someone chosen by the gods but they didn''t understand what kind of ability he had as they couldn''t see the threads of his soul. Seeing them leave made the shaman give out a small sigh as his eyes directly pierced into Felix''s: "You are quite a special thing, I think I have heard about people with 1 or 2 extra lives, but you have 5! I''m sure you can also recover them as well, Am I right?" Felix felt his heartbeat so fast that it wanted to leave his chest, was his ability so easily seen through by someone at a shaman''s level? Seemingly as if he heard his thoughts the now middle-aged shaman shook his head and said: "No, not all shamans can see through your ability, actually I''m quite special even among shamans, guess how old am I." Felix didn''t know what to say, how many times did this man do such a thing? 10 times? 20 times? How old could he get before he needed to do the ritual? Seeing that Felix had no answer for him made the man pretty disappointed as he said: "I''m around 2,500 years old, do you know the average lifespan of a Hex blessed being?" Felix could know less about that as well, he wasn''t a learned scholar, all he knew was fighting and eating, he only knew very few things. Seeing that Felix had the average knowledge of a soldier in the army made him shake his head continuously as he muttered: "I thought you needed to be special or blessed somehow to be chosen by a god, he just seems like your average cat tribesman..." "Well you see the average lifespan of a normal hex infused being is around 250 years old, I have basically lived 10 lifetimes." Felix''s eyes widened at the reveal as he backed a few steps, seeing that he got scared made the shaman feel quite wrong, I let you live alright, why are you still scared? Even though he envied Felix he really wanted to keep him loyal to the tribe as well, having someone blessed by the gods besides him made him feel that the tribe''s fortunes would increase and they would be able to live well even if he had to leave. He made a gesture towards Felix that sent a bit of his hex energy into him, the hex energy started to calm Felix down a bit, Felix didn''t back away anymore as the shaman sighed for the umpteenth time and told him: "Ok, just to make sure you understand me, I won''t do anything to harm you, you are actually quite precious." This didn''t make Felix better but at least he knew that he wouldn''t be dissected or something similar to the man''s tone. The shaman decided to introduce himself properly this time: "My name is Siracha Enoch the first, anyways, enough with that scared and suspicious look from you, I know that what I have done is not considered to be good or anything but if I was gone the tribe would suffer and lose more than what we lost today, it was a necessary sacrifice." Seeing that Enoch was rather honest with his words and expression made Felix relax a bit, then he decided to ask him: "So is this the sole reason why you wanted me to come?" Enoch shook his head as he said: "I have seen your battle capabilities as well and I''m impressed a little bit, I will give you an honorary lieutenant rank for now and I hope you will be able to gain the battle power of a lieutenant quite soon, I also have a special job for you." Felix decided to listen on, his goal in life was not dying or something among those lines at the moment, he just hated the feeling of death so much as it marked him very negatively, dying multiple times made him fear death more than anything else, as long as he could live he would do anything he had to. Seeing that Felix was ready to accept orders made the man give a small smile on his lips as he laid out the order: "You and a few others will be the main force to move the tigers from the mountains, you will also have to make sure they are obedient and learn how to behave themselves in our territory afterward, you are basically their caretaker for a while until I find someone better suited to this job, do you understand?" Felix nodded at him and seeing that he was told everything that he needed to know he decided it was time to leave, but before he left the shaman told him one more thing: "I''m not sure what will happen when you lose all your lives, but it''s better to not even try to find out, anyways the team will soon come to the battlefield and you all have to do is wait for them, they already know you will lead them, one of them even said that he knows you and that he is your friend. You can go now." He waved his hand at Felix. Felix shook his head to clear his mind after he left the tent, he still needed to digest all of the information that was given to him. What were the gods? And why has one of them blessed him? Since he left the shaman, rushing without having his questions answered, he felt quite awkward to come to him again so he decided to find Landers, he still had enough time till the others from the squad came to him so he could do the mission with them. It didn''t take him much time to find Landers who was currently eating with a rather somber air around him. Felix decided to sit near him and wait for him to finish before asking the questions that plagued his mind. Chapter 31: Gods and jobs Landers was so lost in his thoughts that he didn''t even realize that Felix was currently sitting near him, but this could also be attributed to Felix''s rather small form and his high ability in stealth, but considering Lander''s abilities it was more likely that he was lost in thought. After he finished his food he was ready to get up and leave but Felix coughed and attracted his attention, seeing him stay on the spot near him made him quite awkward as he chuckled and scratched the back of his head while saying: "Oh since when were you staying there?" Felix responded: "Since you have first started that bowl of meat." Landers felt quite bad that he ignored Felix for such a relatively long while so he decided to ask: "Do you have anything to ask me?" Felix nodded and directly asked without beating around the bush: "I have a question about the gods, what are they?" Landers'' eyes hardened at the question, talking about Gods wasn''t a taboo per se, but they couldn''t be insulted as there was a chance a lightning bolt might fall from the sky and fry you like a fish. Landers sat back on the bench and decided to tell Felix about what he knew with a pious expression on his face, making sure there would be no random lightning bolts frying him: "Well the gods are the great beings that created the whole continent before it was separated into four, there are multiple ones but the few gods that we have records of are, Kartoto, Smazoro, and Biboloro, we aren''t sure what their godly domains are ruling over but they are all strong gods that are supposed to rank in the top 5 of the Godly chart." Hearing these words made Felix more baffled than anything, he didn''t get why he would be chosen by a god, after all, while his memories of his life as a cat remained, he didn''t remember anything about getting any power from a god, or what happened during his dimensional travel, after all, he was unconscious back then. Seeing how puzzled Felix was made Landers chuckle good-naturedly, he couldn''t help it, Felix was just too cute when he had that puzzled look on his face! Landers patted him on the head and decided to explain to him in more depth, after all, he knew he came with this question for him because he was seemingly chosen by God and given a special ability that he didn''t have the right to hear about. Felix started to understand a little bit better after the man explained to him with simpler terms, Gods were a thing that he couldn''t really get his head around, they were seemingly ancient and all-powerful beings that could do whatever they wanted, why would they even want to interact with him? Were they just so bored that they would give him this special ability of his? Felix sighed and Landers asked him: "Anything else that you would want to know, Felix?" Felix shook his head, he realized plenty from the discussion he had with Landers right now, he didn''t need any more information, Landers got up from the bench and realized something before he left as he told Felix: "Oh yeah, you should get your payment, after all, you did a great job on the battlefield and the lion tribe rewards its surviving soldiers!" He put his hand inside his clothes and took out a special blue bag that he threw at Felix, Felix caught it and looked inside only to see a boundless space that he couldn''t recognize. Landers explained to him the usage of the bag: "It''s a special bag made with Hex enchantments to make us carry a lot more without any extra weight, it was created by a tribe that I haven''t been informed of, they are the best creators and our tribe usually trades with them most of the time, we give them pure ores and other stuff in exchange for their technology, however, they remained anonymous to everyone besides our great shaman." He waved to Felix after he finished his explanation, he also told him that all he had to do to remove the things he wanted from the bag was think about the particular item he wanted or needed and it would appear in his hand or rather for Felix, paw. Felix decided to experiment with the bag putting his money in it and then his armor, he didn''t have any use for the armor anymore as it would be used only in dangerous situations, he wore his normal leather jacket as it felt better compared to the armor, he was also a little bit more used to it. Since he didn''t have anything else to do besides waiting at the camp he decided to train a bit, he still didn''t grasp killing intent detection and masking so he needed to learn it eventually if he wanted to grow stronger as an assassin. As for becoming stronger and mastering the breathing techniques, eating would help with that, but considering there weren''t any enemies around currently all he could do was postpone that thought. For starters, he decided to find Catro and train with him some more, and luckily for him Catro couldn''t leave yet as he now was the logistics captain, thus he had to finish the reports and give out orders for the camp to be dismantled and that would take a few days. Seeing that Felix visited him Catro was a little bit more respectful to him, after all, the shaman said he was blessed by a god and those people blessed by gods were unknown factors but in potential and personality, but knowing Felix''s personality already made Catro only a little bit more respectful and he didn''t have any major change in his actions. Hearing how he wanted to train more with him so he could grasp killing intent made Catro rather happy, but he had quite a lot of paperwork to fill and orders to give so he told Felix that he would train with him a little bit later, telling him that he should go and warm up while waiting for him to finish his work. Felix accepted and decided to go to an empty patch of the camp and train there, he first started with his breathing techniques that involved stealth, while he couldn''t use them properly he could still use them somewhat as his body was strengthened quite a bit compared to the time he learned them. While he did think that he should postpone this training at first, he would do it only for the techniques that he couldn''t touch at all. To train on his killing intent detection and masking he needed a sparring partner and considering he didn''t have any, all he could do was train like this. Felix breathing continued to be steady as he disappeared from the spot where he was, his lungs were burning but he could keep the breathing technique up to almost 20 seconds and he could feel that his surroundings were melding into his body meaning he could technically reach the peak of stealth techniques as long as he mastered this breathing technique to its fullest capability. Suddenly he could hear some clapping sounds from behind him, he quickly turned to see a friend he hadn''t heard from in quite a long while, Lindo! Lindo walked forward and patted Felix''s head as he said with a chuckle: "It seems you have improved your stealth techniques by quite a lot, ah I guess war is also good for something huh?" Felix jumped up on Lindo''s shoulder and asked: "Where have you been up till now? You even missed the war?" Lindo scratched his head and said: "I have been given a special mission by my father so I missed the war, It doesn''t matter, at least I got a mission with my good friend now!" He had a toothy grin on his face as he patted Felix again and asked: "You training alone?" Felix nodded and then Lindo said: "Well not anymore, let''s train together, I can see that your form still needs a little bit of improvement." Felix jumped down from his shoulder as he stood up on all fours, he was ready to attack, Lindo shook his head seeing Felix being so serious, and entered his own military stance. A quick punch was made towards Felix''s head that he dodged by a hair''s margin, he could feel that Lindo''s speed has increased by quite a lot since they last fought, but he wasn''t the only one who got stronger! Lindo felt a scratch on his cheek as he felt it bleed a little bit, the cheeky grin remained on his face as he said: "I see you have improved by quite a lot, I guess its time to get serious." His grin disappeared from his face as he closed his eyes for a brief moment then they turned from their normal blue color to a deep red one. Felix tried to attack again but his attack was easily parried and then he got punched into the gut and thrown a few meters back. Felix''s eyes narrowed as he realized what Lindo used, it was the ability to detect killing intent! Could he always use it or did he learn it some time ago? He didn''t exhibit the technique in their last spar, did he hold back that much back then? This made him feel quite impressed by his friend''s power, thus he decided to use 100% of his strength and wits in this spar. His eyes narrowed as he shot a nail attack making him block it giving him an opening that he exploited, even though killing intent detection was useful for telegraphing an opponent''s to attack, that didn''t mean they could dodge or counterattack someone faster than them. Felix decided to use his full speed in this situation! Felix''s speed was still a bit higher compared to Lindo''s so he easily gave him another injury along his forearm that Lindo closed using his superior muscle control. Lindo kept a serious face as he launched a fist attack at an angle that Felix couldn''t dodge, Felix jumped backward a bit cushioning the impact of the attack only making it take the wind out of him and not giving him any serious injury. Lindo nodded to himself, it seemed that Felix got some battle experience under his belt now, if he had the same reactions as their first battle this fist attack would have injured him quite a bit. Another clapping sound could be heard as Catro finally finished his work and came to see that his student was now fighting Lindo. He shook his head seeing both of them fighting and said: "You both are quite strong, but you won''t improve that well fighting each other, you should both come at me!" Felix and Lindo looked at each other for a short time before they nodded in tandem and decided to rush Catro at the same time. Catro gave out a small feral smile as he blocked both of their attacks with rather ease and jumped backward while saying: "It''s time to give you both some lessons in fighting, especially you Felix, this young lad here already grasped killing intent detection, even though he didn''t grasp masking as you could still dodge his attacks and block them." Lindo''s eyes widened as he was easily seen through by Catro and he became a little bit humbler. Felix listened and nodded, he was indeed behind Lindo in that aspect, but he was ready to learn and Catro was also ready to teach some more! Felix kept his normal stance as Lindo got near him and kept his stance as well, they were ready to spar with Catro to improve themselves! Catro liked what he saw then he moved his hands from side to side a bit as he cracked his neck and knuckles while muttering inaudibly: "I guess it''s time to temper the newer generation for that, I hope they won''t disappoint when they will come back from the tiger tribe assignment." Chapter 32: Teaching the new generation Felix and Lindo decided to tag-team versus Catro, after all, the man was a captain and they weren''t sure if they are at a lieutenant level yet. Catro smiled seeing them teaming up, this was the right way to fight considering the battle power difference between the three of them. Catro didn''t take any stance as he just stood there and observed them, the first thing he usually did in a fight would be preparing a counterattack, this was his fighting style, he wasn''t an aggressive fighter, as most cats were adopting this type of fighting style due to their relatively weaker bodies. Lindo was the aggressive type so he immediately went to attack while he waited for Felix to support him with his stealth abilities, this way Catro would have to watch out for any surprise attacks making Lindo have an advantage over him. While Lindo could dodge Catro''s attacks if he didn''t hide his killing intent he immediately took a few counter-attacks to the body after he started to hide his killing intent, Catro shook his head as he instructed: "It seems that you are truly half-baked, you really can''t dodge the attacks if I hide my killing intent? Can''t you use your eyes properly at all?" Catro was taunting Lindo and it worked pretty well as Catro easily dodged his attacks which became a little sloppier, the moment he became a little sloppier Catro immediately attacked his body again in the same spots, trying to wear down at his opponent that while young, already started to have a body stronger than him due to the racial advantage. However, Catro''s fighting experience against those with stronger bodies than him was plenty and he could easily find the weak points of those bodies and exploit them, he even had some Hex abilities that he cultivated to help with that. Catro''s fingers and fists were glowing with red color when he was attacking the same spot on Lindo''s body, his attacks were meant to break his internals and make his organs rupture and bleed, however, he kept the killing capability of this technique to the minimum considering it was just a spar, so his internal organs were just getting bruised and his combat capability lowered because of that. Catro was slowly wilting at his combat power while he kept his guard up against any attacks from Felix, he taught him for a while so he knew about his combat capabilities quite clearly, any sudden attacks from him could be deadly but he was having a fatal flaw which was his lack of knowledge and mastery on masking and sensing killing intent, or ki shortly said. He could feel killing intent gathering behind him as he made a motion with his hand to grab something only to latch on the air! He chuckled, Felix was smart and knew how to play around those who mastered the ability to detect killing intent, after all, he survived a fight with someone who did that and realized mid-fight how to counter the ability, but his capabilities makes him able to dodge but not fight head-on or use his specialty as an assassin, thus he can only be passive in a fight with such an expert or hope that Lindo would be able to restrain him long enough for him to land a decisive blow. Catro immediately dodged an attack that came from Lindo and blocked some aerial claw attacks from Felix, it seemed the duo was getting better at fighting together, Catro smiled, they would need to do so when it came time for them to be sent off, he reminisced a bit about his journey as well but then shook his head quickly, it wasn''t time to remember such stuff in the middle of a fight, no matter how easily he could win it if he went all out. Felix tried to do a slash towards his legs to cut his mobility but Catro easily dodged and kicked him in the stomach making him skid a few meters before he got up from the ground, his stomach was now bruised, it was easy for Catro to increase his speed to the point that Felix couldn''t dodge as he wasn''t using his full power. Lindo growled seeing Felix being thrown to the side as his muscles bulged and he increased both of his defense and attacking capability at the same time with this newly employed technique. He was sending hex energy to his muscles to increase their activity and power them up for a certain duration, this wasn''t an innate technique, it was something that everyone could use but not all races could find useful due to obvious reasons. Catro nodded this was a good way to fight against an opponent with the same capabilities but it wouldn''t work on him, the increased muscle mass would slow him down and Catro was already faster than him, however, he needed to increase the intensity of his technique to bruise his organs now. But he could still pierce through his defenses, Lindo was almost ready to vomit a mouthful of blood as he felt his organs sloshing around in his body, Felix suddenly appeared behind Catro only for his tail to be caught and he was thrown around again like a spinning wheel. Lindo didn''t know what to do in this situation where he was extremely overwhelmed by someone, he never fought a captain leveled opponent so he was stumped in this situation. Felix fought a lieutenant level enemy before which was the tiger Sumba, however, he was considerably weaker compared to Catro and he wasn''t even using his full power yet! Felix frowned as he felt his tail hurt a bit by the way he was thrown, he hissed as he became invisible again, how could he defeat an opponent that could read his attacks and was way stronger than him? He didn''t think it was really possible with the way he currently was. He needed to improve concerning or two for him to be able to do something at all. Felix frowned as he thought hard about what to do here.. he needed to at least learn how to detect or mask his killing intent. He decided to watch from the side for a little bit and seeing that Lindo couldn''t hold on anymore made Felix act, he immediately went towards Catro''s stomach and decided to slash him there only for the air to be taken out of his lungs as a knee has found his way into his gut. Catro shook his head, if Lindo was half-baked, Felix didn''t even get to be cooked yet! Felix struggled to get up, the knee attack didn''t injure him much but it took the air out of his lungs, he had to take a few deep breaths before he could breathe properly again, his stealth was canceled as well. Lindo was having a hard time to defend himself, his guard was broken his organs were bruised, his muscles started to return to their previous form due to all of the damage he had taken, they had both lost this spar, they couldn''t fight a captain head-on and win even if he didn''t give out his all. Catro sighed and then decided to tell them what they should improve on: "Lindo you are on the right path, you should master hiding your killing intent first and then focus on your racial skills, I cannot teach you much because we are from different tribes and we use different attacking patterns and skills so you should go to Landers or your captain if you need more help." "As for you Felix... you could be rather good in fights even against lieutenant level opponents that didn''t grasp killing intent detection and hiding, actually if they only grasp detection you would still have a high chance of winning the fight due to the way you adapted your fighting style, however, if they learned both all you can do is run away, and there is also the fact your body cannot contain hex energy, if they somehow realize that and they will start to disturb the surrounding Hex energy your stealth would also be broken and there''s a high chance for you to die, I''m not sure what kind of ability you were blessed with but you would have to rely on that to survive." He didn''t talk more about his ability as Lindo was still here and the shaman didn''t say to make the knowledge public so he continued with what he should improve: "You should spar with Lindo a lot from now on, you are both around the same level in combat ability and you should temper each other quite nicely, Lindo you should do your best to teach him how to sense killing intent, and fighting him an assassin should make you learn how to hide and maybe grasp the ability to hide your killing intent as well, anyways this should be good enough for now, I hope to see you two improve by the next time we meet each other again!" Catro waved his hand at the both of them as he left towards the tent, it was time for the camp to almost be dismantled. Lindo and Felix sat near each other as they breathed in and out, Felix didn''t have many injuries but Lindo had his inner organs bruised quite a few times so he took out some medicine from his bag and ingested it to heal himself. Lindo sighed as he looked at Felix and said: "Damn that guy is so strong, he easily finished us both, and he wasn''t even trying!" Felix nodded: "Well, that''s a captain level person for you." Lindo shrugged at Felix''s short reply: "Well his strength is nothing to scoff at even as a cat tribesman, I can say he is quite special in his own way, anyways let''s spar later after we heal up, we should also wait for the others to come, I think there are like 3 more people that should appear, so we would be a squad of 5 in total." Felix nodded, the shaman didn''t say how many people there would be but it seemed Lindo was informed of such things. After they both waited and rested for a while another person joined their party, it was a middle-aged lion that stood at 1,79 meters in height, he had a small blonde beard on his face and his hair was showing signs of balding. He wore the normal army armor and he had a small sword sheathed at his belt, he approached Felix and Lindo who were getting ready to spar, and said: "Lieutenant Zuzu is here, why don''t I get some salutes from you two? I don''t see your Lieutenant badges anywhere!" Zuzu flashed his badge towards them, it seemed the man had a superiority complex. Felix and Lindo nodded at each other as they seemingly coordinated and trained hundreds of times in this sudden attack, Zuzu almost fell to his butt in fright as he held his badge high up while saying: "Do not attack your superior!" Felix and Lindo shook their heads in unison, it seemed they got a useless supposed team leader. Zuzu got up from the ground and patted his armor while saying: "Aren''t you two a bit too violent?" Lindo looked at him in the eyes and said: "I remember you, you are the son of an elderly captain, did your father bribe the shaman to give you an easy job?" The man started to blush and decided to not talk with the two of them anymore, he sat down on the ground and started meditating as he waited for the other two teammates to come. It seemed there weren''t any other tribes allocated to this job as the other two were from the lion tribe as well. Felix nodded at Lindo, he decided to follow him as the captain, and Zuzu was too embarrassed to say anything else, while the other two that came didn''t say anything and followed along. They had to first get to the mountainous area where the Tiger tribe was located before they could relocate them and the journey towards the place was quite long and arduous, so Lindo patted his chest a few times before he instructed: "We must first get enough food and water that remained from the camp and then go, even though we could go hunt and try to find some clear source of water we still need to be prepared, after all, we all have our special bags with us right?" He patted his own bag as the others did the same, Felix also had his bag tied to his back, after they got their supplies they were ready to leave. Lindo stood at the front as Felix stood on his shoulders and the others followed behind in a triangle formation. They were ready to start and do their job! Chapter 33: Poor Tigers The tigers home mountains were around 3 times the amount of distance compared to Felix''s last travel which was around 1500 kilometers, thus the location was around 4500 kilometers away from the lion tribe capital, they were already a bit away from the capital so they still had to run for around 4000 kilometers or so, but considering the improvement in speed and technique that Felix had gone through he could easily keep up with the stronger lions. He also had Lindo who he could use as a bus, he could just stay on his shoulder and he wouldn''t have to exhaust his stamina at all. Thus if anything happened while they were traveling Felix would be the one who would be the first to act up. Lindo sighed as they ran towards the tiger''s mountain, from what he heard from the mission debriefer the only tigers left were the sick, old and young, there were also the ones who couldn''t withstand the power of Hex energy, they were considered slaves even in their own tribe and were the ones who had to take care of the sick, old and young. While they were called slaves they were actually just normal citizens but they had forced jobs that they had to do, however, if they finished their jobs earlier they could do something else for the remainder of the day. Lindo didn''t like these types of clean-up missions, he was a rather prideful lion tribesman and he didn''t like picking on the weak, however, this was a mission given directly by the shaman of the tribe and he couldn''t really reject it if he still wanted to live normally in the tribe, one word from the shaman and life could transform into hell for him. So he swallowed his pride didn''t say anything and decided to accept the mission, it helped he would be going on it with someone familiar like Felix, after all, they were supposed to be friends, even though they didn''t know each other properly they have spared before and they had some small knowledge about each other, unlike the other teammates, Lindo didn''t even want to talk with them much considering their potential, they only escaped from being enrolled in the army and killed was because they had some relationships with the generals, not every soldier in the army was conscripted into the war, some of them escaped like the three people that were now with Lindo and Felix, Lindo could also be counted in those that escaped, but at least he was talented. Felix would look back at the other three from time to time, he didn''t find anything interesting at them, they were quite average looking considering the lion tribes aesthetics, also they didn''t seem strong, they gave out kind of weak vibes compared to Lindo, he didn''t understand why they were paired with them. From time to time they would have to take a rest and eat from their rations or if they were lucky and found a clean water source they would drink from there, food was also quite scarce in the wilderness and Felix could see why the tiger tribe wanted to relocate by taking over Lion''s tribe territory, as they got closer to the mountains the amount of food both meat and vegetables of any kind started to thin out, not many kinds of beings could live on the cold mountains, Felix wasn''t even sure why the tigers lived on the mountains, he knew that there were some tiger villages around like the one where he assassinated that lion elder. As they got closer to the mountains the air thinned and the temperature decreased, Felix had to huddle inside Lindo''s clothes after some time passed as the cold became too much for him to bear, unlike the others he couldn''t heat himself using Hex energy, and the hex energy around him was infested with the cold attribute so it couldn''t be used properly as well, even though there wasn''t any snow, harsh winds would start blowing from time to time. The winds were so fast and sharp that Lindo could feel them cut his cheeks and if he didn''t reinforce his body properly with Hex energy they would be able to cut his skin open and make him bleed, he realized why most Tigers usually had scars around their bodies and why their bodies were so hard, living in such an environment would temper both their bodies and thinking. Felix could clearly see a village with buildings made out of rocks ahead of them, Lindo quickly entered the village with the other three, Felix being in his clothes made the villagers think there were only 4 invaders. The tiger slaves immediately appeared and encircled them, even though they didn''t have Hex energy to bolster themselves, as they were doing hard work combined with the environment that surrounded them, they had relatively though bodies as the weak ones have already perished. There were around 25 tiger slaves and all of them had burly frames and strong scared muscles, the leader got up to talk with Lindo but before he could say anything Lindo appeared in front of him and held him by his throat, the difference between those who could use Hex energy and those who couldn''t be easily seen here. Hex energy could enchant one''s body, reflexes, strength, and unlock special abilities, Felix could only handle the others because his body had been bathed in Hex energy. While he ate those bodies and gained their hex energy, his body could now conduct Hex energy even though it couldn''t hold it, so his body was equally strong as someone who could use Hex energy and could also improve continuously due to that not being restricted by his race. Lindo didn''t want to kill the tiger slave so he shook his head and dropped him to the ground as he said: "You are under new masters, you shall take all of the living beings in this village and you will be escorted by us towards your new living location." The tiger slaved looked relieved but also concerned at the same time, he got the news that their army and shaman lost and they didn''t like living on this mountain as well, but the shaman also said that when they will relocate they needed to take their sacred totem with them. The slave was the leader of the tigers now and he needed to give the totem to the most talented youth in the village, which he already did, however, he didn''t know what to do if they would ask for the totem. From what he could see they could massacre everyone and get what they wanted in most 10 minutes. All he could do was hope that they didn''t know about the totem. Seeing how he didn''t make any fuss Lindo looked the man up and down and said: "Gather everyone here in one hour so we can go to your new home!" The slave immediately nodded several times and thanked Lindo, the other three just kept watch as Lindo did everything without saying anything, it seemed they were here just as observers. Lindo looked into the coat he put up so he could resist the cold better and saw Felix snuggling inside, he told him: "Things were quite easy and we didn''t even need your help with this." Felix gave him a nod and then continued to stay inside to heat himself. It took them less amount of time than Lindo gave them to gather everyone in the square of the village, the old sick, and young were all there, and a few females that couldn''t join the war due to either being pregnant or having a disabling injury, however, the males with disabling injuries were still conscripted so by now they should be energy in the tummy of the lion ancestors. The tiger leader bowed to Lindo, as Lindo looked around he realized that almost 30% of the ones who were here would die on the way due to the harsh conditions of the journey, but his job was to move them closer to the lion tribe and not ensure all of their survival, he felt kind of bad but considering their current living conditions they would die either way sooner or later, this way they would have a chance to survive. Lindo took the head and the whole crowd of people that consisted of around 50,000 people in total started to follow him along with the other three who kept order at the back of the giant crowd. They slowly made their way down the mountain and from time to time the harsh mountain wind would claim the feeble life of an elder, or injure a child, the mothers tried their best to protect their big bellies while the disabled women would help the children and the mothers with all they could do, the elders would try their best to protect the younglings. And the younglings would do their best to endure the harsh conditions so they could live to see a better day, Felix would look at them from time to time and he got quite inspired by their tenacity, he felt like he learned something from these people today, something important, such as never give up if there was a chance of survival... this made him remember Sahee but as he thought about it, she never had any chance of survival with her injuries and coupled with his lack of strength back then, he still thought that he made the right decision. As they slowly inched closer to the foot of the mountain their surroundings started to get hotter and the injuries of the tigers lessened by time, however the moment they reached the foot of the mountain around 5,000 tigers died, it was a smaller number than estimated as it was only 10% of the total, it seemed Lindo underestimated the tiger''s innate tenacity. However, the Tigers started to get hungry and Lindo Felix and the others didn''t have enough supplies to last everyone, while they got out of the mountains their surroundings were still quite bare in terms of food, the village was already running out of food and all of their remaining food was supposed to be given to the children and the pregnant women, the adult''s stomachs started to rumble mightly. But they endured again, they hoped they could find a little bit of food so that they didn''t starve while giving the remaining one to the children and pregnant women, they always thought about the future of the tribe! Felix watched on, he didn''t know what to say, these people were quite selfless, they made him realize how selfish he was, but he didn''t think he could become like them, while he admired their endurance he looked down upon their kindness instinctually, it couldn''t be helped, cats were rather selfish animals by nature and they would only show affection to their closest companions, most of the time they would even mortally injure one another due to territorial conflicts, at least the feral ones did, and Felix was a feral street cat, he was only rather tame around Tsuru. As he remembered Tsuru for a brief second, his eyes glazed over, then he looked back at the tigers who were now hungry, he remembered how Tsuru used to get him food and would only not drop by because of the weather. Felix looked around and seeing that it wasn''t cold anymore he jumped out of Lindo''s clothes and decided to try and find some food for the tigers by going ahead, he knew he didn''t have to, but remembering about his grandma''s care made him a bit emotional, and he couldn''t properly control his emotions. Seeing Felix run ahead Made Lindo puzzled but after he heard his reason, Lindo smiled inside, Felix seemed to be quite a good guy in his eyes, and he liked that about him, he waved to Felix and told him to return quickly and with good news. Chapter 34: Stumbling into trouble headfirst Felix ran ahead of the group as he tried to find some food that could help the Tigers in their rather long journey until they would be able to find food without having to look too much time for it. Felix''s group of 5 still had some resources left so they could endure during the journey without having to stray from the path they have discussed before. However, by doing that they would doom quite a lot of tigers and Felix felt bad about them, looking at their hungry faces and the rumbling of their stomach made Felix think about the fact that he would have died of hunger if there was no food to hunt and Tsuru didn''t get him food at the right times. This triggered some empathy in Felix, a feeling that he never truly felt properly before, he did feel it with Sahee, but his newly developed empathy was destroyed by his constant fear of death and the images that were running in his head at the time. Felix sighed as he looked around the empty plains around, they just left the mountainous region and they haven''t even reached the region where Felix killed that cheetah in his first official mission. Felix frowned as he looked around, he couldn''t see anything edible, not even plant roots or something similar, even the grass was too small to be eaten and Tigers as meat-eating predators would never go so far as to eat grass, it wouldn''t help them much either even if they ate it raw, it would need to be cooked and seasonings added and this wasn''t something that they currently had. The Tigers were already poor and had no resources, where they could get seasonings from? They only had the bare necessities that they already exhausted on the road. Felix frowned, he would feel bad going back with an empty paw so he decided to break away from the route they talked about previously, he decided to move on territory that he hadn''t been to before. Lindo frowned as he looked around, he couldn''t feel Felix properly anymore, that meant he moved too far from the group! He felt worried about him but he considered that Felix was a rather strong person so he didn''t have to think much about his safety, if he knew he was a person blessed by God he wouldn''t have worried at all. Felix reached a forest with dead trees everywhere, as he looked around he could feel that the mountainous climate wasn''t too good for these trees to live in, he wondered how did they even grow in such bad conditions. As he walked around the forest he finally found a cave that he didn''t know if he should explore or not, he wasn''t sure what could be down there, he could see that the cave was illuminated and that meant it should be habited, but by who? Felix decided to use his stealth technique to see if he could find any food inside, he slowly walked into the cave and went further inside, as he went further he saw that the cave was built like a city, the buildings were made from stone clay and hay at least those that could be seen around, and as he reached the middle of the city he finally found the people who lived in the cave. They were all black bears! Their unique features couldn''t be hidden even though most of them were in their humanoid form, Felix frowned, he didn''t have a good impression on black bears, he actually hated black bears quite a bit but he couldn''t hate a whole race because of the actions of two people of the race. Felix shook his head but he didn''t reveal himself, as he had a bad impression of the race he first wanted to investigate a bit before doing any introductions. Felix looked around and saw that most of the bears were still active but they were mostly drowsy, it was around autumn and that meant as winter came they were preparing for hibernation, but that didn''t everyone would hibernate, the strongest warriors of the tribe would keep themselves woke during the hibernation period so they could protect the sleeping citizens. While warriors could do without hibernation as they were strong the normal citizens couldn''t. Felix wanted to find some food so he tried to search some buildings, he found a few fishes here and there but they weren''t enough to feed the whole remainder of the tiger tribe. Felix frowned as he stuffed some fish into his bag, he knew he was stealing from the bears but he was doing it for a good cause, and if they found some fish they could find more right? There was also the chance that these were their last rations but Felix didn''t bother to think about that, he wanted to help the tigers but he didn''t care much about the wellbeing of the bear tribe, he still had grudges, even though he didn''t hate them he couldn''t act in goodwill towards them. Felix found a bit of fish here and there but he realized that if he wanted to get enough fish he would have to raid their storage rooms which were guarded, Felix could also feel that the surrounding Hex energy around the storage room was weird, it seemed the black bear tribe was quite advanced as they had ways to detect stealth! Felix realized from the waves that moved around the storage rooms that if he approached them his stealth could be both broken and seen through, broken because the Hex energy around the rooms was somewhat strange and seen through because of the way the Hex energy was undulating, technically speaking this appliance should only help them to see through his stealth, but considering Felix was using the surrounding Hex energy to use his stealth technique for him this thing had a double effect. Felix felt bad about the tigers but he wouldn''t want to put his life in peril for them, he already got a bit of fish and if they portioned it properly they could fix their hunger for a while. Felix decided to leave the big cave, but suddenly angry howls could be heard: "SOMEONE STOLE MY FISH, MY ONLY FISH THAT I WILL HAVE BEFORE HIBERNATION, WHO DID IT?" "My fish was stolen as well, which bastard did it?" "I will break the spine of the person who stole my damn fish!" "Fish thief, fish thief!" The warriors of the tribe immediately intervened when they heard the riot happening, they already had distributed the quota of fish for autumn before hibernation, the rest of the fish in the storage rooms were meant for the warriors who didn''t hibernate, if they had to stay awake they needed energy and they could gather this energy through fish, Felix didn''t analyze the fish properly but they were infused with Hex energy just like the horned rabbit that he first ate when he came to this world. Most fishes were also starting to gain intelligence and in the far future they would evolve accordingly just like the other animals, but for now, they would continue to be food, semi-intelligent food. The toughest looking bear started to smell the air as he looked around and said: "The fish thief isn''t one of our people, I haven''t seen anyone enter the cave nor felt any Hex energy going around, there are also no foreign smells, that means it must be one of those pesky cat tribesmen who came to steal!" Felix frowned, how could a cat tribesman get this far to the north for a few fishes? Felix didn''t know that there was a northern cat tribe who was clashing with the black bear tribe and stealing their food, that was the sole reason the bear tribe learned the techniques they applied around their storage rooms. Coincidentally this was the same tribe Catro hailed from, they were also the toughest cats on the continent while the tribe Felix came from was considered the weakest. Felix knew that there would be big problems if he was found here, he didn''t know what the black bears would do to him if he was found, he still remembered that image of Sahee in his head, how broken her expression seemed, would they do the same thing to him as well? Felix didn''t want to hang around to find out as he ran quickly towards the entrance of the cave. The biggest black bear warrior suddenly shouted: "CLOSE THE CAVE!" A big boulder immediately dropped upon the entrance of the cave as it closed itself, it was a Hex mechanism used during winter so they would block the mountain cold better, but now it was used to stop Felix from running away! "SEARCH THE WHOLE CAVE! Make sure you use the disturbing technique to locate the cat, we shall show it no mercy!" Felix cursed under his breath as he narrowly avoided the bears who were now doing hand seals as the Hex energy in the air started to move weirdly just like the sensation he got when he got near the storage rooms. Felix knew that if he entered one of those areas that had the strange disruptions he would be done for. But he wasn''t sure what to do in this situation to escape. What could he do? The cave entrance was blocked and he couldn''t break through the gigantic boulder, he wasn''t that strong nor that small, there were some gaps between the boulder and the entrance but they were too narrow for him to get through, this was the first time he hated his big belly! Even though his body strengthened and changed from the inside he still looked and weighed more than before, however fat wasn''t really a problem for his new body, he was fat and he wouldn''t be able to squeeze through the narrow gaps, and even if he could he knew that his internal organs might come out of his mouth or ass that way, his body might respawn outside the cave but he didn''t want to die such a grisly and strange way! Actually, he didn''t want to die at all! And if he died he would lose his new bag and clothes along with the fish that he got for the tigers, while his body would restore to its original peak situation that didn''t mean his gear would come with him, his body would remain there with gear and all if it was too damaged. But if it was still ok his soul would enter back into the body and revive itself, this was only in situations where his breathing would be cut and he would die of asphyxiation or when his heart stopped. Felix frowned as the search tightened, fortunately, the disruption moved along with the people and now that they were all searching for him he could avoid them using his superior speed and enter the storage room! Felix could be considered fast even among peak youngins in the northern cat tribe, after all, he was halfway towards the lieutenant level body wise. The bears while strong they weren''t that fast and they were going around blind not knowing where Felix was, he blitzed around the cave as he sometimes would use his sharp claws to attach himself to the walls of the cave and escalade them, this made his claws hurt a bit as they weren''t meant to dig through rock and they even started bleeding a bit, but Felix endured. All he had to do in this situation was hide and hope they would remove the rock sooner or later, it would also help if he could go inside the storage room and steal enough fish to feed the tigers properly for the whole duration of the remaining journey. Felix looked down at the black bears who were now talking: "This damn cat is rather crafty, I wonder where could he be?" "Doesn''t matter if we continue to keep the entrance blocked we will flush him out soon." "We should look inside the storage rooms as well, maybe he is hiding there?" "Yeah let''s do it, let''s go!" Felix looked as they entered a few storage rooms but came out disappointed as they couldn''t find him. This was a good time to enter the storage rooms, while they thought that he wasn''t there! Chapter 35: Hatred generated by others Felix quickly dove inside the storage room and looked around to see if there were any fishes that he could take. The storage room wasn''t that big but it had quite a few items in it, there were even some weapons here and there along with spices and other foodstuffs that Felix didn''t really know what their uses were. Felix decided to grab the nearest fish and stuff it into his special bag, It didn''t him that much to get enough fish for the tribe, but that meant he also emptied the whole storage room of fish, all storage rooms had plenty of fish enough to let 10% of the black bear tribe to live through the winter hibernation, however, this amount is only used for 1 strong able armed warrior that stays wake through the whole winter. Felix decided to slip away from the storage room only to see the room''s door slowly open, he cursed under his breath as he jumped on the ceiling and kept his claws lodged in the hard rock hoping that they wouldn''t look up. Felix frowned as he felt his claws starting to hurt, blood was certainly going to drop from them sooner or later, his claws weren''t meant for hanging to rocks, he was also quite heavy and the resistance from the rocks meant that his claws were slowly getting pulled out, this was different compared to when he shot claws by his own volition if he used the same method that he would use when he shot his claws he would drop from the ceiling. The black bear cursed loudly as he entered the storage room and saw the lack of fish: "GODDAMIT, THAT CAT HAS BEEN INSIDE THE STORAGE ROOM NUMBER 4, HOW THE HELL DID HE GET IN?" The bear was currently using the disturbing technique and Felix was visible on the ceiling, if he looked up he would be surely seen! The bear continued to look through the storage room and seeing that no fishes were spared made him rage as he punched the wall behind him, the storage room started to slowly shake as Felix could feel his pain intensifying, small drops of blood dripped from his claws to the ground. The drops of blood fell to the ground but the bear was raging too hard to hear them, Felix sighed only for the bear''s nose to twitch as he looked at the ground and muttered: "Blood? Why would blood be here? Very strange, did the cat injure himself when he stole the fish?" The bear scratched his head for some time before he left the storage room, he needed to find the cat! Felix dropped from the ceiling and successfully left the room as the door slowly closed behind him, the bear was rushing so he didn''t look behind him as Felix disappeared again, fortunately, there was no one around who saw him. That was if you didn''t count the small bear child who wandered towards the storage rooms, his tummy was growling and he saw Felix''s silhouette disappearing, he was ready to shout and alarm the others when Felix suddenly saw him and ran to him and jumped on his head knocking him out with his body weight. Felix didn''t know what to do with this bear child, he felt bad for knocking him out, he looked pretty innocent and cute at the same time as he was currently ''sleeping'' killing him was out of the question considering that the scent of blood would attract the others here, all he could do was leave him there hoping he would attract enough attention, he still needed to find a way to remove the big boulder that was blocking the entrance. Felix ran away from the bear child leaving him knocked out cold on the stone floor of the cave. It didn''t take much time for him to be found by a patrol, he was woken up by some shaking and questioned: "Uh, I was hit on the head so hard... I think I saw an orange cat tribesman coming out of the storage room, I think it was number 4... but he disappeared and I got hit on the head afterward... I don''t know where he is." The patrol let him go and decided to intensify their search, but do as they may they wouldn''t be able to find Felix at all. Then they decided to do another approach, they silently removed the boulder from the entrance and decided to wait, the strongest bear had a pondering look on his face as he looked at the entrance. Felix seeing that the entrance finally opened, immediately ran ahead and left the cave, only for his stealth to break and him to become visible to everyone! The strongest bear started to run at speeds that rivaled Felix''s, even though he was rather big and heavy, it seemed he was also rather fast. Felix frowned as he ran away, doing his best to keep his distance from the strongest bear, the others also started following Felix whose scent was now not hidden anymore. Felix couldn''t shake off the strongest bear from his tail and even though he couldn''t catch up to him normally he couldn''t leave his sights either, it was rather annoying as his surroundings were full of dead trees that couldn''t conceal him at all. After the trees there was a plain so he was even easier to find them, he decided to run towards Lindo and hoped that he could help him fight the bear warriors off. Felix knew the route they took so he quickly followed it hoping that he could reach them quickly! It took Felix around 17 hours to finish everything and considering the speed they used to escort the tigers it would take Felix around 2-3 hours to catch up to them. Felix thanked the gods he got the special bag now, how could he have taken so much fish and also move at normal speeds with a bag full of fish? The strongest bear tribesman shouted: "GIVE US OUR FISH BACK YOU DAMN THIEF!" Felix ignored him, the other bear tribesmen were also slowly getting closer to the strongest bear tribesman, they started to pick up speed but they were also getting tired, Felix could run more than them and also faster, the black bear tribe had immense strength and weight, their speed was moderate and some of their tribesmen even had great speed, but due to their sizes, they didn''t have that great of stamina if they didn''t specifically train in this regard. The strongest bear was still looking alright as he wasn''t sweating at all, but the others were certainly getting slower with time as their acceleration started to decrease and they would start to breathe roughly. Felix chuckled as he increased his speed again, taking a burst of air into his lungs using a breathing technique to increase his speed, his muscles screamed a little but considering he did only one small burst they were still relatively ok and only damaged moderately to the point that he could keep his normal speed up. Seeing that Felix was leaving him behind made the strongest bear grith his teeth and increase his speed, his stamina started to slowly disappear as well as the increases his speed beyond what he was really capable of, if before he was giving 100%, now he was giving 125% to keep up with Felix. Felix started to return to his normal speed after the burst broke off, but now that the black bear was using 125% he wouldn''t give up normally even though his stamina was dripping away from his body. Felix frowned as the black bear was getting closer and closer to him, his mouth was even ready to catch his tail! Felix''s eyes started to glow as he looked at the convoy of tigers, time quickly passed while he was followed and 2 hours already went by, he finally reached Lindo and the others! Lindo could feel that something was wrong as he looked backward and saw Felix being chased by the strongest warrior of the black bear tribe which he also recognized, He jumped behind the convoy and caught Felix in his arms as he started to display his aura to the black bear warrior in deterrence. The black bear warrior glared at Lindo as he said between huffs: "That... cat.. stolen... from... our... tribe!" Lindo looked at Felix and realized what happened, considering he went ahead to find food for the tigers it wasn''t surprising he just stole from the black bear tribe, normally most cat tribesmen would have been caught by the strongest warrior of the black bear tribe if he went with 125%, but Felix gained some cheetah characteristics after he ate that body in his first mission, his speed while it had yet to reveal a cheetah, he was still considerably faster compared to other races who didn''t train in speed regardless of their characteristics. Even though races had different body types, they could also train them to become stronger, faster, etc, combined with aging made these races have certain advantages over others, however, training was quite slow as most of the tribes didn''t have proper training techniques for Hex, they were still fumbling in the dark in this regard, besides their innate knowledge they didn''t know how to use the Hex energy specifically, only shamans grasped this knowledge and it was also only shared with the future shamans of the tribe. So most of the time the knowledge remained in the family, however, the shamanic knowledge also required the shaman''s bloodline to be used in most cases or to have some specific talents. Felix sat on Lindo''s shoulder as he looked towards the black bear, he felt quite smug right now as he waved his paw at the black bear, which made the person in question jump towards Lindo. Lindo was quite strong for his age but the warrior was also exhausted because he ran after Felix while using his whole bodily strength, he could also feel that there were other Lions at the head of the convoy so he didn''t know what to do, Fish was starting to disappear in this time of the year and he couldn''t go and fish for more, that meant one of the warriors would have to eat less if they shared the fish and maybe even starve! In this type of situation he truly didn''t know what to do, he really wanted to get the fish back from Felix but he was also scared of dying and not recovering the fish at the same time, he was disappointed that the others already lost him and Felix if they were with him he would have had enough courage to attack! The black bear gritted his teeth as he made a decision, he entered a fighting stance as he glared at Felix and Lindo and said: "I have to get that fish back, I see that you must have taken the fish to feed these decrepit tigers, but it doesn''t matter, my men need to eat too, and we are the ones who caught the fish as well!" Felix was the one in the wrong here but he didn''t care much, he still had prejudices against the black bear tribe and he wanted to feed the tigers, so he did what he wanted! Now that he had Lindo with him he decided to return the favor as he disappeared, he wanted to fight the black bear and kill him, maybe he could even get to eat his corpse to improve his strength and endurance! Those were the two things his cat body was currently needing to achieve balance. Lindo shook his head seeing Felix''s stance on this matter, he wasn''t sure if it would be better to get more tigers or if it mattered at all as long as they escorted a few, but he decided to act with Felix''s wishes considering their friendship, the black bear was also alone and his stamina was sapped, the black bear tribe was also considered to be a rival tribe to the former lion tribe, but now that all of the strength was centralized it couldn''t be said the same. So killing him won''t attract many problems. While this man was the strongest warrior of the black bear tribe, that was for the beginning of the cave. Felix didn''t go inside the depths of the cave where the shaman and other bears were staying, the black bear tribe also had its experts, Felix didn''t even explore 10% of the whole cave, he was actually quite lucky as he didn''t meet someone who was at a lieutenant level, while this warrior in front of them was rather strong, he was only equal to Felix''s or Lindo''s battle power. Felix didn''t want to fight him because of his ability to disrupt his stealth, and considering he didn''t grasp killing intent detection and masking, fighting him would take time and he would be surrounded by the others. But now that he was with Lindo, he was ready to rumble! Chapter 36: I want black bear meat! The black bear captain was shuddering as he felt Felix''s gaze go over his whole body, seemingly as if he was looking at food! Lindo kept his composure as he told him: "You can still head back, I''m sorry for the stolen fish but as you can see we quite need it, you should trade the life of a subordinate for yours at this moment." The situation was quite awkward, Felix stole the fish and now they were threatening the man they stole from trying to kill him, but considering their world was one where might made right, it didn''t really matter. The black bear gritted his teeth as he transformed into his black bear form, he wanted to back away! Suddenly huffs could be heard from behind him as more black bears finally found their way towards the convoy of the tigers. They were all quite exhausted but they still had enough strength to battle, seeing this the strongest bear gained some confidence as he reverted to his human form and decided to attack! His heavy claws were going for Lindo''s jugular as Felix was too fast for him to attack right now. Lindo easily saw through his opponent''s attack as he had grasped killing intent detection, he dodged his claw attack by moving a few centimeters backward, the claws made their way towards the tip of his nose as Lindo sent a punch quickly towards the bear''s stomach trying to take the wind out of him. Lindo''s attack landed on the opponent''s stomach but it didn''t do much damage as the bear tanked the attack and retaliated with a claw towards his eyes! Felix didn''t have time to look at Lindo''s fight as he went ahead and attacked the relatively tired bears who made their way here. Felix''s attacks were brutal and concise as he entered in his stealth mode, the bears were quite tired so it took them a bit to activate their Hex disturbance technique. One of them fell to Felix''s claws before their technique could be finished, all of them cried in pain as they saw their brother falling to the ground with a bloodied neck, blood spurted out of his neck and mouth as his eyes remained wide open. Felix''s claws were bloody as he appeared, his stealth mode got broken by the disturbance technique. Lindo was having a relatively hard time against the strongest black bear, while he could deal with him if he had Felix to assist him, it was quite hard to defend against his attacks and retaliate at the same time as the black bear could focus on him entirely. He shouted towards Felix: "QUICKLY KILL THE OTHERS AND COME TO HELP ME!" Felix put a bloodied paw towards the sky indicating that he understood. Felix''s fat body was betraying his agility and dexterity, he easily made his way towards the other bears as he slashed towards their vital points. However now that he wasn''t stealth anymore the bears could dodge or defend their vital points, but that didn''t mean they could dodge all of his attacks, they were both exhausted and slower than him, they could defend their vitals but not their whole body. Felix started to wear down at them trying to kill them by blood loss, there was a limit at how much their muscles could seal their injuries, after a while their injuries would open and they would bleed out to their deaths! An injury on their thick arms, on the nonvital parts of the chest, around the legs, injuries started to mount on the black bear''s bodies, but Felix was also getting exhausted after a time, he had run for a long time and also used a breathing technique which took its toll on his moderately sized body. One more injury, Felix thought of adding one more injury to their bodies so he could rush and help Lindo afterward, he looked at Lindo''s situation with the corner of his eyes and saw him vomiting a mouthful of blood as he took a body shot from the black bear. Felix frowned as he looked at the opponents in front of him, only 4 remained and they were all on their last legs. Felix needed more stamina! He looked at the downed bodies of the other black bears and his mouth started to water, he immediately jumped towards them and took big juicy bites out of their chest area, Felix could feel the hex energy from their bodies rushing into his revitalizing it and restoring his stamina at high speeds. Felix''s eyes started to glow as he disappeared and appeared in front of the black bear quartet, they were on their last legs and Felix was ready to deliver the finishing blow! Suddenly one of the black bears chuckled as he fell to the ground, the others shouted in grief but they slowly fell as well, they all died! Felix looked at Lindo and seeing that he was still hanging on decided to eat the bodies of the bears! Felix''s eating speed increased majorly from the time that he first came to this planet, in ten minutes he finished the bodies of all of the bears and his belly became bloated and bigger than his whole body. A gigantic burp could be visibly seen coming out of Felix''s mouth as some of the impure residual hex energy from their bodies was expelled from his body, the impure energy landed on the last black bear who was fighting Lindo and started to burn him! Lindo was quite angry seeing Felix gorging on the black bears'' meat without helping him but he couldn''t say anything as he was too concentrated on the fight, he was sure the black bear didn''t even realize his comrades died or he would have turned tail by now and ran away. He could seem some granules of dark hex energy approaching the back of his opponent, the moment they made contact his skin started to sizzle as he fell to the ground and rolled. Lindo seeing such a good opportunity launched a kick directly towards his head cracking it like an egg. The impure energies started to eat at his body as his cracked head made sick sounds of breaking as he continued to roll on the ground, in the end, he died and his body was slowly eaten by the impure energies. Felix frowned seeing the body disappearing, he wanted to eat him as well! Lindo wanted to admonish Felix for his actions but he could see Felix''s still bloated body start to sway slowly, it seemed he was ready to pass out! And pass out he did, his body was slowly decreasing to its original size with time as Lindo had to drag him around before rolling him on his front so he could take the fish out of the bag to feed the tiger convoy. Felix was soundly snoring as the fish was distributed to the hungrier tigers, Lindo decided to split up the fish so they could feed them more later, there was still a long way till they would reach the tiger''s new village. Felix''s body was still decreasing in size as the tigers finished their meal, Lindo didn''t know what to do in this situation, was he supposed to roll him on the road like a barrel, he wasn''t sure if he could grab him and hoist him in the air, he was a bit too big, he decided to do the latter but he could feel his knees buckle as Felix''s muscle density and weight was increasing and not decreasing as his fat mass was disappearing, Lindo then started to roll him like a barrel as he didn''t know when he would wake up and they had to deliver the tiger convoy to their new home sooner than later. Felix''s chubby paws started to move in his sleep, it seemed he was dreaming something quite different than usual. Felix found himself in a dark cave that was his mindscape, he looked around multiple times but he saw that everywhere was darkness, there was nothing here. He didn''t know why he appeared here but he felt something strange going around in his head, he felt it hurt for a little while before a message appeared inside of it: "Finally I can communicate with you!" The voice was squeaky and young, but it also inspired some fear into the listener: "That damn shaman should have told you a bit about your ability, but I want you to know more about it." The voice had a strange quality to it, but the way he said his words meant that this wouldn''t be great news for Felix. "When you kill the souls of those you absorbed automatically in your mindscape you absorb their quintessence fully and they become a part of your main soul, they are chained to you!" "That means when you lose a life their souls are destroyed and cannot reincarnate again, you also cannot control who you can absorb until later." "Also some heads-up, those that you let go of your mindscape didn''t actually leave, they were just absorbed peacefully." "Damn the connection with such a feeble mind can''t go on for long and is so weak... anyways I want to say..." The voice cut off and Felix stood there petrified, Sahee didn''t leave? The Elephant tribesman didn''t leave? He looked around as the bear''s souls appeared in his mindscape, they tried to run away from him as they felt something strange was scaring them away from him. Suddenly Felix appeared in front of all of them as his claws decapitated them and transformed them into dark blue energy that entered into his body. He looked at his paws as he didn''t know what to feel, Sahee was a part of him forever now and so were the others, he didn''t feel disgusted nor angered by what happened, he actually felt nothing, he felt hollow. He looked up at the continuous darkness that was enveloping him, who was that voice? Was he the God who gave him this ability? What did he mean by the feeble mind and weak connection? Felix felt his mind to be strong enough. Why was he chosen by a god? Was the god going to answer his question but his mind didn''t let him? How could he contact the god again? Felix shook his head as he felt the darkness starting to disappear, it seemed he was going to wake up. Chapter 37: Mission complete Felix''s surroundings started to light up as he woke up, his fat body was getting rolled on the road just like a barrel by Lindo, seeing him wake up made Lindo stop rolling him and ask him: "Finally woke up huh? Get on your feet so I don''t have to roll you anymore, you are very heavy!" Felix got up on his feet and started walking normally as his size started to reduce itself with time, by the time they were halfway to their destination Felix had finally digested all of the Hex energy he gained from eating the black bears. His body undergone a different transformation as some of his fat was burned and transformed into muscle, his body was still looking a little bit chubby, but under all of his fur strong muscle started to appear. Felix''s height didn''t increase more, he was still the size of an average dog he jumped on Lindo''s shoulder the moment he regained his normal size only for Lindo to almost fall to the ground due to the unexpected weight. It seemed that while he regained his size his weight increased exponentially. Lindo got up from the ground and told Felix that maybe he should start walking on his own from now on, at least until he grew a little bit stronger so he could handle Felix''s new weight. Thus Felix had to walk on his own for the remainder of their journey. Felix was still rather lazy as it was in his personality so he didn''t really like it, as time passed and their surroundings changed they have arrived at the village that was promised for the Tigers. The Tigers were happy, they had finished the fish that Felix stole for them quite a while ago but fortunately as they left the unhabitable area of the mountain food was easier to find so they could hunt and find some wild berries or other such things so they didn''t die of hunger. The village was pretty simple, the buildings were made of hay and rocks here and there, the rock buildings were of course of higher quality compared to the hay ones, they were sturdier and due to the savanna climate, they were very good to sleep in both at night and day. Felix and Lindo left them alone to familiarize themselves with the buildings as they left towards the capital of the lion tribe, the other three were supposed to guard them while Felix and Lindo would report the success of their mission. Considering the strength difference between them they decided against commenting. Felix and Lindo arrived at the capital then found the mission reporting mission, Lindo and Felix entered it then reported the success of their mission, they had to wait for their reward to be distributed as a messenger scout would go to the village to verify their claims. Felix decided to leave to get some training done and asked Lindo for a spar, Lindo of course accepted without a second thought, Catro told them that sparring with each other was the best way to improve in their current situations and Lindo was a person that liked to improve himself. They found an unused training field and went at it there, their fight was different as Felix''s physique improved. Lindo was getting pushed back as he felt that Felix''s strength increased by quite a bit, also when he hit Felix he could feel some resistance coming from his body, he felt it was strange, did his body improve so much after eating the black bear meat? It was a normal thing but cats wouldn''t generally have such big improvements from consuming meat, could Felix''s physique be different compared to others? Lindo found something new about his friend today as he almost got his ass handed to himself as he fought Felix, even with his killing intent detection skill he could barely dodge the attacks, Felix was innately faster than him and now that he fixed his problems of being weaker and less sturdy than him, it made Lindo be in a bad situation. Lindo could only dodge and counterattack, but he couldn''t attack to put himself in a worse position or he would surely lose. A slash to his left wrist was dodged, blocking wouldn''t do good for him now, Felix''s claws could now dig into his skin quite easily, that meant they could even sever his bones right now! Felix didn''t hold back any of his newfound strength as he used it fully against his friend, he wanted to see what kind of improvements his body went through after he ate so much black bear meat. It seemed that his weaknesses got fixed but his killing intent detection and masking didn''t get any improvement as he fought, but Lindo did get better at fighting him with time, it seemed he was getting used to his newfound strength and endurance, he was also seeming to start using Catro''s fighting style as he attacked the same point on Felix''s body! Felix started to get sloppy as the fight continued, he had to defend the points that got hit too many times, and considering he didn''t learn killing intent detection he still had to think to dodge his attacks, as he gained intelligence Felix''s instincts started to get a little bit dulled with time, he started to rely more on his new intelligence rather than trusting his instincts, sometimes his instincts were telling him things that his brain was contradicting. Felix''s attacks were getting more concentrated as he fought Lindo but he still didn''t get to grasp killing intent detection after the fight was over, Lindo was breathing roughly and so was Felix, the fight was close as time passed but Felix won in the end. Clapping could be heard around them as Landers arrived, he had a big smile on his face as he said: "You both got a little bit stronger after this successful mission, it makes me happy, it will increase your chances of coming back when you will have to go to the ten-year intercontinental fight." Lindo nodded at Landers, he knew about the intercontinental fight but Felix didn''t, so Landers explained to him: "The intercontinental fight is just as its name says, it''s a fight between the inhabitants of the 4 continents, our Tarot continent is considered to be in the middle regarding strength, the other three continents are the Balton continent, The Sparron Continent and the Haron Continent." Felix found the continents to be similar-sounding but he didn''t put any thought to them, he didn''t really care about their names. "This is a fight meant to strengthen the relationships between continents but also see how the younger generation of the continents is faring if they became weaker there is a chance that in the future there would be an invasion for that continent, our Tarot continent also had been invaded a few times, our lion tribe originally came from the Balton continent from what the shaman told me when I was young." Lindo nodded this was new information for him as well, he actually didn''t know that their tribe was originally from the Balton continent. Landers then left them to their training, he was here to train as well but he had his own training area that was specially made for captain level individuals and above. Felix watched him leave before he heard Lindo''s stomach start growling, Lindo scratched the back of his head as he said: "Let''s get some food?" Felix nodded and they left for a restaurant where they filled their bellies, Felix left for his usual inn to rest as Lindo promised that they would spar more tomorrow. Felix started to sleep on the fluffy bed of the inn as he woke up only to find himself back in the mindscape, he felt no disturbance in it that meant he already took care of all of the wild souls that weren''t fully absorbed by him. A voice could be heard going around the mindscape, it was the god! It didn''t take him much time to contact him again: "Ah finally a better connection, damn this mortal''s weak soul." "Oh you weren''t supposed to hear that but whatever, in the upcoming 10-year fight you should do your best to kill and eat as many people as you can, this is my advice for you, the other gods are quite bored right now and they will do something regarding the four continents soon, this is some information every god gives to his chosen, don''t think you are special!" The voice disappeared after the message was sent, Felix was left there alone to ponder the words, what could the gods do when they were bored? Something important that was for sure, after all, one god could give him the ability to revive countless times as long as he had energy, what would a bunch of gods do to entertain themselves? Felix will find out soon enough as the 10-year intercontinental fight was getting close, Landers didn''t say when but his words indicated that it would happen soon, up till then he had to do his best to grow stronger, Felix didn''t like what was happening around him but there was no way for him to control his life, he was already dancing in the palm of the god which gave him his ability, all he could do was react to what was happening around him. Felix looked at the darkness around him, he felt rather secure in his own mental space but it was quite boring to look at endless darkness, maybe he could do something about it? Chapter 38: Soul Training Felix''s inner soul space was dark as a night without any starlight, he didn''t like this feeling of emptiness and darkness, he liked a well-lit environment, and there was also the fact his eyes couldn''t see through the darkness as if there was nothing there like he was just standing in the void. How could he change the soul space? He wanted to add things inside, he didn''t really understand the concept of souls and other stuff like this but he decided to imagine some stuff to begin with to see if that could fill the empty dark space in front of him. He tried to remember the better days when he would be lazing and basking in the sun on the roof of the train station back on earth. He thought about the place for a long and hard time but nothing appeared in his mind space, everything was as dark as before, maybe first he needed some light? He tried to think of the giant sun in the sky, and after a rather long time, he could feel the sun on his eyelids! Felix started to slowly understand how these things worked, he would first need to imagine the most important stuff before he could move on to the things that he wanted to put in his mind space. The first thing he put after he imagined the sun was the moon and the stars, creating a day and night shift that he could change at his liking, if he wanted to be day, it would be day, if he wanted to be night, it would be night. Then he created the earth and the pavement and the other things he remembered from Earth, slowly but surely the train station that he lived all his life in appeared in front of him, but things weren''t right, only the train station existed and there was nothing else, the train station didn''t even take up 1% of the total space so he decided to fill the other space with other things such as the things he saw on his travels during the missions, people he knew... he slowly created the hyena''s main city, the flamingos... the lion capital, the mountain of the tigers, the cave of the bears... etc... The main place where everything started was still the train station though, the people interacted with each other as Felix remembered, they were like robots and they didn''t even see Felix, those were just his memories being replayed in front of him. Felix saw Tsuru approaching him and petting him as he sat near the train station before taking some squid out of her basket and feeding him some, the taste was... inexistent, he couldn''t taste it, maybe it was because he couldn''t remember the taste of squid? Felix shook his head as Tsuru disappeared, he didn''t know why but he felt rather sad seeing her, maybe he was missing her? Felix shook his head, the buildings and the other things around him started to shake but after a while, they remained the same. It seemed his mind space was acting upon his emotions. Felix decided to keep a clear and calm mind, he closed his eyes as he sat there on the train station, he could feel that his mind cleared up more and more as he just stood there up to the point that he felt he reached a certain limit. His eyes were clean of emotions as his eyelids fluttered open, he looked around and saw that he was in the inn not in the mindscape anymore. It was an interesting experience for him, he decided to do it more times, he could feel that he somehow felt better after doing this. Felix left the inn and met up with Lindo to spar some more, this time Felix felt something budding in his head the more he fought, his body started to react easily towards his opponent''s attacks, it wasn''t killing intent detection yet as he was still hit one or two times, even Lindo thought that Felix learned the technique at first until he hit him in the stomach and made him vomit some of his breakfast. Felix didn''t know what went through him, he could easily see through Lindo''s attacks but as time passed his vision started to blur and he let an attack slip through, unknowingly to him, his actions were training his soul. He realized soon that the reason he was getting closer to the realm of killing intent detection was because of what he did in his mindscape. He continued his spar with Lindo for a few more hours before he went to the inn to eat, Lindo unceremoniously invited himself so he could eat for free, considering how many savings Felix had, he didn''t mind giving him some food. Lindo looked at Felix after he finished his meal and asked: "Are you close to learning killing intent detection?" Felix nodded, he thought that it would be like that at first but he would still need some time before he could learn it properly, but the door to that realm was slowly opening in front of him, he could feel that if he continued his training with time he would be able to learn killing intent detection, Felix looked at Lindo and asked: "Any luck with killing intent masking Lindo?" Lindo shook his head, he wasn''t a freak like Felix, he could barely know where to start from he tried to mimic Felix''s stealth skills to try and learn it but he failed very hard, even though they were basically on the same lineage, the difference between their races was a bit too big so he couldn''t grasp the stealth technique at all. Seeing that Lindo got a bit awkward after the question made Felix come near him and pat his arm a few times. Being comforted by such a cute being made Lindo get a hold of himself as he laughed and petted Felix''s head while saying: "It''s ok, I''m sure I will get it sooner or later, I should go now, my father is expecting me for more training." Felix watched as Lindo left, he had his other training to do as well, he went to his room and directly went to sleep as he accessed his mindscape, he wasn''t sure how he was doing it but when he went to sleep he automatically appeared there. He looked around and continued to use his memories to fill the empty and dark places, the underground maze, the cat village, the first forest he was in... the mindscape was slowly getting filled with his memories of people, as he reorganized them properly he could feel that his mind was getting clearer and clearer. Also, his modified soul was properly fusing with his evolved body, his mind and instincts were also slowly stopping their actions against each other as harmony appeared between them. A strong mind would be supported by great instincts, but in Felix''s situation his mind and instincts were telling him two different things at the same time and he had to choose which path would be better for him, but his instincts and mind were now slowly aligning with each other as he was training his soul by fixing his memories in their proper place. Felix continued to meditate on the training station as his mind got sharper and his instincts adapted the same, his instincts got dulled by his mind previously but as the body and mind aligned themselves he could feel the slightly open door, fully open in front of him! He looked down at his paws as he found himself back into the inn, could he grasp killing intent detection now? There was only one way to check this, he went to the sparring field and met with Lindo there, it seemed he also went through his special training at home as Felix could feel that he was rather tired. Felix didn''t want to fight him immediately so he let him rest for a bit, Lindo gave him a grateful look before he sat there for a while to catch his breath, then he waved his hand at Felix indicating that he was ready for the spar! Felix immediately disappeared as he jumped towards Lindo while slowly turning invisible, his body turned midair as he changed his attack place, his claw slowly went towards Lindo''s stomach but Lindo dodged by side stepping making Felix only leave a small gash to his sides. Lindo then tried to grab Felix by the tail but all he could grab was air, he didn''t know the technique of the bears so he couldn''t disturb the surrounding Hex energy to make him visible, all he was doing was reacting to Felix''s current location and counterattacking as good as he could. Felix appeared again as he looked at his tail, Lindo could have actually grasped it if he didn''t move it down at the last second making him think that he missed his location. His eyes were shining, his instincts were aligned fully with his mind! Even though there were still empty patches here and there in his mindscape they would be slowly filled with time as the mindscape increased in size. He looked towards Lindo who stopped attacking him when he saw him look pondering for a few seconds: "Let''s continue, I think I will surprise you today!" Lindo smiled as he entered a stance and his muscles slowly started to increase in size and weight, it was a different appliance of the technique from before, while his muscles were bigger in size than before they didn''t seem to hold his speed down at all! Actually, his speed increased as Lindo appeared behind Felix while saying: "It''s nothing personal Felix, just a spar!" Felix frowned as he easily dodged his attack that was going to stomp him into the ground, Felix gave him a cheeky smile as his ears moved for a bit before saying: "Nothing personal as well, but I think your previous attack was quite obvious." Felix was learning how to shit talk by mimicking Lindo''s tone. Lindo became a bit flustered as his new technique was easily dodged, his eyes widened as he looked at Felix''s glowing eyes as he said: "You learned killing intent detection already?" Felix''s eyes were now red, this indicated that he was using his vision and senses to their fullest, this was the normal visage of a person who activated the killing intent technique. Lindo started to become serious as he looked at Felix''s eyes and his eyes also turned a deep shade of red as well, they were both going all out in this situation! Chapter 39: What can a cat do? Felix''s body slowly started to turn transparent as he disappeared from the spot he was in, Lindo remained on the spot his eyes were moving from side to side as he tried to see where Felix could come from, he kept his senses attuned to the surroundings, he needed to fully concentrate to keep his killing intent detection up. Felix slowly circled Lindo trying to see through his defenses, he wanted to end the spar in one shot and become the winner! Since he already learned killing intent detection, he now only had to learn how to mask killing intent and polish his current skills to the maximum and wait for the intercontinental battle. Lindo suddenly lunged to the side in an attempt to scare Felix away, which succeeded, Felix didn''t have much experience with killing intent detection so he ran to the side the moment he felt the killing intent. Lindo laughed as he felt the vibrations of Felix''s movements, due to how flustered he was he couldn''t conceal his steps fully leaving a few small ones on the ground, Lindo attacked the spot where Felix was only to hit the dirt, Felix dodged his attack easily! Lindo frowned, Felix''s ability to dodge attacks increased by a bit too much! He could feel blood dripping from his chest but he easily sealed the injury with his enhanced muscle technique, the injury wasn''t deep enough to hit bone and if Felix didn''t attack the same spot again he would be able to endure. Felix appeared behind him, but as if he had eyes behind his back Lindo jumped to the side to dodge Felix''s attack before it could give him a deep cut on the back. Lindo knew that having a protracted fight wouldn''t help him at all in this situation. He needed to end things fast if he wanted to win the spar! He wouldn''t normally care, but his lion blood had been ignited the more he fought with Felix, he wanted to win! Not because he wanted to prove anything or because his pride didn''t let him lose the fight, he just want to have the feeling of winning! Felix appeared again here and there, he disappeared and appeared to confuse Lindo''s senses, he would also do fake attacks filled to the brim with killing intent making Lindo having to decide if he had to defend or not, this way Lindo let one attack slip that gave a deep gash across his chest. He put both hands up in a motion of surrender as he said exasperated: "You have grown way too strong after you learned killing intent detection... I''m not even your opponent anymore!" Felix gave out a small laugh as he appeared and patted Lindo''s leg with his paw comforting him. Lindo shook his head as he took out a pill from his bag and crushed it into a powder that he snorted, it was a highly-effective medicine that would seal his wound quickly, the gash across his chest was rather deep and it would open quite easily in a fight or because of sudden movements, he needed this type of medicine to seal it or else he might become light-headed due to blood-loss. Lindo scratched his mane awkwardly as he said: "My old man will rip me a new one when he will hear I lost... and he will triple the training as well..." Felix cocked his head to the side and asked: "Isn''t more training good?" Lindo didn''t know to laugh or cry at Felix''s inquiry, in this situation where they would be chosen for the intercontinental battle, more training would be better indeed, but that didn''t mean he enjoyed it! Thinking that he was making fun of him, Lindo decided to leave the training field, he had to go home and rest a bit as his father would come home later and he had to fully seal his injury before then, or else it might open up again during training, which meant he would be punished with even more training! Felix didn''t know what he said wrong as he watched Lindo leave with a sullen expression on his face, he shrugged as he decided to leave as well, it wasn''t time to get back to the mindscape yet, they ended the sparring quite early today so he decided to visit Landers, now that he learned how to detect killing intent, maybe Landers could teach him something new? Finding Landers was easier said than done, he tried to go to the division building where he should occasionally be, but he couldn''t find him there. Then he went to the mission plaza to inquire about him, only to find out that he was on a mission away for a few days, since he couldn''t train with his own captain, maybe he had to do some stuff to consolidate his marshall rank now? Felix then decided to find Catro for more cat techniques training. Catro was swamped with work now as he was the logistics captain, but he could always make some time for his favorite protege, he would just let his lieutenant deal with some of the paperwork while he was out. "So what''s the big news? Learned how to detect killing intent already?" Felix nodded, Catro hit the nail right on the head, after all, he wouldn''t disturb him if it wasn''t anything important. "I guess you want to learn more techniques from our tribe right?" Felix nodded again. Catro chuckled seeing Felix''s antics, from what he gathered, the younger cat wasn''t really a talker, he showed emotions only in perilous situations or when he empathized with someone. Catro found him to be rather strange but he couldn''t comment on it as he had seen and interacted with stranger people. "To be honest with you, cats have very few techniques that they could employ besides the unique stealth, we have our fighting styles but I already showed you our highest order of fighting style, it isn''t hard to learn and you should be able to learn it by yourself." "However, cats still can improve in certain regards through training, I''m not sure if you know about this, but the growth of the body isn''t the only thing that affects individuals fighting power." "While growing older and reaching the peak of your life, truly unlocks one''s battle power to the maximum, there is also a special type of training you can undergo to break through the limits imposed on your body by nature itself." "You have to ask yourself, what can a cat do?" "A cat can do many things, jump high, be fast, have very good reflexes and instincts even among other tribes, but there are certain limitations to the cat body as well, not enough strength, not enough endurance, stamina is average." Catro shook his head as he listed the strength and weaknesses of the cat tribe. "You are different from us though, it is strange but you don''t actually need to do this type of training." His analytical eyes could see through Felix''s special body somewhat, he didn''t understand how but it seemed like Felix''s body was already strengthened multiple times in different ways. "But the strange fact is that you also don''t have the Hex aura of someone who trained, even though your body cannot hold Hex energy, you have a white Hex aura." "I know you feel quite puzzled but let me explain a bit more." "You can choose to train one of your attributes by washing your body in certain ways with the Hex energy that seeps from the void, at the maximum you can strengthen it up to 9 times, but that doesn''t mean you will become 9 times stronger or faster or more enduring. At most the enchantment from the first 9 times of training would net you a 1.25x power increase in that attribute." "To improve your Hex aura you have to increase your attributes up to 9 times each, then fuse them together to reach a 1.30x boost in all attributes and changing your Hex aura color while unlocking another batch of strengthening." "Unfortunately our lion tribe is lacking the strengthening technique for speed and agility, so you can''t really improve your Hex aura perfectly, you see let me show you a bit so you could understand better." A pale blue aura started to appear around Catro, the aura was very pale, almost transparent, this showed that his aura wasn''t pure at all, it was also rather muddled. "This is the aura of someone who forced a breakthrough in attributes while not having strengthened all of them, auras start from white to green to blue to purple to orange to yellow and finally red." "I''m not sure if there are even any orange aura people currently existing on the four continents, if they were the continents would have been united a long time ago..." "Anyways I can teach you how to improve your strength, endurance, and stamina, I''m not allowed to teach the vitality training technique, for that you will have to go to the shaman to learn it, as for agility and speed, who knows where these techniques are?" Catro immediately started to impart his knowledge on these techniques and Felix found them to be pretty familiar but also different at the same time. He realized that they were breathing techniques! But unlike the techniques from the cat tribe they weren''t meant for attacking or support, they were only for training, they couldn''t be used for anything else. Felix tried to use the breathing technique for stamina and could feel his blood flow quicken as his heart started beating faster while the surrounding Hex energy rushed into his body. It truly was an interesting technique! Making sure that Felix learned all the techniques successfully, Catro then left as he had tons of paperwork to deal with and his lieutenant wouldn''t be able to deal with them even if he grew ten more heads and ten pairs of arms. He waved to Felix as he told him: "Train safely, also don''t rush strengthening your body or you can cripple yourself! Hex energy while mostly tame can also enter a different vein in your body if you don''t breathe properly, it might even attack your heart and kill you!" Felix nodded in understanding, he felt that Lindo wouldn''t be able to spar with him anymore so this new training would be useful to fill his time with, he would strengthen his body by day and his soul by night, he would try to find some more sparring partners in the future so he wouldn''t grow rusty. He wasn''t sure what he was supposed to do at the intercontinental battle, but strangely he was also looking forward to it! He was excited! Chapter 40: Strengthening the body through training Felix decided to go to the inn and practice these new training techniques he just got from Catro, he felt that they would improve his already impressive physique even further! Felix decided to start with the thing he needed improvement the most right now, while his stamina was a little above average due to his eating, it wasn''t extremely impressive, so he started to breathe in and out according to the instructions that Catro gave him. The Hex energy surrounding him started to enter his body, he was like a whale inhaling water as the surrounding energies started to be devoured by his body, his heart started to pump blood at a higher pace while his lung capacity increased at the same time. Stamina could be increased by having a higher lung capacity and faster blood flow and the breath training technique was doing just that! It was using the Hex energy that was flowing in the air to increase these two attributes slowly but surely, since it was Felix''s first training time using the technique, the amount of hex energy he needed to increase his stamina wasn''t that high, but it still reduced the density of hex energy around the inn by 20%! Felix''s eyes opened as he felt that quite a bit of time passed, he looked outside the window and saw that it was almost night, he could feel that there was Hex energy surrounding his heart and lungs now, it was of a simple white color. If he could see his insides he would also realize that there was one stack of Hex runic characters running along with his heart and lungs now, they were very transparent and weak, this symbolized that he didn''t finish the strengthening properly and he needed more hex energy before he was done with it. Felix''s eyelids were quite heavy, this type of training put a strain on the body, and continuously using such training could indeed cripple the body, Felix realized what Catro''s warnings meant right now. Since he couldn''t train his body anymore and it was also getting late, he decided to go to sleep and train his soul! Who knew? Maybe that God would talk with him again, he still wanted to know what was his purpose of being on this planet. He felt empty and without any goals, he just lived to live. He felt quite hollow inside, he actually lived so he wouldn''t die, he hated dying, the sensation had trickled into his psyche and it scared him to the point that he would do anything to not die, even though the death wasn''t permanent. This was a psychological issue that came when his brain and intelligence weren''t fully formed so it stuck to him and became a trauma that he couldn''t get rid of at this point. Felix found himself back at the top of the train station, he looked around and saw that some more memories appeared, it seemed he didn''t need to plant them himself anymore as they would insert themselves in the empty spaces that appeared as his soul grew stronger. Felix could feel his mind getting clearer as this happened but nothing else happened to him, he was the same person as before. He couldn''t fill the empty spots with memories anymore as they would appear automatically now, so all he could do was doze off on the train station rooftop. The moment he fell asleep in his mental space, his memories started to automatically flash before his eyes, both the good and bad ones, he woke up with a shake of the head, he really didn''t like the bad memories, he looked around and spotted the ones that had to do with death, he didn''t know what to do with them, could he seal them? He wasn''t sure if he could get rid of them, and if he did would something bad happen to him? Felix wasn''t very smart, but he couldn''t be considered dumb either, so he decided to put those thoughts on hold and not fall asleep in his mindscape again, it wasn''t a good experience to relieve your life so suddenly and quickly at the same time. Felix woke up from his mindscape after a while passed without anything else happened. As he started to get into this thing, he would first go and find someone to spar with, Lindo if he was available, if not he would find some random person at the training spot and ask him for some guidance, most of the time he would win 90-95% against these random persons, after all, he was surely at the lieutenant level by now, unfortunately, he couldn''t make any progress with killing intent masking. Time passed quickly as Felix trained, doing his best to prepare for the upcoming intercontinental battle, he would also visit Landers and Catro from time to time to get some more advice, since he couldn''t properly train in his mindscape anymore he took some time to read, the lion capital had a big library he could use to get the information he needed, while there were also scrolls that could give you information directly, they were rather expensive and with the money, he saved he could at most buy one or two, He didn''t need very much sleep even though he liked doing it. The lack of needed sleep was due to his continuous training in the stamina breathing technique, as his stamina increased, his need for sleep and rest decreased dramatically after he finished his first rune, he was already on his second one and things were going around nicely for him regarding his training, as his second rune started to get more solid on his heart and lungs, he could feel that his stamina was slowly recovering as long as he didn''t do anything strenuous. It could be a lie if Felix said he didn''t like the current situation, he could eat as he wanted and train as he wanted, even though he was innately lazy, he did like the feeling of improvement that washed over him after he finished a day of training. Felix yawned as he finished one more day of stamina strengthening then stretched his body, suddenly there was a knock at his inn door as the voice of a female could be heard: "Marshall Landers is here to see you, sir Felix!" Felix smiled, he could only briefly talk with Landers here and there due to his new responsibilities, after he came back from that mission he could only get advice from him 2 times. He sighed as he left his inn room and met with Landers outside, Landers now had a different outfit that consisted of a red military armor that showed he had advanced in military-grade, he had the characters for marshall printed on the front of his armor and his mane was now tied into a ponytail. Felix looked at Landers and smiled as he asked: "Finally finished all of your work?" Landers nodded, he was quite tired of all the stuff he had to do but didn''t forget about Felix, he was one of his most talented people and he wanted to visit him to see how he improved, and what he saw left him happy enough considering he could feel that Felix''s aura took a turn for the better. Landers suddenly waved his hand to the side and Felix''s sense went haywire as he jumped up dodging a sudden attack that came out of the ground, Landers smiled as he continued to wave his hand making attacks appear from thin air and slash or impale Felix. Felix did his best to dodge everything he could and Landers stopped playing with Felix after a short while as he nodded at him and said: "It seems you have grasped the important factors of killing intent detection, all you need to do now is temper the ability through live deadly combat, I can''t help you much with that as I have my own things to do and there aren''t many if any tribes that you can fight with anymore after the Shaman united all of the tribes on our Tarot continent." "Anyways I came up with some important news for you and the other youths in the tribe, the intercontinental battle has been announced, it will begin 9 months from now on the island that stands between all of the four continents, its the hub that connects the continents together after they were forcefully broken." "You are the first one that I have come to tell the news, the others will have to learn by themselves when they will get the information from the mission debriefing person." He waved his hand at Felix as she slowly made his way to the mission building to inform the person behind the counter about this. Felix looked at his receding back as he thought about the incoming intercontinental battle and his blood started to boil! He wasn''t a fighter by nature, but to survive those instincts ingrained themselves in him, the thirst of fighting stronger opponents and prevailing against them! Felix went directly to Lindo to talk to him about the intercontinental battle, even though the date has been announced it wasn''t truly known how the ''fights'' will consist of. Felix met with Lindo at the same restaurant they usually ate after they sparred, Lindo became quite serious the moment he heard the battle will start 9 months from now, Felix wasn''t sure why he looked like that so he asked him: "Anything wrong about the date?" Lindo shook his head: "Nothing is wrong about the date, but it''s quite soon, I thought that it would happen one or two years later, I''m not sure if I will be able to finish my special training before the battle will start, its quite unfortunate." "Don''t mind me, but if we fail in this battle, not even our corpses will be recovered from the battlefield, my father told me that he was one of the few survivors from the last intercontinental battle, it''s a bloody and ugly event that only exists to gauge the upcoming talent of the youths of each continent, it''s actually quite sad." "These are some words my father imparted me: War is where the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other, he realized this when he came alive from the battle and then he was supposed to invade the Tarot continent and enslave or kill the people on it..." Felix kept quiet as Lindo talked about his father, he seemed like an experienced man who went through difficult things, but like all people who were in the military, he could also be considered average in these types of scenarios, he could be counted unique because he was still alive. Fear the old man in a profession where people die young. Lindo looked at Felix and asked him: "What do you fight for? What are your dreams? Have you decided on anything? You just seem lost..." Being questioned so suddenly with such a serious tone made Felix unable to answer immediately, what did he fight for? What were his dreams? Did he decide on anything? Did he have to do that? Couldn''t he live just because he wanted to live? Did he need dreams? Did he need to fight for something? This wasn''t something that Felix could understand even though his soul was mended and his emotions were whole now, he just didn''t have enough emotional time to develop such things yet, it was still below a year since he had developed such things. He looked at Lindo and didn''t know what to answer, what could he say? Chapter 41: Whats your reason to live? The questions started to move inside Felix''s head and they all moved onto the same topic, what was his reason to live? What was he supposed to believe in? What were his convictions? Felix asked himself these questions for a while, he seemed to be concentrating so Lindo waited for him. Felix started to remember Tsuru, she was a kind lady that was the closest thing he had to family, he didn''t really remember what happened to her, the shock from that time combined with the fact that he had his eyes closed made him unable to know. But he knew that he cared about her a lot, but he also realized that he wouldn''t be able to find her again, things were too different compared to his previous world, people here could morph into different animals and had tails and ears in their human form, Tusur didn''t have a tail or animal ears as he remembered her. He didn''t know anything about interdimensional traveling but he knew that he won''t be able to meet her again, he just had that feeling from his gut. Now he didn''t have many friends or any true family, he felt both empty and with no dreams, was it due to him not having any convictions, or was he missing the concept of family? Felix looked at Lindo and decided to answer: "I don''t know... I truly don''t know, I''m ok with the fights to the death and war, I''m ok with killing those that I don''t pity, and I''m ok with stealing to help others or myself, even though I can''t say that I would do these things normally, but I don''t find them wrong, what do you think Lindo?" Lindo shook his head as he laughed: "This is pretty much the thinking of a soldier, he does what he is supposed to, but he doesn''t think further, he doesn''t think that his actions have consequences, he only thinks about those he has to protect, let me ask you something, do you know because of your actions back then when we escorted the tiger tribe, a lot of black bears will starve to death, both young and old?" Felix nodded: "I thought about it, I don''t care about the fate of the black bear tribe, some of their people killed someone who was a friend of mine when I came to join the lion tribe." Lindo shrugged: "Well you had a grudge with them, but what if you didn''t? Would you let the tigers starve or steal from the black bears again?" "Of course I would steal again regardless if I had a grudge with them or not, even though I would do it more reluctantly, I empathize, was this the correct word, empathize? I empathize with the tigers, they have been through similar situations to mine and I wanted to help them at the time." "Don''t you think that''s rather selfish of you?" "I could care less about this type of stuff Lindo, why are you asking so many questions now?" Lindo didn''t know to laugh or to cry, Felix never talked about anything besides the missions or when he needed help or train, he was pretty secluded and all he did was train eat, and sleep, and he wasn''t sure if he was sleeping well either because from time to time when he came to visit him at the inn, he would hear from the owner of the inn that he would be resting. One time Lindo came to his room because he just learned a new technique and wanted to use it on Felix during a spar, but he saw Felix running in his sleep, this wasn''t normal as only war veterans would have this type of actions in their sleep, Lindo didn''t bother him from there on when he slept as he realized he had a troubled past compared to him. Now that they were in the middle of the talk Felix decided to ask his own questions: "What are your answers to your questions?" Lindo took a pondering expression for a few seconds before he easily answered: "I believe in myself and the tribe, I want to protect the tribe and see it flourish, my dream for the future is to have a nice house and mate with one of the stronger females to have a talented child and when I grow old, I just hope I will find a good place where to live my last moments when I will be thrown out of the tribe." Lindo was a thorough loyalist to the tribe, and he didn''t seem to be brainwashed, he just hoped the best for the tribe even though when he would grow old the tribe would abandon him, Felix found him to be strange. Lindo understood that Felix couldn''t understand his thoughts as he couldn''t understand his, they were both two different persons with different beliefs and experiences, but they were still friends due to their positions in the army. Felix stopped talking about this type of stuff, he wasn''t really interested in it and it made his head hurt as well, he would rather go and sleep than talk about these things. Felix launched himself at Lindo who was still in thought trying to break him out of his reverie. He could think about this stuff when he went to bed, right now Felix wanted to spar with him! Lindo chuckled as he stopped thinking and took a stance, he wanted to fight as well, he just learned a technique that he wanted to use on Felix but couldn''t previously due to the events he saw. He took a horse stance as a magnificent aura started to engulf him, but Felix didn''t let him charge his attack as he easily started to slash at his body, but surprisingly Lindo didn''t stop the charge of his attack nor did he defend! He cocked his right arm backward for a big haymaker that could be easily dodged by Felix, but as Felix continued his attacks he could actually feel Lindo''s aura increasing and multiplying at a high speed! It seemed Lindo was absorbing Felix''s blows and redirecting them through his body where they were absorbed by his Hex energy, enhanced then sent towards his right arm to create a gigantic shockwave attack! Felix realized too late but he still dodged to the side, only for the shockwave from Lindo''s haymaker to hit him, even though he dodged successfully, the middle side of the shockwave which had the strongest fluctuations, the area of the shockwave was very big and some of the remaining waves still hit him and injured him a bit! Felix could feel that the shockwave clipped his left hind leg and he couldn''t stand on it properly anymore, the bones weren''t broken but it hurt really badly to the point that he might need to snort a pill to heal it quickly or else he wouldn''t be able to use 100% of his power due to the pain. Lindo chuckled as he fell on his back, his body was bloody and the rebound from the technique injured his insides a bit, but most of the damage came from Felix''s slashes, he lost a bit of blood. Felix came closer to him before he took out two pills which he crushed, one he snorted himself, and the other pill he gave to Lindo which he used to seal most of his bloody injuries, his internal injuries remained as the pill wasn''t that advanced. Felix helped Lindo up and decided that he was done for today, Lindo frowned as he asked: "You aren''t going to ask me about the technique? What I went through to learn it? How much time it took me to craft it to this state?" Felix shook his head: "Not really, I have my own things to do, I can say that your technique is pretty good but too slow, you should also learn something that would defend your body because you leave too many open spots, if I wanted to kill you would have died before you could launch your attack, but because it was a spar I could only slash at the non-vital spots, and you still lost!" Lindo was speechless, he liked the constructive criticism but couldn''t he at least acknowledge his hard work? Felix turned back towards Lindo as if he sensed something and said: "Oh yeah, your technique could be called rather strong." Then he left towards the inn so he could rest and enter his mindscape. Lindo shook his head seeing Felix''s receding silhouette he didn''t know he had such good analyzing abilities. Felix entered his room at the inn and had a hearty meal before he went to sleep. When he woke up he was at the top of the train station looking towards all of the memories, the gods voice from before could be finally heard in his head again: "Finally the transmission is getting better! I guess that mortal understood that he should train his soul after my comments, haha I''m such a genius!" Felix waited for the voice to address him, the voice then realized that Felix''s consciousness could hear him as a cough was heard then he addressed Felix: "My dear champion, I have watched your progress for the future intercontinental battle and I can say that I''m pleased with your progress, I have come to answer some of your questions as it could be said that you are still rather confused about why you are here." Felix''s eyes started to shine as he asked: "How come I''m here, actually where is here? What''s with my ability, why would you give it to me? Also what happened to my previous home?" "Ah the basic questions that every transmigrator asks when they find themselves talking with a god, I guess to answer them." "You are in the Jade universe currently, you have been transported from the Dirt universe, the god that created it abandoned it after he realized that he couldn''t get faith from his creations if he didn''t intervene directly. And due to the contract between the other gods and him, it made him unable to act, thus after a while passed and he didn''t gain enough faith, he decided to leave the universe to its own fate." "You lived on a small planet called Earth, one of the many that had intelligent life on it, yours was the most backward considering energy training and your planet focused more on technology, they were at a very shitty stage in technology as well." "Anyways I''m rambling here, your old home was destroyed by a meteorite." Felix''s heart cracked a bit hearing that, he got the confirmation that Tsuru was truly dead and so his last family was broken. He shook his head and cleared his feeling, he already thought about it, and getting the confirmation only steeled his heart. "As for why have I summoned you? I actually didn''t, you see, you were quite lucky, I''m not sure how you entered an interdimensional portal, or how it was created, but you were there and you landed in my universe, transmigrators are unique people that can get special abilities when they move from a universe to another due to the energy of the tunnel that seeps into their beings and souls, your ability is to grow your physical attributes through the ingesting of content with high Hex energy inputs. It''s one of the most basic but strong abilities that transmigrators get." "As for your other ability, I saw the potential in you and considering how dumb and weak you were when you first started, you would have surely wasted your transmigrator status so I blessed you with the ability to revive!" "As the intercontinental battle gets closer I should be able to talk with you more and more, the contract with the other gods let''s more conversation with their champions as the battle approaches. Anyways you have one more question before the connection will be cut, I can also inform you that the next time you will be able to talk with me would be 1 month before the battle." "Last question?" Felix didn''t take much time to think as he asked: "What God are you?" A laugh could be heard in his head: "Aren''t you quite basic and vanilla my young cat, what''s with these questions? I know you have gained intelligence recently but... Whatever..." Felix didn''t know if to feel insulted or not. Chapter 42: God of trickery The voice said with an excited tone: "Well since you want to know my identity so bad then I shall tell you!" "I''m the grandest god there is, the flashiest and coolest!" "The God of trickery Aaltarox!" Felix thought for a little time before he said: "Who? I have never heard of you..." If Aaltarox was here in a physical form he would have face planted, but only a cough could be heard as he explained: "Of course you didn''t, your continent doesn''t give their faith to gods but to their ancestors, this is one of the ways a person can become a god, by taking the faith of living people, the ancestors of the tribes are protected by the other gods and in return, they would become their subordinates after they ascend." Felix didn''t understand why he was being explained that, but he decided to listen on anyways: "Oh my, I have talked with you a bit too much, I guess I will see you one month before the battle happens, goodbye my little champion!" Felix didn''t feel better after he got his answers, he just felt that there was nothing he could do at this point, he really didn''t like the feeling of being under someone''s control but since gods were involved here all he could do was play in their palm and hope he came up to the top in their games. Felix sighed as he woke up from his mindscape, he left his comfy bed before he went and got some breakfast, he needed to up his training a little bit considering there were around 6 months or so left before the battle began. He needed to atleast max out the training in each breathing technique as for breaking through, he didn''t want that yet, he could strengthen his body through eating and he knew that he would get immense benefits when he broke through with all of the attributes being at 9 strengthenings. So he went ahead to train, he wanted to quickly finish the stamina strengthening before he could move on to strength and endurance. Felix could feel that his lungs and heart were getting better day by day as the runes around them improved day and night through the breathing exercise and the Hex energy that was going in and out of his body. Soon enough the second strengthening was completed and the second rune was completed as well! Felix could feel his breathing improve by a high degree! His stamina increase was something that he needed and for many reasons, he could now try the attack breathing techniques from the cat tribe ancestors! His body was strong and it could endure a lot after he evolved it through eating other species, combined with his increased lung capacity that gave him more stamina made him think of trying to use those techniques again. He needed a life punching bag for that so he went looking for Lindo, it didn''t take him much time to find him as he just finished training with his father and he was gorging on food at the usual restaurant they went to. Lindo waved at Felix seeing him enter and gulped down the food before saying: "Come and get some food, it''s from me now, you gave me food so many times and it''s time to reciprocate the action!" He smiled as he patted the chair near him and Felix jumped directly on the table instead. Lindo ordered some food and after Felix ate Lindo asked: "So I guess you have been looking for me right? You want to train some more?" Felix nodded as he said: "I have a new technique that I want to try on you." Lindo shuddered as he saw Felix''s eyes change as he said that sentence, he could feel that the technique was deadly from the aura that Felix exuded at the moment! However, Lindo wouldn''t back down since his friend needed his help. He nodded at him and left the restaurant to go to the training grounds. Lindo kept himself a few meters away from Felix as he waited for Felix to activate his technique. Felix decided to start with the enhanced stealth breathing, he took in a deep breath infused with Hex energy as he used his footwork to disappear from view! Lindo frowned as he looked at his body seeing blood starting to slowly drip from a small cut on his chest. He couldn''t detect Felix''s killing intent! Did he learn killing intent masking? No, it was different, he couldn''t even feel Felix''s presence anymore, it was as if he was inexistent! All he could do was take a defensive stance and block the attacks that he couldn''t or try to use his mind to guess where Felix would attack and dodge accordingly, but it was very hard! His body started to get more and more slashes on it but Felix appeared shortly after a few minutes, it seemed he could keep the enhanced stealth technique up for around 4 minutes before he went out of breath and both of his stealth techniques were canceled at the same time. Lindo nodded as he said: "It seems you have improved your stealth a very high deal, your help will be imperative at the intercontinental battle!" Felix smiled as he caught his breath and said: "This isn''t the last technique that I want to use Lindo." Lindo narrowed his eyes, he already improved this much in such a short time but he still had more techniques to spare? Lindo was both envious and scared at Felix''s talent at this point and it even appeared on his face as he looked at him, he was envious but he was also happy for him, after all, they were comrades, however, it would be a different story if they were enemies. Felix''s body was starting to get enshrouded in the surrounding Hex energy as he breathed in and out, his body was heating up at a quick speed as he suddenly disappeared from view! It wasn''t because he was using his stealth technique anymore now, it was because of his speed! The ground below his feet where he stood previously was very cracked and pushed down, this showed that Felix''s launching speed wasn''t something that Lindo could take head-on! Felix''s speed was so high that he almost unintentionally killed Lindo at this point! Lindo''s eyes widened in fear as he could feel his life flash before his eyes, he gritted his teeth as he took his haymaker stance, he wanted to harden his body as well but before he could do anything else a dark-colored slash went near his head only to deviate at the last second and miss him. Felix fell to the ground in front of him as he breathed in and out very roughly, using this battle technique after the stealth technique took a lot out of him as he didn''t rest properly, Felix got up from the ground and said: "I''m sorry I didn''t realize..." Lindo shook his head, there was cold sweat all over his body, this was a near-death experience for him! "It''s ok, you deviated from the target of the attack at the last moment, but what can I say besides that you are really impressive? Even if you killed me if you showcased this attack to the shaman I think he might have excused you..." Felix didn''t know what to say at this point, he could see that Lindo was a bit down because of what happened, so he jumped on his shoulder only for Lindo to almost fall to the ground, ah, he forgot about his increased weight and mass, Lindo was also quite scared and there were injuries all around his body. Felix jumped away from his body and felt rather awkward as he patted his shoulder with his paw and said: "Uh... forgive me?" Lindo sighed as he looked at Felix''s eyes and how he couldn''t forgive him? He was too darn cute! Lindo patted Felix''s head and stated: "Maybe it''s time for us to not train together anymore, you improve way too fast for me, you should find a new sparring partner that could last better against your new techniques and you wouldn''t have to fear accidentally killing him." Felix nodded, what Lindo said made sense to him thus he asked: "Do you have any recommendations?" Lindo scratched his mane and thought for a few minutes before he said: "I''m not really sure, to be honest, you might want to go to the older generation for sparring from now on, I don''t mean to boast but I can be considered the strongest youth in the tribe at this point, well excluding you..." "Maybe you can try asking the lieutenant from your division, or ask marshall Landers or Catro to find someone you can spar with, or ask for more missions from the shaman himself, at this point sparring wouldn''t improve your combat ability by much if you don''t find an opponent as strong as you, so you have to go through life and death battles, even though we have united most of the weaker tribes around the continent there are still resistances from here and there..." Felix pondered his words for a while before he patted his shoulder again and said: "Let''s get some more food, my treat." Lindo laughed as they walked towards the restaurant, it seemed food would make him forgive Felix very easily and forget about what happened, Lindo was just simple like that. After they filled their bellies Felix left to look for the lieutenant of his division and found him buried under a bunch of paperwork, seeing his current situation made Felix leave him alone, it seemed that Landers being promoted left the lieutenant to work on his paperwork as well until there was a new captain appointed to their division. Felix left for Catro''s building and met with him shortly while he was doing even more paperwork, it seemed that now that he was the logistics captain that was all he would do at this point, Felix actually felt sad for him. Hearing his request for sparring against his lieutenant, Catro accepted, he realized that Lindo must have been left in the dust by now considering Felix''s growth rate and he called his lieutenant to spar with him. The lieutenant came immediately hearing his captain calling him, but he was a bit disgruntled after hearing that he was supposed to spar with Felix, even though Felix was rather known for his exploits and potential, the man didn''t think that he reached the lieutenant level already. However, he couldn''t disobey an order from Catro so they walked outside and then to the nearby training ground of Catro''s division so they could spar properly without being disturbed. Catro''s lieutenant wasn''t necessarily old he was maybe 6 to 7 years older than Lindo but it was obvious that he was quite stronger when compared to the lion youth, the man took a military stance before he waved his hand at Felix indicating that he could attack first. Felix decided to accept his courtesy as he started to breathe in and out, the lieutenant frowned as he felt his hairs stand on end, Felix rested a bit in between eating and walking in the capital and now he could unleash his third technique from the cat ancestors! Chapter 43: The cat ancestors fighting styles The fighting style of the cat ancestors was pretty straightforward, using the surrounding hex energy by using a certain breathing technique you could enhance your body and fighting techniques by more than 300% at a time, you could also heavily increase your own Hex bloodline abilities by the same amount. However, due to this sudden increase in power, there could be a huge backlash on the user, this type of backlash would be remediated through the strengthening of the body and the cat ancestors had way sturdier bodies compared to the bodies of the current cats so they could use these techniques without having to train themselves properly. Body-wise they weren''t any different from the current lion tribe and Felix was slowly getting closer to their body''s potential due to his ability and his new breathing strengthening techniques. The ancient cat tribesmen created these techniques to make for their weaknesses and improve their strengths, thus the Combat Breathing Techniques appeared among their population, they were the only race on the Tarot Continent which created combat techniques based on the breathing training techniques, that didn''t mean they were unique, just talented. Catro''s lieutenant could feel something was up the moment Felix took in a big breath, after he tried out the stealth enhancing and combat enhancing technique, it was time for him to use the ultimate techniques of the cat tribe, it was their strongest killing technique and one of the most taxing on the body. Felix''s breathing stopped for a second as his muscles started to cramp due to the intense amount of Hex energy that was currently going directly through his body, the moment his body moved for half-a-second, not even after-images were left behind in his previous place. He couldn''t control his body at all after he used his technique! Fortunately, due to his uncontrollable state, his aim was quite poor and he didn''t hit the lieutenant or he might have died on the spot, the lieutenant also dodged the attack at a hairs edge from it hitting him properly and only the shockwaves of the attack hit him, he also minimized the shockwaves by dampening them using his inner Hex technique. The man might not look like much but he was a veteran that was spared from being absorbed in the war, which meant his talents were above average. The man was scared out of his wits as he hastily got up from the ground and saw Felix lying a few meters away from him, his body was spasming and it was obvious he got a lot of muscle cramps and tears from the way his body acted. The man frowned as he approached him and said: "It seems all the things captain Catro said about you are true, your talent could be described to be even more monstrous seeing it in person." He grabbed Felix and frowned as he felt how heavy he was, he barely lifted him from the ground and slowly walked towards the infirmary of the buildings of the logistics personnel, there a doctor looked at him and gave him one of those red pills that he made him snort. Felix got up from the table he was on slowly as he looked around, he didn''t lose consciousness but his body just stopped after that attack, the lieutenant looked at him with expectant eyes as he said: "I hope you will be able to help the lion tribe enter greater heights sir Felix, I will have to go and report to my captain now, this spar was your win!" The man quickly left him alone and the doctor had to go and tend to some other patients. Felix left the infirmary and went back to the training ground, when he saw the damage done by his technique his eyes went a little bit wide, there was a hole 5 kilometers deep near the spot that he fought on. Felix got near the hole and looked into it, it really was 5 kilometers deep or maybe even more as he couldn''t calculate properly, actually he couldn''t calculate at all for him it looked to be just very big. Felix looked at his paws that were still shaking as the damage done by technique was nowhere near being healed and clenched them a bit... he realized that his strength was above a peak lieutenants by now, but that was only if he unleashed that technique at 100% of his power and stamina, after all, Catro''s lieutenant was both scared and unable to do anything to the attack. Felix left the training grounds as he limped back to the inn where he lived, he needed some rest to fix his damaged body before he would train more, he knew what his strength was at currently so now he would just focus on training and sparring to get more experience, he saw how the lieutenant acted when the attack almost hit him and realized that he didn''t know all the trades of fighting. After all, he was an assassin who didn''t have to go head to head in fights. But now that his body was constantly getting stronger if he failed to assassinate a target, he wouldn''t have to run away! Felix smiled as he went to sleep after he ate a hearty meal from the owner of the inn who was also the cook. He woke up back into his mindscape, he looked around, and continued to laze around on the train station''s roof while he thought about other things, now that all of his mind-space was full of memories how could he further improve his soul? This leads him to the fact that he should have used his questions on God to get a soul training technique instead... He guessed that was the reason God made a fool of him back then, he could have asked for anything he wanted, information-wise, but he chose to ask for such useless things... It shouldn''t matter anymore at this point, he was in a new world with new laws and he had to adapt to them, he shouldn''t care about his past anymore. Felix realized these things and this made him go into more thoughts as his intelligence improved slowly through self retrospection, however, emotions were still a foreign concept to him, his EQ could be considered rather low even though he could empathize with someone in some regards. Felix woke up and found his body to be a little bit better than before, and that he could technically start training again even though it would put a small strain on his still-healing body, however, he liked these pills that he snorted, they were really effective at healing his wounds, he needed to find where he could buy some. Felix decided to continue training until he was fully healed before he would go to the mission quarters so he could take on a new mission, he also remembered that he should have some extra money to cash in for his efforts in the war. Felix didn''t leave the inn again as he started to breathe in and out using the stamina training technique, his heart and lungs were constantly refined by the Hex energy in the air and they were getting tougher and their capacity increased accordingly. It took him around 10 days for his body to be fully healed and he also made some improvements at his second stage of strengthening, in around 20 or 30 more days he would break through the 3rd stage. Felix left the inn and went to the mission quarters to get his extra money and the lady behind the desk there gave him a big bag full of golden bones, then Felix asked her about the pill: "Hmm... those pills are tactical resources of the tribe and they are very expensive, they could be considered treasures of the tribe and only very high-ranked members of the military are allowed to buy them, or those with special rights. But considering the shaman indicated that I should allow you to buy them and even give you a 50% discount, how many do you want?" Felix took out all of his money from his special bag that he always kept tied to his back and gave it to the clerk for her to count: "Hm... in total with the money that I gave you, you have around 150,000 golden bones, one pill is around 5,000 golden bones so how many you want to buy, in total you can buy around 60 with the discount." Felix didn''t want to use all of his money on these pills so he bought 59, the inn was cheap and he realized that he got a discount there as well, it seemed the shaman was looking out for him and also giving him special privileges due to his identity as someone chosen by God. Felix didn''t mind the privileges, they could be helpful. Felix took the container that had 59 pills from the lady and the rest of his money before he deposited them into his bag and left the mission quarters, he wanted to first finish his 3rd stage of stamina training before he went on another mission, he took a glance at the available missions before he exited the building, they were all red or orange-colored meaning that they were very hard. Most of the missions entailed launching attacks at the headquarters of the black bear tribe, the brown bear tribe, the eagle tribe, the hawk tribe, and the elephant tribe, there were also a lot of other tribes that were mentioned but Felix didn''t read the rest. Felix still unconsciously held a grudge against the black bear tribe so he decided to go against them after he finished his training. Felix felt that the surrounding temperature was pretty good for him so he decided to train outside this time, he trained outside the inn as he kept his eyes closed and breathed in and out. His heart contracted and pumped blood at high speeds towards his whole body while his lungs slowly but surely increased their capacity to hold more air and Hex energy. His whole body was changing at a microscopic level every time he took in a breath and it adapted more to the surrounding laws that governed the place he was in. As time slowly passed one month went by during which Felix didn''t do anything besides focusing on training his body and sometimes trying to train his mind, but considering he had no true method to improve his soul all he could do was self-retrospect to improve his intelligence bit by bit, and also go to the library of the capital and learn some new things from there. Today Felix finally reached the 3rd stage of refinement on his heart and lungs as another batch of Hex runes appeared on them slowly making a full circle around them, when his whole heart and lungs would be covered by white hex runes that meant he reached the 9th stage and he could break through to the next aura stage if he wanted to. Felix directly went towards the mission quarters as he talked with the woman there and took the mission to the black beard tribe which remained in the same difficulty range meaning that there wasn''t much progress with it. Felix''s eyes hardened unconsciously as he started traveling towards the cave of the black bears, it wasn''t because he wanted to take revenge for Sahee, but most likely because his body yearned for more black bear meat, while a small part of his mind yearned for revenge, most of him just wanted to eat more meat, the concentration of Hex energy into it made him very satisfied the last time! Chapter 44: Massacring for harvest The journey towards the black bear''s cave didn''t take as much as it did previously when he escorted the tigers back to their new settlement, one because he didn''t have to lower his speed to match the hungry tigers, two because of his newly improved stamina and relatively stronger physique, and three because he was excited to get more black bear meat to improve his strength and endurance. Also with wars he would be able to increase his lives count, he was still stuck at 5 as he didn''t know many souls he needed to absorb to gain more lives, maybe he would be able to talk with god next time, right now there should be around 5 or so month left before the intercontinental battle would start. Felix''s speed reached immense amounts as he traveled through forests, plains, and other locations to reach the dead woods that were the home of the black bear''s tribe cave, there he met with some lions and stronger cats from the lion tribe, they were all crouching around the trees as they were concentrating on looking at the open cave ahead of them, they were all tense seemingly waiting for something. The moment Felix appeared, the leader of the group almost ran and attacked him, but the moment he saw it was an ally he went back and assigned someone to talk with Felix. A female cat made her way towards Felix and briefed him about the current situation, it seemed that the black bear tribe opened the cave a long while after their first loss in a head-on confrontation, the fights were close as they couldn''t send too many people to the black bear tribe due to the simultaneous rioting of the other tribes, even the relatively peaceful tribes like the Elephant tribe started to riot the moment they got the news of the lion''s shaman successful scheme. It seemed they all felt threatened by what happened and realized that they would be the next ones that would be attacked sooner or later, so they started by counterattacking first! Felix looked at the open cave and asked: "Any strange thing happened since the cave opened? The woman shook her head as she looked at Felix''s average-sized body, she knew who Felix was but she didn''t find him to be special, even though his chosen by god status hadn''t been revealed yet, he could be considered a lieutenant level figure by now, she was actually quite happy that they got such strong reinforcements, they already lost a few comrades due to the intense fighting spirit of the bears, even though it was winter by now, the warriors who didn''t have to hibernate were still going on strong! They also couldn''t enter the cave or they risked to be trapped in there so all they could do was wait and fight it out with the bears that couldn''t resist staying in the cave anymore, after all, black bears were bears with bad temperament even among the other bear tribes, the brown bears could be considered a little bit tamer while the white bears were considered to be the coolest ones in most situations, both mentally and with their actions. Felix knew the layout of the early parts of the cave but he didn''t know how to control the cave entrance, how could he stop the giant boulder from smashing the entrance closed? Felix couldn''t actually see any boulder at the entrance of the cave so where would it come from when they activated the mechanism? He asked the woman in front of him as she was outside when they opened and closed the cave: "The location of the boulder that blocked the entrance of the cave? Hmmm... I think it goes above the cave''s entrance but as you can see the mountain the cave is in could be considered quite tall, we don''t have any flying units with us so we can''t reach the top of the mountain where the boulder is located, and even if we did what could we do?" "I''m not really sure how their mechanism works but I''m sure that it has two states, one is when the cave is closed and the boulder is in front, and the other is when the boulder is up there, if there are people up there who get notified when they should lower the boulder or not, it would be a good plan to go there and kill them, but if they control the boulder from the inside we could lose men and time this way..." Felix listened to her explanation before he disappeared as he was already starting to climb the mountain, his speed was so big that he could now run along the walls of the mountain from time to time while climbing, the mountain was rather tall but in twenty minutes Felix was already half-way to the top. The woman and the other''s eyes widened as they watched Felix escalate the mountain as if it was normal ground. While Felix''s claws weren''t supposed to reach deep into the mountain his stamina training helped him inhale small bursts of Hex energy to strengthen his body when he needed to, so every time his claws entered the mountain they would be strengthened by Hex energy so they wouldn''t get damaged, this would also help him in fights quite a little. Felix finally reached the top as he looked around and spotted the boulder not far away from where he climbed, he tried to spot anyone that could be controlling the boulder and making it appear at the bottom of the mountain but unfortunately found no one up here. He frowned, that meant the second option was the real one, meaning that the controls were inside the cave, he looked up at the gigantic boulder and remembered the big hole that he created back at Catro''s training spot when he fought the lieutenant and then hardened his gaze as he started to breathe in and out. Some vapor started to come out of his nostrils as his breathing heated up due to the high amount of Hex energy that was currently cruising in his body, his muscles started to clench in anticipation as he ran towards the boulder and a thunderous crack could be heard as he pushed the boulder down from the mountain! The boulder fell to the bottom of the mountain like a high-speed projectile and left a deep hole near the cave''s entrance, the ground was very hard but the boulder was harder and so it didn''t break, but the connection between it and whatever it was controlling it to appear at the bottom of the mountain broke! The lion tribe''s men and women were gawking seeing the big hole that the boulder made and then they saw Felix scaling down from the mountain and appearing in front of them while saying: "There shouldn''t be problems charging into the cave now right?" The leader nodded quickly as he gave the order: "Charge! They should be resting now, even though they should have gotten spooked by the sound of the boulder crashing into the ground they should be confused!" The mountain was quite long and it went down into the ground as the cave became underground, as Felix walked further inside he helped the others kill the bear warriors and ate the meat of those he slew along the way, his body started to sway around as his size increased with the number of kills he did. Felix didn''t attack the sleeping civilians but the warriors from the tribe weren''t as merciful as him, they killed all of them who resisted, and then the ones that woke up and gave themselves to the tribe were spared. Felix didn''t find the meat of those weak civilians appeasing at all, the concentration of Hex energy in it was very low thus it didn''t trigger his appetite at all. As death was unfolding around Felix constantly another head appeared up in the corner of his vision making him have around 6 heads now. But there were no more warriors alive after the head remained and Felix''s body already turned to become quite plump from the amount of meat he ate up till now, he became rather chonky as he grew to half the size he was when Lindo was rolling him around the road like a big barrel. The warrior team didn''t have many casualties as Felix was at the vanguard killing everyone regardless if he used the stealth technique or not, the strongest person of the early caves was already dead and there hadn''t been any reinforcements coming from the lower caves, Felix wondered why would that happen? Something strange was brewing on here, Felix could feel it, the stronger tribesmen that went further down inside the earth should know that their brethren were dying or getting capture but there were no reactions. As Felix appeared at the end of the cave he realized that there was no boulder blocking the entrance further inside the cave, but a door! The door was inscribed with Hex runes that glowed with deep silver energy and Felix couldn''t understand a thing about them, he tried to slash the cave only for the energy that was covering the door to shoot at him and throw him away like he was a piece of paper in front of the wind, his heavy stature, and his big body was thrown just like that showcasing that the defensive ability of the door was something that Felix couldn''t contend against with his current strength. This meant that whoever was behind that door was certainly rather strong, Felix didn''t use as much stamina as before when he threw the boulder from the mountain but he was still a little bit tired even though he ate a lot of meat. He didn''t want to go in there with the current team that he had, even though there weren''t many casualties some of them still existed and this showed that the ones who were delegated to this mission weren''t relatively strong, from what Felix saw they were rather young but not inexperienced, however, their bodies still needed tempering. He needed reinforcements if he wanted to go further down the cave, he felt a little bit sated right now so he wasn''t in a hurry as he went outside the cave and took out his communication stone from his special bag while reporting: "Felix here, the first layer of the black bear cave was cleared and quite a few civilians were captured, I have found a door leading deeper in the cave but it''s protected by a strange force field and the door is also inscribed with unknown runes, I request reinforcements!" A deep voice came from the other side of the communication stone, surprisingly it was the shaman who responded! "Good job Felix, you have taken care of the easier part, wait there as some strong reinforcements will be coming, I have got an oracle from the ancestors and they say that the bear tribe is currently doing something that would impede the future intercontinental battle as for the black bear civilians you can get rid of them, they are talentless and not even good as slaves!" Unlike the tigers who had sturdy bodies and better potentials even at an old age, the civilians of the black bear tribe could be considered to have less worth in the eyes of the shaman, Felix gave the orders to the team and they immediately started to decapitate the civilians in batches. A river of blood started to flow in front of the mountain as Felix looked at the headless bodies of the black bear tribe, there were old men and women along with injured or crippled ones here and there. The children were now forcefully put through a talent test and those that didn''t pass it would be decapitated as well. Felix didn''t feel much from watching everything unfold in front of his eyes, it was like he was emotionless as the Hex energy was cruising through his body and improving certain aspects of it, he just doesn''t seem to care, even though he didn''t attack the civilians on his own accord as he felt pity for them at the time when they got killed he didn''t feel anything for them. Actually, he didn''t know it but he didn''t feel pity for them, his body just felt that they were useless to it so his brain sent out some signals that made it look like it was him pitying them. Felix shook his head as he sat at the front of the cave and watched as the blood river started to run south... he felt very strange that the stronger people from deeper in the cave were doing nothing to prevent this... unless they actually needed the deaths of their clansmen to achieve something similar to what the lion shaman had done. Felix''s eyes widened as he shouted: "GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THE MOUNTAIN!" He could feel the ground shake as he ran away at his quickest speed while ignoring everything else, even his new teammates, after all, he had warned them. Chapter 45: A bloody harvest for the purpose of defense Felix slowly got nauseous as a strident sound appeared from the inner depths of the earth. Even though he was getting farther from the mountain that housed the cave of the bears the sound was still easily traveling towards his brain and attacking it multiple times at a high speed. He didn''t know where the sound came from besides that it came from the earth, but it was slowly getting on his nerves as he couldn''t concentrate very well, he looked behind and saw the lion''s team falling to their knees as blood dripped from their ears. The situation already looked pretty bad and things were starting to get worse as a few shadows appeared from inside the cave and started to kill the downed lions! Felix could still move relatively well but seeing that the shadows immediately started to converge towards him at high speeds, they were the black bear warriors from below the door. Each one of them was as strong as the strongest warrior that Felix had to kill along with Lindo and their numbers were in the tens. They were around 35 of them. Felix tried to use his stealth technique to disappear from their vision and run away but the strident sound from before intensified and attacked his brain even harder now! Felix almost staggered and fell to the ground as he was surrounded by those 35 black bears, they were all licking their lips in anticipation as they glanced at each other before returning their eyes to Felix''s body which was shaking due to the internal damage. Felix frowned as he felt that his brain wasn''t the only thing that got affected, as he trained his soul he could perceive it''s existence and he felt that the sound was also shaking his soul but it didn''t do much damage, it just made him unable to use the stealth technique and broke his balance. Unlike the dead lions, his soul was strong enough to resist the innate damage the sound was making but not strong enough for it to have no effects on him. Felix frowned as he started breathing in and out to activate the stealth enhancing technique finally making him disappear from their vision. The bears frowned as they looked around, the cat could use his stealth technique even when his soul was effected? The bears know that the weakness of the cat tribe was their reliance on stealth, so their shaman created an attack that would disrupt their souls and damage them at the same time if their souls were weak enough, this way they wouldn''t be able to use their stealth technique and they would become fishes on a chopping board for the bears! The bears were surprised by Felix''s ability to still use stealth in this situation but they immediately tightened the encirclement while making sure Felix wouldn''t jump above them by using their auras to lock the space above them tight. The hex energy in the air was slowly turning red due to the murderous auras of the bears. Suddenly one of the bear''s heads flew into the air as he died instantly! Unlike before Felix''s improvement was major, his body was currently getting strengthened in both endurance and strength aspects due to him eating so many black bears so he wasn''t scared that much of them, he just found them to be troublesome and he would rather fight them with someone who had his back instead of alone, he was just cautious as he didn''t know who else would come from the cave. He could kill them but it would take a while and in that while who knew what would happen? Felix needed to break the encirclement and run away before things got complicated as his figure started to flicker in and out of existence, the moment one bear made a move his windpipe would be slashed and a big chunk of his meat would disappear as Felix would take a big mouthful out of him. 5 bears died this way and their formation broke making Felix able to run away, however, before he could do it a strange pressure enveloped his body and made him unable to run away! It was as if he hit an invisible boundary that didn''t let him get further away from the mountain, if he squinted in front of him he could see a transparent barrier of some kind that he hit his head-on. Felix frowned as he looked at the bears that were no encircling him again, it seemed they thought that they could still kill him using superior numbers as they didn''t care about the death of their 5 comrades. Felix knew that he couldn''t continue like this, 2 minutes already passed and he could feel his lungs getting tired from the technique and at this point, he would exhaust all of his stamina! Down below the door that Felix stopped at, a lot of bears were chanting and beating drums as an especially tall bear who wore a skull over his head and was tattooed with red and purple designs of bird wings along his arms was keeping his hands overhead as he said: "I offer to the ancestors the blood of the weak so we can become strong, the blood of the weak bears shall ignite and led us on to defend against the invaders that want to take over our ancestral land and enslave us, kill the weak strengthen the strong!" The crowd that beat the drums started to shout along with the shaman: "KILL THE WEAK, STRENGTHEN THE STRONG! KILL THE WEAK, STRENGTHEN THE STRONG!" The shaman then started doing a strange dance as he took a big totem from the ground below him and smashed it in the ground below him, then he ignited a fire on his palms and put them on the totem burning it to cinders! The blood river above the ground started to boil as the headless bodies of the dead black bear civilians started to sizzle and pop just like popcorn in a microwave. Down below the shaman was crushing skulls of different creatures as he threw them into the fire to fuel it. Above the ground, the bodies transformed into skin puddles that were absorbed into the blood river that started to heat up, blood mist started to slowly go up into the skies as a phenomenon similar to when the lion shaman sacrificed the people to regain his youth appeared! Felix frowned as he felt the sky open in front of him and saw some strange silhouettes inhaling the red vapor that was appearing from the blood river being slowly burned. What could the black bears ask from their ancestors? Felix frowned as he looked at the remaining 15 black bears in front of him, he could see the bodies of the dead ones starting to sizzle and pop just like the ones of the civilians and he frowned, so much meat was going to waste! He didn''t have time to eat them as he had to defend and fight the other ten at the same time but as their numbers decreased the pressure that was on him slowly lifted and he could now eat defend and attack at the same time, as they died the soul technique that they employed also started to weaken. Felix didn''t need to use his stealth enhancing breath technique anymore as he easily flickered through existence around his alive enemies while taking bites out of the downed ones. Felix''s chubby cheeks twitched as he swallowed one rather big piece of meat and looked at the last remaining black bear in front of him fall to the ground while holding his neck. He frowned as he felt his stomach hurt, did he eat too much? This never happened before. He looked down at his paws as the world around him started to shake and darken, what happened to him? Felix fell to the ground along with the bodies of the other dead bears who were sizzling and popping out of existence right now as they transformed into a blood mist that was absorbed by the silhouettes in the sky. The bear shaman looked above the ground seemingly seeing Felix''s figure and said: "It seems that cat got what he deserved, the poison finally got into his bloodstream!" It seemed that the shaman poisoned his own men and sent them to be slaughtered so Felix could eat them and die due to the poisoning! Felix''s body started to move around as he felt pain gripping his heart, while he wasn''t conscious anymore his body was acting instinctively, his plump paws were slowly grasping his chest where his heart was supposed to be, the poison reached his heart already! The poison was rather strong and hidden inside the bodies of the black bears, after Felix took a bite that contained the poison once it activated slowly as it seeped into his body and reached his bloodstream immediately taking effect! Felix''s body vomited a mouthful of green blood that started to sizzle on the ground leaving a small hole, the blood river was also slowly getting closer to him ready to engulf him along with the remaining patches of skin left behind from the dead black bear warriors. Felix''s heart stopped but before he fell unconscious he saw a 7th head appearing in the corner of his vision! The blood river engulfed him as soon as his heart stopped and the location of his revival had been swapped. Felix popped in existence near his old body inside the blood river as he quickly went towards his old body and took off the uniform and bag and tied them to his new body, he could feel that there were no changes to his stamina training and he could actually feel that all of his exhaustion disappeared and he was back into his prime form! All the improvements towards his body weren''t reset! Felix didn''t know what kind of trickery that God played on the universe for him to be able to do this but he felt strangely grateful for him at this moment, even though his mind was scared by the images he saw every time he died the ability was rather convenient, it was a decent trade-off but Felix would like to not use it if it was possible, he was still shivering inside from the images of what he saw, next time he would surely have to ask the God about what was all that about. Felix''s body disappeared from the blood river as he used his stealth and jumped out of it. He looked around to see no one left alive, the entrance to the black bear''s cave was still open but the hole from the boulder was seemingly filled with dirt now... The blood river was slowly thinning as the mist from it was quickly absorbed by the silhouette in the sky. After more time passed the blood river disappeared as the silhouette absorbed it all. The silhouette then looked at the mountain that housed the bears and took something out of his body, it looked like a spear as he grasped it properly with his hand he threw it down from the skies! A black spear made from unknown metal flew from the sky directly to the entrance of the black bear tribe''s cave, it stopped on the spot where the hole Felix made was supposed to be and remained in the earth there. Felix looked towards the spear and realized that their sacrifice gave them this spear, was it a strong weapon? Felix decided to see for himself, he was rather close to the entrance anyway and it would help the efforts of the lion tribe if he stole the weapon that the enemy got by sacrificing so many of their civilians! He suppressed his fear from seeing those images of death again and then his body disappeared as he used his stealth enhancing technique and quickly approached the spear! Chapter 46: Reinforcements Felix could feel the spear approaching him instead of him approaching it, it was really strange but the spear had a magnetic quality to it that he couldn''t really understand. Because there were no bears there to stop him he easily got to it and touched it with his paws but the moment his paws touched it properly he could feel a current of energy entering his body and almost making it explode! Felix instinctively started to breathe in and out to expend the energy before it made his body explode and kept the spear clutched into his paw as he ran away with it, he used his whole strength to use the very heavy spear to break through the invisible barrier and kept running away while his body was enhanced by his breathing technique and the energy coming from the spear! Felix''s body was hurting all over from that but he could hear a shout that chilled him to the bone coming from below: "THE SACRED SPEAR SHALL NOT BE TOUCHED BY OUTSIDERS!" The shout itself wasn''t that scary but the burst of aura that came with it made Felix remember the lion shamans fight with the tiger shaman, the person who shouted should be the black bear shaman! Felix could feel his hair being electrified as he was targeted by the bear shaman himself! His body was starting to get heavy but the spear seemingly had infinite energy in it that he could absorb! Felix frowned because his body couldn''t take the extensive use of the breathing technique even though he now had an energy battery that he could use, while his body became stronger extensive use of the technique was tearing through his body rather fast! The extended use of the technique was just like a knife tearing through his organs and the pain was something that he could barely withstand, if he didn''t have to run for his life he would have flopped to the ground and started to roll. Felix was getting out of the ''forest'' when he suddenly felt something approaching him at speeds that he couldn''t understand! The thing snatched the spear from his tightly clenched paw, taking his paw with the spear. Felix cried out as blood started to spurt out of his stump and he fell to the ground due to his momentum being broken, the paw injury also amplified his internal pain and made him unable to keep the breathing technique up anymore. Felix could feel his lungs being on fire while his heart was beating so fast it almost leaped out through his neck. The person that appeared had a skull on his head and tribal tattoos on his body, he glanced down at Felix after he admired the spear for a short time before his eyes widened and he said: "Shouldn''t have you been poisoned to death?" "Hmm, could your body be resistant to poison? Ancient cats did have this talent, you must be pretty talented then." The black bear shaman pointed his spear towards Felix''s neck as he wanted to thrust it down and end him immediately, his enemies having talented personnel wasn''t something he wanted to see! Felix could feel time slow down around him as the spear was going towards his neck ready to sever it any time! Felix moved his head to the side barely dodging the spear at the last second which made the bear shaman make a sound: "Huh? Killing intent detection? It seems you truly are talented seeming that you learned that at your age." "However that technique is futile against someone that''s way stronger than you." To make his point the bear shaman threw his spear again and at this point, there was no way Felix could dodge it as the shaman put way more strength in it than before. Felix closed his eyes as he accepted his death, he would revive and he would be able to use the breathing technique again and at that point, there was a chance of escape, he prepared himself for those horrific visions again before he could hear a clanging sound in front of him. He could feel a strong and wet hand, pick him up from the ground, he looked up only to see Landers'' visage, his crimson armor was dented at the bracers as he took the spear hit and there was blood dripping from the palm that grabbed him along with blood coming from his nose and mouth. Landers smiled at him as he said: "It seems I came just at the right time, and I''m not the only one here!" Lindo appeared nearby as he breathed in and out, Catro looked around warily as he scanned the bear shaman, suddenly everything turned quiet and even the bear shaman''s eyes narrowed as he looked in the distance feeling an aura compared to his approaching at high speeds! The lion shaman materialized on the battlefield as he nodded at Landers then looked in the bear shaman''s eyes: "So this is what you used your sacrifices for? Quite pitiful in my opinion, but I guess a youngin like you doesn''t need to extend his life at this point." The bear shaman chuckled as he took the skull from his head and crushed it under his strong hands as he transformed into his human form and took a stance with the spear: "It seems you couldn''t stop yourself anymore you old bag of bones." The lion shaman didn''t take offense as he laughed: "This old bag of bones isn''t that old anymore." Suddenly an electrifying aura engulfed the lion shaman as his power started to increase his aura reaching heights that were way above the current aura of the black bear shaman. His aura''s color was purple but its density wasn''t that big nor small, which meant he was around the middle stages of refining. The bear shaman frowned as he started to flex his aura as well, his was also purple but the density was very weak and it was almost blue colored which meant he didn''t break through properly with his aura. The middle-aged lion laughed as his form started to expand along with his muscles but not by too much, a bloodthirsty grin appearing on his face at the same time as he looked at the spear in the bear shaman''s hands, it would be rather useful to his plans! Seeing the lion shaman eyeing his new treasure made the bear shaman chuckled as he said: "You want the ancestor''s spear? You can have it!" The bear shaman threw the spear towards the lion shaman who easily grasped it and frowned, what happened here? But the moment he grasped the spear he could feel intense toxic energy invading his body through it so he dropped it to the ground, he frowned as he felt that some toxic energy was inside his body and he needed to purge it if he didn''t want it to enter his bloodstream if it did then it would be troublesome, the lion shaman couldn''t help catching the spear, it wasn''t even intentional, it was instinctual. Suddenly the spear flew back to the bear shaman''s hands as he tapped the ground 3 times with it, a gigantic army started to run out from the mouth of the cave numbering in the tens of thousands, all of them in their bear form. The lion shaman''s eyes narrowed as he clapped his hands and a hidden army in the same amounts as the black bear army appeared. The bear shaman launched himself directly at the lion shaman without saying anything else as his aura started to strengthen, the lion shaman''s aura wasn''t at its peak due to his diverge attention as he needed to purge the toxic energy in his body. Felix could feel his head spin as his exhaustion and energies finally settled in, Landers helped him by giving him a few pills which stopped the bleeding of his paw and restored some of his internal injuries but he would need rest to fix everything at this point. Landers knew that Felix couldn''t fight anymore so he threw him to Lindo who barely caught him, Lindo''s muscles were twitching as Felix''s weight increased again but he successfully caught him and put him on his shoulder as he kept a distance from the starting fight. Landers''s eyes hardened as he looked at the new starting war, if they got rid of the black bear tribe the other tribes will be easier to catch as the shaman would be able to give more ancestral offerings that would strengthen himself and the tribe at the same time! Generals started to pop out from both of the forces, the shaman''s son looked healed and way stronger compared to when they fought with the tigers, the generals of the black bear army wore heavy red armors inscribed with the insignia of the tribe and big iron hats on their heads, they were imposing physically but their get-up didn''t really mix well with their appearance. However, the lion generals frowned seeing the enemy''s armors, while they didn''t look that good their armors were full of defensive abilities and enhancements! They were all made from forged Dark Hex ore! The shaman''s son frowned as he muttered: "It seems this is where the tigers got their supply of Dark Hex ore... they were trading with the black bears." It made sense considering one of the reasons the shaman wanted to kill the tigers was also for the location of the Dark Hex ore which he never got, in the end, they just now found out that it came from the black bears! But it made sense if you thought about it a little more, the black bears and the tigers were basically neighbors since both were strong tribes with similar reasoning, of course, they would work together, but it seemed the black bears didn''t care to help with some reinforcements when the tigers challenged the lions and now it came back to bite them in the ass. Felix couldn''t do much besides keeping his head down at this point, he could kill himself to recover from all his injuries but he would rather not do that, he was already traumatized enough and he didn''t think he could handle seeing those images one more time today... Chapter 47: Two shamans fight Felix could see the tense air around the shamans, Catro and Landers were also pretty grim as they watched the black bear army, the generals of the lion tribe couldn''t say anything as they kept their guard up against any attacks from the bear generals who wore armor made from Dark Hex Iron. The lion shaman''s body was shaking due to the poison and the bear shaman immediately attacked using his spear trying to take advantage of the moment the poison was going strong! Felix looked on and knew that something was wrong, such a smart person like the lion shaman wouldn''t have let himself be poisoned like that, right? The lion shaman smiled as his aura started to strengthen suddenly, he grabbed the spear with his hand and the poison that was running along it started to burn as lightning engulfed it. Lightning started to appear along the shaman''s body as the lightning bolt scar that he got on his forehead started to glow with a deep yellow color. Siracha Enoch, the lion shaman was a man with a lot of experience, even though he grabbed the spear and let the poison enter his system that was only because he wanted to let the bear shaman let his guard down so he could use this new technique of his! Lightning Hex energy was running wild in the air as Siracha activated his technique, Felix could feel the power running through the air even though he was quite far away from the battlefield. Lindo even muttered: "Our shaman''s technique is so strong!" Felix looked up at Lindo, you stated quite the obvious. The bear shaman got flustered as he saw Siracha using such an advanced technique, while he was capable of something similar his technique wasn''t as strong nor as mastered as the lion shamans. A lightning infused fist attack found itself towards the bear shamans solar plexus as he couldn''t hold on to the spear anymore after that attack it clattered to the ground. It was obvious how strong the punch was from the bear shaman''s pained expression and the fact that he dropped his ancestral weapon to the ground without even trying to get near it anymore. Siracha picked up the spear and looked at it up and down, suddenly he threw it at extreme speeds as it was infused with lightning skewering the bear shaman''s shoulder while pushing him 10 meters backward! While the shaman fight was going well it couldn''t be said the same with the normal army. While the generals were equal in destructive power the black bear generals had armor that helped them endure better so it became a fight of attrition. Felix could feel that things weren''t going well for the lion army, while on the surface it looked like a fight between equal powers if it wasn''t for Landers who held on 5 captains on his own things would have been tricky, it couldn''t be helped, the lion tribe was currently fighting on multiple fronts while also mostly having recruits because most of its fodder was used to the ancestral sacrifice. Felix knew that he could be useful on the battlefield with his stealth abilities but he couldn''t move anymore let''s not even talk about fighting, he also didn''t know many people here and even though he knew he could be useful here, he decided to sit still and wait for the shaman to finish his fight then interfere, he already did his best in this situation. Siracha cracked his knuckles as he looked at the bear shaman''s shaking form, the bear shaman cracked his shoulder back into place as he placed his hand on it, a dark green energy seeped into his wound healing it quickly. The bear shaman cracked his neck as he took back the spear that was inserted in the ground behind him and took a stance as his aura intensified again, his eyes turned red as he glared at Siracha and said: "It seems I will have to use 120% of my strength." Siracha laughed as he shook his head and put up two fingers, this gesture puzzled the bear shaman and he couldn''t help but ask: "2 what?" Siracha looked into the bear shaman''s red eyes as he said: "I was using only 20% of my strength." The lightning current around him turned red as his aura intensified again: "Now I''m using 30%, see if you can withstand this power." The bear shaman blinked and then one of his arms was severed, the spear fell to the ground again and he shouted as he held his stump while falling to his knees due to the pain: "AHHHHHHHH!" Siracha shook his head as he looked down at the fallen bear shaman and pointed at his forehead: "It seems you couldn''t handle 30%, what a pity." The bear shaman could feel his life flashing in front of his eyes as his soul left his body and his brain splattered on the earth behind him, his body exploded into a shower of gore afterward as the lightning from the attack entered inside and transformed it into a bomb. Felix could feel a strange energy in the air that was calling to him, it was the soul of the bear shaman! Felix looked around but he couldn''t actually see it, but he could sense it, suddenly he felt a pain in his forehead as the lives in the corner of his vision jumped to 8 in number then reached 9 in one fell swoop! His head started to hurt as he felt the voice of the bear shaman attacking his soul! "Hmmm? This isn''t the ancestor''s place, the small cat took my soul?" Suddenly Siracha appeared near Felix as he placed his hand on his forehead, he inserted a part of his soul into Felix''s soul space annihilating the intelligence from the black bear shaman''s soul but the impact from the small battle severed the connection between Felix''s body and soul! Felix''s body had no pulse and it was getting cold fast, Lindo''s eyes widened as he looked at the lion shaman and said: "Wh... why?" The lion shaman shook his head as he could feel life returning to Felix''s cold body, his ability was rather handy... Felix''s stump regrew as his body reattached to his soul all of his injuries disappeared as his stamina returned to the peak and one of his new lives disappeared returning the headcount to 8. Felix could feel that while the black bear shaman''s soul was bereft of intelligence it was still not under his control, it was currently rampaging randomly inside his mind space and doing god knows what, but it seemed it didn''t influence him nor did it hurt his soul. Siracha smiled as he patted the awakened Felix which scared Lindo even further, he looked down in his arms to feel that Felix''s body had heat again and his pulse returned! He also saw that his severed paw was back! "Was this the power of someone chosen by God?" Lindo Thought. Felix got down from Lindo''s arms as he nodded at the lion shaman and asked: "What should I do now?" The lion shaman caressed his chin as he thought a little bit about it before saying: "The bear shaman''s pure strength is way above yours, you could use it as a whetstone to grind up your soul and sharpen it while you fight it, when you don''t have any more use for it absorb it into your soul, I''m not sure if you gained all of the benefits from absorbing a shaman entity yet but you should see it in the future." Felix looked towards the battlefield as his eyes shined, if he fought there directly he might be able to get his lives back to 9. He was getting used to the death feeling so he could endure it if it happened again, that meant some doors opened to his fighting style if he could kill his opponent while using one of his lives it would be worth it! Felix''s body disappeared as he started a rampage in the fodder''s battlefield easily slashing through the necks and body of the weaker black bears, while the generals all had Dark Hex Iron armor that didn''t mean everyone got it, the armor was hard to manufacture and it would take a lot of refined Iron to create the armor. The stronger captains had one while all of the generals had it. All 5 captains who were attacking Landers each had their armor on, that was the reason they were able to tie him down and make him unable to help the others or kill even one of them up till now. Felix felt that he helped the fodder battlefield well enough as the blood dripped from his claws and seeped into the earth, he looked towards Landers''s direction, he knew that one well-applied strike from the battle breathing technique could break through the armor. Felix''s body disappeared again as a thunderous sound could be heard coming towards Landers''s direction. Landers could feel danger coming towards him but not towards his body, it was towards the enemy that was currently launching himself to his side! The bear captain''s eyes widened as he looked at his chest and saw a gaping hole appearing through his armor where his heart was supposed to be. He fell to the ground and breathed his last the next second. Felix didn''t appear until he was a few hundreds of meters away from the battlefield as he breathed in and out roughly, while the shaman''s soul didn''t do anything for his body''s strength, he could feel that he got an overall better control after his lives increased. The shaman shook his head as he looked at the battlefield of the generals and said: "I guess they lost already, we have to settle things down." The moment the shaman entered the generals'' battlefield everything was done for the black bears, they have lost! Chapter 48: Aftermath and cleanup Felix looked around and felt that things were done at this point, the Bear Generals immediately started to retreat the moment they saw Siracha attack with his lightning enhanced form, they couldn''t do anything to him! While generals could be considered the cream of the crop of the continent, the stronger shamans were in a league of their own! Siracha chuckled as he decapitated one bear general who was too slow to dodge his saber hand attack, he waved his hand down letting the blood fall to the ground, and shook his head, there were a few too many generals and he didn''t have time to follow them all. He unleashed 50% of his power as the lightning aura around him created a large domain that engulfed all of the bears that tried to run away and trapped them inside! The bear generals started to despair as their eyes turned scarlet and they tried to self-destruct! A hex energy warrior could explode if they concentrated all of the hex energy from their body into their heart, this way they would be able to take down their enemies along with themselves in a kamikaze attack! However, Siracha snorted as his lightning entered the bodies of the bear generals sealing up their ki and paralyzing them, the hex energy that was currently running through their veins froze up as their bodies did the same! Siracha moved his hand as a lightning saber appeared in it and he slashed through the air 6 times. 60 slashes appeared, for every slash that appeared, he actually slashed the air 10 times! Those slashes made their way towards the remaining bear generals decapitating or delimbing them! Siracha looked at the remaining dying bears and let them bleed to death as he deactivated his lightning domain, he slowly left the battlefield so the others could clean up. Felix looked as Siracha disappeared with a clap of thunder and felt that he needed to ask him some questions regarding souls, he felt that there was more to the soul of the black bear shaman that there was on the surface. Lindo looked at Felix''s new paw and didn''t know what to say, he wasn''t there with Catro and Landers when the shaman announced the fact that Felix was a god chosen but now he realized he was special due to what happened because he was sure that his body was dead in his hands, he could feel that there was no pulse nor breath, everything indicated that he died back then! Felix looked at Lindo and didn''t know what to tell him, the shaman didn''t say that the knowledge about his ability could be told yet so he kept his mouth sealed. Landers finally finished killing the other captains, after one of them died the others could only fall at the hands of someone whose strength was in between a captain and a general. The son of the shaman along with the other generals were scavenging the armors from the bodies of the dead bears as they would be useful in the future. Felix didn''t have anything else to do so he went on an eating spree! There were so many bodies around that most of the lion tribe wouldn''t care no matter how much Felix ate, seeing Felix''s actions Lindo decided to follow him! Landers shook his head seeing the duo''s actions, while eating the meat of your enemies would sometimes strengthen your body it wasn''t certain, and eating it raw was quite disgusting for him, Landers was someone who enjoyed the meat of his enemies seasoned and well-cooked. Felix''s medium-sized body which just finished digesting all of the former hex energy was now getting inflated like a balloon again! It got to the point that there were bodies and Felix couldn''t eat anymore, that was how full he was! He got from an average size of 1,30 meters to almost 2 meters in height alone! His weight reached almost 1 ton! Lindo looked at Felix''s ever-increasing body and also realized that Felix had a special body, compared to him who finished 2 bodies and couldn''t eat anymore, Felix ate at least 500! Felix started burping as he felt that he ate a little bit too much. Landers felt the situation to be quite comical, Felix''s body was so big and wide that he now could be used as the new boulder to seal the black bear''s cave entrance! Landers shook his head, he finished what he was supposed to do so the logistics had to search the battlefield for scavenging and tally up the wins and losses of this battle. Suddenly a voice appeared on the battlefield that took the attention of Felix, Lindo, and Landers: "Felix and Landers, come back as I have some things to talk to you about." It seemed the shaman realized that Felix wanted to talk with him but why would he ask for Landers''s presence as well? Felix started to walk/roll towards the exit of the battlefield as Landers followed him, Lindo looked to be left out as he watched the duo''s backs start to disappear at a quick speed, he muttered to himself: "Am I really getting left out like that? Well, I guess it''s normal, all I did was catch Felix in my hands this whole battle..." However, he still didn''t like that he was let out like this, was he supposed to help the logistic personnel? Lindo didn''t want to feel useless so he went towards a lieutenant from the logistics team and asked for some tasks, even though he couldn''t help in the current battle, he had to help in other ways! Felix''s rolling fat body was a comical sight for a sour heart, Lindo thought, even though Lander''s back was disappearing from his view, Felix''s could still be seen! Felix rolled at quick speeds towards the location that the shaman gave them, Landers was on his body and using his feet to redirection him, if he rolled by himself it wasn''t known where he would land. It didn''t take them much time to find Siracha as he was waiting for them in a clearing with a small stream running through it, it was a strange location considering they were in such a cold environment. Siracha looked at Felix and couldn''t help but laugh a little bit considering the cat''s current situation. He pointed towards Felix''s body and a lightning wisp immediately made it''s way inside! Felix''s giant body started to lower as the excess hex energy and meat inside him started to burn at quick speeds and travel through his vessels and pathways, his brain was quickly assimilating all of the Hex energy along with his other organs, he could feel himself grow stronger, faster and his stamina and endurance also got a huge spike, but he also felt that he couldn''t eat black bear meat anymore, it seemed he got whatever he could from the race as a whole, eating more would be useless as his body seemingly broke through a watershed and he was now firmly in a new realm! Landers watched everything with interest in his eyes, he didn''t know what kind of ability Felix had, while others could grow strong from eating the bodies of others there was a very low chance of that happening, numerically speaking it would be around 0.02% chance of happening. But Felix could strengthen his body with 100% success! Siracha coughed as he looked towards Landers and told him: "I have called you here because I have seen how you were struggling versus those 5 captains before, it was obvious that you would have been able to easily defend them if they didn''t have such a good armor but not everyone is as poor as our tribe." Regarding ores the lion tribe was poor because of the environment and location they lived in, they also couldn''t trade with the people who had the ores because they were hostile to them so they didn''t have any good weapons or armors, also the only people who traded with them had such expensive prices on armor and weapons that they could only buy the special bags that had an increased holding space. Siracha waved his hand and another lightning wisp escaped it while shooting itself at Landers''s head, it was a technique given as a gift for his loyalty. Landers''s eyes started shining as he bowed towards Siracha and said: "I shall do my best to further the interests of the tribe!" Siracha nodded and said: "Good good, now leave me and young Felix alone, we have some things that we have to talk about and they aren''t for anyone''s ears, do you understand?" Landers nodded and left in the blink of the eye. Siracha created a domain using his lightning technique, no one could hear or see anything from the inside while they could hear and see everything that was from the outside Siracha looked Felix up and down and said before Felix could answer: "I''m not sure about the abilities or experiences that you will gain when you will fully absorb the soul of the bear shaman, anyways I haven''t called you here about that, I would have told you the moment you first asked if I knew, even though I''m old I don''t know much about abilities from Gods." "Anyway back to the main topic at hand, with your help, we have curbed one of the most important rioting places, the other rioting tribes are slowly getting captured or exterminated and the only one remaining that is holding strong and we can''t break through their defense is the Elephant tribe!" "The elephant tribe is a bunch of pacifistic herbivores and I''m not sure why they brought such a hard stance forcing me to act, they have killed quite a lot of my men before we started the war." "At first I thought it was revenge for some things my tribesmen did to them a long time ago, I''m not shameless enough to say that we didn''t provoke them first but it was quite a long time ago and they also killed quite a few of our tribesmen at the time." "However, this time I''m not sure if they had been instigated by someone else or they are just taking revenge again, as you know Elephants got a great memory and they are quite vengeful so they might be just taking revenge again for back then." "But things are unlike back then, the intercontinental battle is coming soon and any unrest before it needs to be quelled, you would ask yourself why would I tell you everything right?" "I know you have just finished one big fight against the black bears but I need to be shameless enough to ask for your help again, I''m disappointed to say but in my troops, you are the only cat with a great stealth technique while being below the captain level." Felix cocked his head to the side as he asked: "Can''t you make Catro do it or someone else?" Siracha shook his head as he said: "Catro already has enough on his platter while the other cat captains have been assigned to quell other unrests, also your bodily strength still isn''t at the captain level even though you have improved quite a lot after you ate so many black bears, Elephants are very sensitive when it comes to the strength of the individual, be them invisible or not so if you are weaker there is a higher chance for you to escape their senses, you know those bigs ears of theirs aren''t there for show." Felix understood where Siracha was coming from, he didn''t have anyone else that he could rely on so all he could do was ask him, he wasn''t tired anymore and even though he wasn''t at the peak of his mental capability he could help again. Inside his mental space, he could feel that he had improved marginally after fighting such a hard life and death battle and he learned somethings as well that could improve his battle sense, he might even be able to learn killing intent masking if he continued like this! Felix nodded at Siracha as he agreed to help him in this situation as well. He saluted putting his paw near his head as he waited for Siracha to tell him the location of the Elephant tribe. Chapter 49: War after war Siracha liked Felix''s obedience, it would be troublesome to deal with the Elephants if he was refused but not impossible, however, with Felix on his side things will be way easier! Siracha took out a map from his clothes and handed it to Felix while saying: "The location of the Elephant tribe main village is marked on the map with an X, I hope you are going to do your best for the tribe, also take Lindo with you, he should be of help, after all, he has a lot of untapped potential in him that''s ready to burst out..." Felix didn''t know why Siracha wanted him to take Lindo with him, if he was honest Lindo''s power was quite useless in the current situation, Felix''s growth both in body and mind wasn''t something that Lindo could keep up with but considering Siracha believed in Lindo''s potential Felix wasn''t one to argue. Felix left Siracha alone so he could meet up with Lindo and inform him about what they would do next. Siracha looked at Felix''s receding figure and smiled as he muttered: "I hope you will make my grandson tap into his full potential with you as his rival..." Felix went back to the battlefield only to see Lindo carrying bodies around and escorting the captured bears away, sometimes he would be doing both at the same time which would incur the wrath of some of the angrier black bears. Felix waved his paw at Lindo which made him stop what he was doing and run towards Felix as he asked: "Did the shaman say anything about me?" Felix nodded as he told him that he was supposed to come with him to the Elephant tribe, Felix wasn''t sure what Lindo could do in this situation as he didn''t have any stealth techniques and he could be easily found, would he join the foot soldiers that were currently besieging the Elephant''s village? Felix stopped thinking as he and Lindo started to run towards the location of the Elephant Tribe, the location of the Elephant tribe could be considered quite far away from the black bear''s cave. Elephants liked places where there was lots of water and a hot climate, they lived in the depths of the savanna far away from the lion tribe, but no so far as they wouldn''t ever meet each other. Lindo started to chat with Felix as at their current speed it would take them a week to reach their location and he would be bored if they didn''t talk about anything along the way: "So did the shaman say anything else about me?" Felix cocked his head to the side before he said: "Well he told me that you have untapped potential and that you would be helpful to the operation, but I''m not so sure about that." Lindo puffed up at the mention of his untapped potential then deflated when he heard that Felix was doubting him so easily. Lindo felt quite hurt, he actually didn''t have many friends in the tribe due to his parentage, anyone who would approach him was because they knew of his heritage and he was the strongest youth in the tribe. Lindo never had a true friend until he met Felix and it quite hurt him hearing that Felix doubted him, how would someone feel when they would be doubted by their only friend? It would certainly feel like a thousand knives slashing at his heart right now. Seeing his hurt expression made Felix realize that he didn''t say something right so he told him: "Well I''m not sure about your potential but the Shaman looked quite sure and he has an eye for talent." This made Lindo feel better but he was still down in the dumps because even though he looked up to his grandfather he still felt a little bit closer to Felix, after all, his grandfather didn''t interact with him much or at all, he lived with his father and all his father did was train him day and day out if he was home, and if he wasn''t all he could do was train as well because his father left him ''homework''. It was quite a sad life for Lindo but Felix didn''t know about it so after he comforted him once he put his focus on the road in front of them, if they could rush themselves a bit they would be able to get to the Elephant tribe''s village faster! Seeing that Felix remained silent Lindo decided to keep his mouth shut as well, the silence became awkward as days passed and no one was talking, the only sound that could be heard was the wind brushing against their bodies due to the high speed they were running at and their hearts beating. They finally reached their destination and what they saw there made both of them frown at the same time, a lot of lion corpses, there were even some captain corpses here and there, the generals that were stationed here should have either been captured or escaped. Felix told Lindo to run away as he turned invisible! Lindo didn''t continue further as they were on the battlefield between the elephants and their village, if the elephants were wary they would have surely seen him and Felix by now but surprisingly no one came to attack them. Lindo muttered as he retreated: "They must have finished the battle recently so they are recovering.. but not even scouts remain?" There were no bodies of the Elephant tribesmen around which meant that they should have been dragged into the village where they would be buried, the Elephant tribe would always handle their dead with care, even more so than other tribes, the elephants could be considered one of the more intelligent tribes out there even though they weren''t good at technology or hex inscriptions. They were very emotional and empathetic to the point that they could connect to the emotions of their target and influence them, this was also one of the ways they sensed their surroundings, coupled with their especially good hearing and memory made them some strong opponents in a fight, however, if they were angered they could easily enter in a frenzy and become berserkers that wouldn''t differentiate friend from foe. Felix looked around as he started to run along the walls of the village, they weren''t that big, almost 4 meters tall and Felix had scaled a mountain before so in a few seconds, he was at the top of the walls. The gate to the village was closed so Felix couldn''t see what was happening inside but he could finally see after he scaled the walls. It was a funeral... A big elephant with golden tusks and a long green trunk was saying something, he wore nothing on his body as he was in his ancestral form, there were other elephants around him wearing black clothes who were keeping their heads down in their human forms. Even though the words of the elephant with golden tusks were soft and said very slowly Felix could feel them pierce in his head immediately! "And from dust to dust, my children we shall return to earth as she was the one that gave us birth, we are children of one being and even though we shouldn''t fight with each other these lions have provoked us again and again... all we can do is defend ourselves in this situation." "*Sigh* all we wanted to do was live peacefully until we became dust again, to live, grow old and die, but these warring tribes always get in our way of life, they always want more, they always want control of the continent, they even pinned the blame on us trying to say that we have killed their lions first in a way to justify their actions!" "They are horrid people, but even horrid people deserve to live, we aren''t gods we can''t judge who can live or who can die regardless of our strengths...." "But they think they are gods, they think we deserve death, and for this, we shall return the favor!" Felix could feel that all he said was the truth, the anger and pain in the golden-tusked elephant''s eyes were visible to him, Felix could see that everything he felt was genuine. But that wasn''t his job to care, even though Siracha lied to him telling him that the Elephants attacked first for revenge, it was his job as a soldier of the army to get things done, all of his people were dead on the battlefield and that meant he wouldn''t be able to do anything besides scout here so he stood on the wall and watched as the funeral continued. The elephants started to sing in a deep guttural voice: "Life to life, dust to dust, earth to earth." There were these words sang continuously, finally after ten minutes of singing the golden-tusked elephant transformed into his human form. He was a young man with gold teeth and shaggy white hair, his green trunk was what was differentiating him from every other elephant, well that and the other characteristics, it could be seen from a mile away that he was special in more than one way. Could he be the shaman of the tribe? no Felix didn''t feel the same pressure as he felt from Siracha neither the black bear shaman, he was someone of importance, that was for sure, but not the shaman of the elephant tribe. Then who was he? Felix felt some type of connection to him, something that also felt familiar in some way. The moment Felix felt the connection the eyes of the young elephant darted towards his direction, his eyes were both a deep blue like they were two gems and they were fixated on Felix''s own even though he was supposed to be invisible! Chapter 50: Gods chosen The moment Felix''s eyes met the elephant''s he could feel that his assumptions were true, he was a special entity, not as special as him but still special! He wasn''t sure if he was truly seen or not, he could see that the elephant''s eyes narrowed the moment he sensed him but he didn''t really know his location, just the general direction. The elephant left the funeral behind as the remains of the elephants were buried into the ground, he decided to take a stroll outside the village, seemingly as if he got bored of the stuffy situation he was in. Felix knew something wasn''t right, if he knew he was here why did he leave himself open like that? Was he that confident in his abilities or was he trying to get Felix to talk to him? Felix disappeared from the walls as he appeared 5 meters ahead of the elephant youth, the youth stopped walking as he looked at Felix and told him: "So we meet, invader..." Felix nodded at him, seeing that Felix didn''t say anything the elephant chuckled and said: "Not the talkative type? I guess it''s normal for an assassin type like you." Felix continued to keep mum, he wasn''t here to talk but to scout the situation, he already sent a message to the shaman about the current situation and that all of their troops were annihilated, he should come soon just like the way he came to annihilate the black bears. "I know you have sent a message for reinforcements, I don''t particularly care, as many as you come you will all be killed and buried here." He pointed to the battlefield behind them that was full of relatively fresh corpses and continued: "You will join them soon, God''s chosen or not, I will make sure to kill you enough times." Felix''s eyes narrowed as this person somehow knew about his revival ability, was this common knowledge that everyone could get from their god, or could all Gods chosen revive? Felix''s silhouette disappeared as he used his stealth technique, the elephant shook his head as he said: "So you want to fight? Be my guest, however, once you start fighting with me you can''t stop yourself anymore." Felix''s claws tried to reach his opponent''s neck but it was seemingly stopped by an invisible shield. He frowned as he looked at the elephant''s green trunk, it was glowing! That meant this shield-like ability came from his trunk. Felix tried to target his trunk as he shot out a few aerial claws from his paws but all they did was bounce harmlessly from his shield, it seemed his shield was too strong for him to pierce through with conventional means! "I told you can''t stop yourself from fighting after you start it." He shook his head as he moved his hand and pointed it in Felix''s direction, Felix was invisible but somehow he knew his general direction! Felix could feel materialized pressure start to push on his body, it was weighing down on the places around him but it wasn''t pushed directly on his body as the elephant didn''t know his true location. Felix wasn''t sure how he knew his location at all, had his God given him an ability that enhanced the elephants already impressive senses, or were his talents that good? Or was it both? Felix wasn''t arrogant but he didn''t think someone of this man''s abilities could sense his stealth, he felt to be strong but it seemed he didn''t have much battle experience from the way he carried himself. Felix could abuse that fact, he moved as he threw a feint using his aura to confuse the man, the pressure started to move from his actual location towards the feint aura and Felix smiled inside, it seemed he was correct about his hunch! Even though he was a God''s chosen just like him he was like a flower in a greenhouse, but the way he acted made it look like he was an experienced man, he was oozing confidence and arrogance at the same time, he became unlike the person who was trying to act for peace, was this his true self or was he like this just when fighting against the opponents of his tribe? Felix''s stealth technique reached the peak of what it was possible, and he could enhance it even further through the stealth combat breathing technique of the cat tribe ancestors! Felix''s breathing turned quick and erratic as all traces of his aura disappeared, this time a frown could be seen on the face of the elephant, it seemed Felix''s enhanced stealth technique was giving troubles to his senses! The pressure field that he could control started to expand as it recklessly increased in size trying to flatten Felix like a pancake regardless of his location! Even though the power and size of the pressure field increased it still didn''t touch even one hair of Felix''s body, he realized the field was bad news the moment it spawned a few meters away from him so he couldn''t let himself be captured by it! Felix''s speed increased even further due to his enhanced stealth state, the increases made to his physical attributes during this technique were the most negligent compared to the other front combat breathing techniques but that was only compared to the other techniques! His speed increase from this technique gave him a big enough edge over his opponent''s pressure field so he could dodge it easily no matter how big its size became, all he had to do was dodge around the outskirts of it as he got closer to the elephant, he wanted to break through his barrier and give him a pummeling! It wasn''t that he just started to hate the man or something but he realized that the god who supported him and the god the elephant youth were practically enemies! He could feel a sense of distrust and disgust when he looked at the elephant youth even though he had never met the man previously in his life! Where could these emotions come from? Felix thought that they were either sent by the God of trickery directly or they came from the ability he inserted into his soul. So one way or another he had to fight the man, be it in the future or now wouldn''t make a big difference to Felix. The man also wanted to gauge Felix''s strength and see if he could end him here or he had to ask for backup from the elders of the village, while his strength was quite advanced it wasn''t above Felix''s, they were at most equals and what differentiated them was their ways of fighting. Felix''s stealth technique put the elephant on the ropes he tried to expand his pressure field even more but at some point, blood started to drip from his nose, Felix narrowed his eyes, it seemed his techniques could affect his body as well if they were pushed too far. Felix''s body suddenly appeared near his opponent''s invisible shield as a dark slash came out of his paw! The slash was created by a momentary use of the head-on battle breathing technique. The slash was so fast that the elephant couldn''t do anything besides widen his eyes as it easily pierced through his shield like it was made of tofu. The elephants'' youth head flew into the air with a grieved expression on his face, it seemed like he didn''t believe that Felix was so strong compared to him! Suddenly the elephant''s body started to crumble into a bunch of light without Felix touching it at all! Felix frowned as he retreated from the location where just a pool of blood remained, who knew what kind of abilities could be unleashed after the man''s death? Unsurprisingly out of the same location a body plopped down as he kneeled while gasping for air, somehow the elephant youth had revived! Felix looked at his body that still retained his clothes and most of the things he had before death, the only difference was that one of his golden tusks was severed from the bone! Felix thought as he looked at the severed tusk: "So that''s his way of keeping track of his lives?" It seemed that what Felix thought was true, every god chosen got multiple lives! He wasn''t the only one dubbed special there were other people like him out there! The man quickly got up from his kneeling position as he looked at Felix and then suddenly started to run away! Felix wanted to catch up to him but somehow his speed increased marginally the closer he got to the village and before Felix could kill him again he jumped over the big walls somehow and disappeared. Felix scratched the back of his head with his paw as he looked at his receding figure and decided against following him, there would surely be an ambush prepared for him the moment he got closer to the village, all he could do now was wait for his reinforcements while he gave another report to Siracha! Chapter 51: Beaten back for the first time (1) Felix took out his communication stone from his special bag and started to talk into it: "Hello, hello? Felix here, I have a report for Shaman Siracha." "Siracha here, how are things at the elephant tribe, Felix?" "Things aren''t good Shaman, all of our troops were annihilated, I think the general overseeing was either capture or he fled, the captains who were assigned here are also dead... I sensed some corpses who had a higher composition of hex energy inside of them among the normal ones around." Siracha calm voice could be heard coming from the stone that he kept clenched into his paw: "Anything else special that you have to tell me?" Felix frowned, did he already know about this? Why was there no reaction? Or did he realize that this would happen the moment he sent the troops to the elephant tribe? Felix decided to not question him at the moment and said: "I have made contact with another God chosen." A brief silence descended upon Felix''s surroundings as no words came out of the communication stone before an equally calm voice came out: "Have you fought with him? What are his abilities? How old is he? What''s his gender? How strong is he compared to you?" Felix felt a little bit baffled by the quick fired questions but responded accordingly: "Yes I have, his abilities were quite strange, he had a barrier and could exert pressure using his trunk which was colored green, he could also revive just like me but it seems he only has 2 lives, I''m not sure how old is he but he is around my age I guess? He is male for sure, as for how strong... I guess he could be my equal but he doesn''t have much experience in fighting." Siracha''s voice came out as soon as Felix finished his report: "I will make sure to get there as quickly as I can with the main army, you make sure you keep yourself safe along with Lindo, I''m sure you made him retreat before you engaged the God''s chosen of the elephant tribe, right?" Felix responded affirmatively then asked a question: "How fast do you think you would arrive at the tribe?" A chuckle could be heard coming from the other side of the communication stone as Siracha''s voice came out: "We should arrive by tomorrow at dawn, just wait there and keep yourself at full stamina because our next fight will be the hardest that we will have ever experienced since we have arrived on the Tarot continent!" Felix closed the communication stone link after he finished the conversation and started to slip away from the fringes of the city and ran through the battlefield full of bodies to meet with Lindo. Lindo was quite far away from the battlefield but he still came forward as quickly as he could as he saw Felix appear, he came towards him with a worried expression on his face as he asked: "What happened?" After Felix explained everything to him Lindo frowned as he told him: "I already explained the former situation to the shaman, that could be why he didn''t sound surprised by what happened, as for the other things, everything will turn ugly at the moment Siracha arrives!" Felix nodded, Lindo seemed a bit worried as he asked: "Did you scout out anyone else besides the God chosen?" Felix frowned, he didn''t have time to do anything else after he fought that elephant, he couldn''t scout out for more dangers, if he went now he would surely be ambushed and he would lose a life for nothing, there was a chance he could also be trapped and get all his lives exhausted! Who knew what other aces up their sleeves the elephant tribe had? After all, they had killed a lot of people, the bodies on the battlefield numbered up to 2,000 or so and they were could all be called elites in any other tribe! There was also a general overseeing the battle on this part, his body couldn''t be found among the dead so that meant his body was either taken or he was captured alive, after all, elephants didn''t like to eat meat so he couldn''t have been eaten, maybe his body was taken to be experimented on if he wasn''t alive... But one thing was certain, they had a person with shaman-like strength in their village! Time passed by very quickly as Felix waited for the reinforcements, he couldn''t train nor waste his stamina so he meditated, it was something that calmed his mind and body at the same time while keeping his focus sharp, he wasn''t a fan of meditation as entering the trance-like state would take al to of time that he could use to train his body, but considering he was forbidden from training his body at this point, and he couldn''t enter his mindscape as he would use too much time sleeping, he had to go with meditation. He learned how to meditate briefly after he finished refining his soul and it helped a little bit, it was a stance between being in his mindscape and being in his body, it felt quite nice. Seeing Felix''s meditative state made Lindo not know what to do, he didn''t know how to meditate, he couldn''t sleep because he was way too tense, and he couldn''t train so he couldn''t do anything, so he was really frustrated because of that. Since he didn''t know how to meditate he decided to mimic Felix''s action and air as he tried to meditate as well. Lindo failed to meditate even though 5 hours passed and he could only look at Felix''s sage-like face as he meditated there as a monk. Lindo''s soul wasn''t as stable as Felix''s as he didn''t do any soul training up till now, even though Felix''s soul was injured during the transfer between dimensions, due to his fix, it became stronger and more stable than some of the spiritually weaker beings in this world. Felix woke up to the sound of troops marching, he got up from the ground and looked towards the horizon as he saw a bigger army than the one used at the black bear tribe come running towards him and Lindo. Felix frowned, did they have such a big reserve of people? They were almost equal to the army they used when they fought the tiger tribe! But he realized that a lot of them were rather young after he did a scan on their faces and bodies, they were all recruits! What was Siracha thinking? Recruits versus a tribe that could be considered one of the strongest on the continent? They were all cannon fodder ready to die! Felix wasn''t a saint or anything, but he didn''t like to see endless deaths, also their deaths wouldn''t be useful for his ability at this point as he already had 9 lives, their souls couldn''t be considered strong either so a lot of them would have to die for him to gain 1 life. It just wasn''t worth it. They were needless deaths ready to happen! Siracha appeared with the thunderclap as he looked Felix and Lindo up and down then nodded, Felix got closer to him and asked: "What''s with the big fanfare... there are a lot of recruits here and they wouldn''t be useful in the battle." Lindo looked over as he realized that what Felix said was the truth, he couldn''t see as far as him but now that the army got closer he could see that they all had relatively young faces, they were most likely conscripted, there was no chance for them to have left their homes willingly while being so young. Lindo didn''t know what to say as he waited for Siracha''s explanation. Siracha looked over his army and said directly: "Unfortunately they needed to come, however, they won''t be put at the forefront of the battle as the older ones will charge first, the younger ones have been taken in, to mane our new weapons that have just come in from the special tribe that created our spatial bags, it cost us a fortuned but now that we have the source of Dark Hex Iron in our hands we could make the trade with the tribe!" Siracha waved his hand as all of the younger tribesmen took out something from their backs, they were circular tubes made out of dark metal, Felix frowned, what could these things do? He saw that they were heavily encrypted with Hex runes so that meant they would be using the surrounding hex energy to power themselves up and not the hex energy of the user. Since they wouldn''t fight at the forefront Felix became more relaxed as he waited for Siracha to announce his presence. Unknowingly to Felix he was getting a little bit too attached to the lion tribe''s wellbeing and this wasn''t a good thing for him considering he was an outsider, cousin tribe or not, it was unknown why, maybe it was because he saw some of them as Lindo, friends or comrades, or he just took pity on them, one way or another his human emotions were taking the better of him even though his meditation was supposed to curb his emotions a bit. Siracha arrived at the battlefield full of corpses as he looked down at all of his downed warriors and shook his head, even though he was a man who used his own race to fulfill his goals he wasn''t truly evil, he had his mission and emotions as well, while he did use a lot of lions for the sacrifice, they were mostly the untalented ones that were below the captain level, he was practically weeding out the weak and untalented while also making use of them. So in a businessman''s view, what Siracha had done was completely good as long as he got a profit out of it! Siracha decided to give them a proper burial as his foot struck the ground creating a big hole that absorbed all of the bodies of the dead tribesmen inside it, then with a wave of his hand the hole was filled up. He looked towards the village of the elephants as he said: "Don''t you want to welcome me Mashi Musho?" A guttural cough could be heard coming from the direction of the elephant tribe''s village, the strange thing was that it resounded through the now empty battlefield, and into the ears of the current army at the same time, it was like the thunderclap before the storm! Chapter 52: Beaten back for the first time (2) A small figure appeared near Siracha''s towering figure, his back was bent from his age and liver spots could be spotted on his aged face, he had a gray trunk on his face and big floppy ears, he was using a walking cane to walk forward as his whole body trembled, he was the elephant shaman Mashi Musho! Another guttural cough was heard from the elephant in question, but this cough was near them and the intensity of its sound started to hurt the ears of the people who were closer to him. Some of them even started to clutch their ears as blood started to drip down from them! Felix frowned as he felt that his cough wasn''t only a physical attack, it was an attack that targeted both the inner ear and the soul! Siracha knew about his opponent''s strength, he wasn''t someone he could easily get rid of just like the black bear shaman, the black bear shaman could be considered a rebel youth in the shaman group, but Siracha and Mashi were both the great elders of the group! Mashi looked at Siracha up and down as he shook his head and said: "Again with this stuff Siracha? You really can''t let your old bones go to rest, don''t you? Using the ancestor''s favor for a youth regained, how much can your soul endure? How many times can you regain your youth anymore? 1 time?" Siracha didn''t say anything as his lightning armor encased him, going full power from the get to go! His purple aura intensity increased as he let out all of his power with a mighty shout: "HAHH!" The elephant shaman snorted as he looked directly in Siracha''s eyes from below and said: "Trying to put up a strong front in my eyes? You should know that I was the one who beat your ass when you were younger!" Felix gasped as he heard that, the lion shaman was already thousands of years old, how old was this damn elephant? Siracha didn''t say anything as he concentrated his whole power into his right arm and swung it at the elephant shaman like a spear! The spear-like attack went directly towards the elephant shaman''s head as quickly as a bullet! The elephant shaman shook his head as he blocked Siracha''s attack with his hand, he grasped it with his right hand then used his whole body strength to throw Siracha above him as if he was a sack of potatoes! Siracha''s aura intensified as he flew into the air then used his hex energy to stabilize himself, he dropped to the ground using his weight to try to directly crush the person below him. The old man used his walking stick to parry Siracha''s attack easily as the stick struck Siracha squarely in the chest leaving him out of the air. Felix looked at everything unfolding in front of him flabbergasted, the old man wasn''t giving out any type of hex fluctuations but he was easily keeping up with Siracha and actually beating his ass! Felix couldn''t believe his eyes as he watched Siracha take a beating from the old man, even though he was getting beaten around it seemed the old man didn''t have any killing intent against him as he only struck him in his hex pathways making his hex energy circulation slow down and canceling his lightning armor. The elephant shaman tutted as he looked at Siracha''s twitching form, he was gasping for air and grasping his chest as he tried to unlock his ki pathways again: "You thought that I was sleeping right? You wouldn''t have attacked the tribe if you knew that I was awake." Siracha frowned, it was true that he got some certain information that the elephant shaman was currently slumbering, this was the only reason he wanted to attack the elephant tribe, after all, his current power wasn''t something that could rival the old man in front of him. Mashi chuckled as he showed his open mouth in which no teeth were left, he pointed at Siracha with a shaky finger as he said: "You have been fooled! Who gave you this information? Was it that fool Eagle Dardano? Or was it that Crow bastard Giglio? Oh, don''t tell me the hippopotamus tribe gave up and decided to sell us out?" The old man started rambling out as he didn''t give Siracha any more thoughts, to him he was as defeated as he could be. Siracha pressed three points on his chest as his hex circulation returned to its full potential and his lightning armor reappeared! Seeing that he returned to full power made the elephant shaman snort as he looked at him and said: "You better back off before I get angry, I can only let you go away this time because of our former relationship, now go away!" Siracha gritted his teeth as he felt a silhouette appear above the old man''s shriveled body, it was a gigantic mammoth full of grey hair, two of his massive tusks were currently pointed at Siracha''s heart and neck, if he went forward to attack both of these points would be pierced and it was certain he would die! Siracha teeth started to crack as he took two steps backward and sighed while he gave out a signal: "RETURN!" Return? Everyone looked at each other with strange gazes but considering the power that the old elephant exhibited made everyone reluctant in attacking, most of the fighters were recruits and they were scared by someone who could pummel their shaman so easily so they immediately started retreating the moment they were allowed to. The generals looked on with sorrowful gazes, they knew they wouldn''t be able to save their comrade which was in the hands-on the elephants, it seemed the reason their army was annihilated in the first place was because of this person! Even though there weren''t many experts overseeing the former army, one general was enough to keep the elephant tribe on their toes. While the elephant tribe had great innate strength and senses, they weren''t a fighter tribe and they were mostly peaceful so even though they had a strength advantage, the experienced general could drag out the fight using military tactics until he gained his reinforcements! But this old man surely beat him into the ground and dragged him into the village after he easily annihilated the army. Siracha looked directly into Mashi''s eyes as he asked: "What about my man?" The elephant shaman squinted his eyes as he asked: "Man? What man? I don''t know any man of yours!" Siracha shook his head as he left with his tail between his legs, he knew there was no reason to continue this farce, even though his new weapons would be useful with attacking their village walls and the defending elephants, they would be useless against the powerhouse in front of him! The army retreated accordingly to Siracha''s wishes, suddenly a shout could be heard coming from the old man''s frame: "I let you go because of our former relationship, next time you come I will annihilate you with your army as well!" Siracha''s hand turned into a fist as he continued gritting his teeth and he flashed away into the distance, leaving nothing but a small energy fluctuation that made his former presence known. Felix looked on at the disappearing energy and sighed, who knew things would become like this? Felix looked up at Siracha''s strength but it seemed there were bigger fishes out there! If Siracha was this strong how strong could this old man be considered? They retreated out of the territory of the Elephants and slowly returned to the capital, all of the important places had been conquered and the only place that remained up was the elephant tribe that they couldn''t touch anymore... Felix was summoned in Siracha''s chambers along with Lindo. Siracha sat on his throne nursing his inner wounds with closed eyes as he asked Felix: "Did you know about this man being there?" This was a dumb question... how could have he knew? Considering the man''s strength Felix couldn''t locate him if he was bent on hiding himself. Sensing Felix''s disposition made Siracha sigh, he only asked out of anger, he didn''t mean to blame Felix, how could he know? He easily got the tar beaten out of him by the man so of course, Felix couldn''t detect him if he didn''t want to be found. He told Felix: "All actions against the elephant tribe will be ceased from now on, I have only asked you to come here because I want you to train with Lindo more, he will be your teammate during the intercontinental battle a few months from now and he isn''t at a good level yet, his father can''t train him properly due to his job and he can only train him a little bit more rarely..." "I also want to give you something because of all the hard work you went through, this will help both of you during your training." Siracha took out a shiny red gem from his new robes and threw it at Felix. Chapter 53: A small but useful gadget The small red gem was glowing even though there was no light reflecting on its surface, Felix looked at it with curiosity, anything that was red and glowing would get a cat''s attention. Even Lindo who was a bigger cat was attracted by the peculiar light of the gem, suddenly a suction force came from the gem that made both Lindo and Felix feel that they have left their bodies! Felix looked around and realized that his body was crumpled on the floor below him, somehow he wasn''t immediately returned to it and he could see that Lindo''s soul nearby him freaking out saying that he was dead and that he would meet the ancestors soon, and how he pitied himself that his grandfather killed him by accident with a freaky glowing rock. Felix felt that he was a bit too panicky, but he was already used to the feeling of having his soul separated from his body, this was Lindo''s first time so of course, he would act like this. A cough could be heard which took the attention of both souls: "I''m sorry that I acted without informing you but the usage of the gem would be better felt on one''s soul directly." Felix cocked his head to the side and asked: "So what''s the use of this thing besides separating the soul from the body?" Siracha laughed as he said: "Try to spar a little bit with Lindo and see the difference between this time and the one in your body." Felix started to move to try to quickly strike Lindo while he was still freaking out only to find out that he could barely move his soul body! Unlike his mindscape, his soul wasn''t used to the outside area where Hex energy was freely flowing through, in his soul space there was no hex energy, and his soul wasn''t impeded by anything so it could be considered rather strong, but on the outside, the Hex energy was practically tangible for those in their soul forms. Felix felt as if he was underwater and the pressure on him was practically immense, he didn''t feel it at first but as soon as he took one step towards Lindo the pressure crashed onto him! Lindo moved a bit and fell to the floor and through it! As he didn''t have any physical body he could easily go through the earth and the pressure imposed on him was making him unable to stay straight, his back bent immediately the moment he took the step and entered the earth. The shaman immediately frowned as he rubbed the gem between his fingers and both of their souls immediately returned to their bodies. He sighed as he looked at Lindo and said: "It seemed that while Felix can endure the soul training you will still need some help in this regard.. meditating for a month or so can help you endure the pressure of the surrounding Hex energy... Felix will have to train alone with the gem." Lindo was so down that he almost fell through the floor again even though he was in his physical body now, he felt that he was struggling to achieve even 10% of what Felix was doing and this made him feel stifled... was he really that untalented? Seeing his grandson feeling like this made Siracha''s eyes and stance soften a bit as he told him: "It''s not your fault Lindo, it''s just that... Felix''s talent is just that great, even though you could be considered a one in a thousand talent, Felix could be considered one in ten million talent or even higher!" "You shouldn''t compare yourself with him, even in the other continents you would be a general seedling, don''t discourage yourself, after all, Felix is a god''s chosen and this is a fight that not even shamans can interfere with at their peak power!" Lindo became sadder and sadder as he heard his grandfather, but the moment that he said that not even he could interfere at some point in Felix''s battles that meant that it was his fault for comparing himself to such a monster... after all their talents were different, they were meant to live in different worlds when they matured. But even though he knew that their talents were different this made Lindo perk up as his inner fire was awakened, he wanted to break through the confines of talent and become stronger than what he was, a glowing light appeared in the depth of his eyes that immediately disappeared a second later but Siracha saw it and he smiled. "Actually you can train with Felix now... I think you got a better conviction now... your soul was lacking conviction before and you couldn''t endure the surrounding hex energy." Lindo frowned, was his grandfather trying to hard to cheer him up? But he suddenly felt that both his and Felix''s souls were out of their bodies again, he felt the pressure from the surrounding hex energy bending his back again, but unlike before he wasn''t going through the floor, he could somewhat withstand the pressure... Felix''s second time also showed that he somewhat adapted to the pressure as he took two steps forward before he stopped. Siracha smiled looking at the duo then deactivated the gem again before saying: "From now on you shall train whenever you aren''t resting, the intercontinental battle will start soon, and considering you two are the aces of my tribe as the two-man team, you are our greatest weapon for the Tarot continent wellbeing." Felix didn''t feel a big attachment to the continent but considering he started to feel attached to the lion tribe meant that he would have to protect their continent as well. Felix saluted with his paw and seeing his actions Lindo did the same. It was time for them to go through special soul training using the gem that the shaman gave them. Siracha threw the gem at Felix and watched them leave happily ready for some new training! Suddenly Siracha felt a voice in his ears: "Now that the youths had left it''s time for us to talk business." Siracha frowned as out of the back of his room appeared the old elephant Mashi! He slowly walked towards Siracha and eyed him a bit before saying: "You must have given an arm and a leg to whoever created that gem, even though it couldn''t be used for people like us, it''s quite the strong training device for youths like them." Siracha shook his head as he looked into his ''friends'' eyes and said: "What business do you have with how much I gave for that gem? Anyways what are you here for?" It seemed that while angry that he was followed back to his home Siracha seemed to be rather relaxed around the old man, after all, if the man wanted to kill him he wouldn''t have walked closer to him and even joked with him like that, it seemed his visit was peaceful. "I just came to inform you that my boy will join your team for the intercontinental battle." Siracha cocked his head to the side: "Hmm?" "You should have gotten the report of my boy from that little cat, he is just like him a chosen of God!" Siracha nodded and told him: "Ok." "It''s good that you know what''s good for the continent, if you were a narrow-minded person you would have surely barred his entrance from the battle.. but you know your youths won''t make the cut alone... at least your grandson wouldn''t.. the other one I cannot see through." Siracha knew that his reason was seen by the old man but he decided against commenting, Lindo needed all the help he could get in this situation, while Felix was strong he couldn''t protect him if he encountered someone way stronger than him. "Anything else you want to tell me?" The old man just disappeared as if he was never there... Siracha coughed as he muttered: "You damn old man, why do you have to act like you are cool?" While Siracha and the old elephant were having their conversation, Felix and Lindo were currently trying out the benefits of the gem training by themselves. Felix could feel that as his soul was wadding through the surrounding hex energy at a snail pace, it was getting considerably concentrated in a way... he wasn''t sure how to explain it properly but he could feel that it was beneficial for him. Lindo was trying to get out of his back bent position so he could start taking some steps himself but it was rather hard for him at this point, all he could do was stay in that position and endure the pressure so he could get his soul to become stronger. This type of training was good in the situation that Felix couldn''t get his hands on any type of meat and considering that they had finished most of the conquering of the other tribes unless there were any other wars Felix''s supply of meat was cut off for now... at least the meat that could be useful for strengthening his body. Chapter 54: Soul training with a friend Felix could already move properly as the Hex in his surroundings didn''t bother his soul anymore, it took him around 2 weeks to reach this stage and he would always train with Lindo in the same location, they found the best Hex-infested location that they could in the tribe and trained there so the difficulty of moving was at the peak. Lindo went back to entering the earth when he got there but with a little bit of workout and some motivational speeches, he started to hug the ground again, and sooner or later he would be able to move too... Felix started to do some simple exercises using his soul, basically, a soul was like a muscle and Felix could strengthen it using the pressure of the Hex energy around him combined with simple exercises that anyone could do. This type of training gave Felix even better coordination the moment he returned to his body, it was like he was an experienced driver returning to his sports car after improving his driving skills using a Toyota Corolla 1993. Lindo saw even better improvements considering his soul was rather weak, he even broke through to reach strength similar to lieutenants and was still going stronger! His body had been strengthened to the limits during his intense training with his father and sometimes with Felix, his experience in fighting was also quite good but he couldn''t control his body well enough due to his rather weak soul. It wasn''t something that could be helped, just like the body the soul would grow with experience and time... only those who knew how to train it properly would be able to hasten its growth. Some did it through meditation, others through fighting until the brink of death to experience what death truly felt like and getting their wills tempered and in return, their soul would get stronger as well. These types of training wouldn''t do much for Felix''s soul anymore, at this point he got too used to death and he didn''t have a proper meditation technique, all he did was close his eyes and calm his mind while erasing his emotions momentarily. But this type of external pressure put on the soul was refining Felix''s soul and compressing it into a more compact form that gave him better control over his body and strengthened his soul defenses... as for soul fighting techniques he had none of those, very few tribes dealt with souls and their capabilities and the lion tribe wasn''t one of them... Even Siracha only know defensive techniques that relied on the inner strength of the soul and those were the ones that were lent down by the ancestors which were specially made for lion psychology. Felix''s bones made cracking sounds as he returned to his body and stretched it, Lindo did the same thing as he gave Felix a thumbs up, their training had gone better than before and Lindo finally started to move! Sooner or later they would have to start sparring during this special training to go even further down the strengthening road. Felix looked ready to leave but Lindo walked near him and asked: "Do you think that you have some free time for us to talk?" Felix didn''t see any problem with this, even though they talked very rarely these days due to the intense training they went through which tired them mentally quite a lot so they didn''t have the time nor did they want to talk. But at this time Lindo came forward and asked for a spar! Felix looked him up and down and asked: "You are finally feeling the fine-tuning of the soul body resonance?" Felix wasn''t sure where these words came from, as his soul grew stronger some of the words from the vocabulary that was stuffed in his brain when Lucian used that scroll on him were more appropriate to use to him. Lindo scratched the back of his head as he didn''t understand what Felix said but he nodded and said: "Yeah, I can feel I can control my body way better than before... it was like I was limited to using 50% of my true bodily strength before but now I can use above 70%" Felix nodded, even though he was a little bit exhausted he didn''t want to refuse Lindo''s sparring invitation, he wanted to see how far he went with his training as well, after all, they hadn''t fought anyone at all since Siracha gave them the gem. Felix stored the gem he was holding in his paw inside his special bag as he made sure it was well tied to his body, even though he could recover it if its holdings were severed during the spar, it would be annoying because the contents would spill on the ground and Felix''s bag had quite a lot of things in it at the moment. Lindo waited for him to finish preparing as he took in a deep breath to control his surging Hex energy and calm down his exhausted mind. He opened his eyes as he looked directly at Felix who just finished his preparations then heaved a mighty shout as his muscles inflated and a deep white aura engulfed him... it seemed he also had started to strengthen his aura and from the looks of it he must have reached the middle-stages by now! Felix''s refining didn''t take a hit as he used the remaining energy that he had after soul training to strengthen his stamina, he was almost at the 3rd stage by now as his body had grown stronger due to the bear meat that he ate his training in this regard increased by a moderate amount, this was because there was a limit to how much stamina Felix''s lungs and heart could get using this training technique at his aura rank, due to strengthening of the stamina strength and endurance from the bear meat he ate now he needed less training to fully finish the runes imprinted on his organs. Felix''s eyes glazed over as he watched Lindo use this technique... he always started with this technique to improve his physique and now that his soul was responding better to his body he could feel that the strength he could exhibit with this form increased by quite a lot! He took in a deep breath as he disappeared from the spot, Lindo felt the danger to his right side of the body as a claw mark appeared on the ground near him, he dodged! As his soul strength increased so did his perception as he used killing intent detection, he could also act faster as his control over his body was better than before. Suddenly another slash came from the opposite side trying to dig into his stomach only for him to block the slash with his elbow... after his clothes were destroyed by the claw slash some dark armor could be seen protecting his upper body, it was Dark Hex Iron Armor! Felix guessed that he got the armor from either his father or grandfather but he didn''t care much about the armor, he didn''t have the full set so he couldn''t protect himself well, also the armor could slow you down depending on how strong you were and lieutenants couldn''t move properly with it on their speed would be decreased to around 75% of the original and only captains and above could move properly in it! Suddenly another slash came over and tried to injure his leg but Lindo jumped up and then used his heavyweight to drop himself in the direction that he thought Felix was... A small crater appeared where he dropped himself but there were no signs of Felix appearing anywhere. Lindo sighed... fighting with someone who knew stealth was troublesome especially if they had a physique compared to yourself or even stronger... at this point, it could even be called hacks! It wouldn''t be a problem if Felix wasn''t that proficient in stealth but his stealth was basically perfect and even Lindo''s improved senses couldn''t find him yet! Lindo closed his eyes as he let his instincts fully take over, his head moved to the side by itself as a claw slash flew over the side, another flurry of claw strikes tried to hit him over on his shoulders, his chest, and stomach but Lindo somehow dodged all of them. He started to breathe roughly as his face turned red, it seemed that this state of his was using a huge amount of Hex energy! There was no aura around him, he didn''t feel any different but he could dodge all of Felix''s attacks easily, seemingly as if he knew where Felix would attack from and dodge accurately, it was actually strange as if he was somehow reading Felix''s mind and attack patterns. Suddenly he dropped to the side as he dodged an overhead slash that almost touched his neck, then he punched to the side hitting Felix and disturbing his stealth state! Felix could feel a bruise appearing on his ribs as the attack hit him, he flew a little bit in the air and frowned as he looked at Lindo... it wasn''t that he was jealous or anything but more of surprised. Up till now he could mop the floor with Lindo and he couldn''t get any hit in, but now he refined his soul a bit and he could hit him? Maybe his grandfather was wrong... Lindo was definitely as talented as him... maybe? He could see that he was kneeling over after that attack and blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth. Felix stopped the spar as he came closer to Lindo and looked at him, he opened his eyes only for Felix to see that they were bloodshot, and suddenly one vein in his popped as blood slowly started to drip over his cheeks staining his newly grown golden stubble. Felix didn''t know why Lindo pushed himself so far in this situation... it was just a spar was he that desperate to prove himself to him? As Felix got closer Lindo put his hand forward indicating that he shouldn''t approach him, Felix stopped and looked over a few meters away from him as he asked: "You..." Lindo coughed multiple times as he quickly took a pill out of his own special bag and crushed it before snorting it. Some of his symptoms alleviated from the pill but he was still extremely weak, his internal bleeding stopped along with the one from his eye but there was still a rather large tear of blood remaining on his cheek, and some blood was still slowly dripping from his chin. Lindo chuckled as he watched Felix''s shocked face and said: "What do you think about my secret bloodline weapon?" Felix looked at him for a few seconds before saying: "You are a fool..." Lindo cocked his head to the side: "A fool? I was only trying out the new technique that I have comprehended after my soul reached certain refining... why are you calling me a fool?" "That''s because you have tried a technique that you know nothing about, this backlash is practically immense!" Lindo chuckled as he waved his hand: "I knew about the backlash, I only wanted to try it with you because I trust you, it isn''t like you haven''t done a similar thing yourself right?" Felix frowned as he said: "It''s not the same thing, you know I''m chosen by God." "Whatever, Felix you might not be able to die unless you want to but that doesn''t mean you get to scold me if you had done the same thing in the past, while you have more lives and you can use them the way you want, I have one and I can control it however I want as well!" Felix wanted to argue but decided against it because what he said was true... if he wanted to squeeze out his potential this way during training who was he to advise him? As a friend, he knew that this was a self-destructing type of training but as a warrior of the tribe which needed the strongest able-bodied men to accompany him in the international battle he would have to grit his teeth and leave him at his own devices. It was time for Felix to make a decision, just like back then, would he follow his instincts which told him that leaving Lindo this way would increase his chances of surviving the intercontinental battle or his emotions who were telling him that as Lindo''s friend he would have to talk things out with him and maybe even stop him altogether from using such a perilous technique if his life wasn''t in danger. Chapter 55: As a friend or as a soldier Felix was having an inner conundrum at this point... what should he tell him? What if his words actually influenced him? At this point, he realized that if he was too forceful with him he would do the opposite of what he told him... but if he was truthful with him there was also a chance he would listen... Lindo was a strange being to Felix, he acted so out of the ordinary around him unlike his normal and collected actions when he was on the battlefield or in front of his grandfather... Maybe he really thought of Felix as his best friend that he could show his true personality to. On the surface, Lindo was a tough man with a strong will, but on the inside, he was just a teen that wanted to have fun with his friends... unfortunately, the current situation in this world meant that he had to keep up his outer appearance if he wanted to survive, in conclusion, Lindo was still a child at heart. He looked rather happy even though he was so injured, it seemed he really wanted to catch up to Felix even though he was doing with through a self-destructive technique... he didn''t know that Felix didn''t use his breathing techniques fully or else he wouldn''t have been able to dodge like that. But Felix couldn''t bear to tell him that, or else who knew what he would do? Felix looked into his eyes as he told him: "I just think that you shouldn''t use this technique anymore during training... I don''t think the aftereffects would diminish with more uses." Lindo snorted as he tried to get up from the ground, Felix supported him up and Lindo became a little bit calmer as he said: "You don''t know the technique as I do, after all, I''m the one who learned it." "Indeed, but you cannot hide the fact that the injuries have reached your soul already." Lindo''s eyes widened... how could have Felix seen through him so easily? Did the gem training really improve his soul vision that much? Felix could see some cracks appearing on Lindo''s soul from the inner vision he gained during training... he was getting closer to gain what shaman''s called, The vision of the wild souls. Shamans were normally born with this ability as they had an immensely strong soul since their birth but others could gain it through training. Lindo knew that he was found out so all he could do was keep his hand down, seemingly as if he was a child who was caught when he stole some cookies from the cookie jar when he was supposed to eat his greens. Felix sighed, he was only his friend, not his family but he somewhat cared about him. It was impossible to not get any comradeship feelings for him after so much time passed training with him... fighting with him on the battlefield and chatting with him from time to time when they were free. Felix had feelings he wasn''t a robot so even though sometimes he would tend to ignore them, he couldn''t ignore all of them, while they could be suppressed during combat rather easily, in the day to day life Felix would somewhat follow them. Felix stood closely near him as he patted his waist with his paw trying to make him feel better while telling him: "I don''t forbid you from using it when you are supposed to, but using such a technique during training is a great waste of your strength and potential, fortunately, you didn''t push yourself too much or your soul might have been affected." Felix''s knowledge of souls was rather shallow but just like a trainee medic would know when the body couldn''t recover anymore, He knew when the state of the soul would be too damaged to restore itself anymore. Lindo didn''t say anything as Felix helped him to his house, where he left him on his couch made of yellow bamboo and intended to leave when suddenly a strong voice was heard coming from the kitchen of the moderately sized house. "Lindo it seems you finally decided to invite your only friend to our home and that was without even announcing me first?" "Huh? You..." The appearance of Siracha''s son didn''t surprise Felix, he was a man looking to be in his late thirties with a golden mane and red eyes, unlike his father Lindo inherited blue eyes from his late mother. Lindo''s father quickly got near him as he looked him up and down before he slapped his forehead gently and saying: "You have found those things that your mother left behind didn''t you?" Lindo''s closed eyes started to tremble at the mention of his mother and he huddled himself on his couch... His father shook his head seeing his current situation then decided to leave him alone, he looked at Felix and motioned with his hand for him to follow him outside in the training area behind the house. The training area behind the house wasn''t very big but it was fortified with a metal unknown to Felix, it wasn''t Dark Hex iron but it was somewhat similar but weaker at the same time. There Lindo''s father sat down as he motioned for Felix to sit near him as he said: "First things first, I would like to thank you for being Lindo''s friend for such a long time... I still remember Lindo''s first day at the soldier training camp where he bashed the adversary trainee''s skull in... he couldn''t make friends with anyone else after that, everyone was scared of him at that time. Even though he mellowed out as time passed people were still scared of him, that''s until you came around." "I''m not sure why but you are very approachable and Lindo hanging around you made him well... less fearsome in the eyes of others, at first whenever I was marching through the capital I would hear about how my son is a brute, and how he takes after me." The man sighed as he reminisced a bit: "He was never a brute... that day when he bashed that trainee''s skull in was the day he heard his mother died on the battlefield... not even her remains were sent back." Felix could feel the bare emotions coming from Lindo''s father at the moment, it was anger, regret, and melancholy at the same time... his red eyes were flickering with strange energy as he thought about those times before he shook his head and looked at Felix: "Sorry for acting like this... sometimes it gets too hard remembering my late wife, anyways my name is Diorno, nice to finally meet you properly Felix." Felix tried to shake the outstretched hand that Diorno gave him after he introduced himself but it was quite awkward considering he had a paw, so Diorno just grasped his paw and shook it before going back to business: "I think you must have already seen what ability Lindo unleashed while he sparred with you, it''s the technique that made his late mother perish on the battlefield along with some invaders from the outer continents." "I can''t forbid him from using it as he doesn''t respect me as he used to... and physical punishment wouldn''t work on him at this point either, he is too old and too stubborn. You are his closest friend and as his father, I can only ask of you..." He bowed to Felix as some tears came out of his eyes... even though he looked middle-aged the look in his eyes showed that he was quite older than he looked on the surface: "Please take care of my boy... he is my only inheritor and the last seedling of the shaman family line, I also love him..." Felix felt quite awkward, a general bowing to him? He was barely a rank 1 lieutenant right now, not even a vice-captain. Felix told him to get up as he looked towards the direction of the house and told him: "I cannot promise you anything, he is meant for the intercontinental battle and things will get ugly there, he might need to use this technique of his multiple times and you know what that means." The man nodded, he couldn''t ask Felix to give his life for Lindo, even though he had multiple lives it would be too selfish to ask him to do such a thing... but he hoped Felix''s benevolence would shine upon him and his son, after all, he couldn''t go and protect his son at the battle, it was against the rules and if they wanted to win the battle they had to send out their best... and Lindo was one of their best. Diorno shook his head as he took out a metal flask from the air and took a huge gulp out of it, then he waved his hand and said: "You can leave now, I will make sure Lindo is back on his feet for the training tomorrow, just make sure he doesn''t use the technique anymore during your training." Felix nodded and left the training area, but before exiting it he looked back and said: "That''s one thing that I can promise you... as for the other things... I will also try my best but I won''t put myself in extreme danger for him." Diorno waved his hand and Felix disappeared as he went back to the inn where he had some food and went to train his stamina breathing technique. He could feel that he could reach around the 7th stage before the intercontinental battle or maybe even higher if he was lucky. After he finished his session of breathing training he went to sleep... in his soul space, a dark bear was rampaging around his memories as it roared and attacked everything that moved as if it was mad, his eyes were reddened from fury and he had foam coming out of his mouth indicating that he wasn''t in his right mental state... The soul of the bear shaman was berserking as if nothing could stop him in the mental place. Chapter 56: The strong bear soul The moment Felix closed his eyes he entered his mindscape... and all he saw there was chaos, well not on his memories or anything, there was a chaotic black bear with red eyes rampaging around like he was in his backyard. Up till now, Felix didn''t want to enter his mindscape so he didn''t, as his soul got stronger he started to be able to control if he wanted to enter or not. So he didn''t enter it unless he felt confident enough to take care of the rampaging black bear shaman. Felix''s existence attracted the attention of the rampaging black bear, after all, all he did was a roar at the memories and slash at them every moment that he continued to live in Felix''s consciousness, he just didn''t have anything better to do. But now that Felix''s soul appeared in his mindscape it was time for a rumble! The spiritual body of the black bear immediately ran on all fours as he approached Felix''s location, upon the train station roof! Felix watched him approach him before he disappeared using his stealth technique, His disappearance from his view made the bear flustered and even angrier than before! How dare my prey disappear? He thought. Then he started another rampage as he used his claws to strike at the bottom of the train station building but all his claws did was go through the memory as if it was a mirage... only Felix the owner of the memories could interact with them as if they were physical. Suddenly the hide of the black bear had three claw marks on it... but nothing more, no blood nor wound appeared, this made the black bear stretch his head and look at the new injury on his back and then he scratched his head... when did that appear there? Now that he had no intelligence left all he could do was act upon his instincts, that slash attack was just like a mosquito bite so even though he felt it, it didn''t do much besides annoying him a bit. Felix frowned as he kept himself hidden, such a strong attack made only three claw marks appear, it didn''t even pierce through his skin and it only moved his hair a bit. What type of defenses did this bear''s soul have? The other rebels'' souls were easily cut into two the moment his claws found their mark. It seemed a shaman''s soul was truly special. Suddenly the black bear bellowed as he tried to strike the memories in front of him even harder, he was really going berserk at this point... He even started to run around trying to attack the small empty spaces between memories... Felix was moving through memory nodes as he looked at the bear''s attempts to find him, due to his unexistent intelligence, while he realized that Felix was still here somehow, he didn''t know where and how he could reach him to devour him. The remaining capabilities of the bear''s soul were very basic... all he knows was getting angry and trying to recover his former memories, Siracha could have annihilated the soul but he decided in giving Felix this ''gift'' instead. At this point Felix didn''t know if this was truly a gift or a calamity, he tried to shoot some of his claws during the bear''s rampage but all they did was bounce off him like a ball hitting a wall. What type of defenses did this thing have? Felix started to breathe in and out as he used his combat breathing technique and a dark slash made its way towards the bear''s neck... it left a small trail of blood in its wake and the slash disappeared afterward. A small wound appeared on the bear''s neck before it sealed up leaving a few drops of blood on Felix''s memories which were then absorbed. The black bear shaman immediately struck towards Felix''s direction using his big paws to try and squeeze Felix to death! Felix frowned as he dodged by jumping backward and keeping his presence concealed. The bear''s antics didn''t stop here as he continuously tried to bang his head on Felix''s memories to shake them and destroy them... only for him to continue failing, while his soul body was certainly overpowered he had no refinement nor technique that he could use to destroy Felix''s memories. Felix didn''t know what to do in this situation... he used one of his stronger techniques right now, he still had his ultimate technique but he could feel that he used his soul''s stamina after he used that technique. His soul was already not in tip-top shape so any more uses of the techniques would damage his soul just like Lindo''s. He wasn''t sure what benefits he would get from absorbing the shaman''s soul, but it surely wasn''t time for him to fight it out with it now! He just wasn''t strong enough to do it yet, maybe if he exhausted his soul until it cracked just maybe, they would end up destroying each other. Felix closed his eyes as he kept himself hidden while trying to leave the mindscape, he felt his soul shake as he was suddenly attacked by the black bear and his soul coughed out a bunch of blue blood. Felix frowned as he skidded through his memories before disappearing again, how was he found? Felix didn''t know but when he was exiting the mindscape he would glow and his stealth would be canceled. This was the first injury Felix had on his soul since he arrived in this new world.. one that didn''t transfer from the previous one. It certainly didn''t feel nice. He looked down at his chest to see a small gash appearing there, it seemed that injuries to the soul were smaller compared to the ones inflicted on the body, as the same impact that the bear shaman did on him, his main body would have split and broken into pieces, limbs flying around. Felix could feel that he was getting healed pretty quickly, the same amount of lives still appeared in the corner of his vision but he didn''t really know if this ability could be used for his soul, the explanation of the God of trickery told him that while his body was reconstructed his soul was the same, he only stopped the God of death from taking him to the afterlife. So he realized that he should be a little more careful with his soul from now on, after all, what would happen when his soul was destroyed? Would he even end up in the same situation as before or would he just disappear? Felix didn''t want to find out at all. But how could he disappear from the mindscape without getting the attention of the bear shaman''s soul? This was a question Felix had an easy answer to... defeat the bear shaman, or learn why the bear shaman could find him while he was exiting the mindscape. Fortunately, he couldn''t find him while he was thinking, or else he would have had more than a closing wound on his chest right now. Felix shuttled through his memories at a quick speed as he observed the behavior of the black bear, now that he had ''tasted blood'' he was even more irascible than before if that was possible. The black bear''s attempt at trying to find Felix was unfruitful but he had all the time in the world to act crazily so he did just that. Felix actually started to get a bit scared at this point... what if he couldn''t leave his mental scape anymore? Would he be stuck here? What about his body? Maybe he came in a little bit too early to try and eliminate the black bear shaman''s soul... Felix shook his head as he cleared his emotions, there was no time for fear now, he had to do his best to get out of this hairy situation he put himself in. He decided to use his ultimate technique even if it meant his soul might get injured beyond repair, it was unknown what would happen while he was stuck inside his mindscape or if he would automatically leave it when his body was supposed to wake up, as time was dilated between his mindscape and the ''real world'' so he wasn''t sure how much time passed since he entered the mindscape. He frowned as his breathing continued, he couldn''t use surrounding Hex energy to power it up so he was using his soul power, but he felt something was wrong... he was using a body technique in his soul form! He wasn''t even supposed to do this, maybe this was the reason he wasn''t doing any damage to the black bear? But he didn''t know any soul techniques! Where could he learn a soul technique? He stopped his ultimate breathing technique as the soul power that he didn''t use restored itself, unlike in his body he could cancel the techniques and restore the soul power that he put in motion. Now the only problem that remained was getting or making a soul technique from scratch so that he could escape his own mindscape... Chapter 57: Trying to create a soul technique To create a technique from scratch was impossible for the current Felix, he had no further knowledge of souls besides the basics which he learned from experiencing them head-on. Maybe he would have to talk with Siracha after his escape, it was dumb for him to jump inside with no plans but he was high on the feeling that his improvement was good enough for him to absorb the severely disabled opponent. Seems he was wrong. Felix mulled upon what he could use to escape from this situation... maybe he could transform his stealth technique to better adapt to his soul rather than his body? He was using the same footwork as the one he was doing in his physical body so it was obviously not gonna cut it for his soul body, there were similar effects but Felix could feel that this wasn''t the full potential of his soul. While he was hiding the bear was rampaging around like the mindless beast it was... as long as Felix didn''t reveal himself or tried to leave the mindscape he wouldn''t get attacked which left him with enough time to mull over the things he had to and transform the techniques he used in his body to something that could be used in his soul form perfectly. As he didn''t know how time passed in his mindscape he wasn''t sure how much time had passed since he entered, maybe it was a week? maybe a month? Or maybe even a few seconds passed outside, who knew? Thoughts moved so fast they couldn''t be calculated properly in the outside world speed, especially now that his soul was way stronger than before, his thought processing also increased in speed just like a computer which got a processor upgrade. His thoughts moved so fast that he didn''t feel time pass at all, so did the time pass or not? He would see as soon as he got out. His blue soul energy engulfed him like a cloak, every being had soul energy regardless if they were from another dimension or this dimension as souls were made from that energy, so while Felix couldn''t use his own hex energy and had to rely on the surrounding energy, he had his own soul energy that he could use! With his rudimentary almost non-existent knowledge about soul energy and his familiarity with the stealth breathing technique and footwork, he created a new technique that he could use to exude his soul energy full potential! It was just its embryonic form but as time passed Felix would surely improve upon it as long as he continued to use it! Felix''s disappearance was total now... he couldn''t be found at all as he fused into his mindscape and became one with it, it was the highest realm of stealth that he couldn''t even employ in his real physical body! The highest realm of stealth consisted of becoming untraceable even while attacking regardless if the person knew killing intent detection or not! It was a perfect fusion between killing intent masking and the ability to turn invisible, melding into the surroundings making yourself unable to be found even by the Gods! Felix felt that he had reached that realm... or well not that high up but he was still pretty much above what his physical body could do right now. He approached the rampaging black bear and started to attack him with all he had trying to open up the wound that he had created on his neck, even though the wound closed itself that didn''t mean the area was as sturdy as it was before. The bear went as crazy as it could but... it couldn''t understand who was attacking it at this point, he went around randomly but unlike before he couldn''t feel where Felix attacked from, it felt like the world itself was slashing at him using spatial tempests and attacks he couldn''t perceive! This made it reach the limits of its anger as its black fur turned deeply red and his eyeballs fell from his head, he started to walk on two feet as all the froth at his mouth turned yellow and his intestines appeared out of his stomach, they burned with a deep green flame and the shout of its crazed existence created ripples across all of Felix''s mindscape. Such raw power... without any control appeared in the soul body of the black bear shaman, this wasn''t a technique the previous memories of the soul knew, this was just pure anger manifesting itself as a talent that the shamanic soul could employ when it was pushed to its limits, this wasn''t something that could be activated consciously! Felix''s memories trembled as cracks appeared on the soul nodes that Felix created to hold them, finally after a long while the bear could damage the memories! Even though the damage was only to the ''frames'' that were holding the memories, any damage to the frames would scatter his memories and put him in a similar situation compared to the time when he first made his way into the mindscape. Felix frowned as he continued to attack the more exposed wound that appeared on his neck, the more he slashed at it the deeper the wound became and the more blue blood spurted from it, the bear couldn''t be angered anymore at this point so it just rampaged anywhere that it could move to make deep cracks appear on the support of the soul nodes. Felix could feel his soul body making cracking sounds alongside the supports that were constantly getting more and more cracked... this certainly wasn''t good. At this point Felix''s eyes started to sparkle with an interesting thought... since these were his memories anyway, could he absorb them in his main soul body just like he did with the soul bodies of the other ''intruders'' that his ability absorbed? Felix looked at all of his memories and opened his mouth deeply as he inhaled them, they quickly started to move towards his direction which grabbed the attention of the immensely angered bear, the moment those memories started to move, he instinctively attacked that direction with a claw flying attack that left a slash mark of soul energy that bisected the support of some of the soul nodes leaving the memories in the open! Felix didn''t care about the incoming slash as he sidestepped it and absorbed one memory into his soul body... His soul started to glow as he absorbed the memory and he felt it etch itself inside him, so deeply that he couldn''t ever forget it anymore! It was something akin to photographic memory. All the damage done to the support soul node was also recovered, Felix continued to absorb all of the memories not letting the soul of the bear damage them any further as his soul started to increase in size taking more and more space in the mindscape. At one point his stealth technique unveiled itself but the moment the angry bear saw his size he unconsciously let out a fart of fear! He almost yipped as he tried to run away but Felix had already finished absorbing all of his memories, if their sizes were to be compared, Felix was Godzilla while the bear shaman''s soul was a random car that Godzilla could easily trample. Felix ignored its attempts at escaping as it grasped the soul with his paw, his gigantic mouth opened as he popped the soul into his mouth and started crunching it, the soul was rather hard to crunch even for Felix''s new size but with a little bit of continuous munching, the soul transformed into the soul energy that was absorbed into Felix''s soul body... The immense soul energy from the bear shaman''s body activated itself as it rushed inside Felix''s gigantic body starting to compress it continuously reducing its size back to his normal form, just a little bit bigger than an average dog, he was practically as big as a wild cat. He breathed out a black mark of energy that dissipated into his mindscape before leaving his body altogether, then it quickly flew into the skies disappearing from existence. Felix could feel his soul quality changing somewhat after he ate the bear shaman... its strength didn''t advance much but he could feel that it had gained some properties that it didn''t have before. It gained the hardness of the bear shaman so his soul defenses soared to the point that Felix thought that it was above the former bear shaman''s soul, but not by much. His multiple lives didn''t get affected at all, they remained at the number 9 as it was seemingly the limit of the ability and nothing else changed... he did gain a few fragmented memories that weren''t his, as he absorbed them into his main soul body he realized that they were some of the bear shaman''s childhood memories... The bear shaman was different as a child, he had purple short hair and he wore a small dark robe that hid his body under it, it seemed he was currently going through a ceremony as he was kneeling in front of an old man who was pressing his hands upon his forehead... he was inserting some information that Felix couldn''t gain due to the memory being too fragmented... but he could see the dark energy that he expelled enter his brain afterward rushing towards his soul where it took root. The memory stopped there then skipped to his teen years... as a shaman prospect he grew up to be strong and wild and with time he defeated all of the other shaman candidates while taking the throne... More time passed and the man went through more and more ancestral sacrifices giving his piety to the ancestors while he was granted strength, information techniques, and sometimes equipment for his troops... At this point, the memories ended and Felix woke up from his reverie to find himself in the inn bed... he looked at the simple watch that stood on the wall near his bed and realized that from the moment he went to bed to this point 9 hours passed... but that wasn''t counting the days, Felix was only counting hours. Suddenly the door of his room opened for Lindo to rush through with a concerned look on his face. It seemed he did sleep quite a bit. Chapter 58: Slept for 1 week and 3 days Lindo looked rather tense as he watched Felix yawn and wake up seemingly as if nothing happened to him... Lindo came forward and flicked his finger on Felix''s forehead as he said: "You worried me sick as you didn''t come for training for so much time! I even had to ask grandfather about you but he said you were going through a special ordeal that I couldn''t interfere with... I only came now because I sensed you waked up." While trying to be as cold as possible care could be seen on Lindo''s face even though he was doing his best to hide it. Felix got up and stretched his body as he yawned a second time and said: "It''s ok, we can go and train now." Felix still couldn''t really read the mood properly. But this was somewhat an advantage to Lindo as well... after all, he didn''t want to seem too protective, if there was something that Felix couldn''t deal with, how could he as the second in line after Felix in strength? Felix chuckled as he patted his leg and tried to leave the inn only for his stomach to growl like an alive bear was inside it. "Let''s get some food?" Lindo asked with a mirthful tone. Felix nodded while ignoring Lindo''s expression, he didn''t really know what it meant nor did he care... he only needed some food to calm his angry stomach right now. After Felix had his fill and Lindo ate some food as well they returned to the training field where Lindo decided to talk: "There are below 2 months left before the big fight will happen and we have to be ready, my father told me about some competitors that we will have to look out for, and he also said that the elephant''s young lord will also make an appearance as a teammate." Felix''s eyes glittered as he thought about the elephant''s young lord, he was a Gods chosen like he was and he could also revive, maybe they could trade some information regarding their gods now that they were supposed to be teammates? While their gods were opposed to each other and made them fight, in this situation they had to suppress their instincts and act for the greater good. Seeing Felix being in thought made Lindo cough a few times before saying: "As for our enemies, we only have information on two of them... the Kangaroo tribe and the Gigantic Spider tribe, they are both from the Balton continent which is the closest to ours, we are basically neighbors..." Lindo started to explain the core strengths of the Kangaroo team and the Giant spider team, the kangaroo team was full of bruisers, strong and enduring with moderate speed... the giant spiders were a mutated version of their cousin spider tribe and instead of being assassins they were somewhat of quick fighters and they liked using swords as they had countless arms to brandish countless swords or something among those lines. Felix listened to the explanation and nodded from time to time, it could be precious information that would save his hide in the future if he encountered some of the stronger participants from the teams. "The weakness of the giant spider tribe is fire... unfortunately we both do not have any means to summon fire or blast them with fire, my father told me that I should be able to summon a fire armor and use fire techniques when my shaman bloodline and soul awake but it''s been 15 years since he said that..." Lindo turned depressed after he said that... it seemed his bloodline and soul, not awakening was a sore spot for him that he unknowingly spilled by himself. Felix didn''t know how to console him in this situation... tell him he would awaken them soon so he would become even more depressed when they wouldn''t? In this situation it was best for him to keep his mouth shut, so he did. After sulking for a very short while Lindo manned himself up and finished his explanation: "As for the kangaroo tribe, their jaw is their weak spot, hitting them there would stun them for quite a long while... unfortunately their jaw is also their most protected spot and their boxing abilities makes them hard to be hit in the jaw." "Do they have any innate armor or something to protect their bodies from my claws?" Felix brandished his sharp claws which made Lindo cough as he said: "Not really but their muscles are really though and they have an upper ranked body that can grow even stronger than our lion tribesmen! You wouldn''t want to see how much muscles one Kangaroo tribesman can get if he puts his mind to it." Felix pondered, he had seen quite a few muscled fellows, and one way or another he cut through them... he should be able to cut through the Kangaroos muscles as well right? Felix shook his head, he would see when it would happen, for now, all he could do was continue his training. He took the red gem out of his special bag and put it on the ground where both Felix''s and Lindo''s souls were pushed out of their bodies... Felix had an easy time gliding around and he could even fly for some time now that he absorbed the shaman''s souls and his memories were stored in his main soul instead of his mindscape, the improvement to his soul was obvious! Even Lindo felt quite disappointed by his improvements as he could now get up from the ground and even take a few steps in the pressure... but Felix could already glide and fly? As a soul being Felix was affected by the pressure of the hex energy but not the gravity that was keeping his body tied to the earth, so he could fly in his soul form! Felix felt it was quite the novel feeling... so this was what the birds he hunted back on earth felt... he wondered if a random predator would catch him from his flight and snap his neck? As he looked around he realized that no one was coming for him, maybe he thought a bit too much like a bird after he flew for a few seconds... he returned to the earth and looked at Lindo, the gem training started to become less and less useful to him as he adapted to the pressure it would soon be time for him to leave Lindo to train alone... or he could supervise him so he wouldn''t do something dumb like attempting that technique again without him being around. But he also needed someone to attack him for the technique to be trained properly so he couldn''t really use it... but it was better to be safe than sorry, after all, he did promise Diorno to keep him safe, at least in the tribe territory. Felix continued his training, his soul adapting to the pressure at a visible speed, the moment Lindo took one step, Felix would take ten and jump into the skies as he started flying... it came to the point that Felix got bored with flying and returned to his body, his soul gained every strengthening that it could get from this type of training... he could either get some different form of training from Siracha or focus 24/7 on strengthening his stamina breathing technique. He looked at Lindo who was still struggling to take more than 2 steps consecutively and shook his head as he sat on the dusty ground below him and closed his eyes to start his stamina breathing technique... he was in the richest Hex energy location so he could use it to strengthen his lungs and heart. As Felix continued his training so did Lindo and time passed quite fast this way... 1 month and 20 days passed almost immediately as they continued their training, Felix reached the 8th strengthening of his lungs and heart and stopped there as he couldn''t advance anymore with the common Hex energy he found in his surroundings. While Lindo couldn''t fly yet he could somewhat make a jump with his soul but he would quickly fall to the ground and through it after his jump. Their improvements were visible and Siracha was quite happy seeing them... now it was time for them to travel to the island in the middle of the ocean so they could meet with the Balton continent, The Sparron Continent, and the Haron continent contestants so they could fight it out in the intercontinental battle... But first, they had to make a detour and pick up someone else. They quickly got ahold of the elephant''s young master who was followed by the patriarch of the tribe which was quite weaker compared to Siracha but Siracha didn''t have any thoughts of attacking, after all, what happened with the shaman of the elephant tribe marked him quite a bit. The elephant''s young master had his trunk so up into the air that Felix thought he was trying to catch flies with it, it was green and looked comically like a green hat from a certain perspective and Lindo even laughed a few times as he took glances at him from his left side. Felix was just puzzled why Lindo would laugh as he asked: "So what''s your name?" "Hmph.. you think you deserve to know my name? You were chosen by the God of trickery and I was chosen by the god of peace, we are serving opposing gods so be glad I''m not attacking you at the moment!" His other tusk grew back up and his ego inflated it seemed... Felix wanted to see what would happen what would a God chosen experience when he lost all his lives as he looked at the elephant''s young lord instinctively with his golden slitted eyes. This unnerved the young lord to the point that this trunk started to lower from the air. Chapter 59: Felixs patience The traveling would take them a bit of time with their current speed, while the shamans could go faster they couldn''t bring their protegees along with them, they didn''t have any peculiar transportation devices either so all they could do was walk on foot to the shore then swim to the island. Felix didn''t mind the walk and talk with Lindo but the stink eye that the elephant young master was giving him didn''t really make him relax as much as he wanted to... the young man was pretty annoying in that regard, it seemed he didn''t know how to take defeat with grace and Felix wanted to remind him of who won their last bout. Sensing the tense situation between the two the Elephant shaman coughed as he slapped the young master''s trunk from the air and told him: "You brat you and the other two will be a team from now on and you need to socialize to work together, you have to put your differences away for now considering the fate of our continent is at stake here, you got your ass handed to you by Felix and you are sour about that and the only thing you can do for now is bid your time until after the battle to challenge him again." "But grand elder I..." "No buts, I only insisted for you to come because of your abilities, you are way stronger than that lion fellow over there, and two Gods chosen would be impervious to our win, after all, only Gods chosen can deal with Gods chosen and there is a high chance the other four continents also have people like you and Felix in their midst." The elephant young master kept his gaze down as he didn''t say anything else but he got a little bit closer towards Felix and Lindo who were chatting about various ways they could improve their training regime when they heard the shuffling of feet as the elephant young master got a little faster to get closer to them who were at the forefront of the running formation. "My name is Bizkier The 4th." Felix looked at him up and down and said: "Now you aren''t too important to tell us your name?" "Damn you! Be glad enough I decided to grace you with my name, you are the chosen of the weakest god and my god is stronger than yours! So I''m basically outranking you!" Felix made a hmm sound, so Aaltarox was the weakest God? He didn''t mention that when they talked, but what normal person would mention their weakness in front of a stranger? Felix didn''t know how would a God think but he realized that they weren''t much different from the people that surrounded him in their thinking. Bizkier was so angry that he was getting ignored that smoke came out of his green trunk and he was ready to jump and attack Felix using his pressure field but he could feel the eyes of the shaman targeting his back which made him shake as cold sweat quickly appeared on his whole body. He laughed a bit as he tried to continue the conversation: "So uh... nice weather we are having right?" It seemed he wasn''t a social person. Lindo didn''t seem to find the question strange nor out of context as he smiled and said: "Yeah seems to be good weather for traveling, Bizkier was it? Nice to meet you." Bizkier ignored Lindo as he didn''t care about him, the only one that he relatively saw as an equal was Felix because of his chosen status. Being left out like this made Lindo feel quite awkward as he coughed into his palm and stopped trying to talk with Bizkier, he realized that the man wasn''t interested in him at all so he didn''t push himself to become friends with him, just like you couldn''t make a donkey carry 2 big rocks on its back if you beat it to death with a stick first. Seeing that he was ignoring Lindo''s attempt at communicating made Felix quite annoyed with Bizkier so he ignored his attempts as well. Bizkier looked with grievances at his shaman as his eyes indicated that Felix didn''t want to talk with him but it seemed that the elephant shaman was somehow dozing off while running. Bizkier also couldn''t ask for help from Siracha who was at the head of the formation and leading them to the location of the island. This leads him to be between a rock and a hard place, if he didn''t talk with them his shaman would be disappointed in him and some things could happen that he didn''t really know about... and he also couldn''t talk with them because of his own pride combined with the fact that the more important of the duo was ignoring his attempts at talking even though he swallowed his pride to make conversation first. Felix couldn''t understand Bizkier, as chosen by god he didn''t feel much different compared to others besides that he could revive himself, why did he act like he was better than everybody? While Lindo wasn''t looking strong on the surface all that training he did wasn''t for show only, at this point he could be considered as strong as he was when he defeated Bizkier... as for himself, he didn''t have any concrete clue of how strong he currently was. All he knew was that he was stronger than back then. Siracha coughed to disrupt the tense atmosphere between the fighters and said trying to find a common ground between them: "Why don''t you three talk about some plans and schemes for the intercontinental battle? You won''t have much time to talk when the fight will start and you would be moving and fighting while trying to survive so you won''t have time for thinking or talking anymore." This gave them the perfect excuse to talk with each other. Felix looked at Bizkier before he reluctantly asked: "Any bright ideas for the upcoming fight?" Bizkier smiled with condescension as he thought that Felix was asking him because he was smarter than him and said: "Well, we could always first try guerilla tactics taking teams out one by one or hiding until the others exhaust each other before swooping in to take the kills." "Good ideas but very common, don''t you think the others thought about this as well?" Bizkier became a bit angry after being rebuked so fast but he understood where Felix was coming from, his plans were very common and they would be used in most short wars so it was obvious most experienced warriors would know about them and have plans against them. Felix looked at Lindo and decided to let him talk, he was a little bit smarter than him in group fights, while Felix was a good warrior he was no general, Lindo wasn''t general either but he was a little bit better at tactics compared to Felix. "While your plans are feasible we need something different so we could get an advantage compared to the other team... something that could be unique to us, do you have any ability that could help us during the fights?" Bizkier muttered under his breath for a few seconds before saying: "Felix should know about it already but I have a barrier and pressure ability that could defend us against their attacks and slow them, actually our formation is quite perfect now that I think more about it, we have the damage dealer (Felix), the tank (Lindo) and the support (me)" Lindo nodded, their formation wasn''t half bad but that didn''t mean they would win with formation alone, they would also need coordination, and considering Bizkier was a stranger to one and an unfriendly acquaintance to the other they should have trained with each other for quite a bit before they settled out like this. At this point, the one who felt awkward was the elephant shaman as he realized what they did as well.. it wasn''t that he didn''t want Bizkier to train with them but he... forgot, somehow he as an elephant forgot about this, it seemed his age was really getting to him, but it was normal considering he was already old when Siracha was a child and Siracha was above 300 years. Felix sighed as he looked at Lindo then at Bizkier, they would have to train their coordination on foot while running towards the island as for when they would have to swim... that would be a little bit harder but it was still in doable standards. They first started with some teamwork exercises as they coordinated with each other, since Bizkier was the support he was also the one who gave out commands, Felix didn''t mind as long as the commands were going to give out good results so let him talk. Lindo felt it a bit awkward to take instructions from him as he still didn''t know much about him but considering Felix didn''t seem to have problems with it he decided to go along... And this was how the final team training before the intercontinental battle started. Chapter 60: Team training Their new training couldn''t take much time as they got closer and closer to the shore of the continent so Lindo decided to create a quick training plan that he put into use immediately! They needed to get closer to each other and learn about each other so they would fight together properly, giving out signals only through the motions of their hands, feet or heads would give them a big advantage in situations in which they couldn''t talk, their souls weren''t strong enough for them to use telepathy yet so they would have to do this instead. Felix was the one that had the easiest time as he was already quite familiar with one of the persons, Lindo had a harder time as Felix''s body wasn''t humanoid but he knew him well enough for him to recognize what he meant through short actions... the one who had the hardest time and was the most annoyed by this training was his highness Bizkier. He wasn''t a man that interacted with many people from the start so he didn''t know body language very well, he was only a fighter and not a people''s man like Felix, but unlike Felix, he didn''t have a friend like Lindo which could make him a little bit more sociable. Felix was getting annoyed with his inability to learn such easy motions and he almost rebuked him a few times due to how angry he got... Lindo was acting more gently with him because he saw a hint of Felix''s past in him, the inability to understand the emotions of others, Felix was still there but he was getting better at reading people as time passed. "Ok let me show you one more time, a nod means that I''m ok with the actions that you are about to get, a shake of the head means no or negative based on the situation, a motion with the hand means..." Lindo easily explained while making examples as he took his time teaching Bizkier about what he should know in the situation, it took Bizkier so much time that they reached the shore before he fully understood all of the communication tricks that Lindo taught him. Now they all looked at each other, the elephant shaman woke up and Siracha was currently taking off some of his clothes as he waved his hand towards them and said: "If you don''t want to get your gear wet you should put it in your spatial bag and heave it over your head while we swim, anyways I''m ready when you are, I will be at the forefront along with the oldie behind you as there are quite a few strong maritime tribes in the ocean that do not really like outsiders going through their territory so we will have to deter them with our auras." The old elephant shaman nodded as he took off his clothes as well leaving himself in tong-like underwear that showed a bit too much for the eyes to see. All of the others avoided looking towards the old man''s crotch as they were innately disgusted. Felix even immediately jumped into the water even though his innate instinct as a cat was to avoid it. Siracha shook his head as he jumped as well along with Lindo who followed behind him, Bizkier couldn''t help himself but ask: "Why are you wearing that atrocious thing?" The old man scratched the tip of his nose, opened his mouth to say something, closed it then jumped into the water without looking back! "What is the problem with him?" Bizkier muttered as he jumped as well after he quickly got rid of his clothes and stuffed them into his own special equipment. The ocean water was cold, Felix felt that his body temperature went down by 6 degrees and it continued to decrease as he stayed inside the water, his fur started to smell of seawater and combined with the normal smell of wet fur it made even himself disgusted by a bit, he had the innate instinct to start licking himself to clean his body but he knows that he would be quite salty right now and he would continue getting wet as he swam in the water. Siracha swam ahead quite easily as he used his muscles perfectly Felix waited for him to take the lead along with the old man so they could do what they were supposed to. Deter any forces that would stop them from getting to their destination! They unleashed their purple colored aura in unison and the fusion between auras created a field of energy that surrounded the 5 people like a bubble. Now anyone that got near them would be identified before they could escape and they were also like a strong beacon of light that both showed itself and deterred those that had bad intentions. On this planet, there were very few people who would want to attack a duo of shamans as strong as Siracha and the old elephant Mashi. They swam along in the waters of the ocean as the temperature started to decrease accordingly as they got farther and farther away from the cliff that they jumped from. The shore was becoming almost unseeable in Felix''s eyes as all he could see around any more was water. Now they had to better their coordination through training exercises but it would be considerably harder because of their current situation. Felix tried to make some combo attacks or combat patterns that they could use and switch between to fight properly in the battle, but it didn''t really work out well considering they were swimming and they couldn''t use their best techniques, so they had to improvise and do some things that they wouldn''t do on land, they changed some of their techniques to better adapt to their environment so they could at least have some experience working together instead of going in down without any familiarity between them. Day and night alternated as they had to sleep while swimming, this was very hard for the three youths while the shaman duo didn''t really need sleep and the old man could do it quite easily. They were getting closer to the island and Felix could feel that it wouldn''t be much time before they reached it, he had a hunch about it, and his hunch was Siracha''s increasing swimming speed. The water coldness was reaching a level that started to turn unbearable to the youth trio but the shamans didn''t do anything as they said when they saw them shivering: "Ah this reminds me of the intercontinental battle back then, so young and full of vigor I was, hopefully, they won''t end up like me." The old man laughed as he pointed at Siracha: "Oh yeah, I remembered you lost the face of the lion tribe fully back then, you even..." Siracha put a hand on the man''s mouth to cover it while he moved his eyes to the side to indicate that there were other people around and he didn''t want his prestige to be sullied in front of the juniors. Felix wasn''t really interested in the story and nor was Bizkier as they attempted their best to ward off the cold that was seeping in his body, but Lindo was actually quite interested in his grandfather''s past as the man didn''t like to talk about his really young days. However, considering how he acted with the elephant shaman it was better to take his mind off these things as he activated the latent hex energy in his body to ward off the cold that was crippling his limbs slowly. There was a chance they could either get hypothermia or get stronger from this, the shamans bet on the second part with a little bit of the first one as well, but not a deadly dose. Felix could almost feel his eyes closing and his body stopping as he couldn''t ward off the cold anymore, unlike the duo that was swimming alongside him he couldn''t really use the surrounding hex energy to heat himself since the energy was cold and he also didn''t have his own pool of hex energy in his body that he could manipulate how he wanted. Felix swimming speed started to slow down and Lindo even offered a hand as he said: "Let me help with this one buddy." Even though Felix''s body was way tempered than theirs there was a limit to how much cold he could continuously endure before it would shut down, and just like it was said before, Felix couldn''t heat himself! Felix took a long look at the offered hand before he slowly started to trudge towards Lindo, his eyes were shuttling close but suddenly Siracha''s voice could be heard: "Don''t you want to get stronger? You really want to rely on Lindo and not yourself to go through this ordeal?" Felix frowned, what did the man mean? He was different compared to them... he had a glaring weakness that he couldn''t get rid of as he didn''t know how or if it was possible... he did want to use Lindo''s help in this situation but Siracha''s words made him reluctant for some reason. Was this the so-called pride? Chapter 61: Aquatic teams first time competing Felix could feel his strength returning a bit as he got motivated but it was most likely placebo, his strength wasn''t coming back physically but his mental stamina recovered a bit. But this didn''t help his weakening body, the water was so cold for it, and cats were naturally attracted to heat, they hated the cold. It was surprising that Felix could withstand the cold up this point with his cat psyche. Even though his previous actions shown otherwise Felix still had a lot of cat-like tendencies that he suppresses according to the situation he is in. Felix wanted to jump on Lindo''s shoulder and be done with it but Siracha''s words resounded in his head telling him that he should go through this ordeal alone. But why did they create this team then? He needed support, if not why did he even bother to let Lindo on the battlefield if he had to do everything alone? Felix''s eyes wandered a bit to Siracha''s back but he couldn''t see anything as the man was still swimming at the front along with the elephant shaman, he ignored his advice and put his paws on Lindo''s shoulders waiting for the man to start swimming. Lindo smiled seeing Felix''s trust and that he could rely on him then started to swim as well. Bizkier found all of this pretty funny, the cat that defeated him couldn''t handle a little cold? Maybe he overestimated the feline, he did have a few techniques that could use the cold under his sleeves so next time they would have to fight he thought that he could easily defeat him now that he grasped his weakness. Siracha didn''t say anything as he continued to swim, he ignored Felix''s choice while the elephant shaman got closer to him and whispered: "You are really though on that little ol'' tyke back there I know he is your gods chosen but you don''t have to be so aggressive with him, you know he could leave your tribe if he is dissatisfied with you right?" "Letting the iron rust without tempering it will lead to it being broken in both ways." "That''s indeed true but you know sometimes you will have to let way to the younger generations to do how they want to do." "Well you have your own way of teaching and I have mine." Siracha shut his mouth as he continued swimming, thus their conversation ended as Mashi understood that Siracha didn''t want to talk with him anymore on this subject. Feeling quite angry that he was rebuked by the child that he had once used to slap around made Mashi quite uncomfortable, he wasn''t so narrowminded to think that what he said was always right, maybe it was just his old age muddling his brain and eating at his sanity... he needed more meditation training. Siracha looked back taking a few glances at the napping Felix and shook his head, even though he wanted to temper Felix through flames and blades he knows that a sword that would be struck too much would break. For now, he would let him rest. Felix consciousness didn''t enter his mindscape as it blanked out during the nap, nothing was around him but it also felt like he was conscious at the same time, it was pretty different if you would compare it to the death feeling when his soul was leaving the plane and it was also different compared to his mindscape... it was peaceful he wasn''t sure if he felt this type of true rest in a long while. Suddenly he was back on the train station roof, it was summer and birds were chirping. His stomach was growling as he jumped towards the bird catching it from mid-air and stuffing his mouth with it while falling on his feet graciously. The train station roof wasn''t that high from the ground and he easily landed without anything happening. "Felix-kun, why did you eat that bird!" The woman that he knew came... what was her name again? Felix was embarrassed but he couldn''t remember her name clearly, mostly because she never used her own name in front of him and she said it very rarely. Most of the time all he heard was Felix-kun that, Felix-kun this, have some dried squid Felix-kun I made lots of it for you! Tsuru moved quickly but she knew the bird was dead, only a few drops of blood remained around Felix''s lips before he licked them with his tongue, not even the feathers remained he ate the whole bird whole. Felix frowned inside, this wasn''t a memory, he remembers all the times that he hunted birds and Tsuru never caught him. Was this a dream? This was one of the first true dreams he had ever experienced since he came to this dimension, the first one with Sahee didn''t count as it was his ability''s strange way of absorbing her soul, he still wondered where the necklace came from. His surroundings distorted slowly as he realized it was a dream as he was transported into the mindscape, his ears rang as the voice of Aaltarox sounded in them: "It took you a while to return here, didn''t it? I tried to contact you multiple times. You have almost reached the island as well from what I can see, ok we don''t have much time for talking, ask away!" Felix didn''t feel really well after having his dream disturbed but he asked a few more things about his ability along with the fact that he absorbed the shaman''s soul and if there was anything else he would gain from it. "Hmm? You were quite lucky it seems, but no your soul isn''t as special as your body, your body mutated when it absorbed the energy of the tunnel you went through but it didn''t reach your soul, you only get the normal benefits when you absorb someone''s else''s soul and my ability doesn''t have anything to do with what you got, as for any benefits after you reached 9 lives?" "Well... um..." The voice started to sound a bit awkward as he got that question: "Uh... the connection is getting worse I think these are all the questions I can answer you for now." Felix felt Aaltarox was doing one of his ''tricks'' to get out of this conversation so he stopped him by saying: "My soul grew quite strong since I absorbed the black bear shamans and I don''t feel the connection between us weakening at all, can you bother to explain as the time for the conversation didn''t pass?" "*cough* *cough* Ok I can''t give you any more abilities besides the one that you got nor can I strengthen it unless you get more believers to give their faith to me, that boy who has been chosen by the God of peace told you didn''t he? I''m one of the weaker gods and you are lucky enough I had been able to give you nine lives, actually you have the most lives compared to the other''s god chosen." Felix found it right if you couldn''t give the good stuff, at least give a lot of the basic stuff to make up for it. "Any more questions?" Felix nodded and decided to ask about God''s chosen of the other continents: "Finally the question that everyone asked before this battle beside you that is since your continent has 2 God''s chosen the other boy will have to give you the other half of the information as the pantheon decided that each god can give half and half." "The first God''s chosen is from the Balton continent, I think your friend mentioned something about the giant spider race right? Well, he is from there and I can say that he is rather fearsome and you would have big troubles fighting him, he is a great user of the 6 swords swordsmanship and his godly ability manifests itself as an M tattoo on his forehead, I do not actually know what type of ability he can use... I''m sorry." "The other one is from the Haron continent and he is from the raven tribe, his abilities are peculiar, to say the least, I do not actually know much about his strength besides that he can see a few seconds in the future in battle so... actually I''m of no help at all." Felix sweatdropped, at least he had to know who to watch out for, the raven and spider teams, as for the other two continents? He hoped that Bizkier would get his revelation sooner or later before the battle started. "I''m actually feeling pretty bad for being so useless, normally these would be all of the questions that you could ask but since I''m not really helpful in this situation I can bless you with some divine equipment that you can keep in your mindscape and take it out whenever you want!" A blue and white body armor that looked to be made out of rubber and spandex appeared in front of Felix... it looked quite strange for him so he touched it and it felt to be quite hard but also pleasing to the touch, his paws felt rather nice as he touched it. "This is my special divine item that has a self-repair feature along with the previous capabilities that I told you, also its defense isn''t nothing to joke about. It should increase the wearer''s survivability chance by at least 35% but it''s rather weak against blunt objects that are too strong for its defenses, however, it''s very strong against slashing attacks!" Felix nodded as he felt his whole mindscape shake... it seemed he was being woken up. The voice disappeared as Felix woke up and looked around only to see that even though they got rather close to the island they weren''t near its shore yet. Their paths were barred by people with gills and fish-tails! Chapter 62: Fish-like tendencies The fish people had tails and no legs, Felix was actually quite interested in them as his instincts told him that they would taste rather good. It couldn''t be helped considering that as a cat he naturally liked fish by quite a bit. Felix watched as the strongest smelling fish-man came forward, he had an aura no weaker than Siracha''s but compared to the elephant shaman''s it was quite lacking. The man looked to be rather arrogant at first glance but the more he glanced at Siracha the more serious he became. The moment he came near Siracha he took a small bow as he floated in the water and said something in a language that Felix didn''t understand. Even for Siracha all that the man was said was gibberish to his ears... he took a side glance towards the elderly shaman near him and asked: "Do you understand anything that this man said?" Mashi pondered for a few seconds before he shook his head and said: "Nope." Well, that was useful. Seeing that he wasn''t understood made the Fishman quite awkward as he glanced at those behind him before pushing someone else in front, he was a rather young Fishman with blonde hair and a pink starfish instead of a nose. He wore a loose transparent robe that made his tail and upper body visible quite easily. The young man coughed before he asked in fluent Tarotian: "My shaman would like to know who is this person of great standing." Siracha gave a glance towards the young man and frowned as he felt that he was somewhat similar to Felix and Bizkier. He was a god''s chosen as well! It seemed that this intercontinental battle would be very important if even those under the ocean came to join in the ''fun''. Normally these fish people would be very secluded and would never leave their comfort zone as they were some sage-like entities, just like normal fish they liked to swim in the zones that they knew and rarely ever moved away from them. "My name is Siracha from the lion tribe of the Tarot continent." The young blonde Fishman translated to him then after he got the answer from his shaman he went back to Siracha and translated again... this walking back and forth was quite slow and annoying compared to direct communication but since both sides didn''t know each other''s language they had to use the translator. It seemed that the fish tribe which was a mix of fishes of different breeds was finally invited to the intercontinental battle for the first time since their existence was found. Siracha knew that something was smelling fishy in this situation and it wasn''t his current neighbors, why would they invite them to the intercontinental battle when the battle itself was a way to gauge the strength of the younger generations of the four continents? Were these old fogies from the other 4 continents ready to invade the ocean? Did they become that crazy with age? Siracha shook his head as he chatted a little bit with the shaman of the fishmen through the translator before he decided to take his leave along with his party... Felix just watched the fishmen swimming ahead of them at speeds that made him quite impressed... the fishmen shaman was even faster than Siracha in the water! Siracha didn''t comment as he swam at his own pace not interested by the speed of the other traveling party. Felix watched on as they left as he licked his lips, he wondered how did these fish people taste? Since he was better now after the nap Felix could swim by himself and they were almost at the island, after a short while of swimming they finally reached the shore of the island which was golden due to the concentration of golden sand being really pure and high. Golden sand was a type of sand that resembled gold but had no value besides being pretty. Felix finally could dry himself as the heat returned quickly to his body and he shook his fur like a dog while countless drops of water left it. He started to clean himself using his tongue and very quickly he became dry and clean again. Lindo looked on wordlessly while Bizkier looked to be quite disgusted with Felix''s habits, after all, they had inherited human habits after a while so they found Felix''s tongue cleaning act to be quite well... strange in their eyes. Even normal cat tribesmen wouldn''t do this type of cleaning anymore as this tradition was forgotten in time. The shamans didn''t decide to comment as they looked elsewhere waiting for him to finish. After Felix finished cleaning himself they started to walk on the beach of the island until they reached some woods, the woods were rather dense and you could easily lose yourself in them but Siracha took out a compass from his bag and looked at everyone to make sure they were ready. Everyone already had got their clothes back on and things weren''t really as awkward as the moment they saw Felix cleaning himself while practically being ''naked''. As they got closer to the entrance of the woods they finally saw a funny image, the fishmen were flopping on the ground as they tried to move using their tails... it was quite a strange image as some of them used their hands to move. How were these people supposed to fight on land? The only difference being the young Fishman who translated as he somehow grew legs and replaced his tail with them, however, he still had his gills and fish traits. However, he still seemed to be out of it as his eyes were unfocused and his mouth was gaping, was he running out of air? Maybe it was strange for someone to suddenly breathe only air when they breathed mostly water 99% of their life. Siracha shook his head as he saw them then told his party to leave them alone, it wasn''t his job to babysit the newbies. They entered the woods and with the help of the compass that Siracha had they reached the middle of them... There they found a few people that were waiting already, the infamous 6 armed experts from the spider tribe and the kangaroo tribe could be easily spotted, some people were hidden in the shadows of the trees that Felix couldn''t make their silhouettes out, it was mostly as if they didn''t exist at all! But all in all, they weren''t the last to arrive as there were still spots around the clearing where they were for more people to appear. Siracha took a seat on a tree stump on the ground and started to meditate as he closed his eyes, the old elephant shaman did the same without saying a thing, this left Bizkier Lindo and Felix all alone with the other youths as the shamans of their tribes were doing the same thing as Mashi and Siracha. The youth of the kangaroo tribe came forward as he gave a few glances towards Felix and his party as he said with a deep voice: "Heya there mates, I hope we will have a great match if we ever fight!" It seemed he was the strongest of the Kangaroos or the one with the most influence as he was the only one that came forward of the 6 Kangaroos that existed on the side of the Balton continents team. Their team consisted of the 6 Kangaroos and one spider teammate. The ones that were hiding in the dark were situated to the side of the Haron continent... which meant the raven person should be amongst the ones hiding in the shade. Seeing that he was so friendly made Felix come forward as well as he reciprocated the gesture giving him a paw up and telling him something similar to what he said as a courtesy. The Kangaroo nodded as he smiled at him but the giant spider teammate just glared at the two of them as he muttered: "Stupid meat-headed bastards." Felix ignored his comment that his sharp ears caught but the kangaroo wasn''t so forgiving as he suddenly appeared near him and gave him a slap... that made him fall headfirst in the grass below them. Felix frowned as he looked at the duo... the spider was supposed to be stronger than him and this kangaroo fellow beat him like that? Was the intelligence that Aaltarox gave him wrong? Suddenly the spider got up from the ground and glared at the Kangaroo as he put his hands towards his waist where 6 swords were sheathed: "You have a problem with me, you muscle bastard!" "You are sure noisy for a bug now apologize for your comment!" "But your actions just showed that my comment is indeed true!" "It might be true but I don''t like hearing it so apologize before I bash your teeth in and make all of your 6 eyes be bigger than they already are!" Chapter 63: Everyone gathers The moment the spider person put his hands near his waist ready to draw his swords the shaman of the spider race opened his six eyes and glanced towards him with an apathetic expression from his tree stump. The spider participant started to sweat intensely as he felt the aura of his elder pressing on him before he bowed towards the kangaroo and Felix then said: "I''m sorry for my comment!" The kangaroo expert smiled as he patted the spider''s shoulder and said with a big laugh: "Isn''t it better to act how are you supposed to?" The spider expert decided to decline in this situation as he didn''t want any more problems... but from his expression, it could be said that he didn''t really like taking this down as he did. Felix watched the spider person glare at him with all of his 6 eyes as he pointed at his throat and made a slashing gesture... well he made an enemy already somehow? He didn''t even say anything, was he really that narrow-minded? Felix shook his head looking at him before he took a glance towards the people from the Haron continent. He never had any interactions with these type of birds before so he wondered how they were like? All he could see were some vague shadows that indicated that their illusory powers were quite potent. So those from the Haron continent weren''t to be underestimated, Felix continued to look at them as he waited for Bizkier to tell him anything, he needed to know information about the other God chosen out there so he could have his defense up against them in any situation that they would meet on the battlefield. Bizkier seemed to doze off and this was a sign that his God must have taken him forcefully to talk with him since there were no signs for him to ever go to sleep in this situation. Finally, the ones from the ocean arrived and it seemed they all grew legs after learning from the blonde young man. It seemed the man was a trickster as he could have taught them how to grow legs before they were seen by Felix and the others but he still let them crawl like that to make fun of them. The shaman of the fishmen didn''t look that happy as he must have berated the young man beforehand already as he made fool of themselves on their first impression of the earthlings. Felix watched on as now almost all of them were here besides the Sparron continent, regarding the Sparron continent Felix thought that were the weakest as their Tarot continent was in the middle rankings the Balton continent must be above them and the Haron continent was the strongest as he couldn''t see through the strength of the ravens who were also hiding the other teammates of theirs somehow. Even Siracha and Mashi couldn''t see through them as they were blocked by the shaman of the ravens who was also hiding the second person from their continent. Felix frowned as he looked at them, why were they acting so mysterious? Did they think they were cool or something? If they were so strong why didn''t they show themselves properly so he would be able to slash them into ribbons when he saw them! Seeing that Felix was getting a little bit agitated as he glared towards the Haron continent''s direction made Lindo chuckle a little bit, was Felix really so easy to rile? Then he frowned as he realized, no! He wasn''t! Lindo walked slowly to him before patting his head and asking: "Are you okay man? You wouldn''t act like this normally." Felix shook his head to clear his mind as he frowned and realized that something must have happened to him if he acted this way... normally he wouldn''t be so aggressive without a reason right? Could they have invaded his mind so easily to trigger his emotions? It seemed that their mind-influencing Hex techniques were quite potent indeed! Felix became even warier as he looked at their silhouettes before averting his gaze, considering his soul was extremely strong it was very impressive that he could get his emotions swayed so easily... "Hmm?" A muffled voice could be heard at the position of the Haron continent, a youth with a scar going from his left temple towards his jaw, purple eyes with the dark sclera and he wore a simple dark trench coat with buttons on the front along with dark military pants and boots frowned as he looked towards Felix''s direction. Seeing his frown made the other ravens caw and look at him while asking: "What''s wrong Wu Xiao?" "Nothing... I just found someone rather interesting, for his build, he seems like a melee fighter but his soul was refined to such a degree that he could counter my emotion swaying gaze averting technique?" Hearing that someone was able to negate his technique made the other 3 ravens shut their beaks as they looked at him... he was the only one in his human form while the ravens were pretty much normal sized ravens as they didn''t assume their human form. The only other person there was a man that combined fat with muscle which stood around 2,40 meters tall. He didn''t wear anything on his upper body and he only wore straw sandals and some pelt to hide his intimate parts. He had a hooked nose and he was currently eating a banana with a neutral look on his face, he had a few piles of banana peels near him which showed that he had eaten quite a few since the Haron continent was the first to arrive. The man didn''t say anything as he continued to eat his bananas as if he was oblivious to what was happening around him and all he could focus on was the banana. Felix frowned as he felt a gaze scanning his body intently trying to see through him but failing. Felix looked towards Siracha but Siracha didn''t even bat an eye towards him as he sent him a mental message: "You will be able to make things even when the battle starts, we still have to wait for the Sparron continent." Felix didn''t continue looking towards the Haron continent location and decided to talk with Lindo until Bizkier woke up. However, before they could start talking Bizkier woke up and immediately came towards Felix as he started whispering: "The last God''s chosen from the Sparron continent is supposed to be from the Fox race and while he doesn''t have a high battle power he is a very good support fellow that has unique charming techniques that could even enliven and increase his teammates battle power, as for the other God''s chosen we already met him... the blonde young man from the ocean, even the God that chosen me didn''t say much about him besides that he is rather mysterious and he can control water... this is actually of no help at all, can''t all fishmen control water?" For Bizkier even though he didn''t have any interactions with those from below it seemed only natural for him for fishmen to control water. It seemed Bizkier''s god wasn''t that dependable either, Felix thought. They had to wait for around 5 more hours before the Sparron continent arrived. Their team was very high key as the female captain of the team along with the shaman arrived in the forefront, they were both beauties of great standards and they both had fox ears and tails, while the older woman had 2 tails the younger one had around 4 tails! There were 2 handsome men behind them and 2 men with two white lines going across their black tails and in total they were 5 excluding the shaman. It was strange considering the shaman of the other two didn''t accompany them but Felix didn''t think much about it as Mashi wasn''t supposed to come with them either, Felix wasn''t even sure why he was here in the first place, was he really so distrusting to think that Bizkier wouldn''t even reach the island if he was left with them? Actually on second thought... Maybe not. The woman came forward and excused herself as she bowed towards the other shamans, the team that was participating walked towards their spot while the woman gave a few bows towards the other shamans while showing her sizeable cleavage, Felix wasn''t really interested in her show but what attracted his attention was the fact that there was a mental forcefield around her that influenced those that were around her passively! With his new eye technique that could even see the soul as long as he concentrated well enough, he could see the pink forcefield around her. It seemed that this was the way of the fox tribe to charm their opponents. Felix made a note of it and he had to make sure to avoid it in the future. Coughs could be heard as the other shamans got from the tree stumps they stood on in unison and started to talk to each other. It was time to decide where the fight would be held and the rules of it. Chapter 64: Start the fights! Siracha, Mashi, and the other shamans met in the middle as they gazed into each other''s eyes with fake smiles on their faces. The female fox from the sparron continent had a charming smile on her face while the duo from the Haron continent kept mum, now that they were visible an old man with a hooked nose and a bald fat man who both wore dark clothes and boots appeared, they both wore military-like outfits and didn''t make any movements or had any facial expressions, they were both as blank as a piece of white paper. The kangaroo and spider shamans were rather hmmm... amicable? Siracha couldn''t really tell as their smiles crept him quite a bit, especially the one of the middle-aged spider who had 6 eyes, and his open mouth showed his sharp fangs that dripped yellow-colored poison. As for the kangaroo man, he was a mountain of muscle with a small head and disproportionate body, he just looked strange and his smiling made it rather creepy. Felix found them all to be pretty funny and Mashi wasn''t that normal either as he looked like a walking relic. Only Siracha was the one that looked rather normal, well him and the fox lady. Even Lindo barely suppressed his laughter and even Bizkier who was high and mighty could only smile at their attempt at showing their ''elegance and superiority'' as shamans and elders of their tribes, while they were all strong old fogies they were pretty much antisocial hermits who rarely left their homes. Even Siracha who was rather social was considered a little bit awkward at times. "Ok, so the theme of this battle will be like the last ones right?" The fox lady asked with a coquettish glance around her. "There is no reason to change something that had worked up till now is it?" The old man from the raven tribe asked with a snort. The ape middle-aged man continued: "I have to second that." Siracha intervened: "Ok since it''s the same way of fighting then let''s decide on a location already." The shaman of the Fishman tribe interfered saying some gibberish that no one understood before the blond young man came forward to translate: "He wants to be the one to choose the environment since this is the first time we from the Fishman tribe have ever participated in this... intercontinental battle of yours." "Anyone wants to let the fish-eyes back there decide on what environment our youths will fight in?" "No." Siracha and Mashi said in unison "No." The old raven and middle-aged ape continued The fox lady scrunched his nose as he turned her gaze away from the Fishman and said: "You smell and no!" The Kangaroo and spider shamans mused for a while before they shook their heads and looked with pity at the Fishman: "Sorry mate but it seems you will have to play by what we want for this time." The kangaroo buff man bowed and the spider shook his head as he continued from where the Kangaroo left: "It''s ok considering your men can grow legs but considering you wanted to make our boys fight in the water where you can retain your tails and have an obvious advantage we are not that dumb to let you do that." The shaman Fishman coughed as he started whistling and averted his gaze by looking at the sky, it seemed that while he didn''t know the common language he did have the same mannerisms as the ones on the surface which showed that the underwater society developed in the same direction as theirs, the only difference being the language and some other customs. Felix found them to be pretty funny in their own ways, it seemed that the statement from before held up. Bizkier walked closer to Felix and Lindo and whispered: "It''s time to give our all." Then he shut up, was he attempting to boost their confidence before the fight? It was a cute attempt, Lindo gave him a thumbs up and smile as the supportive fellow he was. Felix just gave him a nod as he was still a little bit shook by what happened with the raven competitor, he still couldn''t believe he got entrapped so easily. "So about the location... I think we should do it in the valley of skulls as we always had." "Seconded." "Hmm, what about the mud vortex?" "We let them fight in that one the last time because you got bored with the valley of skulls." "Oh yeah..." "Well, we go with the valley of skulls again?" "Let''s go with one that we haven''t done before!" The last suggestion was from the fox lady who was glancing left and right while winking at the younger shamans. Siracha shook his head as he said: "It doesn''t really matter where we let them go as they haven''t been there themselves, this is more like a small choice for both us and them." "Having a familiar area for us will make it easier to judge their performance though." "Indeed but it has gotten quite boring to watch them slaughter each other in the same environment again and again." "Ok then we will go with the Fox tribe shaman''s suggestion, we shall choose the forest for them to fight you know which part." Felix frowned, they were already in a forest so wherein it would they be taken? It didn''t take much time for Felix''s question to be answered as Siracha and Mashi took them towards the location along with the others. The surrounding forest started to change as they went deeper and deeper inside, the verdant green trees started to change to a strange purple, and the miasma they gave before started to turn slightly poisonous. No one batted an eye to the poisoned air as their constitutions were strong enough for them to withstand the poison with no problems. After a short while of walking the shamans finally disappeared as they left all the youngsters alone, the young Fishman stood alone as he looked at everyone else with wary eyes, there were foxes, skunks, ravens, an ape along with kangaroos and a spider, plus Felix and the other two. There was a myriad of new races around him and he felt quite overwhelmed by the new information that his brain was processing right now, especially since he was left alone and he had to think of a battle plan to survive this on the fly, he knew nothing of their special characteristics so all he could do was look at Felix''s group and give them a look that inspired pity. They were the first land people that he had met so they were trustworthy in his opinion. Felix found the young Fishman to be rather pitiable but he also wasn''t sure how strong he was so would he become baggage as he wasn''t in his right environment? While an alliance was possible he had to think deeply about it. Felix''s musings were broken as 6 blades were thrown at him ready to impale him in the head and kill him. An angry shout could also be heard that came from the strongest kangaroo: "HEY! That''s unfair to them why didn''t you shout your attack?" The spider tribesman looked at the kangaroo as if he was an retard before shaking his head, the blades he threw were a few of his mountain of throwing weapons he got in his special bag. The moment the spider tribesman attacked pandemonium started! The ravens were already in their primal forms so they flew away leaving the man in the trench coat alone, the man sighed as he put a hand on his temples while keeping the other in his pockets and said: "Tch, cowards the lot of them." The Fox beauty suddenly flanked him along with her cronies as she gave him a flirtatious glance while her tails were swishing behind her back: "Why don''t you come back with me since your friends left you alone?" Her forcefield was tuned at full strength as it engulfed the young raven, the man chuckled as he looked into her eyes and she gave out a small sweet smile as her eyes turned pink and the man opened up his mouth while saying: "Sure why not?" Suddenly he appeared in front of her drilling his hand through her chest bloodying the purple grass below them. "But you will have to go first, we shall meet in the afterlife!" Everything happened too quickly, her cronies tried to help her as the man backed away slowly but with a big grin on his face... but then he frowned as he got a better look at her face and saw that it wasn''t paling, which meant she wasn''t dying! The raven didn''t have time to see that one of her tails slowly started to shrink as he flew away, but he still took a glance to Felix''s side then disappeared while leaving some words behind. "Surviving having your heart pierced through huh? It seems your shaman really loves you." The man turned into his primal form as he flew away knowing that the best opportunity flew away, he could feel countless gazes brushing against his back as he flew away to meet with the others from his tribe... the only one remaining on the ground was the ape who was still eating bananas. It seemed his special bag was full of them. Chapter 65: Ape rampage Felix watched as the raven chosen disappeared... leaving behind his ally the fat man who was eating bananas as if he wasn''t even in a fight to the death with multiple people. Now that he was all alone made the other teams want to team up to quickly get rid of him as he could be considered in a rather bad situation being all alone and surrounded by so many enemies. The fox tribesmen started to run away along with their injured God''s chosen to let her recover, but the woman suddenly got up as one of her tails finally disappeared and her body regenerated back to her peak. She glared towards the direction of the ape fellow and gritted her teeth as she said: "Let''s teach those from the Haron continent who''s boss!" The others looked reluctantly at each other before, at her, she didn''t take a hit to the head, did she? She just got one-shot by one of them and they wanted to attack that big fellow? Even though there were more people here it wasn''t known who would stab them in the back and allying with them in this situation was quite unwise. One of the males dragged her by the collar as he said: "We should hide, for now, there is no way we can do anything in this chaotic situation, considering you even lost one of your lives." The woman cooled down before shaking her head and retreating along with her compatriots. Bizkier moved his head indicating to Felix and the others that they should attack the retreating team of foxes. Lindo nodded as he understood the signal and Felix didn''t say anything as he disappeared, it wasn''t anything personal. Bizkier used his force field to fly as he took Lindo with him to block the way of the retreating foxes. While they were blocking the way of the foxes the Balton team was encircling the Gorilla. Felix was tempted to attack the Gorilla with the Balton team but considering the Fox team already had an injured team and the big fellow smelled quite dangerous he decided to attack them. In the end, it all came up to who survived, or at least that''s what Felix thought as they didn''t bother to explain to them most of the rules besides that they must fight... and considering the raven person attacked to kill it became obvious it was a deathmatch at this point. The foxes were rather angry as they saw Bizkier and Lindo blocking their path but then they frowned as they didn''t see Felix anywhere then they took a back-to-back formation to defend themselves from any sudden stealth attacks. Bizkier chuckled as he unleashed his forcefield trying to push them into the ground but considering the acute senses of the Fox tribe, they moved gracefully as they dodged the advancing forcefield. Bizkier frowned as he looked at Lindo and narrowed his eyes before moving them towards the Foxes on the ground below. Lindo shook his head then pointed at this trunk which was glowing as he was using the forcefield, he couldn''t go and attack as long as he used the forcefield or there was a chance for friendly fire to occur. Bizkier understood and he turned off the forcefield, while it was a good impending tactic it wouldn''t work well in a team unless he would be able to make his teammates immune to its effects which he couldn''t... yet. Felix didn''t reveal himself as he crouched on the ground and his eyes were trained on the woman with 3 remaining tails, his eyes glazed over as he knew that she had 3 lives left. It seemed that dying once wasn''t enough for God''s chosen to be disqualified! The woman kept a steady gaze as she tried to identify Felix''s location while defending herself and her team by a combination of their Hex energy, they created a big barrier that could defend themselves from all the ranged attacks that Bizkier and Lindo threw at them. Bizkier was a mixed fighter while Lindo was a melee fighter so of course, their ranged attacks were rather mediocre, Bizkier''s being a little better than Lindo''s but considering he couldn''t use his strongest ranged attack or else he might impede Felix too, it couldn''t be helped considering both of them couldn''t see him, the thing about stealth experts was that they could be confusing both to enemies and allies in such situations. While the foxes and Felix''s team were in an impasse the Gorilla-Ape fellow had finished his last banana before he got up from the ground and dusted himself. He looked around being quite puzzled why he was alone, some moments ago he was eating a banana with his teammates, and the next moment they all disappeared? Quite strange if someone asked him. He saw how the kangaroos and the spider were approaching him so he decided to ask where did his team go. He suddenly disappeared from where he stood as he left behind a crater due to the immense speed and strength he used in his legs to approach the buff kangaroo and his team. Seeing the sudden rush from the Ape made the Kangaroo grit his teeth as his muscles twitched while he waited for the impact of the attack, he closed his eyes to dampen the pain to come only to find out... that nothing was coming? He opened his eyes only to see the ape-like man quizzically looking at him before patting his shoulder which made him go 3 centimeters in the ground due to the weight of the palm and some blood spurted out of the corner of his mouth. The ape looked at him for a few seconds before asking: "You seem like an honest fellow, do you know where my teammates went?" The kangaroo wanted to say something but he couldn''t handle the internal injuries he had gotten from that single strike. The shockwave from that palm went through his whole body and shook his red cells while cracking his hex energy pathways, even with his high amount of muscle percentage that blocked most of the attack he still ended up in this situation! "I uh... *blegh*" He vomited a mouthful of blood along with some gastric acid and what he ate beforehand which made the ape quite disgusted but it didn''t seem like he was in an unknown situation, he just dodged the projectile of vomit combined with blood easily and asked again. This time the kangaroo opened his mouth and said: "They left you... while you were eating." "Hmmm?" "Say that again!" It seemed this truth somehow offended the ape-like fellow and his face started to turn a deep red color like he was a boiled lobster. "There is no way my friends would leave me alone! You are lying! What have you done to them?" The kangaroo frowned as he took a few steps backward and almost tripped over the small hole he was currently in, he didn''t like the aura that was currently converging on the body of the ape... his stature started to increase even further-reaching 2,60 meters and bright red fur covered his whole body. His eyes turned the same color as his fur as his hex aura fully revealed itself standing at a deep green color showing that he must have reached the 6th or 7th refining of his strengthening techniques. "RUN AWAY!" The spider fellow immediately transformed into his primal form as he created a web and attached it to the trees before flinging away faster than the eye could see, the kangaroos started to jump as high as they could to avoid the ape who was going on a rampage. The leader of the Kangaroos frowned as 3 tattoos revealed themselves on his chest, it wasn''t known what they were used for but the moment they started glowing he high-tailed it away from the current location. Felix could smell danger coming quickly as he shouted towards the other two: "WE HAVE TO GO AS WELL, STOP ATTACKING!" The other two were annoyed with the defensive capabilities of the shield when they suddenly felt the aura of the ape appear behind them. Lindo''s ears moved up as he instinctively felt something wasn''t right and Felix''s words made him duck just before a swing would have lopped his head off. Bizkier wasn''t as lucky as his head was lopped off and his body fell to the ground where it quickly grew another head as he scampered towards Felix''s direction trying to run away. Felix appeared as he grabbed Lindo by the scruff of the neck with his mouth and started to run at breakneck speed away from the mad ape. The Fox tribesmen were frozen as they kept the barrier up, they couldn''t move while they used the barrier so they couldn''t escape! The woman with 3 tails frowned as she looked at the ape but shook her head, her charm ability wouldn''t do anything to the ape in its maddened state... were they doomed? Chapter 66: Only the strong survive Felix''s breathing was quick as he ran away while dragging Lindo with him, Bizkier was just behind them and he was already out of breath and one tusk missing as he was back to 1 life remaining. "What was that thing?" Lindo was the one who asked the question, he was in a confused state as Felix grabbed him by the collar and dragged him through the purple grass in the forest which made him quite dizzy and he didn''t really know what happened. He only felt a dangerous aura behind him then Felix grabbed him. Bizkier caught his breath as he looked back and frowned as he said: "I''m not sure but..." Suddenly his eyes lighted up as if he got information from thin air and said: "He is an ape expert... but there is something strange about him, apes are generally quite smart and they wouldn''t act irascibly without reason, but he is in the team with those ravens who have mind-affecting abilities so I guess we don''t really have to question how he ended up that way right?" Felix looked enviously at Bizkier, his god was quite useless in all aspects besides giving him his ability, but this guy''s God could give him information on the fly as well? Felix wasn''t sure what type of contract this guy had with his god but it seemed better than whatever he got from his. Sensing Felix''s envious gaze made Bizkier put his trunk in the air as he said: "It would be best to avoid him... Wait aren''t we missing one person?" "Oh yeah now that you remind me... where is the blonde aqua boy?" As they looked around they realized that they were missing their new ally who disappeared under the rampage of the ape, he wasn''t dead that was for sure as the big colored barrier of the foxes must have grabbed the attention of the ape. "So what are we supposed to do now?" Lindo wasn''t sure what to do considering they all split up and they were supposed to fight each other, should they just wander the forest aimlessly or wait for the others to find them? After all, finding these types of opponents was easier said than done, they all must have some type of stealth or ability that would cloak their presence, especially the ravens must be experts at such things... the only ones they could deal with would be the Balton team as they looked to have infighting problems. "For sure we aren''t going back there, that ape is too strong!" "Mhm." "Indeed." Now that they had a plan, which was not having a plan they decided to aimless go through the forest to find opponents, in this situation they could also lay traps but they didn''t have any useful resources and any makeshift traps wouldn''t be useful at all, while the trees were poisonous they wouldn''t affect the highly tempered bodies of the contestants so they weren''t really useful... unless the poison could be somehow amplified. Bizkier took a look at the purple leaf trees around them and motioned with his hand for them to stay for a second, he stabbed a finger through one of them, and sap of the same purple color as the leaves started to pour out, he didn''t touch the sap with his fingers as he used his force field ability to grab it up and analyzed it with a critical eye. "Hmm... I guess we could have a plan if I use this sap properly," Both Lindo and Felix were brawlers so they didn''t know jack of what he was talking about, while they could somewhat lead armies they didn''t know how they could use the poison properly because they thought it was too weak. Seeing their confused looks made Bizkier shake his head as he muttered: "Plebs." Then he looked at them with a smile and decided to explain: "I can use my Hex energy to infuse the poison with a pathogen cell that would amplify its prowess by up to 50% also adding the paralysis effect, my blood can also be extracted and used along with the poison to strengthen it." Both Felix and Lindo looked at each other for a few brief seconds before they looked at Bizkier. "Ugh... If I mix my blood and hex energy with this poison it will be stronger enough to affect even those people with strong bodies, do you understand now?" Understanding dawned on their faces as they nodded at him, while they found Bizkier to be quite prideful and annoying at least he was smart, and now that he had two able-bodied teammates to help him he could use his smarts to his advantage... after all even if he was smart like this what he would do when he was overwhelmed by pure strength? While the poison would get a small paralysis effect it would only trigger once per person as afterward they would get antibodies and the poison wouldn''t work anymore but Bizkier didn''t bother to explain to them the intricate parts and he said it would only work once per person, so they should use the paralysis effect only at opportune moments that would decide the life and death situations they would be in! Bizkier took out 3 small glass bottles from his special bag and filled them with sap before he infused his Hex energy into them along with a few drops of blood from his finger. The purple sap turned a greenish color when it was fused with the hex energy which turned blue when the blood was finally added. He gave one to Felix and one to Lindo and they put it in the pockets of their clothes. Felix took a glance around and realized that their surroundings were a little bit too silent for his tastes... something was wrong? But he couldn''t feel what it was, when suddenly a blonde head appeared out of the bushes in front of them, it was the young Fishman! Felix didn''t think he introduced himself up till now so he walked closer to him and decided to ask his name. "So now that we are teammates we should get to know each other, what''s your name?" The young Fishman glared at Felix as he berated him: "You left me alone with that rampaging ape and he almost squashed me! And now all you do is ask me for my name? Aren''t you quite shameless!" Felix felt a bit awkward at having his deed pointed out before he coughed a bit and said: "Oh well, you are God''s chosen so you have more lives... I didn''t even save my own God''s chosen so how could I help you?" The man''s anger started to die down as Felix''s argument was as solid as the wall of china, what could he say in this situation considering he let Bizkier get decapitated while they were both from the same continent and in the same team? He was an outsider that decided to ally with them because he was the only youth that was strong enough to be participating in this event, unfortunately for the fishmen, strength wasn''t something most of them pursued due to their very peaceful lives. Not one of them had been in any war and they ate algae and other marine vegetables, so they didn''t even have to hunt for their food. Their food supply was also basically unlimited due to the high proliferation rate of underwater vegetables. "*Sigh* Let''s leave it at that, my name is Gustavo Elrio Altraeimo the sixth and you may call me Altraeimo for short." Lindo whistled, that was quite a long name, normally only a shaman''s relatives would have a second name but this guy had 3 names! Lindo''s name was Lindo Enoch just like his grandfather Siracha Enoch, and his father''s name was Diorno Enoch, Lindo got a little bit interested in him considering he had three names and asked what did they mean only for the man to shake his head and tell him that he wouldn''t understand their meaning as they were translated from his language to adapt to the land dwellers. Lindo scratched his head and then shook it as he looked at Bizkier before saying: "I guess we go now?" "Yeah let''s go there is nothing to do for us here and the farther we get away from that ape the better." Felix took a second look back and he could hear the cries of fear and death of the foxes if he strained his ears for a bit. He muttered under his breath as he followed the others who were already leaving him behind: "Only the strongest survive." Felix quickly ran up to the others and easily caught up with them as he didn''t take anymore glances back, for now, he would do his best to survive this as he was unsure of the rules of the event... why did the shamans have to do things hard for them? Chapter 67: The dangers of the purple forest As Felix and companions got further into the forest the temperature started to go down resembling the coldness they felt when they were swimming towards the island. Felix found it strange as the temperature decreased he could feel something inside of him cooling off and it wasn''t his body temperature alone... his organs slowed down as they got colder? This wasn''t right, not even the coldness from the water made his organs slow down by this much, he inspected himself and found that the poison from the trees started to get stronger as they advanced further into the forest. He wasn''t the only one who realized this as both Bizkier and Altraeimo stopped on the spot, Lindo himself felt something was wrong with his body a few seconds later than the other two. Bizkier opened his mouth as he coughed up one globe of purple-colored blood and frowned: "It seemed the poison intensity intensifies the further we walk in the forest." "We can already feel that know-it-all." Lindo said and frowned as he asked: "How do we stop it from invading our bodies though? We are already using hex energy as shields." "It seems the poison is getting thinner and it finds spots to infiltrate our bodies through the shields... after all, we don''t have perfect control of our Hex energy to create flawless shields." No one truly had flawless control of the hex energy in their bodies besides shamans and the shamans only got to that point in hex energy manipulation half because of their innate talents and a half because of the special training techniques they could use in combination with their bloodline. "Hmm... so what should we do in this situation? Go back?" Lindo shuddered as he asked, he wasn''t sure if the ape was still there but he didn''t want to find out. "Well, we could either go back or slowly walk to our deaths in the poison infested forest." Altraeimo said while sighing, he was really scared by that ape back then but now he had to go back but he didn''t want to go towards certain death either, they might be able to evade the ape if they played their cards well but the poison was certainly impossible to resist with their current capabilities. Felix looked to their front and sighed as he said: "What Altraeimo said is true... we can''t go further as the poison starts to become visible the further we go in, our organs are already slowing down at this point and if we walk further we will slowly lose feeling in our organs before they would stop and we die." This was a very grim but true outlook of the situation so all they could do was walk backward to the same direction they came from. Even though some time had passed since they walked away and came back shockwaves could be still felt from the battlefield as the fight continued, the shield was still holding strong but it was also full of cracks and the foxes inside of it were full of sweat that made their clothes see-through and sticking to their bodies, blood also flowed from their mouths freely as their internal organs took great hits from the continuous shockwaves. However, the good thing was that the ape was also getting tired from pummeling the shield for such a long time and its complexion started to turn back from its red form to a normal color which indicated that his rage was subsiding. Felix was in his stealth mode as he watched everything unfolding before he went back and reported what was happening to his teammates. Bizkier almost wanted to laugh as he said: "2 birds with one stone, let''s go and take care of all of them together!" Altraeimo nodded as what Bizkier said was pretty logical for him in the current circumstances, Lindo didn''t like taking advantage of others but this event was serious and they had to act unsavory in wars as well since this was basically a simulated war between the 4 continents they had to play dirty. Felix didn''t have any problems with the suggestion as he nodded and entered stealth again, he would decide to strike when both of the parties were at their weakest! He stilled for a moment as he realized that if they would end up like this the others wouldn''t end up being better either, which meant they would all come back and end up with the same decision as theirs seeing the current situation of the foxes and the ape! If Felix could understand this the other three could naturally as well, they frowned as they made some hand signs indicating for Felix to come back, but Felix didn''t even leave as he revealed his body to the others. "It seems we have been rushing a little bit too fast." "Indeed..." They watched on as the ape finally started to run out of steam and the barrier that the foxes employed cracked and dissipated into nothing. The foxes could barely move in this situation but the ape was quite tired as well and it seemed to have used all of its anger up as it reverted to its fat human form and it looked into its special bag for bananas only to find none, then it fell to its ass and started crying. Felix''s team was quite perturbed by his actions, such a strong and angry ape acted like a cub? As Felix took a better look at the ape it could be seen that while he looked old he really wasn''t, Felix''s eyes lit up with soul energy as he gazed at the ape''s soul, and from what he could gather the ape''s soul was rather young, actually, he could even be considered an infant in human years! Felix had gained the ability to identify the soul age of others after the grueling soul training he had done with Lindo, it actually came quite naturally after he learned how to see the souls properly but it wasn''t a really useful technique for him as souls could be cloaked if the user knew a proper technique. "So what do we do now? Wait?" "Well yeah, considering the others must be waiting nearby as well, it''s a case of the mantis stalking the cicada unaware of the oriole behind." "What does that even mean?" "I''m not sure but Mashi said this when you guys were attacking our village and contextually it applies here as well." Lindo and Bizkier chatted a bit to make the time pass as waiting was quite boring and they had already healed the damage done by the poison. Felix made a shushing sound as he looked towards the battlefield, it seemed the Balton continent contestants couldn''t wait anymore as the muscled kangaroo appeared and glared at the ape and the fox contestants, his kangaroo buddies were behind him while the spider expert was nowhere to be seen as he was readying an ambush for those that would slip through. The 6 Kangaroos were quite imposing as each had their own impressive mass of muscles and their stances indicated that they were adept boxers. Felix watched as they rushed towards the crying ape trying to push him down and gang up on him to beat him to death! The foxes were forgotten as they slowly tried to get away while crawling towards the exit of the woods trying to go through the same direction they came through, they wanted to quit! Suddenly out of the trees the spider expert came laughing as he threw some blades towards the necks of the exhausted foxes ready to take all of their lives. The spider expert eyes glowed with energy that was transferred to the flying blades increasing their speed as they easily pierced through the two males with white lines on their tails transforming them both into corpses that suddenly started stinking. Those two weren''t foxes but skunks! The moment a skunk tribesman died he would unleash all of his pent-up gas creating a chemical bomb that was akin to highly concentrated poison! The duo didn''t look like skunks at first glance as they were disguised as foxes but the moment they died their identity was revealed! The gas was highly toxic and corrosive as it even touched the other foxes who were nearby transforming them into puddles of pus and black blood, the great fox beauty with 3 tails lost another tail as her body recovered and she ran away as her stamina recovered to full capacity. The spider from the Balton continent fell with his legs upwards as he died from the smell only for him to get right back up and turn away from the infected area with a speedy gait, the poisonous gas also started to reach the ape and the kangaroo''s location but the kangaroos were already jumping away the moment they felt the smell leaving the ape alone. The ape got up and smelled the air before he started belching from the smell... but he didn''t seem to be getting injured at all from the poisonous gas the skunk''s bodies released. The skunk''s bodies were also quickly dissipating due to the gas and after a short, while all of the gas disappeared as it was absorbed by the tress who turned a combination of toxic green and purple, they also started to drip with the toxin and whenever it dripped to the ground a small hole would appear that would slowly get bigger and bigger. Felix looked at the ape who was glancing around waiting for his friends to pop out but the ravens were nowhere to be found. Felix frowned as he put his attention to the skies, where could have the ravens gone? They were the only ones who could fly so they could go further into the forest as they could fly above the poisonous field but would they get disqualified if they flew away from the forest entirely? The ape glanced towards Felix''s direction as it started to walk there slowly, it felt like its actions were random but he actually felt the life force of Felix and the others! Chapter 68: The power of food The ape''s speed was rather low but it was certainly going towards Felix''s and the others'' direction, it was as if he could surely feel the life force of all of them! They were the only ones who remained in the vicinity as everyone else had already run away from the toxic bomb the skunk duo had detonated with their lives. Bizkier immediately started to retreat as he grabbed Lindo by the arm and dragged him away, Altraeimo glanced towards Felix and made a motion with his hand indicating that they should run away from there as quick as they could! Felix looked at the incoming ape and felt that he was quite the strange person, he had the soul of an infant and he didn''t look to be that unstable, he was just angry when the kangaroo told him that he had been abandoned by his raven friends as he felt that the man was lying to him. Children were very emotion-based beings and they would always do things without thinking them through at all so Felix wasn''t even sure if the ape knew where he currently was or what he was supposed to do! The others didn''t know about the soul age of the ape so that''s why they were so scared of him, if they knew they would think of a similar plan as Felix had. As the ape got closer Felix appeared from the bushes against the wishes of the others, he came a little bit closer to the ape, the ape looked down and saw Felix''s small frame compared to his and his eyes lighted up as he patted him on the head with strength. Felix almost felt his brain shaking and liquefying from the casual pat of the ape but he endured as he used the surrounding hex energy to strengthen his head defenses. The ape looked at him with a strange look as he felt the hex energy surrounding them change and approach Felix''s head enshrouding it into a shield-like bubble. The ape felt quite interested in Felix as he never found someone who used hex energy in this way before, he was a child so of course, he was very curious about everything around him, he was innocent in that way. He got closer to Felix as he grasped him in his hands with even less strength than he used in his former pat and asked: "Do you know where my friends are?" Felix shook his head indicating that he didn''t know, he didn''t use the same words as him being abandoned by his friends as the kangaroo said as he didn''t want to trigger him, he just gave him a negative response. The ape became sad as he let Felix down and tears started to well from his eyes, even though his human form looked like he was a middle-aged fat uncle, his expression said otherwise. Felix patted him on the leg as he couldn''t reach his shoulder without jumping up and he didn''t want to antagonize him by doing such a sudden action, the other three had their mouths wide open seeing Felix''s actions and how easily he befriended the former rampaging giant. Bizkier rubbed his eyes as he said: "It was that easy to defeat him?" Lindo shook his head as he said: "We can''t really call this defeating, even if we took advantage of his current situation do you think you can pierce through that thick skin of his?" After Lindo pointed that out, Altraeimo who wanted to say something similar shut his mouth as Lindo''s words were as true as they could get. "So do we go to Felix or should we just let him handle it?" "Let''s just wait here considering Felix befriended him there is a chance he would become aggressive against outsiders like us, who knows what he would do?" They felt that his actions were childlike but they thought that he was only mentally impaired and not really a child. After Felix patted his thick leg the ape felt a little better as he forgot about his friends and said: "We are friends now right?" Felix nodded and told him his name: "My name is Felix, what''s yours?" The ape smiled showing his sharp teeth as he said: "My name is Goro." Suddenly Goro''s stomach started to rumble as if he hadn''t eaten mountains of bananas before. Felix didn''t know what to do in this situation... where could he get food for this hungry mountain? The other three finally found a use for themselves, they all had some rations in their special bag that they could give the mountainous man but they realized that it wouldn''t be enough to feed him... Bizkier frowned as he looked into his special bag, there was no way the food he packed would be enough for the Ape who ate mountains of bananas like they were nothing: "Guys what should we do?" Lindo interjected after he looked through his food: "Uh well, he won''t even eat my food cause apes don''t like meat right?" Lindo had packed only meat as he was a lion and he didn''t eat herbs or fruits or anything like that. As for the other two Bizkier had a variety of herbs and fruits as he was an elephant and Altraeimo was a fish so he had underwater food that was unknown if the ape would like or not. And from what they could see all of the things in this forest were poisonous so it was unknown what would happen if the ape anything from the forest and then went on a rampage again. "I guess we will have to give him this and see what will happen, hopefully, he won''t become too angry, but if we succeed we will get a strong ally!" Since Felix befriended the ape already they could take a gamble and get a strong bodyguard that could easily let them through their current trial, since no rules were said who said that they couldn''t ally with the Haron continent contestants to finish this thing? Bizkier walked forward with Lindo and Altraeimo, when the ape saw them at first he was rather confused, where did these people come from? He only felt Felix''s existence at first for some reason but now that he saw them as well their auras became visible to him as well. The ape looked at Felix and Felix smiled as he said that they were his friends, each of them took out some food and came closer as they offered it to him with both hands, Goro took a glance at Lindo and sniffed the cooked meat that was in his hands and shook his head as he ignored it, he didn''t like the cooked meat! His eyes then started to shine as he looked at Bizkier''s food, there were some fruits and herbs that he especially enjoyed that he immediately took from him and popped them into his mouth as he chewed them loudly for a few seconds before he ate everything, he was still a little bit hungry as he took the food from Altreimo''s hands as well, he didn''t bother sniffing it as he ate it whole. Altraeimo had some plankton-like plant in his hands and the moment the ape ate it his eyes opened wide as he finished chewing and swallowed. "This is very good!" The three of them along with Felix made a ''phew'' sound as the ape liked it, at first they thought that he didn''t like it. Thus Altraeimo took some more of his foodstuff and gave it to the ape, they only gave out a few pieces of each of their food as they still needed some food for themselves but the ape was still hungry, not as much as before but he still wanted to eat. Felix frowned, maybe the ravens abandoned him because he ate too much? Why would an infant ape even join this deadly fight? Felix couldn''t understand why but if he knew a little bit about the customs of the ape tribe he would have understood. The ape still felt hungry but he knew the others didn''t have any more food for him, but for him, the actions of the four people around him made his heart feel grateful towards them, he was a child and children were quite pure, now that they fed him he wanted to help them with something as well! The ape got up as he looked around before saying: "I will protect you!" Then he pounded his chest with both hands as he grabbed all of them and put them on his wide shoulders, he easily hauled them as if they weighed nothing, he actually looked quite funny with 2 people on each shoulder but he didn''t care about his looks as a hex energy shield appeared around them. Bizkier eyes widened as he looked at the shield and placed a hand on it while muttering: "Such perfect energy control? From this angry ape?" Everyone was quite surprised by the ape''s ability. Chapter 69: A meeting with ravens The ape''s ability to control hex energy was rather refined and it seemed it didn''t take him much effort to create a perfectly round shield that protected everyone inside it. Bizkier touched the shield with his hands and then with his trunk which was more sensitive to hex movements and his eyes widened in surprise as he whispered towards Felix and the others: "His control of hex ability is beyond perfect! I cannot see any mistakes in the barrier, it''s pretty much as perfect as it can get!" The ape blushed as he understood that he was being praised and he continued further into the woods at high speeds as he used his thick arms to grab onto the thicker trees to move faster, his hands were protected by the barrier so the poison coming from the trees didn''t affect him even though he was having direct contact with them. Bizkier turned towards Felix as he transmitted a message to him using his soul instead of saying anything: "It seems we have hit the jackpot, you had a great plan befriending this ape! There is also one team in minus now that the Sparron continent had been pretty much eliminated, from what we saw the captain of that team must be running with her tails between her legs to leave the forest." Felix gave back an affirmative response as he watched the forest path getting wider the further they went in, the poison around them became visible as they started to travel through purple clouds that impaired their vision but somehow the ape could still see through them as he easily maneuvered itself around the trees. The barrier didn''t pop nor sizzle as it took no damage from the surrounding poison, this impressed the 4 of them even more. Altraeimo eyes were scanning the ape up and down as this was his first time being this close with such a strong land animal. Felix chatted with Goro from time to time as he didn''t want him to get bored, as he was a child even though he was rather appreciative of the food they gave him he would also get bored pretty fast and he might not want to go in further. As the ape helped them withstand the poison the ravens were flying above the poison clouds while they chatted. "Boss is really smart letting the child of the ape chief to rampage as it wants down there!" "Indeed boss is a genius!" The boss of the ravens was called Wu Xiao and he was the one who ''tested'' Felix when all of the continents participants gathered. Wu Xiao didn''t like being bootlicked as he ignored the compliments of his fellow ravens, his purple raven eyes were trained on the forest trees as they shook and moved due to the weight of the ape swinging around. He frowned as he easily identified the culprit who could do this and asked himself: "Did he finish all of them already? He is still a child so his stamina shouldn''t be very great even though his strength is immense..." His eyes returned to his 3 companions as he told them: "We shall go down and see what''s up with Goro, we have left him behind to make things easier for us when we will have to ambush the remaining forces but it seems he has finished a little bit too quickly, after all, that cat must be a God''s chosen along with the Elephant and the Kangaroo and that foolish woman I took one life from would have surely teamed up against him... so they fight should have been still ongoing at this point." The other three found their leader''s words to be reasonable so they decided to follow him down in the forest. The poison was rather strong so even the ravens had to pool their hex energy together into their leader to create a barrier that would be able to withstand the strong poison. They went further inside the forest as they suddenly found the ape who was quickly moving through the trees with Felix and the others on his shoulders. Wu Xiao eyes widened as he thought for a bit and realized what happened: "We still have his reserve food right?" One of his three cronies flew near him and nodded. "Very good we shall take him back and annihilate the Tarot continent team as well!" The 4 ravens flew quickly as they appeared in front of the ape who suddenly stopped and dropped to the forest floor, his eyes were widened as he smiled and patted Felix''s head as he said: "My friends found me!" Felix and the others realized that they have just found themselves in the worst situation, hopefully, the ape would stick by his words and help them till the end. Wu Xiao returned to his human form as his purple eyes targeted Goro''s, he held his hand as his cronies dropped a small ring into it, a sudden influx of hex energy entered the ring before it showed an image of mountains of bananas! Goro started salivating as he put his hand near the image only for his hands to through it, Goro became rather sad as he looked at Felix and the others before looking at Wu Xiao and asked: "Where are the bananas?" Wu Xiao chuckled as he told him slowly: "All you have to do is throw those 4 people off your shoulders and you will get your bananas." Even as a child the ape saw through Wu Xiao''s words, he meant he wanted him to abandon his friends here! Actually, his bond with the ravens was almost at the same level as the one he had with Felix''s team, they only knew each other for a short time as his father had wanted him to participate in this battle due to personal reasons, and his food was all given to the ravens for them to store it as Goro wasn''t allowed to have the food with him or he would eat all of it and then go hibernating for a few months. Apes didn''t normally hibernate but Goro was still in his infant years and sleeping would help his soul develop at a higher speed. Goro looked at the bananas before his gaze moved to Felix and the others and he let them go to the ground but they were still in his barrier thus they were protected and technically speaking not on his shoulders anymore. Goro''s eyes sparkled as he put his big hands forward and asked for the bananas. Wu Xiao''s eyes darkened as he saw his actions and shook his head as the image of bananas disappeared and he transformed into his raven form as he was ready to fly away. Goro growled as he saw him trying to fly away and his big palms immediately swept towards him only for him to somehow lose his steady balance and he almost fell to his knees, he clutched his head as he glared at Wu Xiao and howled! Felix frowned as he realized that Wu Xiao was somehow attacking Goro''s soul after he found out that he didn''t want to do as he said, it seemed he understood that their relationship was quite shallow to the point that Goro would betray him over a bunch of strangers that gave him food which made him quite mad. Wu Xiao glared at the half kneeling ape on the ground as the barrier surrounding him and Felix started to tremble due to the soul interference. While the ape wouldn''t be injured from the poison by much the others might even melt in the environment they were currently in! Felix could feel the pain of the ape as he glared at Wu Xiao and attacked with his own soul energy! His way of attack resembled his combat breathing technique as a silver of soul energy that looked like a claw slashed the connection between Wu Xiao''s soul and Goro''s. Wu Xiao''s eyes narrowed as he concealed the blood that wanted to drip from his nose and frowned as he looked directly into Felix''s eyes sending an immense amount of soul waves into his mindscape! Now that his target changed Goro got up from the ground as his expression changed from time to time before he glared at Wu Xiao and howled as he started beating his chest, his fur started to encompassed his body as it turned ad deeply red color from the normal black, his whole face changed along with his arms and feet as he returned to his primal form! "OOOH OOOH AHHHHH!" He continued beating his chest as the barrier around him remained unmoved but a shockwave came from his mouth as the waves started to repel the poison around them! Goro was truly mad after being attacked by someone he called once a friend and he wanted to settle the score with him! Wu Xiao frowned as he battled with Felix with their soul willpower, he didn''t know why but Felix''s defenses were extremely strong, his attack was like tossing a pebble into an ocean and now he couldn''t extricate himself from him! Felix eyes cleared up as he glanced at Wu Xiao and sneered as his expression told him: "Is this all you got?" Wu Xiao became even angrier as he started to finally use his true strength! Chapter 70: Bird versus cat Wu Xiao''s hex aura started to intensify as it turned a pale blue color! That meant his breathing technique had broken through the white and green level and he was 2 levels above Felix! Felix was still in the white level as he didn''t want to break through without having all of the techniques at the 9th stage, he only had his stamina breathing technique at the 9th stage and he still had the other two from the cat tribe to train, he also never asked the shaman for the vitality training technique but he guessed he should have now that he saw Wu Xiao''s pale blue aura. From the intensity of the aura, he could guess that the raven''s aura refinement was around Catro''s! Catro was a captain level individual and his strength wasn''t anything to laugh about and Felix didn''t feel he reached the captain level yet despite all of his continuous training, he was still lacking in the hex breathing technique levels. Felix became serious as he saw Wu Xiao''s aura starting to reach the height of the trees, his power was constantly increasing and he didn''t want to see him get any stronger at this point! He disappeared as he used his stealth technique while making sure he targeted Wu Xiao properly, he shoots a few nail projectiles from his paws as he tried to stop him from powering up. The aura was so strong that Felix''s nail shots were melted by it and none found their target. Felix frowned as he started to get closer to him, while his nail shots were melted the aura itself didn''t have any defensive properties, it was just that Felix''s attack was just that weak... it was basically a mosquito bite to experts at their level and it could only be useful for distractions. It was a sad truth but Felix couldn''t have any strong long-range attacks due to his lack of hex energy and he was only able to use his stealth technique and other battle techniques because there was hex energy in the surroundings around him. Felix approached him but Wu Xiao knew the abilities of the cat tribe so he easily flew higher into the skies and glared at the forest, Goro was still beating his chest as he looked up at the flying Wu Xiao, his face was morphed into a scowl as he didn''t know how to get to the flying raven. Felix could propel himself with the trees towards him but the poison was already infesting his body so he quickly returned to Goro''s shield before expelling it quickly. He needed to move with Goro in the same direction if he wanted to move properly through the poison clouds, even though Goro''s move had dispersed some of them along with Wu Xiao''s aura they immediately came back with no fanfare. The trees around them were always exerting poison in their surroundings so unless they destroyed them the poison would always come back. Felix whispered into Goro''s ears and the ape nodded lightly before he clapped his hands forcefully creating a shockwave that destroyed all of the surrounding trees into lumber parts. "Now for part 2!" Goro started to shout dispersing all of the surrounding poison and Felix jumped out of the barrier as he used Goro''s head as a jumping pad to launch himself to Wu Xiao''s height. Wu Xiao chuckled seeing their cooperative abilities then used one of his abilities targeting Felix''s soul. Felix''s face scrunched in pain as he activated his defensive ability he created when he fought the black bear tribesman which halved the damage that Wu Xiao''s technique was doing on his soul. He bore through the pain as he used his claw to slash at Wu Xiao''s raven form! Wu Xiao chuckled as he easily dodged Felix''s attempt at slashing his form into ribbons before he taunted him while enhancing his voice with a confusing technique using his soul: "Missed me, you thought that''s all I''m able of as one of the strongest God''s chosen on this planet?" The raven started cawing as his form reverted to his human one but he was still flying through the use of hex energy now instead of his wings. He looked at the falling Felix and caught him by the paw using his hand. Then he blasted his whole body using a dark ball of hex energy with his other hand throwing him back to the ground and making him create a cat-sized hole in it. Goro scratched his head as he took Felix out of the hole, his fur was singed and blood was trickling down from his mouth as his internal organs were shaken by that attack but not really injured, his body was rather sturdy and the dark ball of hex energy didn''t do much to him besides stunning him for a very short while. He shook his fur as he regained his consciousness from being stunned and glared at Wu Xiao who was looking at his party from above. Felix narrowed his eyes as he glanced in Bizkier Lindo and Altraeimo''s direction but they were preoccupied with their own fights as the other 3 ravens started to harass them using their own special soul techniques. Only he and Goro were free to fight Wu Xiao. Goro and Felix looked at each other for a few brief seconds before Goro picked Felix up and threw him to Wu Xiao at such a speed that even Wu Xiao couldn''t dodge! Wu Xiao''s eyes bulged out as he looked at his chest and seeing Felix clutching his trench coat with his paws, he had a small smirk on his face that indicated that a world of pain would descend on Wu Xiao''s head! Wu Xiao frowned as he controlled his hex energy in a pattern creating a snake of energy that went through his chest to Felix who was clutching his clothes directly nailing him through the stomach.. only for the snake to not be able to enter or break Felix''s defenses. Felix''s face turned into a frown as he liberated one paw and his claws started turning dark as the poisonous hex energy in the air entered them, he slashed directly into his chest inserting the poison into Wu Xiao''s bloodstream! Wu Xiao started to foam at the mouth as the poison dosage he took was quite big, his face started to turn a shade of purple but he immediately vomited the poison out along with some dark blood onto Felix''s face blinding him then using his head to give him a headbutt and making him unable to hold onto his clothes anymore as they were ripped from the force of the headbutt. Wu Xiao frowned as he whistled indicating that they should retreat as he didn''t prepare himself fully for such a fight, even though his hex potential was at his highest he still needed time to activate the skill that was bestowed upon him by his God. The other 3 ravens immediately flew away following Wu Xiao who morphed into his original form and disappeared into the horizon leaving Felix''s team alone. Felix frowned as he felt that his ribs were bruised, that snake of energy couldn''t pierce through his skin and muscles but his bones were still a little bit injured, his insides were strong but his bones weren''t at their peak as he hadn''t eaten any being that had specifically strong bones... maybe if he ate some elephants their tusks would be useful at strengthening his bones. He glanced at Bizkier which made him shudder for reasons that he wasn''t sure of before he shook his head and said: "It seems that we have won this fight but did we win this event? The fox team should have lost by now, the kangaroo team must be god knows where and we have beaten the raven team into retreat... I wish those shamans would have actually told us what we are supposed to do..." Felix coughed as he looked at the clearing they created, there were no more trees around them for around 900 meters even the roots were destroyed by Goro''s shockwave attack. Suddenly in the sky the objective of the event appeared, it seemed the shamans finally decided that they got bored of watching them fight like headless flies and gave them an sure objective. In the sky in a deep green color appeared: "The rules are very simple, the one who gets to the middle of the forest and activates the hex energy formation there wins, also if your opponents die or leave the forest you also win!" Bizkier frowned as he looked at the sky and then towards the forest, they were around the middle but he couldn''t feel the existence of any such formation and even further inside the poison intensified to a degree that even Goro might not be able to withstand. Felix looked at Goro and asked him if he could go further into the forest, Goro smiled as he returned to his human form and suddenly his stomach started growling, saliva dripped from his mouth as he looked towards the sky and muttered: "My bananas." Chapter 71: Round 2 of fighting (1) Now that they had an objective they were really pumped up and raring to go but the problem was that Goro was hungry again! They still had some food left but it seemed Goro was fixated on the banana images Wu Xiao showed him, and it was understandable considering those were indeed Goro''s bananas given to him by his father so he felt quite cheated at this moment, let''s not even talk about his anger. Felix walked closer to him and patted his thick thigs to make him feel a little bit better but that didn''t stop his stomach from grumbling. They were in a precarious situation as the Haron team had already gotten ahead of them by quite a lot considering their ability to fly and siphon their hex energy into one person to create a barrier strong enough to withstand the poison in the forest. However, it was debatable if their barrier could withstand the poison at the center considering their strength wasn''t as high as Goro''s, considering their specialty was soul attacks and debuffs. But first, they needed to feed their friend. Goro was still looking at the sky while salivating and his stomach was grumbling, he had a strange expression on his face as he looked towards the direction the ravens flew. Felix knew that he felt really bad considering those bananas were from his father while he wasn''t sure of their significance to him they must have been some rather precious fruits if they could facilitate the growth of a tribe like Goro''s. While Felix wanted to help him regain his lost bananas it was currently impossible with their current team set up and objective, if they wanted to win this even they had to go further into the forest and activate the hex formation. Goro finally stopped looking at the sky and looked down at Felix as he patted his stomach and waited for the food. Felix glanced at his team and motioned with his eyes that they needed more food to feed Goro. This in turn made things a little bit awkward as after they fought with those 3 ravens, Lindo, Altraeimo, and Bizkier got hungry as well, Lindo had an easier time as he already started eating considering Goro didn''t like his food but the other two felt quite wrong. It was obvious they had very little food left after feeding him once and they had their needs as well. Felix found the situation to be quite awkward as Lindo was eating and the other two looked at each other, Altraeimo didn''t even know what to do in this situation as he didn''t belong to the Tarot continent, what would happen when they would activate the formation? He would become a loser! As for Goro Felix was sure the Ape didn''t really care about this competition at all as he was forced by his father to come here so there wouldn''t be cooperation problems. Altraeimo didn''t do his best against the ravens as he didn''t want to waste his stamina on them nor reveal his abilities but now he felt like it was a good time to break the cooperation between them. Even though he couldn''t create a shield as good as Goro''s he could do by with his techniques. Seeing that Altraeimo wanted to back out made Felix think about what he should do here? He was rather helpful even though he didn''t put 100% of his power in his attempts at helping, he did feed Goro as well and it would be rather selfish to ask him, an outsider to donate for the good of the Tarot continent, it wasn''t even sure what would happen with the people that ended up on the last place... well considering the elimination time Felix knew that the last place was the Sparron continent. Actually, while they did give them the objective they were still rather secretive regarding the punishments and rewards of this event, Felix knew that it was meant as something akin to a war simulation for future invasions but would the losers really be invaded afterward? He could only wait and see at this point. Felix sighed as he looked at Altraeimo''s vanishing figure and decided against following him, he was an outsider and they were only in a mutually beneficial relationship, now that the mutual benefits were pretty much gone he could only leave, Felix wasn''t a person that would backstab his former allies but if he decided to make trouble for them in the future he would immediately attack to kill! Goro didn''t really understand what happened but he was pretty surprised seeing that Altraeimo disappeared, wasn''t he a friend that gave food? Seeing that he was confused Felix just stood there, he wasn''t sure if Goro would even understand if he explained to him so he gave a look at Bizkier and gave him another eye message. Bizkier finally relented as he sighed, even though he was hungry he wouldn''t die of starvation and Goro''s help was imperative, he took all out of his various fruits and herbs and gave them to Goro with both hands. Goro immediately smiled as he took the food from his hands and stuffed his mouth with a multitude of fruits and herbs until he burped and nothing remained behind, his hunger was sated for the moment. Felix, Lindo, and Bizkier then jumped on his shoulders as he activated his barrier and they started going further into the forest. The trees shook as Goro used them to propel himself towards the centre of the forest at high speeds while Felix looked at Bizkier who''s stomach was grumbling. Bizkier was a little bit irascible after his food was taken from him so he glared at Felix and said: "What are you looking at?" Felix just patted him on the shoulder and said: "You have done the right thing for the good of the team." Bizkier hadn''t been praised like this before, he had been praised for various things like his talent or his beauty by the female elephants but he was never praised for his intelligence, well mostly because there were no times for him to exhibit it. But he could also feel that Felix''s words were truly sincere which made him rather happy even though he was hungry. He didn''t have any friends back in the tribe due to his strength, he was a loner pretty much like Lindo. Felix looked at the front as their speed increased, his refined soul could innately feel that there was a huge conglomeration of Hex energy ahead of them and that would only mean one thing! The formation! Goro stopped as he seemingly hit an invisible barrier, he put his face near it sticking it to the invisible barrier making his face look flat, it looked quite funny if you were on the other side of the barrier. Felix could smell danger in the air as sizzling sounds started to be heard, it was Goro''s barrier! The purple mist around them was so intense in color and power that it even started to melt Goro''s perfect barrier! However Goro glared at the mist as he started beating his chest and his aura increased as the barrier stabilized, it seemed that he wasn''t using his whole strength to create the barrier, maybe he was even as strong as a captain, physical strength speaking because of the lack of his intelligence his battle power wasn''t that high. The same could be said about Wu Xiao, while his intelligence was high and his control of hex energy was exquisite, his raven body made it hard for him to exert his strength beyond his soul techniques, after all not everyone was as balanced as Felix, he was pretty much strong in all aspects but not overwhelmingly. Felix didn''t know how to breach the barrier so he looked at Lindo and Bizkier who were also analyzing the barrier, he was sure that brute strength wouldn''t be enough and it wasn''t known what kind of response the barrier would trigger after a physical impact. Bizkier touched the barrier as he analyzed it for a short while, Lindo knew as much as Felix so after he looked at the barrier for a short time he gave up and left the task to Bizkier who was smarter than both of them, academically speaking. Bizkier wasn''t sure what the barrier was made of even after analyzing it for a while but Goro seemed to be able to withstand the poisonous clouds around them pretty easily so he could have enough time to analyze it properly. Above them the 4 ravens were whispering to each other as they tried to see through the poisonous mist, they felt the convergence of hex energy below them and knew that the formation was there but how could they breach it and activate whatever was inside it? Wu Xiao glanced at his ''teammates'' before looking at the cloud of poison below them, he knew Felix''s team was below even though his compatriots had no knowledge of it but it wasn''t time for him to tell them, he wanted to wait until the barrier was breached before he would swoop in and get the rewards! Chapter 72: Round 2 of fighting (2) Bizkier concentrated on a way to break the barrier while Lindo kept a lookout through the poisonous fog trying to identify if anyone was coming through, he kept himself near Goro for protection while enhancing his eyes with Hex energy to try and see through the poisonous fog. Felix kept Goro company so he wouldn''t get bored as he wasn''t as active as before now, Felix didn''t know much about children but keeping him entertained was a good idea in his mind. Bizkier frowned as he kept glancing at the barrier and deducted a way to break it, it was easier said than done to break a barrier created by one of the strongest people currently in existence, from what he understood from all the analyzing was that it was made by the shamans of the four continents and there was no way in hell someone on their level could break through it! "There should be a trigger or condition of some sort to open it." Bizkier thought about it for a long time but he couldn''t find anything around that would look like an object of importance to him. He sagged his head defeated and sighed as he gathered the attention of everyone and announced that even he couldn''t break the barrier... he just didn''t know how nor did they have the collective strength to break it. Felix stopped talking with Goro and walked towards the barrier before striking it with his paw, the barrier started to react as Felix was pushed back by a weak forcefield with no scratches remaining on the barrier''s surface. Felix didn''t use much strength in the strike it was only an attempt to see what will happen when physical force met the barrier and from what he understood was that the stronger the attack the stronger the rebound, it was like striking a car tire with a hammer, hitting the tire would create a rebound that would affect your arms thus tearing at your muscles. But in Felix''s situation, the rebound struck his whole body like a shockwave that would injure his internal organs. Felix knew from that attempt that sticking the barrier wouldn''t help at all, it wasn''t as if he didn''t know that already but he wanted to see if there was any way for physical force to work only for him to be disappointed. He sighed as he tried to look through the poisonous fog and asked Lindo: "Have you seen anything noteworthy around while you were scouting?" Surprisingly Lindo actually found something as he responded affirmatively: "The concentration of poison in that area is smaller than the overall territory." Lindo pointed towards a place towards the north where if you concentrated you could see that there was a smaller amount of poison there but it was a minuscule amount that was almost invisible to the naked eye. Felix patted Lindo''s leg and then told Goro to go in that direction. Wu Xiao frowned as he looked at everything from above, he realized that they started moving again but the formation''s barrier was there, why would they move away? Were they really so inept that they couldn''t break the barrier and he had to do all the work? Wu Xiao sighed as he indicated to his lackeys that they should follow the trail Felix''s team left behind, who knows? Maybe they will truly find a way to break the barrier. Felix made Goro stop a few kilometers away from the barrier as he looked at the surrounding poison fog and it indeed looked to be in smaller concentration here. But he wasn''t sure why? The number of trees was the same as a few kilometers back and it didn''t like there was anything different around here. Bizkier looked around as well but he couldn''t find anything different that would reduce the amount of poison in the air. Wu Xiao and the others felt something strange as they flew above Felix and the others, it almost felt like the gravity in this region was stronger than the one before... Wu Xiao frowned as he felt his wings get heavier before he plummeted into the poisonous fog along with his companions. The other 3 immediately funneled their hex energy together along with Wu Xiao to create a shield that protected them from the poison momentarily until it started sizzling! Even Goro had problems while he wasn''t serious but what about the 4 of them? It was obvious the shield would melt immediately and Wu Xiao gritted his teeth as his eyes started glowing, the blue shield around them turned dark as he unleashed some of the powers that God gifted him, he unlocked his potential at 100% at this point. He fluttered down to the ground and met face to face with Felix and the others, Wu Xiao turned to his human form as he glared at Felix and the others, he thought that he had been fooled to follow them so they could kill him with the use of the poison. Felix and the others found Wu Xiao''s and his cronies appearance very surprising as they entered defensive stances, however, Goro immediately became mad as he started beating his chest while shouting: "MY BANANAS!" He transformed into his primeval form as he rushed towards Wu Xiao while Felix''s team had to keep up with him or else they would melt due to the poison. "Damn it Goro!" Bizkier muttered under his breath as he started using his force field ability to slow the ravens, he was sure that Goro would be able to withstand the forcefield with his outrageously strong body. The ravens immediately felt that the gravity that dragged them to the ground returned but a little bit weaker, their speed decreased as one of the cronies suddenly got his head crushed by Goro leaving only 3 ravens to take care of! Wu Xiao got angry as he saw one of his teammates get killed and he bellowed in a low voice as his aura intensified again he screeched releasing an invisible shockwave that engulfed everyone! Felix felt his head throb as he suddenly couldn''t control his body anymore, his soul was forcefully removed from his body and it hovered there looking at his downed body! Goro became stunned as he fell to the ground but his soul remained in his body, as for Bizkier and Lindo they also got their souls removed from their bodies. For Lindo and Felix, this sensation wasn''t foreign as they had practiced strengthening their souls this way for quite a long time but Bizkier didn''t know what to do! Immediately Lindo came over to Bizkier souls and dragged it back as Wu Xiao''s soul attack landed on the spot where Bizkier previously was, Bizkier didn''t have any training and the pressure from the surrounding Hex energy made him unable to move! Lindo glared at Wu Xiao as he unleashed a howl that traveled towards Wu Xiao but it didn''t do anything. Felix suddenly disappeared as he appeared above the heads of the remaining 2 cronies slashing at their heads with his soul form, immediately two screeches were heard as the two ravens souls were slashed to ribbons and disappeared into the air as Felix''s ability absorbed them. Wu Xiao glared at Felix as he started targeting him alone now that Lindo had to take care of Bizkier and Goro was stunned on the ground. He looked towards his downed body and unleashed a lightning beam from his mouth that incinerated it into nothing! Felix''s soul started to dissipate into light that was absorbed by the earth only for a new body to pop up where the last one was destroyed and his soul to be absorbed into it. Felix cracked his neck as he glared at Wu Xiao. Wu Xiao chuckled as he screeched again unleashing the same shockwave hitting Felix and removing his soul from his body a second time! Felix tried to defend his body but the lightning beam went through him to destroy his body again as he could see in the corner of his eye that only 7 heads remained! That meant he lost 2 lives for nothing! His body was destroyed as the same process as before happened, Wu Xiao glared at him as he tried to screech a third time but he found his strength weakening, due to the death of his teammates the poison started to seep through his fragmenting shield, now that the poison was circulating through his body his abilities were slowly getting sealed as blood started to seep from the corner of his mouth. Wu Xiao started morphing into his raven form as he tried to fly away only for Felix to appear above him like a specter and smack him over the head with a strong paw hit! Dizzied and poison-filled, Wu Xiao fell to the ground and didn''t move anymore, Felix shook his head as he quickly returned to Goro, he couldn''t stay in the poison-filled environment for much or he would end up in the same situation as Wu Xiao. Chapter 73: The ability that all Gods chosen have Felix took a few steps forward before the ground below him started to shake. An anger=filled shout could be heard coming from behind him. Wu Xiao''s dissolving body started to reform as he put his hands upward while a maddened smile appeared on his face. Felix frowned as he tried to get to Goro he couldn''t fight Wu Xiao''s fully regenerated self in the poison even for a short time or else his body would melt like Wu Xiao did previously and he would lose another life, he already lost 2 making him stay at 7 lives and he didn''t really like the process of being scooped up by that gigantic hand, at least he started to get a little bit more used to it. Wu Xiao''s face morphed into a scowl as he saw Felix trying to run away before he waved his hand which created a wall of dirt to rise before Felix and harden into stone which Felix banged his head into and got stunned because he didn''t react in time. Felix shook his head as he cleared his mind and glared at Wu Xiao as he felt the poison infiltrating his body, Felix body started to shake as it was getting constantly weakened. Felix''s eyes started to turn heavy as he looked at Wu Xiao waiting for the same thing to happen to him but something was strange... Wu Xiao wasn''t getting damaged by the poison anymore! Wu Xiao snorted as he saw Felix''s surprised face and decided to humor him: "Besides getting the basic ability that every God''s chosen to get you should know that we also get another special ability that the God we serve personally bestows upon us right?" Felix knew about this but unfortunately for him, Aaltarox didn''t have any special ability that he could bestow upon him... Felix frowned as he remembered about the armor that Aaltarox gave him, could it be used to block the poison from infiltrating his body? He said that it was special armor... Felix concentrated as the blue and white armor covered his whole body like a latex suit then adjusted itself to Felix''s size. Felix took in deep breaths as he could move his body again and the circulation of poison in his body halted. The armor suit Aaltarox gave him had the basic abilities to stop poison and bleeding along with other things that he didn''t explain as they were pretty much basic things for a divine item forgetting that Felix didn''t have much knowledge about the items of this world at all. Felix coughed out a mouthful of purple blood as his circulation returned to normal and his eyes cleared up, he glared at Wu Xiao who had stopped his explanation before he could even start. The raven was glaring at Felix with hate as he said under gritted teeth: "You... have... got ...a divine item?" It was obvious from first glance that it wasn''t anything that mortals could create normally, the materials it was made from couldn''t even be found on the mortal plane and Wu Xiao knew a little bit about divine items as he was promised one if he won the event. "I shall hack it off your body and make it mine!" Greed started to appear besides hate in Wu Xiao''s eyes, his body wasn''t as strong as Felix and he was pretty envious of him, and he even got armor to protect that outrageously strong body of his? Even though he was a cat Wu Xiao didn''t look down on him because of that and he always kept his guard up, it was only that Felix was full of surprises and from time to time his guard had been broke through. Even though he had been using 100% of his strength beforehand it still wasn''t enough for him to beat Felix one on one. Felix thought that Wu Xiao was pretty weak if he was compared to the intel that Aaltarox gave him, could it be that Aaltarox had mistaken Goro''s power for Wu Xiao''s? It wasn''t time to contemplate that as he disappeared from view, Goro and the others were kept safe in the shield so he could unleash his full power with the armor on him now! Wu Xiao glanced everywhere on the battlefield as his eyes started glowing with a dark light to pierce through the poison fog around him. Suddenly he threw a left hook to his right hitting Felix squarely in the face where his body wasn''t protected by the armor. Felix got back up as his stealth wore off from the hit and he disappeared again as he employed his technique. He wasn''t sure how he was detected but it might have been killing intent detection, it couldn''t be helped because Felix hadn''t learned killing intent masking yet so he couldn''t conceal his attacks fully. Felix kept his body close to the ground as he crawled quickly towards Wu Xiao who was just standing there and it seemed as if the surrounding poison would never affect him anymore. Felix thought for a short while before his breathing pattern started to change, he decided to kick it up into high gear with the breathing battle technique! Felix''s fur started to stand on edge as his eyes turned a deeper green, he didn''t know about his external changes but he did feel a little bit stronger compared to the usual activation of the breathing technique, could the armor also enhanced his ''transformation''? Then it was a damn good item! Wu Xiao''s eyes widened as he felt the air around him changing and he thought: "What was that damn cat going to do now?" He suddenly felt a hot wave of energy trying to bisect him at the waist as he dodged to the side when his eyes wandered to the site of the attack he saw tens of trees being cut into two pieces then burned to cinders! He gulped as he felt that attack would have surely killed him, did he open the pandora''s box by even attempting to monologue a bit instead of just decapitating him at his weakest? He was sure that the cat would have had at least one or two more lives considering he already had taken care of 2 of his, even he who was considered a prodigy barely reached 5 lives and this was the first time he even lost 1 in his whole life since he had been born. He didn''t like the sensation of death at all, it almost maddened him to the point of insanity! But he endured before his body was regenerated and his soul inserted into it, he knew that he would be able to beat Felix because of his ability to endure the poison, his body could adapt to any environment as long as he died once in it! But he never dreamed that Felix could have gotten his paws on a damn divine item! He bellowed as his pale blue aura intensified in strength and pale blue beams of energy started to randomly bombard his surroundings trying to fish Felix out. Felix frowned as his speed increased and easily dodged the beams of blue light, the attacks were all blunt and there was a chance they could break through his armors defense due to their nature, how did Wu Xiao know about the only weakness of the armor? Wu Xiao frowned as he felt that his attacks didn''t meet any resistance which meant that all of them were dodged! He wondered how strong was Felix in his new state and his anger started to meltdown like an ice cube on a hot summer day. There was no chance for him to continue this charade and win it, while the other three were still down, time will pass and they will realize how to fuse their souls with their bodies so then he would have to fight a 4v1! He reverted to his raven form as he flew into the air trying to escape only for his senses to tell him that he had made the wrong decision! Felix appeared above him with a flaming paw! He moved so fast that his paw caught on fire to enhance his attacking power. "EAT THIS!" Felix shouted as he unleashed his flaming paw on the raven''s head transforming him into a barbecued delicacy for Felix. Felix gulped down the body at the same time it got cooked as his eyes widened, the hex energy inside him started to overflow as his brain immediately increased by 2 sizes and his soul got purified the changes were almost instant as one of his two lost lives came back. A new body of Wu Xiao''s appeared nearby as he screeched, he reverted to his human form as he started to hold his head while crying out in both pain and confusion: "MY SOUL!" Felix could feel something in his own soul the moment Wu Xiao cried for his soul, it was a piece of an unknown entity that he immediately identified to be Wu Xiao''s soul! With Felix eating his whole body a piece of his soul that remained tied to the earthen plane got scrapped off from the main one due to Felix''s special eating ability and Aaltarox''s special ability attracted it to Felix''s mindscape! Felix felt his head exploding with information that he never knew before but then the information was immediately cut off and retracted as the piece of Wu Xiao''s soul was forcefully removed from his mindscape by a strange power that he couldn''t understand. He started holding his head as well as he felt an unprecedented amount of pain hit him. The fight between them reached a stalemate as each of them held their heads in pain. Chapter 74: Visions of a life that wasnt his Felix felt a throbbing pain in his head as he started clutching it with his paws, he wasn''t sure what happened but the moment his soul made contact with the piece of soul that he ripped away from Wu Xiao it immediately left his mindscape like it was frightened of him. But he also felt a force that he couldn''t resist the moment he touched the soul, it was so great and had a sacred type of feeling that Felix didn''t understand at all. The moment this sacred feeling washed over his mindscape he realized that things won''t go well for him and in the end, he got his soul injured due to the clash of energies! The good thing is that Wu Xiao was in the same situation as him. He couldn''t even open his eyes due to the intense pain and it somehow felt that the fragmented memories coming from that piece of the soul weren''t stopping, he somehow got connected to Wu Xiao the moment his soul piece returned to his, but it was only a one-way connection from Felix to Wu Xiao. He started to see memories that weren''t his! ******************************** (***)-(Indicates changes between 1st POV and 3rd POV) I couldn''t see anything. I couldn''t feel anything. Who was I? Where was I? All I could understand was darkness, everything around me was dark even though I couldn''t see nor feel, I could understand, and my understanding made me feel that I was in a dark, dark place. I understood something was wrong, I was... my name was? Felix! I know who I am, my name is Felix and I am a cat, why am I here? What is here? I could suddenly feel my heartbeat accelerating, something was going to happen, I started to feel my body and I gained my senses back gradually... I opened my eyes and I looked around only to realize that I just hatched from an egg! Did cats hatch from eggs? I was sure they didn''t. Did that mean that the connection between me and Wu Xiao''s soul led me to see his whole memories besides fragments? I didn''t really care about them if I was honest. To me he was just an enemy just like all of the others, all I had to do was kill him! As I tried to move this new body I understood immediately that it was impossible... I could only look as things happened. I was picked up by a mature man with dark eyes who had a scar on his face and wore formal clothing, I didn''t really understand what happened most of the time as the memories were blurry due to the owner of the soul not remembering properly but as time passed I saw how Wu Xiao grew up and was hailed as a prodigy, his first words happened at 3 months old, he started to fly at 5 months old when normally the children of their tribe would start flying when they were around 2-3 years old. All of this information was forcefully instilled in my skull as I unconsciously listened to the voices that were talking around me. It was actually quite annoying but I could feel that the owner of the body that I was in was getting his ego inflated quite a lot by the praise that came from his acquaintances and family. I started to get annoyed, I didn''t want to see his memories but they never stopped! I saw him grow up from a small raven to a teen, his training which consisted of several breathing techniques that I memorized for later, they were about intelligence and soul which was something only the raven tribe had. I realized that it wasn''t that bad... As more time passed I finally reached the peak of his memories when he was contacted by his God! Then I could feel my head hurt again, so hard that my connection was forcefully severed and I woke up back in my body with the same migraine as before. Wu Xiao was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes and it seemed like he was ready to bite a big piece out of my body. (***) Felix understood what happened, somewhat, he ended up with something out of the connection while Wu Xiao just got enraged 3 times more, 50-60 of his life had been seen through by Felix and he felt some of the raven tribes secrets had leaked out, which meant that he would surely be punished even if he successfully killed him! The chance of that happening was rather low as he glanced at Felix''s body and then at his, he understood that his soul was injured and it didn''t matter who had the stamina advantage anymore, Felix was in the same situation as him but he didn''t feel like fighting anymore... He was just tired. While Felix wanted to kill him the moment he gave a command to his body he felt a rather sluggish response and he could barely take a few steps forward. Wu Xiao shook his head as his reaction speed was the same as Felix''s but he swiftly transformed into his original form as he slowly flew into the skies and disappeared, Felix was a few steps behind him but he couldn''t fly so he just looked towards the sky. "A failure..." Felix muttered but at this point, he didn''t care anymore as he dragged his injured body to Goro and the others, they finally had recovered, Goro wasn''t stunned anymore and the other two had inserted their souls back into their bodies. Felix looked behind him as he felt scorching hot energy appear then his eyes widened as he felt the barrier that they failed to breakthrough suddenly caving in! But they hadn''t done what they were supposed to how did someone else break it without touching the trigger item? Felix didn''t know what to do as his body wasn''t currently in a good position, suddenly the air turned arid as the formation a few kilometers behind them was triggered! It was most likely the Balton team with the Kangaroo and spider fellow... Atleast none of them died, Felix thought positively. Lindo looked towards the beam of light that exploded at the location of the formation and sighed as he said: "Well, I guess it''s our loss." Bizkier felt down as he didn''t get to employ many if any of his battle plans while Goro''s stomach just started rumbling again. Felix sighed as they started to leave the forest on the same path they took entering this far. It took them around 1 hour at a leisure pace to enter the clearing from before and they met with all of the shamans that took them over to the island. Siracha and Mashi waved to Felix and the others, they saw their performance through the observation place and they were rather satisfied with them. The shaman from the Fishman tribe was glowing as he patted Altraeimo on the shoulder while praising him in their natal language. Felix understood from these actions that he was most likely the one who broke through the barrier somehow. Siracha came forward and patted each of them on the shoulder while Mashi gave them a thumbs up, then they said in unison as if they rehearsed this moment: "You have all done great!" Felix didn''t feel much better but considering there were no consequences for their loss it meant that it was just a lot of wasted time. Seeing his downed expression made Siracha a little bit uncomfortable as he patted Felix on the head and told him: "You will all get your due rewards as for now we will have to listen to the ending speech before we can leave." Felix didn''t feel like listening to these old fogies talking but stayed there professionally and waited for them to start. The Kangaroo shaman from the Balton continent came forward and said a few words, considering his team was one of the surviving ones he had the privilege of talking. Then the raven shaman from the Haron continent came forward and said a few words as well, they were all downcast considering they didn''t win and they all looked at the Fishman tribesmen with a bit of envy and hatred at the same time, it was obvious that Altraeimo didn''t win because he was stronger than their participants but only because of luck! This also cemented them as enemies that they would surely try to attack sooner or later! It was time for Siracha to say something and he didn''t really care about his speech as he said some words before he stopped and made Mashi say some words as well. In the end, the one who was supposed to say the biggest speech was the winner, the shaman of the Fishman tribe, but because he didn''t know the language of the mainland Altraeimo came forward to talk for him. No one batted an eyelid at the sniffling female fox duo, but they eyed them both with open adversity as if they were coyotes ready to bite into a piece of meat. Chapter 75: The Sparron continent dilemma As the shamans talked with each other the remaining duo from the Sparron continent were huddled hugging each other, the older fox woman was hugging the younger one while soothing her, she had lost all of her teammates and 2 lives, also because of her incompetence their whole continent was at risk but there was nothing that could be done now if she blamed her or shouted at her, so she only comforted her. Felix looked at the shaking duo and knew that something bad will surely happen to them sooner or later. Actually, the moment he thought about something bad happening to them, the raven shaman suddenly disappeared as the older fox woman started to clutch her head in pain, she felt like a million needles were being stabbed in her brain as the younger one looked at her with scared eyes. She tried to help her only for her to open her mouth and nothing to come out, her whole body remained paralyzed as everyone else looked unconcerned at what was happening. The raven shaman tutted as he looked at the downed duo and said: "You two should have known this would happen after you ended up in the last place, you should have run away!" But after he said that he started laughing as a barrier sprouted surrounding the whole island, the older fox knew about the barrier and that''s why she didn''t even attempt to run away. Felix frowned as he eyed the barrier and realized that it felt even stronger than the one that surrounded the formation he was supposed to access a few tens of minutes ago! Siracha patted his head as he shook his head and whispered to him: "We have ended up pretty high in rankings so our continent won''t have any troubles, we should go already, it isn''t our job to care about the other continents wellbeing and it''s good that we don''t hit them while they are down right now... as for the future we will see." Felix nodded as he had the same thoughts as Siracha, he wasn''t any hero that wanted to save the beauties nor did he feel any goodwill to the duo, in this world where the strong eat the weak they pretty much deserved what they got for being weak. Siracha, Mashi, Felix, and his team started to leave but the Kangaroo Shaman and the Spider Shaman quickly got in front of them as they blocked their path while saying: "Don''t go so fast, we didn''t finish our meeting yet!" The Kangaroo shaman had a head full of white hair and an impressive physique, he wore a gown that didn''t do anything to hide his bulging muscles and the spider shaman wore a cloak that hid his whole body, but the sheaths of his swords were there for all to see. Felix didn''t know what to do in this situation so he stayed put, he could feel immense pressure boring on his shoulders from these two people and he realized that he wasn''t a match for them. Siracha laughed as he looked at them and shook his head as he said: "I think you forgot who you are talking to Mandobro and Shuman." The spider shaman was Mandobro while the Kangaroo was Shuman. Mandobro didn''t say anything as he seemed like the stoic type but Shuman immediately got fired up as he entered a boxing stance and glared at Siracha before saying: "I really wanted to settle our score as well but since we were in the middle of the event I could only look at you, but now we can finally fight!" Shuman got fired up, literally, the fire started to sprout out of his head and body but it seemed like it was hugging him protectively instead of burning him, it was something akin to an innate armor. Felix could feel the heat from the flames scorch his fur even though he was already 10 meters away from him and Siracha stood in front of him protecting him, was the distance between him and the shamans really that big? Siracha frowned as he looked at his blatant attempt at provoking him before he laughed as his lightning scar on his forehead started to light up, it seemed he was ready to start up a fight! Mashi coughed as he said in a low tone: "You youngsters are really lively these days, can this old man join in as well for a little exercising? These old bones of mine are aching a little bit for staying still for such a long time." The moment Mashi unleashed his aura the face of the Kangaroo paled as the Spider started to shake, his grip on the swords that he was ready to unsheath was removed as he took two steps backward leaving Shuman alone. Shuman looked back at Mandobro and howled: "You slimy coward!" Mandobro just hissed at him before returning to the side of the raven shaman. Now that Shuman was stuck between a rock and a hard place his fire armor started to disappear and he smiled awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head and laughed and said: "Oh brother Siracha I was just joking, wasn''t it 20-10 fights in your favor? Haha, my brain was muddled at that moment but you still have to stay so we can discuss how we will share the battlefronts for the Sparron continent invasion." Siracha stopped for a few seconds but then he decided to leave again, one leg in front of the other he was ready to take his steps and leave along with his entourage when the shrill voice of the old raven was heard from behind him: "Siracha you still have to stay for the rewards don''t you?" Siracha''s body stopped for a few seconds then he looked backward at the downed fox females, the Fishman team won the event but they were on the 2nd spot so they deserved some rewards as well. "You remember how your grandfather ended up in the same situation that year, we were all present, who knew one day you would end up to own a God''s chosen?" The Fishman team would end up with the shaman and Felix''s would get the younger fox woman. Siracha frowned as the old raven continued: "While we can''t force you to join the siege to the Sparron continent, and we won''t consider there would be more resources for us. You still have to take the fox woman with you, its tradition and you know we don''t like to break it, it doesn''t matter what you will do with her afterward, you could even be considered lucky you get the princess of the Ishstarian Fox tribe for free, you know how much would she cost on the black market?" There were no licentious intentions in the old man''s eyes as he said that, it seemed that his body might not be able to hold up anymore but it''s unknown what was going through his mind. Siracha took a few steps forward as it seemed he wanted to leave, but then his steps faltered as he took another look at the pained faces of the duo and sighed, he returned and scooped up the younger fox in his arms, she wasn''t that tall standing around 1,65 meters and Siracha was quite tall so she was pretty much a dwarf to him. "Are you happy now?" The raven old man smiled showing his toothless mouth and cawed as he laughed: "I''m only thinking for her good, you should know what would happen if she ended up into the buff kangaroo''s hands or in that creepy spiders, also I cannot guarantee she would end up well in my tribe either, you can see her beauty for yourself." Siracha''s heart wasn''t moved by the fox princess''s beauty as his wife died quite a long time ago and he promised to not love anyone else again, he was an old school type of guy, unlike the new generation who was moving from mate to mate only for bodily pleasure, but he knew this was just a trend that would die down, in the end, people changed as time passed. The fox princess''s complexion started to turn for better as she wasn''t under the raven''s technique anymore, however her body still shuddered as Siracha put her on his back. Siracha knew a little how the girl would feel right now, fortunately, he was spared from this back then because of his power and connections but his grandfather wasn''t as lucky, some type of sacrifice was needed for the loss in the event and he was the one who accepted to be the bargaining chip. Siracha sighed as he remembered that incident and looked at Felix and the others before he ignored the other shamans and said: "Let''s go home guys, we have done what we were supposed to..." Thus Siracha''s entourage left, leaving the other shamans behind, Shuman was glaring at Siracha''s back while Mandobro kept quiet, the raven shaman glanced down at his feet at the squirming fox shaman and shook his head as he looked at Wu Xiao who appeared after Siracha''s team left: "You should understand that this would have been our outcome if we lost, this is the truth of the world we live in." Only the Fishmen were the odd thumb out as they looked at everything that was happening with both curiosity and some type of disgust in their eyes as they somewhat understood what was happening. Only Altraeimo was looking at the fox lady with pity he was the only one who had empathy in the group, while they found their actions disgusting the Fishmen understood why they were doing this so they weren''t really judging them. Chapter 76: Returning home victoriously (1) Siracha took a glance at the poor fox woman whose fate was in the hands of the Fishman shaman because Altraeimo won she was their trophy but they didn''t seem to want her, they only looked at everything that happened currently with a strange gaze which Siracha couldn''t really understand, he shook his head and decided to leave. Goro beat his chest as he glared at Wu Xiao, Wu Xiao felt Goro''s killing intent multiplying the more he stared at him and he didn''t know what to do when he was suddenly slapped over the head by his elder then pointed at his finger. Wu Xiao took off the special ring from his finger and threw all of its contents on the floor creating a sea of bananas, Goro''s eyes immediately focused on the bananas and left Wu Xiao alone. Felix chuckled seeing everything that was happening and seeing that he was leaving Goro waved at him and threw him one banana from his gigantic amount. Felix caught the banana in his mouth and afterward followed Siracha who was leaving with the others. Siracha looked at Felix and found his current appearance really funny, the cat with the banana in his mouth was rather comical and Lindo couldn''t help but giggle, Bizkier even started to laugh out loud making Felix confused. Even the old elephant couldn''t help but smirk. Felix decided to ignore them as he tried to eat the banana imitating Goro, he took off the outer layer and then slowly devoured the sweet contents, he felt that it was rather good food when he suddenly felt an intense amount of energy surging into his body from the banana! What type of fruit was this? Siracha''s eyes widened seeing Felix''s glowing body, it was glowing with a yellow aura that he hadn''t ever seen before. Felix felt strange as if the power that he got from the banana was massaging his insides. Goro gave a thumbs-up as he saw what was happening and continued to eat his bananas. Felix didn''t know what that thumbs-up meant for him but he didn''t feel bad so he guessed the feeling in his body was a good thing. Seeing that nothing was happening to Felix on the outside made Siracha ask him: "Are you ok so we can start traveling back?" Felix patted his body a bit and didn''t feel anything changing in him as the aura receded then he nodded and said: "I''m ok let''s go!" Siracha then took everyone to the beach of the island and found a problem, it would be hard for him to swim with the fox princess tied to his back so they first had to wait until she woke up and felt strong enough to walk and swim by herself, it wasn''t a problem for him to support her while swimming but he couldn''t keep her tied to his back as there was a chance if he used rope or anything else that she might slip and fall into the deep water. She needed to be awake so she could cling to Siracha properly. Siracha hummed a little song as he waited while Felix quickly got bored of staying still, Bizkier didn''t mind as he started talking with Mashi while Lindo came closer to Felix sat down, and looked at him. Felix found it awkward for Lindo to stare at him but if he acted like this it meant that he wanted to talk with him. Lindo came a little bit more closer and whispered to Felix: "You know we actually own the fox princess now, my grandfather told me that since we won we will have to take care of her after we go back to the tribe." Felix''s eyes narrowed as he heard that, he didn''t want to play babysitter for that princess, he had better things to do! He could eat, sleep or train his breathing techniques! He even got two new ones from Wu Xiao''s memories and he had more training to do! Seeing Felix''s expression made Lindo understand that he didn''t want to take care of her, if he was honest with himself he would rather train to improve himself as well, there was a war coming on the horizon and it was at the continental scale, nothing small that had been happening up till now, if it was to be compared what they all did was only skirmishes at a small scale to the upcoming war! Felix didn''t know much about the upcoming war but Lindo was a little bit more informed, he decided to tell him all he knew as well: "Felix you see we won''t have much time to take care of her but we still have to train with her, she might be a great asset on the battlefield!" Felix took a look at the unconscious princess, she was laid down on the sand and her complexion started to take a turn for the better as she was far away from the raven shaman. "Her? But she was easily defeated and her abilities aren''t anything powerful..." "Well she did have to fight Goro head-on with her mediocre teammates, what do you think we would have done if we had to fight Goro?" This shut up Felix rather quickly, he knew what would have happened and he didn''t like to imagine it. "Well, I guess she could be useful?" He didn''t really know much about her besides that charm field of hers that he didn''t find really impressive due to fighting Wu Xiao who had better mental attacks, he didn''t feel really affected by her charm field after he protected his soul but Wu Xiao''s techniques could pierce through and he was a rather versatile fighter. Seeing that Felix didn''t have many thoughts about her usefulness made Lindo a bit awkward as he was the one who came up with the suggestion but they would have to wait and see when she would wake up. It took almost 3 hours for the fox princess to wake up and when she looked around she felt both scared and confused, she didn''t know where she was nor who these people around her were, suddenly she recognized Felix and the others as she saw them competing in the event. Felix came closer to her but her fox ears moved up and down as she eyed him up and down, she wanted to see if he could be trustworthy or not. Atleast he didn''t attack her as the raven shaman did. But she still didn''t let her guard down, she glared at him with her amber-colored eyes and didn''t say anything. Felix wasn''t sure what to do in this situation... so he only started by approaching her more and waiting for her reaction. Chapter 77: Returning home victoriously (2) It seemed that the fox princess wasn''t as scared of Felix as he thought as she didn''t react strongly when he got even closer to her, he wasn''t sure what to understand from the mixed messages her body language gave him, it was truly strange for him as the only experience he had talking with females was with Sahee and she was pretty easy to talk to. But he didn''t know what to say to this fox princess who was going to be their supposed slave, so he just went forward put a paw on her shoulder, which she surprisingly didn''t flinch from, and then told her as easily as he could under the gazes of everyone: "You will return to the lion tribe with us." The fox princess gave out a sigh of acceptance and she was also relieved somewhat? She opened her mouth and decided to accept everything that happened as being with the lion tribe would be relatively better compared to the raven tribe, kangaroo, or spider tribe. While it was an expansionist tribe with a love for war it treated its people rather fairly... at least the strong people. With her status as a God-chosen, she would surely have a place in the lion''s army and she could win her freedom back as long as she fought. She and her master were ready to accept this situation from the start, it was common knowledge their Sparron continent races had a weak battle power, while their abilities were diverse they weren''t meant for battle or they hadn''t been able to polish their abilities into a battle-ready state. It wasn''t that the races were untalented but their abilities were meant for day to day utilities, they either had enhanced charm or abilities that they would enhance their cooking, sewing, or singing abilities, they were the entertainers of the world but unfortunately in this war filled environment, entertainment had no place! Of course, if the planet would turn peaceful they would easily make a living but considering the current political situation between the continents wars would surely come up very soon at a large scale to boot! While the princess knew that she would come into the tribe as a slave she nodded at Felix and waited for the others to get ready, it seemed she really wanted to get going as well! Siracha smiled seeing her eager attitude and asked her: "What''s your name?" She introduced herself with a military salute as she said: "My name is Manitola, Sir! I hope I will be of use to you in the upcoming war with the Sparron continent." Siracha shook his head and said: "Who knows?" This answer made her fox ears flop down, did that mean she wouldn''t be allowed to fight for her freedom? Sensing the vibe from her made Siracha clarify: "I said who knows because it''s unknown if we will join the fight or not yet." Mashi slapped his shoulder as he said: "Stop being a fence sitter Siracha you know that in the end, you will still have to join even if you want to or not, or else our continent will become next, we need to show your fangs and teeth so you can scare your enemies!" Siracha moved Mashi''s hand away as he said: "Tell me something I don''t know old man, this is more of a strategic trouble rather than me being scared of fighting or being a fence-sitter, the Sparron continent is full of weaklings why would I run away from a massacre?" Manitola didn''t even flinch when she heard that Siracha called her continent a bunch of weaklings... because it was true, he was just stating facts, and getting mad or frustrated at facts wouldn''t help with anything. Siracha waved his hand as he said: "I guess we are ready to go, can you swim Manitola, or do you need some support?" Manitola took a few steps forward as she easily balanced her svelte body, it seemed that the mental damage done to her didn''t affect her physical abilities at all, she gave Siracha another salute and said that she could swim on her own. Everyone then undressed and put their clothes in their special bags, Lindo blushed seeing Manitola only in her underwear and Bizkier averted his gaze, he was only interested in women of his own race! Siracha took a peek but afterward jumped into the water while Mashi smacked her butt with a lewd look on his face. While he couldn''t get it up anymore that didn''t mean he didn''t enjoy the sensation of touching the butt of a young lady, it seemed he was actually an old pervert who couldn''t restrain himself under the guise of a sage. Manitola didn''t say anything but she blushed furiously as she glared at Mashi. "Sorry young lady my hand slipped." Manitola didn''t say anything as she immediately dived into the cold water and started to swim far away from Mashi who followed her into the water. Felix jumped along with Lindo and Bizkier as the water splashed and they started swimming following Siracha back to the Tarot continent. The swimming back to the continent took almost as much time as when they came to the island, bar a small reduction in time. Siracha then took the lead as everyone else put their clothes back on their body and split. Mashi and Bizkier left towards the elephant tribe while Lindo, Siracha, Felix, and Manitola went to the lion tribe. On the way to the lion tribe, they had some food from their special bags and after a while, they finally returned to the tribe''s capital! The moment they stepped through the gates of the capital the whole place knew that the shaman came back with his warriors and from the looks of it they won! The sign was the fox woman that was following behind them, the whole capital knew that the winners would get a slave from the loser surviving team. Captains and lieutenants all over the capital started to gather up to throw up a banquet for the winners of the intercontinental battle! Chapter 78: Banquet and familiarization The banquet started rather quickly as they easily got a long table from their storage room and put it in the middle of the capital where everyone was invited to the party! There was no such thing as table manners or any manners to speak off in the lion tribe, they all brought whatever foods they wanted to the banquet eating how much they wanted from the table, and then burped and left. Manitola felt rather disgusted at the way they ate, while the Sparron continent was weak they were way more advanced compared to them, they had table manners and customs they had to respect but she wasn''t going to deny the free food, she was rather hungry after swimming for such a long time in cold waters. Felix was stuffing his face the moment he saw meat being put on the table while Siracha had left to rest at his house. Lindo was eating with him as they entered a contest which Felix easily won, Lindo groaned at his bloated stomach which couldn''t endure even one more piece of meat as he passed out. Even Landers came to this banquet as he was luckily in the tribe when they returned, he was sitting near Lindo and Felix and he was asking Felix about his experiences in this intercontinental battle. Felix shared as much as he could with Landers and afterward decided he was a bit tired and he could use some sleep, even though his body was very strong and sleep was optional at this point, it would still make his weary mind a little bit more rested, that and his body could absorb all of the experiences he had got this time better if he let it rest. Manitola suddenly appeared in front of him as she asked: "Where am I going to live?" This was a little problem as he looked at the downed Lindo, he originally wanted to ask Lindo to house her as his house was rather big and she didn''t have any money to live at the inn but he guessed he could foot the bill for her this time, actually as he thought about it he shouldn''t even pay the bill anymore, after all, he had done so many things for the tribe. He sighed as he would talk with Siracha about it later, maybe he could get the tribe to pay for his expenses, at this point he did have a few silver bones and he knew that he would get rewarded accordingly for this intercontinental battle, but he felt that he deserved some of the preferential treatment. He wasn''t even sure why he felt like that, maybe it was because he saw some of this treatment in Wu Xiao''s memories and subconsciously wanted to be treated the same way? Cats were innately quite vane. He decided to take Manitola to his inn as it was the most comfortable one he found during his initial search for good homes. He waved his paw at her as he started to walk towards the direction of the inn and she easily followed him as she asked: "So what do you like to do?" "I like to train." "Anything else?" "Not really, I guess I like to sleep and eat?" "Aren''t you really boring?" Felix nodded from a viewers standpoint he was a really boring person but that was who he was, he was content with his life. "If I''m so boring what do you like doing miss Manitola?" "Well I like dancing, singing, and painting, I''m also a great swimmer from what you saw and I also enjoy making tea." Felix didn''t know what half of the things she said were, singing dancing, and painting weren''t things that could be found easily on the Tarot continent as it was a desert of culture. Felix shook his head as he didn''t understand her, he didn''t really found tea to be pleasing to the taste as it was just boiled herbs but who knew what was going through the fox princess''s mind? Seeing his weird looks made Manitola shook her head, she knew that the Tarot continent was in the middle ranges of strength because it only pursued strength and they could have been higher ranked if it wasn''t for the existence of the Ape tribe who lived on the Haron continent. As they chatted they finally reached Felix''s inn where he paid the needed amount before letting the woman at the desk escort Manitola to her room, he then went to his own room and crashed directly into the bed so he could sleep for some time. In his sleep nothing happened, it was a dreamless sleep, he didn''t enter his mindscape either as he just rested. He woke up late in the morning and ate breakfast as he cleaned himself using his tongue and paws before he left the inn, Manitola had already left the inn as she woke up earlier than him and went to find Lindo. It was quite strange considering that Felix was a God''s chosen just like her and they would have more in common. Felix found the two of them talking at his house and he invited himself in. The moment Felix entered all the chatter died down, Lindo came forward and invited him to sit with them as they were just getting acquainted with each other. They were just talking about their abilities and other things that they would have to watch out for in the future on the battlefield to maximize their cooperation. Felix sat on the chair as he looked at Maritola and Lindo who stood near each other. "Ok so as I was saying I have quite a few techniques and..." After Lindo finished explaining it was Maritola''s turn, not much was known about her abilities besides her charm field. "Well besides my obvious charm field that you all should have seen I have quite the high amount of combat capabilities... it''s just that my body is rather weak and I cannot really exhibit many of them in normal circumstances, that''s why I have the charm field in the first place." She started to explain a little bit about her and the fox''s tribe abilities, how their intelligence could be considered at the top of the Sparron continent, and their battle power as well, they were the justice defendants of the continent''s citizens and also their leader. From her information, Felix got to know more about her and her tribe and from what he knew about the other tribes just interacting with their younger generation alone made him give the verdict that the Sparron continent was 100% lost! Chapter 79: Test run Felix decided against commenting the obvious, Manitola seemed like she knew what would happen to her continent so they continued the conversation without any interruptions. "The Sparron continent is rich in resources so that might be one of the reasons the other continents want to conquer us... we don''t really do many things with the resources as we don''t have a high need for weapon materials, all the iron, copper, bronze, and the other materials are mostly used for buildings or special inventions our people work out." Felix''s ears started to move as he heard materials, he had been on a mission and he retrieved some dark hex ore beforehand and the reaction of Landers was quite exaggerated to him when he returned with it so he added one more reason to the list why the Sparron continent was certainly doomed. "Considering my abilities I should be a great support unit on the battlefield but I don''t think I would be able to do a lot of damage nor take the attention of others too much time or else I might become a burden in certain situations but I should be good in almost all general situations due to my charm field, I can charm the normal troops thus winning the base war." Lindo chipped in: "But winning the base war doesn''t mean much if the experts lose their war..." Manitola hangs her head down after she heard that, it was true as no matter how many weaklings there were they wouldn''t be able to true experts at the captain level and above, unless many lieutenant levels were attacking a captain level opponent there was no chance they would win in such a situation. *Sigh* "Well I guess I''m not that useful am I?" Felix and Lindo didn''t'' really know what to say at these words, technically speaking she was saying the truth. Lindo patted her shoulders trying to comfort her but no words were coming out of his mouth, he decided to make her feel better directly by pitting their bodies against each other! Which meant sparring! Lindo while empathetic, didn''t know what to tell her in this situation as he didn''t want to lie to her so to make her feel better he decided to fight with her! That''s how lions made each other feel better and he didn''t know about the customs of the fox tribe. Lindo immediately told her that he wanted to spar with her to gouge her actual strength as they didn''t have time to clash fists in the event. "I don''t know Lindo... you seem quite strong and you know that my specialty isn''t head-on battle." Lindo smiled as he shook his head and said: "It''s ok, it''s just a spar and we shall stop when we are too far." Felix perked up hearing the word spar and decided to say: "Let me go first considering that we are both God''s chosen." Lindo chuckled and gave him a thumbs up indicating that he was ok with it. Manitola didn''t say anything as they made their way outside to the back of the house where the training space was. Felix stretched his body and then decided to tell her: "You should watch out for my abilities as they are quite ''deadly'' to say the least." Manitola took a glance at Felix and found him rather cute, how could such a being be a deadly attacker? Felix shook his head as she saw her gaze and decided to tell her some of his abilities from the start to not injure her by surprise. Hearing how he could turn invisible and about his outrageously strong body among other things made her rather surprised and intrigued at the same time considering foxes and cats could be considered to be in the same branch job-wise. Felix decided to show her instead of telling her more, he immediately disappeared from her view and closed in for her neck, Manitola immediately sensed Felix''s deadly intent and paled as she took two steps backward and the hex energy in her body started to revolve around her in a shield that Felix pierced but not destroyed as he took two steps backward while not revealing himself. Felix was quite surprised by the hardness of her shield, was this the same shield that stopped Goro for some time? While it wasn''t as strong as it wasn''t fueled by more than one person it was still rather sturdy! Manitola decided to inform him of her ability as well: "Besides getting the extra lives I gained this shield that I can use to protect myself and others, it can be fueled by up to 10 people at the same time multiplying its defensive abilities up to 10x." She didn''t lie when she said that she could be good support on the battlefield, this shield alone could turn the battles when it came to the weaker fighters! Even for the stronger fighters on Felix''s level and above the shield could still be useful! Maybe even in captain fights considering it could endure Goro''s relentless attacks for some time and it wasn''t even fully fueled at that time! Felix decided to kick it into top-notch gear as his breathing quickened and his hair started to stand on end while his eyes changed to a deeper emerald color. Manitola immediately felt the danger to her life as she avoided a paw attack that left three deep gashes in her shield, the gashes immediately started to spread as the shield broke into pieces and Felix appeared near her, his claws near her snow-white neck ready to pierce into it. Lindo clapped seeing the quick ending of the fight, it wasn''t that Manitola was weak but Felix was overwhelmingly stronger than her, at this point his soul was also tempered so even though she silently activated her charm field it didn''t do much to deviate his attacks. "I guess it''s your win." Felix nodded as his appearance returned to normal and said: "You aren''t weak don''t demean yourself, you just haven''t been in the right position on the battlefield." Lindo nodded as he went forward and entered his fighting stance: "You might have an easier time against me as I''m weaker than Felix." Manitola nodded and created a new shield which she reinforced using the surrounding hex energy. Felix watched them start from the sidelines. Lindo''s aura was steady as the mountain as he eyed Manitola trying to keep her at a distance wouldn''t work for him as he was a melee fighter but he couldn''t see the charm field as well as Felix, all he could sense was that if he got closer things would get annoying. One step forward... two steps forward, he inched closer to her but Manitola stood her ground as she suddenly threw both of her hands forward, a ball of pink energy left her hands in the form of a heart that made its way towards Lindo. Lindo frowned as he waved his body dodging the pink energy and getting closer towards her in an instant he was in front of her! However his face started to morph into a different expression as he was close to her but suddenly it straightened out as he threw out a direct punch cracking her barrier in the middle, but unlike Felix''s cracks, Lindo''s started to immediately heal at fast speeds! Lindo narrowed his eyes as his muscles bulged up a bit and he started with a flurry of punches trying to breach the barrier. However, he felt his fists start to hurt as blood spurted from them then he realized that the barrier was transforming! Brambles appeared on the barrier that damaged his fists every time he attacked it. This stage of the barrier didn''t get to appear as Felix broke it too fast but since Lindo needed to exert more strength, this stage finally unraveled itself! Lindo frowned as he took two steps backward only for him to feel his ankle being cut by something, he took a glance down to see a fine piece of hair that warped itself around his ankle, the hair was so fine that it could actually cut through his tempered flesh! However, Lindo had endured higher amounts of pain so he easily snapped the hair as he moved his leg, even though it was sharp it wasn''t so sharp that it could cut through his bones and sever his foot from his leg. Manitola was surprised seeing his high pain endurance and but her attack didn''t falter, long hair started to unveil behind her as it started to attack him with a similar rush attack that he tried to use on the shield, while the shield was blocking things from the outside, it wouldn''t block things from inside. Lindo frowned seeing all of the attacks being headed his way as he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath as he activated killing intent detection at full power! His eyes turned a deep crimson as he opened them and looked at the incoming hair attack, he started to dodge by waving through the small gaps that were left in the attack and rushed directly through it to reach the barrier, with a mighty shout his fist was covered in hex energy as he directly attacked the barrier shattering it into a million pieces that disappeared in the surroundings, Lindo then immediately pointed his sharp fingers at her neck. Lindo smiled as his eyes returned to normal along with his physique as he said: "I guess I won this one." Manitola shook her head as she pointed towards his back and said: "Let''s call it a tie." Lindo looked behind only to see some hair being pointed at this neck. Chapter 80: Creating combination moves Lindo started laughing seeing his situation as he moved his finger from her neck and said: "Ok then a draw it is, I guess I''m rather weak compared to Felix... but it was a good spar." Manitola smiled, she was weak amongst god chosen but she was still a top tier fighter if she was compared with anyone else besides her brethren, she was basically the worst amongst the best. Felix wanted to clap as well but he couldn''t consider he had paws and there would be no sound coming from them even if he slapped them together. So he just gave them a whistle, however made them blush at the same time. They were rather close to each other at the moment so others might interpret something different from this. And Felix''s whistle didn''t help, Lindo just felt good that his father wasn''t home at the moment. Lindo coughed then distanced himself from Manitola before continuing: "Well, we can see what your standing is on the power level, for now, I guess we can focus on getting more familiar with each other so we can work better on the battlefield." This type of training was done first by the normal troops so they could fight well in a formation but experts could take this one step further and combined their special attacks in a ''combination'' attack leading to a devastating combo that could upturn those stronger than them if the difference between power wasn''t too big. Now that they had all of the information on their battle power they first started with the combinations between Lindo and Manitola, Felix''s abilities didn''t have much combo potential as he only had very few, there was one combo he could do with Manitola and none with Lindo because he had no crowd control abilities. Since Felix wasn''t needed here he decided to leave and come back later after they finished. Felix started to wander through the capital, he hadn''t visited the whole place up till now as he was always caught up with other things but considering that he would have to move for a relatively long time away from it after the war would begin he decided to visit the whole place. He visited multiple restaurants to eat his fill at every each one of them and also wandered around looking through shops, unfortunately for him, there were few to none who sold equipment for non-humanoid beings as most people in this world fought mostly in their humanoid form and very rarely in their primal form. While the primal form would be stronger in certain situations, the humanoid form gave them more possibilities. He didn''t really care about those things as he had the useful armor from Aaltarox but he wanted to buy something else besides food, but considering he couldn''t really find anything that was either useful or interesting to him he decided to go back and see how Lindo and Manitola had been doing since around 2-3 hours had passed while he had been enjoying himself. Both Lindo and Manitola had sweat sticking to their bodies as they breathed roughly, all around them the earth was overturned from the continuous movement and attacks they had done, Felix found their situation to be quite normal, he had already heard shouts and felt the hex energy around move when he was getting closer to the house, it seemed they had just finished one training when he had arrived. Lindo waved his hand at Felix and said: "Good you came back, after we take a rest you should train with us." "I don''t know Lindo, you know that my position makes me unable to work well with others, and I don''t even have any techniques that I could really combo with you." "Don''t be so shy, what about that claw slash that you used to break through Manitola''s shield in one blow?" "Well it is useful but how would you make the opponent unable to dodge it so we could call it a combo?" Lindo became silent at Felix''s question, there was not much he could do if the opponent was faster than Felix, at that point he wouldn''t be able to combo anything with him. Manitola came forward and said: "I could help you with my charm field." "Indeed but do we really need to practice that? At the speed we fight one nanosecond your charm field brings to me would be enough for me to hit my opponent, we don''t really need practice for that do we?" What Felix was saying was understandable but the duo wanted to make him join their training, Felix just found it to be useless so he said: "I will do my own training so don''t worry about me." Felix had his own training to take care of, he had gotten the intelligence and spirit breathing training techniques and he only finished the stamina breathing technique, he still had the endurance and strength ones to complete, after that he needed to break through to the green aura level, at that level he could be considered a veteran lieutenant ready to be promoted sooner or later to the captain as not all captains had a blue aura. Felix waved his paw at them and left leaving them alone again, he only wanted to check on them to see their progress and from the damaged landscape he understood that they were doing pretty well for themselves. Felix decided to leave the capital and find a wasteland to continue his training, at this point he wanted to escape from the bustling life of the city and find a corner where he could clear his mind. Atleast those were the requirements for the intelligence breathing technique, as for the spiritual one he wouldn''t be able to train in it yet as he first needed to complete the intelligence technique. He started running at high speeds as his silhouette disappeared leaving the capital behind him easily. Siracha looked up from his house and muttered: "What is this little guy up to?" He chuckled as he shook his head and decided to let him do whatever he wanted, at this point, they were the sovereigns of the continent besides the elephant tribe which was unconquerable as long as Mashi lived but they had a friendly relationship on the surface with them, so it didn''t matter where Felix went as long as he wore his Lion army uniform which he mostly kept on himself. Felix''s surroundings changed continuously at high speeds as he ran randomly trying to find an empty and silent place where he could meditate. As he wandered around he finally found a deserted mountainous region where he could train, there were no caves around so he would either live outside or he could make himself one. He looked around and while the surroundings were windy no snow or rain was coming yet, the sun overhead was scorching hot and he didn''t really need any type of housing. Felix yawned a bit before he hoped under a stable rock where enough shade was given to get a rather cool feeling, even though the sun was hot the rocks under the shade were cool and comfortable for Felix. He sat there as he closed his eyes and started slowly meditating while breathing accordingly to the instructions he had seen in Wu Xiao''s memories, considering he had pretty much experienced everything Wu Xiao had his mastery over the technique was as good as his, and he reached the blue aura realm in it, all he needed to do was accumulate hex energy and he would easily reach the same heights as him in the technique! Felix''s closed eyes didn''t move as he breathed in and out, the surrounding hex energy which of a blue color started to change as it became green, Felix''s rhythmic breaths were changing the surrounding Hex energy into one that was helpful towards the brain! Felix could feel the energy around him changing shape and color as tiny energy snake''s started to enter his mouth and nose making a round through his body before charging towards his brain! Those tiny snakes infiltrated the folds of his brain as they reached the nucleus and then exploded into green energy that started to roam around the whole brain creating a formation of runes similar to the one in his chest but also different at the same time. The formation in his chest started to resonate with the one in his brain as Felix''s thoughts started to quicken, He opened his eyes as he breathed out and stopped training, he had reached the 1st stage of tempering in the intelligence technique and as he looked around he realized that quite a bit of time passed, maybe 8-9 hours. His stomach started to rumble as he realized one thing. It was time to catch dinner. Felix started to look around for food and actually ended up coming empty-pawed, thus reaching a dilemma, he had to go back for food now. Chapter 81: War is delayed? Felix''s stomach rumbled as he took a look around the mountainous region for one last time, unfortunately, he couldn''t stay here to practice his newly initiated intelligence technique as there was no food he could find. He left the mountain range at the same speeds that he arrived, he then decided to go back to the capital so he could get some good food there before coming back for some more training as it wasn''t known when he will join the invasion of the Sparron continent so he wanted to be prepared. His arrival back at the capital didn''t trigger any waves, it was obvious that he would come back sooner or later, Siracha was only surprised that he came so early, he thought that Felix would have wanted to explore the Tarot continent more, after all, he had been only around the lion tribe and its surroundings, excluding the missions he did he might have only seen around 1 to 2% of the whole continent! There were places that even Siracha didn''t see as he didn''t have time for traveling as he was the administrator and the highest fighting power of the lion tribe so he had his responsibilities. Felix felt quite well as he patted his bloated stomach, he had eaten until he filled his belly and he had made quite the huge bill at his usual hotel which he paid after he came back to the capital he had been called to the mission bureau and given a small fortune for all of his hard work which he couldn''t even use-fully if he wanted to. There were so many gold bones that he couldn''t count them all and they were all in his special bag that he kept tightly tied to his back. Actually, Felix felt quite surprised by the durability of the bag, even in the fight with Wu Xiao which was quite destructive it didn''t get damaged at all, one reason could be that the armor protected it but when he was in the poison his bag didn''t even get any melting signs! He wasn''t sure from what material the bag was made from but it was actually tougher than his whole body! Being a cat, he was naturally curious so he had tried to attack the bag and see what happened after it got his attention but after a few attacks, he realized there was no chance he could even scratch it and it was also a rather expensive good so it was better to stop playing with it. Now that he had a full belly he could return to his training and he decided to not waste any more time by going back and forth between the mountain range and the capital of the lion tribe so he stuffed his bag full with food that would last a good amount of time even in the strange environment of the bag. Felix found this food at the military store so he wasn''t sure it would taste good but he was already full and he didn''t want to eat anymore, he just hoped it didn''t taste too horrendous. As soon as he was ready to leave through the city gates of the capital he realized something... his senses were telling him someone was approaching rather quickly and as he took a glance back he realized it was Lindo, he was sweaty just like the last time he saw him. However there was something different about his expression, there was a hint of urgency within it that Felix couldn''t understand, why was he running to him with that expression? Lindo sighed as he caught up with him and waved at him, Felix decided to wait for him and as soon as he got close to him he directly said: "Felix don''t go yet, grandpa has said that he needs all of the important fighters at his tent, he said that he got some information from our ''allies'' and that it''s urgent!" Felix nodded, were they going to start the war already? Felix wanted to at least finish the intelligence breathing technique but it seemed he wouldn''t be able to. Lindo and Felix then ran towards Siracha''s ''house'' but it was more of a tent than anything, there they met with a few more captains that Felix didn''t really know and there was also Landers and Catro along with Diorno, Lindo''s father. Felix looked around and didn''t see Siracha only for him to appear on the chair that he usually sat on as if he teleported. Siracha immediately tapped the table near him and said: "I have gotten very important information from the battlefront of the Sparron continent invasion." "And instead of just explaining to you it would be better just to show you." Siracha had a serious expression on his face as he put his hands together as if he was praying before he muttered some words, then out of his eyes, a projection appeared which showed everything he had seen. On a sandy beach, bloody battles were going everywhere, the attackers were obviously from the Haron and Balton continent, besides the gigantic spiders, Kangaroos and Ravens there was also a troop of tall apes that overshadowed everyone''s momentum. However, even that troop of apes couldn''t break through the defense of the locals! The locals were barricaded within trenches that they dug around the beach creating a defensive situation that the others couldn''t breakthrough, but this wasn''t everything! After all, just an environmental bonus wouldn''t be enough to stop the strong teams from the Balton and Haron continents. Felix frowned as he took a good look at the locals from the Sparron continent, a beautiful fox lady peeked her head full of fiery red hair out of the trenches and threw a green small thing in the shape of a ball, as Felix concentrated he saw that on her finger remained a metallic pin, there was no sound from the projection but Felix could read lips somewhat so he understood that the lady said something among the lines of fire and hole. Why would a fire be in a hole? Then Felix''s eyes widened as he realized what she meant, the green small thing exploded in a shower of fire and hex energy as it engulfed the ape''s who were the defending team for the invaders, blood started to shower from their bodies as they retreated slowly, they were rather injured and they didn''t want to take another explosion like that one. The shrapnel from the green things explosion had inserted itself in the backs of the apes and they looked quite sad as they returned out of the firing range of the defending troops. Felix''s eyes widened as he saw thousands of foxes fire up similar things that his Lion tribe just made their acquisition, those black circular things, what were they called? Everyone was as surprised as Felix as they saw everything that happened, suddenly the connection was cut off as Siracha shook his head and said: "It seems the observing shaman was found by the enemy shaman and he had to engage in a fight, the connection was cut off but they also sent a vocal message with these images." A voice came out of nowhere that said: "The fight between the Sparron, Haron, and Balton continents is in a stalemate, the full-on war shall be delayed until we will enter the mainland of the Sparron continent, the technology the Sparron continent had displayed comes from the group that had created the special bags among other things, while they are neutral it seems they have sold things that they shouldn''t have so everyone that gets this message should go and talk with our ''friends''." The message said talk and not attack which meant that even though the persons who sold the weapons to the Sparron continent made the sender of the message unhappy he knew that they weren''t to be messed with, they just wanted to confirm something and it seemed the Lion tribe weren''t the only ones who received the message. Siracha sighed as he knew that it would come to this in the end, the people who sold the special bag were rather interesting but strange at the same time, they could only be counted as unique in the whole world and they were the most advanced technologically and the best-hidden race in the world. Only Shamans in the top 10 on the planet knew the whereabouts of their temporary trading bases and they would also have to make an appointment 3 months before if they wanted to meet them! Siracha sighed as he looked at everyone: "You heard the man, the war shall be delayed for an indefinite amount of time, actually this might be a good thing for us so you should all do your best in your training so you can improve to your body''s and mind''s limits." Everyone left but Siracha stopped Felix before he could exit the tent and made him sit near him: "This time I need someone of the younger generation to come with me to those special people that were mentioned in the message, it''s a customary greeting that these people want us to do when we don''t come to talk business with them." Felix nodded, at this point, he did want to see these people, after all, he was still interested in the special bag that he had on his back and what it was made from, maybe if he asked nicely these guys would answer him, as for the training? He could do it whenever he wanted, he might be able to put up some training even while he was traveling with Siracha around. While a calm environment would quicken the training progress Felix could still train at a decent pace even if he moved as his strong soul facilitated a higher intelligence growth compared to others. Seeing that Felix didn''t disagree made Siracha sigh, Felix had done many great things for the tribe and he saw him as a great person and ally so he wouldn''t want to force him to do things that he didn''t want, he deserved at least this much. "Ok then, Felix we shall move out tomorrow at dawn." Chapter 82: The smartest race on the planet Felix finally left the tent after he was told when they would leave the capital, meeting these mysterious smart people made Felix rather excited, this was the first time in his life that he did something that he was interested in rather than doing something that he was ordered to. Up till now, he had only done missions for the tribe or similar things. So he could barely wait until tomorrow to leave the capital with Siracha! He immediately went to his inn and went to sleep so he could wake up early. He slept a dreamless sleep as he woke up at 5 in the morning and waited at the gate of the capital for Siracha to come. Siracha came just a few moments later, he had a smile on his face as he patted Felix''s head and told him: "You will have to stay in this backpack of mine and don''t look out when we will travel to the base of these people, they love secrecy, and considering you aren''t at the shaman level yet they wouldn''t want you to see the path to their temporary base." Felix didn''t mind as he hopped into Siracha''s backpack that he had tied tightly to his back before sealing it so Felix wouldn''t be able to see anything from it, he could still easily breathe through the backpack as it was made from the skin of an unintelligent beast specifically gifted to Siracha for such occasions by the mysterious inventors. Felix couldn''t see anything in the bag so he decided to just stay there close his eyes and doze off for the time Siracha took to arrive at the base. Suddenly the bag started to shake waking him up from his sweet nap, he was then unceremoniously dropped on the ground. It seemed they had arrived already! "Wakey wakey Felix, we are here!" Felix nursed his head with his paw as he looked around and said: "This has been a fast trip, are we really there?" "But of course, just take a look around you!" Felix did take a look around him multiple times to make sure that they were in the right spot... because there was nothing of worth in his surroundings. All around him were pine trees 10 meters tall so that meant they were around a mountainous northern region however he couldn''t find anything that would indicate that someone lived here: "Are you sure that you didn''t forget the way there?" Siracha laughed as he pointed at one tree ahead of them, it looked exactly like all the other trees around them, Felix even thought that Siracha became senile with age regardless of his new youthful look. "Why are you pointing at that tree?" Siracha decided that he had enough of Felix''s questions and went ahead grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and threw him into the tree before following. Felix waited for the impact with the tree but it never came, when he opened his eyes he found himself in a futuristic environment that he had never seen before even in his previous world. White tiles stretched in front of him and the white light that lit up the whole room that he was in was very blinding even for him. The sterile white walls gave this room a very sickly feeling that Felix couldn''t really stomach. He didn''t feel really good in this room and Siracha walked just behind him and shook his head seeing his expression: "This is how I felt the first time I have been here as well, everything looks so artificial doesn''t it?" Felix nodded, he didn''t really understand the word artificial but he had it in his vocabulary and it fits the current environment. "We aren''t here to admire the environment, Felix, come with me." The room stretched for a few tens of meters before a crossroad appeared, at the crossroad, there was a desk and a bell was placed neatly on the desk on a white piece of animal skin. Siracha pressed the bell 4 times in a row in an interval of 2 seconds pause between each press and a robotic voice was heard from the ceiling of the building: "4 bell rings 2 seconds delay means political visit ''hum'', identity scanned ''hum'' It''s the shaman of the lion tribe Siracha Enoch and an unknown cat tribesman ''hum''." Siracha didn''t say anything as he waited at the desk, Felix just continued to look around and wait as well, after a few tens of minutes a person finally appeared seemingly materializing at the desk, his face was white and he wore a lab cloak, his hairstyle was a short caesar cut and he had a small mustache, the man looked rather indifferent as he gazed at Felix and Siracha while asking: "What might I have done to have the honor of meeting the shaman of the lion tribe Siracha?" Siracha decided to go directly to the subject as he asked about them selling their weapons to the Sparron continent along with the grenade that they have never taken out to sell to them. "Oh, you might have a misunderstanding there sir, while our civilization works with your continents it''s mostly because you are the best at using these weapons in live-action, not because we fear you or anything like that." "We don''t really have to answer your questions but we will because you have been a good customer for us for quite a long time." "We only supplied the Sparron continent because we found their situation to be quite unlucky, being surrounded by such barbarians as you who can''t live with others in peace, we found it to be quite a pity so we armed them to defend themselves." Siracha smirked as he looked directly into the man''s eyes and said: "Is this the whole truth? Isn''t it mostly because the resources of the Sparron continent would help you in your scientific research?" The man shamelessly replied: "This was also one of the secondary reasons but not the main one." Before Siracha could say anything else the man continued: "We need to be paid for our services as well don''t you think? The fact that their continent is full of resources useful to us is just a happy coincidence, anything else you want to ask, or do you want to buy something? If not you will have to leave this little cat with us for the time being." Felix''s eyes narrowed as he heard about being left here, did that meant Siracha would leave him here so these people could do whatever they wanted with him? Siracha shook his head as he said: "He isn''t here for that, don''t you guys like to put strong youths to fight against each other when we come to ask questions?" The man smiled stiffly as he said: "Unfortunately that rule had been changed this time around, you will have to leave him with us for 20 days to 30 days or buy something." Siracha sneered as he said: "Then why haven''t I been informed about this rule change?" "Unfortunately we only made the rule change only a few hours ago so you must have been on the way here thus the news couldn''t have arrived at you personally since we sent it back to your capital." "You, you...." "Buy something or leave the cat behind for the allocated time, your choice." Unfortunately, Siracha didn''t bring anything that would be interesting to these people, he looked at Felix and gritted his teeth as he asked: "Do you sell on credit?" The man shook his head as he said: "We do not anymore, we had sold in the past but one person never bothered to repay their credit and seemingly disappeared from the face of the planet, anyways I guess you will leave the cat behind?" "No, I..." Felix started to get angry as he said: "I don''t have a saying in this?" The man looked at Felix and weighed him with his eyes: "Peak lieutenant level bodily strength initiated in 2 breathing techniques, hmm? this is strange, no traces of Hex energy in the body besides the one used to temper his organs and brain?" Felix felt appalled, how had this man see through all of his secrets and power so easily? "With your current strength you shouldn''t even be allowed to come near 10 meters from the entrance of this base but here you are and you think you actually have something to say in front of us?" "Very sad that you haven''t been disciplined well but I guess Siracha dotes on you for some reason that I don''t really care about." The man glanced at Siracha who was extremely conflicted and he asked again: "So tell me what it will be Siracha, leave him behind or buy something? Oh, nevermind about that you will surely leave him behind as I can sense there is nothing of interest on your body." Siracha looked down at Felix and finally took two steps backward as two red dots appeared on his forehead and chest: "I indicate against trying to run away with your little friend." Siracha frowned but ultimately he lifted his hands and decided to quit... there was nothing he could do here, he let Felix down at this point! The man jumped over the desk that he was and Felix immediately saw a long brown tail running out of his tailbone and finally leaving his lab coat, this was a kind of tail that he had never seen before. "Now little thing come with me... we will have to do some experiments." Felix didn''t feel well as he saw the man''s expression and how he eyed his body, he just felt wrong... it was almost as if he was on the table of a surgeon ready to undergo surgery with no sedatives used! And mostly he didn''t want to go with him due to his creepy gaze! Chapter 83: A rare specimen Felix wanted to escape as the man''s gaze pierced into his skull and he felt like he wanted to make a deep hole there to examine his brain. "I..." The man monotonously said: "You nothing, Siracha took you here with no information and now he has to pay for it, in this part you are just an unfortunate victim but don''t expect to be pardoned, someone has to pay for the time I''m wasting with you two!" Siracha gritted his teeth as he wanted to take a few steps forward only for the red dot on his forehead to shine brightly, the one on his chest even started to burn as he coughed up and some blood started to leave his mouth and splatter on the white tiles below. "I advise against moving mister Siracha, I only have business with your little friend now and you don''t have to intervene." "But I..." The man started to shake his head disappointed as he took a few steps forward approaching Siracha and putting his hand on his shoulder: "I always looked down upon you as you are people who need a thing explained dozens of times but it seems I have underestimated your stupidity!" The man''s face remained impassive but the grip on Siracha''s shoulder tightened making Siracha''s expression take a turn for the worse as he felt his whole body turning like jelly, he fell to his knees and became paralyzed. "*Sigh* I didn''t want to resort to violence but it seems this is the only language you pea brains understand, anyways you can either wait here or outside for when we will return him to you, we aren''t people that would betray our promises and since we only need him for 30 days we will give him back to you then." The man suddenly disappeared as he grabbed Felix by the scruff of his neck, Felix tried to struggle out of his grasp or even scratch him with his especially sharp claws only to find out that his whole body was paralyzed just like Siracha''s. "Now let''s go, we don''t have time for wasting!" The man jumped over the desk and disappeared into the wall with Felix. While his body was paralyzed his mind was not, Siracha wanted to glare at something but all he could look at was the floor with his current position... he felt so weak and dumb, were these people really so much advanced compared to them to the point that they were seen as experiments? ********************* Felix couldn''t feel anything as the man walked through a long winding corridor while keeping a good grasp on Felix''s nape, the more they walked the more uncomfortable Felix felt, the sound of the man''s shoes clinking on the cold tiles on the floor made him unable to relax at all! Especially considering he didn''t know what would happen to him the moment the man reached wherever they were going. *Clip* *Clap* *Clip* *Clap* The sounds the shoes made when they hit the tiles below them made Felix want to grasp at his ears, he didn''t know why but it just made him feel unwell. The man looked at Felix and analyzed his expression, while his body was paralyzed his face could still move and he made a mental note: "Subject seems to be rather tense... seems the squeaking of my shoes is aggravating his state." Felix didn''t know he was already being documented nor would he care, he only wanted this thing to be over with as soon as possible! The corridor finally ended as they reached a medium-sized tube that could hold two average-sized males at the same time for transport, the man entered the tube with Felix in his hand as he pressed two buttons simultaneously inside it and the tub started to suck them upward making them both disappear. Felix could feel the strong wind messing his fur as the tube sucked them to a destination unknown to him, after 20 minutes of wind they finally reached another location similar to the one that they were in previously, but instead of a corridor, they reached a hall where multiple people with similar tails to the person who was holding him were either chatting or exchanging peculiar information that Felix didn''t understand. None of these people had smiles on their faces, they were all reticent and serious looking. The moment they saw the man who held Felix approaching they immediately went ahead and asked: "Shima? What''s with that transformed cat tribesman in your hands? Wait a little bit... very interesting I see why you have taken him to the headquarters." "Indeed, the lack of hex energy but the bodily strength and the ability to cultivate the breathing technique to such a high degree shows that he is a special individual, I can also sense some godly energy on his body which means he is also a God''s chosen!" "Such a special specimen, he must be studied until there is no more research value! We could even use him to strengthen the civilians to the same levels as hex energy practitioners!" Shima shook his head as he said: "I don''t think we will be able to extract his abilities for him but he would still be a good reference material so we could create something to strengthen our civilization, his ability most likely comes from a mutation of some sort and triggering the same type of mutation on a different person is a chance of one in a trillion, meaning that even if we experimented on all of our people there is still a chance that not one of them will gain the right mutation, and as you may know beneficial mutations are very rare to get, we most likely would give them just huge doses of cancer." "Yeah, that''s true, we just got a little bit excited as we saw all of his specialness..." "Don''t be so uncultured Mintos, we all can see he is special you don''t have to say it like that." "Oh yeah sorry..." Felix realized that even though all of them looked smart not all of them were actually as smart as Shima. "So should we start?" "Yeah let''s get to the laboratory." All of them started to rush towards a metal door a few meters away, Shima shook his head as he followed them slowly from behind then threw Felix into the room. Felix finally felt his body could move again as he tried to get away from them only to find himself in a closed off white room that he couldn''t make head or tails of. He couldn''t see anything besides the wait but unknowingly to him there was a glass that was dividing this room from the other experiment room which the scientists were using to observe him. "We first start with the external observations and next you should all know the rest." The others nodded as they took out data pads which they immediately went ahead and started to scribble some things on them as they observed Felix''s behavior. "Hmm he is acting pretty normal, I thought he would become hysterical or try to attack the panels, that would have been rather fun." The panels were electrically charged and if Felix touched them he would be electrocuted. Felix felt something wasn''t right as he looked around the white room, he felt danger coming from everywhere! No matter where he looked or where he stepped he felt like he wouldn''t end up well so he just stayed there. "Hmm seems his senses are way above average, send in some stimuli we don''t need him to stay there for the whole day." "Yes sir." Felix could feel his fur stand on end as electricity started to run through the room. Felix could sense the location that didn''t have electricity in them so he started to jump from tile to tile trying to evade all of the electricity. "Hmm, interesting his senses are way sharper than we thought, let''s see how are his speed and dexterity." Big hammers started to fall from the ceiling of the room and Felix easily dodged all of them while also evading the electricity filled places, his agility and speed were the things he prided himself on the most. "Beautiful, excellent! He is such a superior specimen!" "We have confirmed what we wanted to know with this experiment, now it''s time for part 2!" Felix felt everything around him stop, the electricity and the falling hammers, but he didn''t feel safe at all! He actually felt an even bigger danger coming right to him, he tried to dodge using his acute senses but he felt his scruff being grabbed again, but this time he was prepared! His muscles started to harden making the technique the man used on him before inutile, the same technique didn''t work and the man who attacked felt something wasn''t right as he felt that his hand was suddenly gone! Blood started to flow from his stump as he looked around only to see that Felix disappeared! "QUICKLY CATCH HIM, THIS GUY COUNTERED OUR TECHNIQUE AFTER ONE TASTE, HE IS ALSO A GENIUS WE NEED HIM ALIVE!" Chapter 84: Subject CSP has breached containment "I REPEAT, SUBJECT CSP HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT AND HE HAS ATTAINED IMMUNITY TO OUR PARALYZING TECHNIQUE, CATCH HIM WE NEED TO STUDY SUCH AN IMPORTANT SPECIMEN!" The man who said that was clutching his severed hand from the floor as he quickly put it back on his stump while infusing it with hex energy, he needed to reattach it quickly he would become hand-less, or Robo-handed. Felix''s silhouette couldn''t be seen anywhere as he used his stealth technique to disappear. Everyone was looking around for him like headless flies. He kept himself in a corner where he sensed the least danger as he thought about what happened up till now... things weren''t looking good for him at all. The power of these people wasn''t very high but they had strange technology and their techniques were rather peculiar, even though the guy who wanted to capture him used the same technique as Shima it was considerably weaker in intensity and strength meaning that Shima was a highly ranked combatant of theirs! He wanted to leave this place but he didn''t know where to go, all the corridors looked the same to him and his face was frozen so he could only see one way when he was taken in, he didn''t know how to leave! He looked around and kept himself as hidden as possible, he wanted to capture one of those scientists and make him spill everything out so he could get out of there! He jumped on the ceiling and made sure he could walk normally then slowly made his way down the corridors trying to identify an easy target that he could hunt and get all of the information he needed. The scientists were running around everywhere trying to find where he went, even Shima was annoyed as he looked around trying to find him. It seemed that Felix''s stealth was still effective at this level, he sighed as he controlled his breathing and continued to walk on the ceiling. "What should I do to capture one of them?" Felix wasn''t sure he would be able to lure one of them to him, after all, if he revealed himself that person would surely shout for everyone to swarm him and he wasn''t sure these people were interested in anything else besides him at the moment, even leaving clues behind for someone to follow it would surely be reported. These people had no weaknesses! He had to strike too fast that they could understand and somehow find an empty abandoned room where he could drag the guy for a dose of interrogation. He kept himself on the ceiling as he eyed the incoming persons but all of them looked to be with their guards up and none of them were even a tiny bit relaxed. "This is way harder than I envisioned it..." Suddenly one of them stopped for a few seconds as he looked around and sniffed the air, then he looked towards the ceiling with a strange look on his face, Felix felt his head spinning, he didn''t do anything and he was still found out? He didn''t care anymore, he dropped from the ceiling directly on the guy''s head as he unsheathed his claws directly inserting them into his eyes and effectively killing him instantly. He was rather stressed and the kill was sloppy as blood sprayed on the pristine floor below, he kept his stealth on as he disappeared, if he couldn''t get out normally he would create a bloodbath and escape that way! Felix wasn''t a bloodthirsty being by nature, he would only kill when hungry or in self-defense but now his inner beast was awakened, he was pushed to the wall and he needed to escape thus he would clear a bloody path out! The other scientists were immediately alarmed by the smell of blood and found the body extremely quickly, Shima put his fingers on the wound and smelled the blood for a few seconds before saying: "He died only a few seconds ago, the cat must still be around here... it seems he had turned violent upon being almost found out by him and he resorted to killing to reduce him to silence... unfortunately we don''t all have full combat training so our friend here died." "This is outrageous, he should offer himself on a silver platter to us for even daring to bother us! How dare he fight back, we basically own him for those 30 days!" Shima shook his head as he said: "He is rather stubborn and his shaman didn''t know the rules changed, of course, he would fight back in this situation, what would you do if you were him?" "Well, I..." "Nevermind that should we send in the army?" "What army? Have you forgotten they are sent off-world to investigate new resource locations?" "So we have to deal with him by ourselves?" "I can deal with him, all you have to do is find him, I didn''t know his stealth technique was this advanced when I caught him as I was focused on analyzing his special body... so this could be considered my fault for not gathering enough information, I shall be responsible for this man''s family and funeral but for now we need to focus on catching the escaped prisoner." Felix heard everything that was said as he was one room away from them and since the facility was so big their voices echoed quite easily through the empty corridors. He wondered why didn''t they talk mentally like Siracha did or why didn''t they at least whisper... could they be making a trap? Felix was quite intelligent so he realized that Shima was trying to trap him in some way, should he stop killing? But what other way was there to escape? He didn''t know the language they were using to write as he already analyzed the words above the rooms and didn''t understand jack! He couldn''t capture someone nor could he continue killing as he felt that something might happen... what could he do? Felix wanted to bang his head on the wall in front of him, he felt extremely frustrated, he didn''t want to experience whatever these guys wanted to do him, his instincts told him it wasn''t going to be anything good, and he didn''t know how to escape either! Finally, his brows lowered as he made a serious face, it was time to get serious: "I shall sacrifice a few lives I''m maxed out anyway." Felix started to move through their base with quick speeds not caring anymore if he was found out or not, whenever he saw one or two scientists who were looking for him he would quickly slit their throats, this way he was immediately found out by Shima. The man had a dark look on his face as he looked at Felix, he had already identified every corpse and there were around 30! They were around 300 people in the whole facility and Felix killed 10% of them! "I wanted to give you an easy time when you would be on the direction table but now I guess we won''t need any anesthetic!" "Come and catch me then you annoying fool!" "Oh, I will!" Shima appeared in front of Felix as he clutched him by the back of the neck again, his speed and strength were on Siracha''s level or maybe even a little bit above, Felix couldn''t move again but suddenly his body started to inflate and Shima''s eyes widened while saying: "Self-destruction?" Felix''s body exploded into countless chunks as the explosion engulfed Shima as well, he had come alone as he didn''t want anyone else to be hurt or killed by Felix''s rampage but the explosion made by Felix''s self-destruction rocked the whole base alerting everyone of Felix''s actual location. But when they came to help all they saw was Shima who was drenched in blood and body chunks from head to toe with an annoyed look on his face: "It seems this guy had all of his lives if he sacrificed one so easily... it seems he is running out of patience." "Are you okay Shima? "There is nothing wrong with me but that guy relocated somewhere else when he self-destructed... the ability of God''s chosen is really annoying..." Felix was a few rooms away, he could spawn in different locations if they were not too far from where he last died he had used this ability in some of his previous fights to take his opponents by surprise. Felix then disappeared as he used his stealth technique again, with a new body that meant full stamina and no injuries! He started with another hunt, keeping himself to the ceiling and trying to find any other targets but no one moved around anymore! He frowned as he felt something wasn''t right and a voice could be heard coming from behind him: "It took me a while but I finally learned how you use your stealth technique, now will you come with me already or do you want to lose all your lives?" Felix looked behind him only to see that dark face again... Shima wasn''t happy at all with what he had done. Chapter 85: Experimentation isnt for cats Shima''s face was so dark, he almost looked like he swallowed a fly, but the situation was way worse for him, he had to pay for the death of 30 people and that would mean his salary would be withheld for atleast 2 years! That was because he had to take care of their families as well, with the money he got from his salary he could have easily paid for the funerals with around half of his monthly income. "Now you shall come with me and take you dissection patiently unless you want me to cripple you before." Felix sneered as his white aura appeared, his breathing changed as he entered the breathing combat mode, his hair started to stand on end while his eyes turned emerald, he had decided to go for broke! "Since there is no way out and you decided to be like this I shall make my own way out!" "Foolish!" Shima threw away his lab coat as he flexed his muscles, his brown tail was moving aggressively behind him as a deep purple aura engulfed him: "I shall sever your legs so you can never run away again!" Felix felt a strong wind nearing his four legs, he jumped up instinctively barely dodging the wind blade that Shima used without even moving an inch of his body! Some of his hair was cut and dropped to the white floor below. Felix disappeared as he employed his stealth technique and started to circle Shima only for him to feel a deadly attack approaching from all directions! His killing intent detection wasn''t lying to him, the air around him was practically trying to kill him! "Being able to control the air transforming it into a killing ability?" Felix found it rather hard to stomach such a broken ability as the air was everywhere in existence if you didn''t count the void. Air spikes transformed into a prison that wanted to skewer him in nonvital places and keep him trapped but Felix used his body to go through two spikes at the edges of the prison trading an injury for escaping, blood flew down his body turning his stealth technique useless. He appeared in front of Shima who shook his head: "You are lucky we need you alive or I would have made you lose all your lives up till now." Felix gritted his teeth, he didn''t want to be experimented upon nor dissected, he thought that no one would want that, especially because it was against his will and Shima was continuously going against him. "Grit your teeth as much as you want but that won''t stop my scalpel from slicing your chest open." Shima appeared in front of Felix as he made a claw with his hand trying to grab him from the nape of his neck and paralyze him again, Felix''s muscles hardened to an immense degree as he blocked the attack barely, even though his nerves hadn''t been touched his hardened muscles deflated like a balloon as they took the whole damage from the claw attack. Felix could feel so much pain going through the nervous system that he wanted to shout and roll on the floor but he knew that this wasn''t the time for that so he endured as best as he could as he tried to dodge or block another attempt at being captured. It was harder to capture someone alive than killing them so Shima was getting rather annoyed at Felix''s attempts of escaping. It was getting to the point that he wondered if it would be worth analyzing a corpse instead of a living body, he even started to mutter: "Oh how would I break your soul but it''s quite strong and protected by the divine realm..." Another strength of God''s chosen was that they were more enduring against mental attacks and their souls couldn''t be destroyed, that was also one of the reasons Wu Xiao couldn''t do much against Felix, they were just a bad matchup. Felix decided to fight it out with him with his ultimate move! Dark hex energy converged to his claws as they lengthened and sharpened, his eyes narrowed as he disappeared from view, his broken muscles started to cry in pain for being overused but he pushed through the pain and attacked! Shima put his right hand over his left and leaned in a bit waiting for Felix''s attack. The moment Felix''s claw was nearing Shima''s neck he launched his left hand forward and grabbed him by the paw before launching a kick with his right leg directly hitting him in the face and breaking his head open. Blood flowed freely from Felix''s head as he felt his brain shake, even though his skull had cracked only blood flowed from his head, and no brain matter. Felix felt scared... this was the first time someone countered his ultimate technique and it was so clean to boot! "Surprised? Actually, if you landed that move on me you might have injured me but considering how obvious your attack pattern is, it was quite easy to counter." Felix deflated like a balloon as his body started to glow again however this time Shima was prepared and he immediately hit him again on the neck hitting a nerve and making him unconscious, it was better than paralyzing him as there was a chance he would find a way to self destruct again. Then he grabbed him by the neck and shouted: "I have caught CSP all return to your work after you clean away the corpses of our colleagues, send the bill for all of the funeral items to my account." Shima sighed as he thought about his colleague then decided to experiment alone on Felix. Even though he wanted them to learn something from the dissection experience it was too dangerous for them, he was the only military scientist left in the facility after the others followed the army off-world. Shima entered a sterile room and pressed his foot on a small button on the floor, out of the floor a white operating table came out and Shima put Felix on it, along with the table came quite a lot of sharp instruments and tanks filled with unknown substances and gases. He hooked a transparent mask to one of the gas tanks and put it over Felix''s face while saying: "Wakey wakey, I did say that you would have to experience the pain you have inflicted on my poor colleagues." Felix woke up groggily his whole body hurt like hell from fighting with Shima and there was no time for him to heal himself up. "Ok, now that you woke up it''s time for the main course." Shima took a scalpel from the table full of sharp instruments and started with a small incision on Felix''s chest, Felix could feel the whole thing happening and it wasn''t a pleasant experience at all, the pain from being cut open was rather uncomfortable but it wasn''t as bad as he thought it would be, he endured way worse pains before. "Your pain enduring threshold is rather high but this is only the entree, we shall start with a small incision here and we will move further later... you shall see." Shima already had a surgical mask on his face along with transparent protection goggles when Felix woke up, it was rather scary but Felix endured, at this point, he was too injured to move and he was paralyzed from the waist down meaning he could only move the upper part of his body. As the butchering of his body went further and further the pain he experienced amplified along with the fact that Shima was getting to his internal organs, the mask that was pumping that gas into him was tied tightly to his mouth and the gas that was being pumped increased in quantity the more he was being cut into, it seemed the gas was there to make him stay awake and also increase his pain receptors sensibility very slowly. Felix didn''t even have the strength to grith his teeth anymore at this point, actually, the pain wasn''t even that bad anymore, his eyes started to close as the last image he saw was Shima toying with his heart and internal organs. Felix woke up suddenly, he didn''t know why but when his body regenerated he remained unconscious it was rather strange, as he looked into the corner of his eyes he saw 7 heads left meaning that he didn''t die further after he died on the operating table. He looked around and he found himself in a clean cell, the black bars were dividing him from the other room and there was a bit of food left in a bowl near him. "Now I''m a prisoner?" The feeling of being experimented on still paled compared to falling to the fiery fire and dying but he already gets used to those so he didn''t feel much from being experimented on, he just didn''t want his secrets to be found out nor did his abilities to be shared with someone else, especially in the way they had done it. "How do I escape from here?" Felix had only these words in his thoughts but the cold voice of Shima broke him from his thinking: "You already thinking about escaping? You are actually a failed product... I couldn''t get anything from dissecting you, I wasted my time and you even killed 30 scientists, I will be scolded..." Those were great news for Felix but now came the round of bad news: "Considering what you have done we won''t kill you as you are a God''s chosen and you could revive out of the cell and go God''s knows where to go on a rampage again and kill more people, so we will just let you here to rot for 30 years, 1 year for each person you killed, actually if you just let yourself be dissected without any problems you could have already left by now considering you have no more research value, what a pity you are such a fool..." Shima''s voice disappeared as his silhouette didn''t even appear in the cell room. Chapter 86: Living in isolation for 30 years (1) Felix felt rather stifled in the cell he was currently in, there was no one around him and the room beyond the cell was dark but he could see through it, other cells were facing him and near him but he couldn''t hear any sound which meant he was pretty much alone in the whole jail room. He sighed, he didn''t want this to happen and he fought so fiercely only for him to get dissected anyways, now he had to be imprisoned for 30 years as well! All of this sucked quite a lot! He had been a victim all along in this charade and he had to pay for it as well! He just defended himself was it so wrong? Felix got quite angry as he looked at the bars made from an unknown metal and slashed at them with his claw. His claws shattered as he felt like crying, immense pain traveled down his paw directly to his legs and whole body the rebound from the metal almost cracked his bones! The attack power that he inflicted on the metal traveled through the bars before being redirected back into his body in a shockwave type of attack shaking his internal organs and bones but not hard enough so he would bleed internally as he was only attacking the bars because he was frustrated, he didn''t use his whole strength or he would have had to lay down crippled. He patted his body as he realized that his bag was still there... well at least they weren''t so shitty to take it from him... they actually gave it back to him considering he had lost it the first time he self-destructed. Felix opened the bag and looked through it and everything that was supposed to be there was there, after all, there was nothing of interest to these people in his bag and they could make such bags anyway so why would they take it away from him after they investigated whatever was in the bag? Felix sighed as he took another look in the bag and counted whatever he had in it: "Some food... lots of useless money and 30 red pills... oh they are the healing pills..." The red pills became quite useless as time went by because all of his battles ended too fast for him to have the time to crush and snort them, combined with the fact that his body healing factor increased and he would only need the pills to help only if he was near death made them stay in the bag. "Well, maybe they would be useful in the future..." Felix ate some of the food he had in the bag before he started thinking: "What am I supposed to do... I cannot wait 30 years can I?" Felix didn''t know what would happen in 30 years, he was supposed to fight in the Sparron continent war and what would Siracha, Lindo, and the others do without him? He was sure Lindo wouldn''t be able to survive on the battlefield without him... and he got quite attached to him, even though he wouldn''t be sad for a long time if he died he would still mourn his loss for a bit, after all, they could be considered friends. As he stood there in the cell he realized that he wasn''t really attached to anyone from the lion tribe, up till now he hadn''t been able to think things much as he was pretty much running everywhere, yes they did act rather nicely with him but he deserved that treatment for everything he had done for the tribe. He actually didn''t find a sense of belonging anywhere he had been, he felt rather strange but it was normal considering he was an alien in this world. He didn''t belong here. Suddenly he felt sleepy as he laid his head down on the soft bag and somehow fell asleep immediately... He appeared in his mindscape and the voice of Aaltarox was heard: "Ah you have really gone ahead and met with those people... you are quite unlucky." Felix realized that he slept so easily because he was summoned by Aaltarox so he waited for him to continue: "I have called you here to explain some things about this race you have intersected with and help you a little bit... I cannot do anything for your situation but I can console you." "What will consoling help me with..." "It will make you feel better." "Anyways listen here, you are in luck these guys are so lawful and thought about your situation as well, if they were from the evil faction you would have been killed until you had no lives after they skinned and dissected you while finding out that they can''t take anything out of you, you did kill quite a lot of them but you aren''t to blame either so they agreed to a consensus of keeping you locked up for 30 years in their strongest facility prison." "How is this supposed to make me feel better?" "Oh well, you didn''t let me finish." "After those 30 years are done you will be able to leave and go on with your life, with no more enmity from them to boot!" "Is this the end?" "Yeah." "Then how am I supposed to feel better?" "Eh... well I guess I can tell you some information about them, they are a pretty well-known race in our universe, ''I can''t make him feel better...''" "They were originally called the Monkey tribe but they have already gone ahead and changed their name to the Human Tribe for some reason, they had created all of their technology with their intelligence alone and you wouldn''t want to see the strength of their military troops at this point..." "To explain as simply as I could, one of their weaker men is as strong as the Ape you have befriended in the intercontinental battle, oh by the way the others enjoyed your and your friend''s performance." "What I''m saying is that you are quite lucky you ended up only with 30 years of imprisonment." Felix frowned as he said: "But it''s not my fault!" "Aye... you are still a child it doesn''t matter if you are at fault or not, it doesn''t matter if you are wrong or right, should I spell it out for you? A-L-L I-T M-A-T-T-E-R-S I-S S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H. If you don''t have the strength then you are in the wrong if you are strong whatever you do is right!" "I thought you have already learned this up till now, it''s been almost one year since you came to this world and you have gone through quite a few wars up till now but it seems you are still lacking understanding towards these advanced tribes, well its not surprising since Siracha didn''t tell you much or even anything about them..." "So all I can do is endure these 30 years?" "Yup, be happy that you are still alive kiddo, once your lives are gone I cannot help you even if I want to, the laws of the world can only be interfered with when you have your lives, so keep tight onto them if you don''t want to fall to the other guy''s realm." "I''m not going to enter into details about him but be careful from now on, Ok?" The voice disappeared as the connection between them was cut... Felix woke up suddenly as he looked around, he was in the same cell room... he sighed, there was no sound coming from inside nor outside... it was eerily quiet to the point that he felt discomfort... There was nothing else that he could do so he started meditating, he closed his eyes and breathed in and out, while the cell was cold and eerie quiet it was the perfect place for him to practice his intelligence breathing technique! The in and out breathing exercise was interrupted as a guard came to him sliding him a tray with food through the jail bars below and said: "Food is here, eat up." The guard was a rather young ''Human'' his monkey tail was tied around his waist as if it was a fur belt and he wore a dark blue security guard outfit his face was shadowed by his cap after Felix ate his fill he immediately took the tray and disappeared as if he was never there... Felix found the man to be rather strange but he shook his head as he went back to his breathing exercises, hex energy while not abundant, it was in great amount in the prison, since he wouldn''t be able to escape even if he destroyed the bars he decided to endure what he had been given... 30 years of solitude and isolation. Felix sighed once more as he looked through the bars that were taking away his freedom, after one more last look at them he closed his eyes and continued with his meditation, for now, there was nothing that could be done... but the future existed and Felix was looking forward to it. Chapter 87: Living in isolation for 30 years (2) Felix stood still in the cell room as he meditated, he looked half-dead on the surface but he was just in a highly entranced state, a few months had passed since he had been incarcerated and he started to get used to the life of being a jailbird, he didn''t like it but what could he even do? He did try to strike the bars every time he felt his strength improve a little and this proved to be a rather dumb thing as his organs were shaken again and again, but fortunately for him they also started to endure better as time passed, his already strong body was adapting to the shockwave retaliatory attacks but that didn''t mean he started to damage the bars, he was far from it. The same guard came back every day and gave him food then left not even exchanging a word with Felix, this made him rather sad as being alone without talking to anyone for long times affected him a bit, he wasn''t a loner by nature, he did like having company, it was something he enjoyed, he just couldn''t get too attached to said company, it was quite weird, he craved attention but didn''t care about the person that gave him attention at the same time, well not much anyway. It was time for food again as he opened his eyes and all of his vital signs returned to normal, his eyes turned to the guard who was actually watching him from above, Felix got up and looked at the guard ensuing a staring contest. After a while the guard finally said his first words to Felix, his voice was rather monotone and gritty as if he didn''t use it often: "Do you like the food?" Felix responded by eating the food with gusto and smiling at him. The guard pulled on his cap as he took the tray and left quickly without saying anything else, Felix felt he was rather weird and decided against shouting for him as he already disappeared. Did he do something wrong? His eating with gusto meant that he liked the food but maybe the person misunderstood? But what would be to misunderstand in this situation? Felix shook his head as he went back to meditating. ******************************* The guard from before removed his cap as he sighed and looked at the empty tray with a smile on his face, he looked rather young as he still had a baby face that betrayed his rather sturdy-looking body. "Finally there''s someone I can cook for... being assigned at this job is easy but boring... for a serial killer he doesn''t seem to be a bad guy..." ****************************** The guard entered a room with multiple monitors but only one was turned on and it showed Felix who was back to meditating on his cell bed. This was the guard''s job, watch the prisoners and bring them food, up till now he had literally nothing to do as he had no prisoners so he only cooked for himself using the resources of the prison making himself free launches. However, things changed once Felix was brought in, the guard at first was rather disgusted with him, his charge was the cold-blooded murder of 30 high-ranked scientists of the organization which could be considered one of the biggest sins in their society, touching the scientists that created things for them and researched for the good of their country was something that no patriot could forgive. However this guard looked through Felix''s past using his connections, he wouldn''t be given this position if he wasn''t the son/nephew/related to someone with quite the big connections, he found out that Felix did what he did under the guise of self-defense and things were also rather entangled when it came to his case. Being a bored youth made the guard take up the mission of looking through Felix''s past only to find nothing besides this incident, if he thought about it more it made sense considering he was a cat, other races were living in their country but they were minorities with no power, there was no chance such a strong person as Felix would have been from inside the country. So he did a bit of digging around using his intelligence network and find out who Felix was, he was quite impressed with his abilities and he didn''t want him to rot in a cell for 30 years, it was a waste of his talent and potential! He knew he had killed 30 scientists but it was in self-defense so it could be argued in court, but with his connections, he didn''t have to go to court at all... he only needs to move some strings. *********************** A youth with a rather weak-looking baby face kneeled in front of an old man with a goatee who wore a dark suit with a fur belt which was his tail... "You want to let that killer out? What is going through your head, Maxwell? Did he brainwash you with his cute face? I understand you have a weakness for little animals with cute features but I forbid you from talking to him any further, I will even remove you from the guard position!" "But grandpa I..." "No grandpa! For what I have done for you? For all the strings that I pulled to get you to this easy position that you could easily use till your death, I only did all of this for you because you are untalented in military matters but it seems you really want to join the military!" "No grandpa please I will surely die!" "Oh, now you think about dying? Don''t you think that going against Shima''s orders would get you killed? He is very close to our leader and I''m only a marquis, don''t you think things through before they leave your mouth you damn brat?" "Uuuuu grandpa...." *Sigh* While Maxwell''s grandpa was angry on the surface he still doted on his grandson quite a lot, he just wanted to scare him so he would never bring up this topic again, freeing Felix was currently impossible unless a duke level character would talk up for him and why would such busy individual even talk for Felix who murdered 30 of their scientists? Even if he did it in self-defense they could care less. The higher the nobility rank the more stuck up they were. Maxwell was ready to cry as he kneeled in front of his grandpa, seeing him like this hurt the old man''s heart quite a bit as he consoled him by giving him a small hug. "While I cannot free him I may be able to shorten his sentence, I still don''t really understand why you want to free him even though you talked almost half an hour about him but I guess since you care so much about him I could help you with this." Maxwell smiled as he cleared his eyes from tears and returned the hug to his grandpa before skipping away happily. He himself wasn''t sure why he wanted to free Felix, the more he went and sent him food the more attracted to him he was, he felt like wanted to know him more, to talk with him and help him, he felt like he became friends with him unknowingly... ******************* Back in Felix''s cell, his eyes were open as he looked towards the bars that were restraining his freedom while he thought: "Will this technique that I created from the intelligence breathing technique work?" Maxwell''s goodwill was normally not natural, why would a ''human'' even care about Felix''s wellbeing? Since the intelligence breathing technique came from the raven tribe it had to do quite a bit with souls as well, and Felix''s soul was just a little bit weaker compared to Wu Xiao''s, fighting with the raven in question gave him plenty of experience with attack type soul techniques so he decided to craft one on his own but he wasn''t sure if it worked at all, he tried to influence the guard that came to him every day but it seemed that it had the opposite effect? After all, he had shown him how much he enjoyed his food only for him to run away. Well, he could continue and try till he got it right, one day or another he would be able to make him have enough good thoughts towards him to the point that he might help him escape legally or just help him out some way or another. Another day passed and the youth came over, this time he didn''t have his cap anymore as he walked quickly towards Felix gave him the food waited for him to finish before saying: "Hey I think I have a way to get you out faster, what do you think?" Felix''s ears started to move as he thought: "So it actually worked..." Felix gave him a small smile as he got near the cell''s bars and asked while using his mental technique: "So what''s the idea, friend? How can you help me?" Maxwell smiled as he started to unfold his thoughts and what he talked with his grandfather to Felix. Chapter 88: Gladiator cat for science "You see my grandfather is a marquis of the federation so he can help you shorten your incarceration time with volunteer work." Felix shook his head as he asked puzzled: "Volunteer work? What''s that?" "Oh right right, you don''t know what volunteer work would be, after all, you aren''t from our society. Well, how could I put it in simple terms for you? You do some things for our civilizations and we shorten your jail time, this work is called volunteer because you can do it if you want to, but in your case, you were banned from volunteer work until my grandpa pulled some strings to help you if you were a normal convict he might have even been able to free you, but you know..." Felix nodded as he understood what he meant, due to his special circumstance he had to work for his freedom... which he thought sucked quite a bit. They deprive him of his freedom after he went through an experience that would leave others mentally scared and now he had to work for his freedom as well? The good news was that he could work for his freedom, the bad news was that it was the only way besides waiting and he didn''t really like waiting, while the jail room was a good environment for him to train, he was a cat and his instincts didn''t let him stay still for huge amounts of time, while he would laze around for days there were times he would want to stretch his legs and do other things, which he couldn''t in this tiny jail room. "So do you agree? All you have to do is sign a contract and your living quarters will be relocated, all you have to do is fight and if you win your sentence will get shortened from 10 days to a month depending on how strong the person you fight." Felix found the notion interesting, if he could fight that meant there were chances for improvement in his strength, and depending on who he fought he might be able to eat them and improve his body more! He would be hitting two birds with one stone! Now that he thought about birds he was hungry again. Felix''s stomach rumbled and Maxwell immediately pulled a tray of food from what Felix guessed to be his special bag. He ate the food from the tray quickly as he stuffed his face until nothing remained on the tray, Maxwell smiled seeing Felix enjoying his food, and took the tray back after he was done with it. "So do you agree to this proposal, Felix?" "Hmm, how do you know my name?" Felix was rather surprised, he didn''t tell his name to anyone, how could they have found it? Maxwell chuckled awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head and said: "Oh well, I have done a little bit of research on you, at first I was quite scared and hated you because of your killer reputation but the more I visited you the better your image appeared in my head, it was almost like magic!" Felix started to sweat internally, only if the kid could understand that he basically said the reason why he wanted to help him, it wasn''t really magic but hex techniques could be considered a type of magic right? Well it didn''t matter at this point, Felix looked at Maxwell and asked: "So where is this contract? You got it with you?" "As a matter of fact I do, just in case you decided to sign it." Maxwell smiled as he took out a digital contract from his special bag before showing it to Felix... Felix looked at the contract before saying: "You do know that I do not know what''s written on that right?" Maxwell got flustered as he spoke quickly: "Yes... Yes, I forgot again... let me help you with the written language." While they spoke the same language the written language of the humans was quite different compared to the one on the Tarot continent, the same could be applied to the other continents as well along with the ocean floor. Maxwell took a USB stick out of his special bag before he inserted it in the contract and said: "Just put your paw on the contract and the neuro-links will do the work translating it for you while you will learn the language at the same time." Felix put his paw on the contract and he stood dazed for a few seconds as electricity arks jumped from the electronic contract and infiltrated him running directly to his brain and invigorating it with new information that nestled itself there directly without problems. Felix then took another look at the contract as he started reading, most of the rules were things that he could accept but some of them annoyed him really hard: "I cannot kill my opponent nor eat him?" Seeing the visible disappointment on his face and hearing it from his voice made Maxwell quite awkward as he explained: "Your fights aren''t meant for entertainment but for research, all the fights will be observed through special cameras that would record the powers and techniques of the captured people that you will fight, this is meant to help the army force to systematically analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the race that the caught people are from so they would have an easier time killing and fighting them." "I understand that but if they already analyze the fight why can''t I kill nor eat them?" "Eh... well they would also have to be sent to the scientific research team where they would be dissected alive..." Maxwell said it with an awkward tone considering Felix had gone through the same thing and this was also the reason he was currently in jail, he thought that he wouldn''t want to put these people through the same thing that he went. He didn''t know how Felix felt so he waited patiently for his response without saying anything to let him think about it. It didn''t even a few seconds before Felix signed the contract by letting some blood drip from his paw onto the digital pad. The pad absorbed the blood and a signature appeared on the contract in bloody red color. This sudden action made Maxwell rather surprised, he didn''t think at all about what the others would go through? Unlike him, they wouldn''t revive after they would be butchered by the scientists, and who knew if their pain endurance threshold was as high as his? Maxwell thought that from his looks that he was a rather thoughtful and good person but he realized that he was rather selfish, even though Felix was still using his mind-interference technique, Maxwell goodwill towards him reduced a bit, but he also understood how he felt as he put himself in his shoes. He just didn''t like that he didn''t take more time to think about it. Maxwell sighed as he looked at Felix and said: "Now that you have signed the contract you will be relocated... wait a little bit." Felix felt a sudden light hit him as he felt lightheaded and found himself in a different location. "Hmmm?" "Yes, that was indeed teleportation." Felix was very surprised by what happened, he didn''t understand the concept of teleportation and he was only confused by the sudden change in places. "Well we are here, from now on I can''t help you anymore." Maxwell disappeared from where he was and Felix finally looked around to get a better look where he was. He was still in a cell but there wasn''t any more darkness around him, the place was dimly lit by some unknown light sources, they were rather pale and weak while they also flickered from time to time which showed that the electricity supply to this part was poor. Felix still didn''t see anyone around him which meant he was still alone after Maxwell left, he shook his head as he felt his surroundings suddenly shake but it wasn''t an illusion nor was something wrong with him. The ground below him was actually shaking! The light started to spill from the ceiling as it opened up and the ground started pushing Felix up until he was finally in a colosseum arena-style place! But it looked more futuristic as everything was made from dark metals instead of white rock, in front of him an opening appeared as another person raised just like he had done, there were no shouts of excitement nor any voices as everything around them was silent, unlike a normal gladiator arena. Felix looked at the person and the person looked back, there were no words to be traded between them as Felix knew what came up next was a bloody fight! One was for survival and the other was for freedom! Felix didn''t wait for his opponent to do the first move as he turned invisible, it was time to hunt! The first who struck was one step closer to win! Chapter 89: First fight in the arena Felix''s instincts raged in his skull as he glared at the opponent in front of him, of course, the being in front of him didn''t know where he was as he was confusedly looking around trying to identify his location. As Felix analyzed his opponent he took a better look at his appearance and saw that he was a green-skinned person of short stature with no hair and he had two antennae sticking out of his head, he also made a strange noise with what was supposed to be his mouth, it sounded just like ''crk'' ''crk'' ''crk''... Felix could make no sense of what the creature was trying to tell him as he didn''t understand its language, he didn''t care much what it wanted to say as well, he wanted his freedom! Felix encircled the being with a predatorial gait and while he was invisible the being could sense that it was being watched with killing intent. It tried to make the sounds again but Felix was already getting bored of just circling it so he attacked! His paws were as fast as lightning as he attacked its short members trying to incapacitate it, since he couldn''t kill the being he didn''t target any vital areas. Felix''s sharp claw attacks left after images in the air as the being cried out in pain after having one of its appendages removed from its body. Felix found this being to be rather weak his claws easily sunk into its soft meat and severed his appendage, didn''t they say that they were supposed to research strong people? The answer came with a rude awakening as the green thing clutched its severed appendage then put it back on the cut socket, a sizzling sound was heard and the appendage fused with the socket, and the being recovered its original shape. Suddenly the little green thing started to grow in size as spikes replaced the antennae on his head, sharp fangs jutted out of its mouth and its physique improved by a great deal as it was now full of rippling muscles. It glared at Felix as it started to beat its chest menacingly and made the same sound as before: "CRK" "CRK" "CRK" Felix didn''t understand a thing as he disappeared again. Felix could sense that its power had increased by a great deal to the point that he might have to exert himself to defeat him. Felix didn''t circle him anymore as he realized that there was a chance he might be caught if he did the same thing as before, suddenly he felt an attack coming from below him as he jumped up and looked down for half a second only to see a green tentacle spawning from the ground where he previously was, it was in a position that it would have surely caught him. Felix descended to the ground as he dashed directly towards the green being, he ran so fast that the ground under him started to enflame, even his claws had flames on them as his fur started to stand on edge and his eye color changed to emerald. The green being started to cry out as it felt danger from Felix''s attack, suddenly Felix appeared behind the being as it cried out in pain, green blood started to spurt out of its body like crazy as the upper half of its body slid down to the ground. Felix sighed as he looked behind him and it was just like he thought, the upper half was still moving around trying to attach itself back to its lower half so they could stitch back together. However, the wounds were quickly getting cauterized by the flames that Felix conjured. The being tried to reattach its body but it failed however it wasn''t dying, it still seemed to be rather full of vitality as it glared at Felix and tried to attack him, only for electricity to spring out of the ground and bind it as the electricity formed chains around the neck of the upper body and the appendages of the lower body before it was dragged directly into the ground. Felix looked up as he saw something being displayed on a screen of the futuristic coliseum, as he now knew the written language of the humans he knew that the words there meant fifteen, which indicated how many days Felix shaved off from his sentence. The ground that Felix stood on started to shake as he was unceremoniously dropped inside a different cell room than before. He sighed, he had finished the first fight and reduced 15 days out of his 30 years sentence.... this wasn''t a very encouraging thought. As he calculated he realized that if he wanted to finish his sentence he needed to fight around 719 more times. Felix felt his head swimming after he realized the huge number, up till now he wasn''t sure if he had more than 100 fights and it has been almost one year since he had come to this world, and now he had to fight for 719 times if he wanted freedom? If he was lucky and got a reduction of 30 days he would still need to fight 310 times which was still a lot in his opinion... But there were advantages with all of these fights and if he fought every day the incarceration time would be cut from 30 years to 1 or 2 years, so technically it was a pretty good deal. Felix contemplated as he sat there, he just didn''t find things to be to his liking, he wanted to be free, he felt too constrained in this small cell, he just felt wrong... **************** Shima and another man who wore a lab coat looked through some glass at the empty colosseum where Felix fought previously. "What do you think about the little guy?" Shima frowned as he was asked by the other man and he responded: "He is strong that''s for sure, actually he would make a fine recruit to our army... but I''m not sure he would like that at all." "I see special talent in that boy Shima, what have you done to him?" "Sir... you haven''t been around so you don''t really know the details." "Oh then tell me the details, I want to know all of them." Shima coughed as he felt that his tie was choking him, he loosened it a bit and decided to tell him everything that happened. "You damn fool! You have dissected him for nothing to boot? Now he hates us and there is a very low chance he will accept our invitation anymore! While he might not be very attached to the Lion tribe from what you say, he hates us now!" "But Sir I thought that he would be able to let us mass create the perfect soldier that grows in adverse conditions... who knew that his body doesn''t actually contain anything of use for us?" The man shook his head as he took off his lab coat showing that underneath was a military uniform that had multiple medals pined around the chest area. His tail was also used as a belt and his short spiky hair was fully white showing that he was advanced in age even though his physique and face showed otherwise. "General Vangar I had the best interests for our federation when I did what I have done." Vangar sighed as he patted Shima''s shoulder and said: "I know you since you were a child trying to understand the world Shima, I know you have the best interests at heart but you are rather extreme on the way you handle outsiders, even though we are supposed to be more advanced than them that don''t we have to act like we are better than them, we are all living beings that evolved on the same planet and we should act like this against outsiders not against our own people, do you know what I mean?" Shima nodded as he seemed shamed now, he realized that he acted untowardly towards Felix in his thirst and pursuit for knowledge. "I think we should leave the lad go, in the end, he will still come to us as we are the only ones who will be able to propel him further, his talent shows that he won''t end up with the other backward tribes, even though he had killed 30 scientists I will take responsibility for it, tell the president that he can even strip me of my general title." Shima looked at Vangar with strange eyes, he only saw Felix fight once and he already took a liking to the boy to that level? He knew that Vangar had an extreme hunger for battle talents but he didn''t know that it was at this level. Seeing that Shima was puzzled made Vangar get a little bit closer to him as he said: "His special ability is what our army needs Shima, even though it cannot be replicated having him on our side means that we will be able to move faster on our conquering attempts, you know that we are currently being pushed back on many fronts due to lack adaptive talents, you should also know that the thing that the lad defeated down there was only an infant in that race''s ranks." Shima''s eyes widened, that thing could be considered rather strong, not as strong as one of the foot soldiers of the army but it was at least half as strong as one, and it was only an infant! "I see you understand." Shima nodded... it seemed he did a very big mistake by antagonizing Felix... maybe he should do as Vangar said? Chapter 90: Want to join the human army? Shima was contemplating Vangar words, could he let Felix go? The cat would surely love the opportunity to blitz out of there and it would be unlikely he would go along with Vangar''s plan to get him recruited into the army. Shima saluted Vangar as he said: "I''m not sure If I''m the right person to go and tell him that General, he must hate me to the bone after what I have done to him, maybe a fresh face would be better to give him the news? Some of his hatred could be shaved away in that circumstance." "Well you are the scientist here Shima, I''m just an old bag of bones that''s only good at cracking skulls, so should I go myself or do you have someone else in mind?" "He doesn''t know you so you should be the best choice sir, that or the person who helped him to get here, I think his name was Maxwell, the grandson of Marquis Mandrel." "Hmm, Marquis Mandrel? That old man doesn''t like to implicate himself in such matters, it seems he really loves his grandson, actually I''m wondering what kind of connection does this Felix have with Maxwell for him to ask such a heavy favor from his grandfather." "Well, who knows? He was assigned as Felix''s guard so maybe he befriended him then, it seems unlikely at first glance but Maxwell is a rather weak boy so he was bullied at military school and even thrown out if his grandfather wasn''t a marquis he might have even been executed. So it''s likely that Felix must have made him feel sympathetic to him, thus friendship bloomed between them." "Spare me the scientific jibber-jabber, Shima I''m going now." "Of course, Sir you should know where his jail cell is right?" "I might be old but I''m not senile, we just saw how he was transported down below the arena." The man disappeared leaving Shima alone to look down at the empty arena. ***************** Felix was training his intelligence breathing technique, at this point, he reached the 2nd stage and was nearing the 3rd stage, with all of this quiet environment he had, he didn''t have anything else to do so his improvement was rather fast. He suddenly felt a presence appearing in front of his cell as he opened his eyes and looked forward, he saw Vangar who was just looking at him through the bars. Felix was rather cautious of this new person as he asked: "Who are you?" Vangar didn''t say anything as he kept his eyes on Felix''s body until he felt rather uncomfortable for being stared at with such intensity. "Oh sorry don''t mind me, the name''s Vangar I couldn''t help but be rather impressed by your fight in the arena and I want to ask you something." Felix lowered his guard a bit as he asked: "What is it?" "Oh it''s just a small little question, don''t worry." "What do you think about becoming free?" Felix''s eyes widened, freedom was the thing he wanted the most right now but his guard was up again, he could see the furry belt at the man''s waist which indicated he was also one of the humans, this indicated that he didn''t come with good intentions. "Chill little dude, I don''t want anything bad to happen to you, you are a rather talented being, to begin with, that fool Shima was blind to do what he had done to you." Felix looked at the man and his senses told him he was unfathomable, his strength was so high that Siracha would look like an infant in front of him, Shima was only a little bit stronger than Siracha and he had home advantage back then or else he wouldn''t have grabbed Felix that easily, Siracha also didn''t want to offend the human tribe. But in this situation he couldn''t gauge the strength of the person in front of him, Felix actually felt his fur stand on end as he looked at Vangar. "Oh boy..." Vangar didn''t know what to say to the scared Felix, he knew the boy was special in body strength but it seemed his soul sensing wasn''t bad as well which made Vangar even more interested in him. Felix took a few steps backward as he felt a strange aura being exhibited by Vangar''s body, Vangar immediately became embarrassed as he let out his aura unconsciously after he became too excited from observing Felix and his immense potential. The human tribe wasn''t discriminating when it came to the talented, as long as they were talented and willing to work for them it didn''t matter where they were from, their race, gender, or race. Of course, it was different if the talent was from an enemy race or it was a talent unobtainable to them. Just like all other conquering civilizations, not one of them wanted to have an unknown factor grow up like a tumor, they would rather exterminate it early than letting it become cancer. Those were the thoughts of the radical army people but Vangar was a little different than them, even though he belonged to the army his stance was a little bit softer as he had been retired for 10 or more years. "It''s ok, I''m really here to help you, Felix, I have seen your files and I think you don''t deserve to rot in prison nor fight in the arena for such a long time, you have done everything in self-defense and I think you should be free." Felix was still feeling a little scared from the small aura outburst that Vangar had but he calmed himself as he decided to think about his words. "I do want to be free, do I have to do anything for that though?" "Not really but I do have an opportunity for you, it doesn''t matter if you accept it or not, you will still be freed." "Ok, then I will hear you about this opportunity." "Haha, very smart of you, listen here." "Would you like to join the army?" Felix immediately felt strange as he looked at Vangar eyes shaking his head to make sure if he heard right: "You want me to join the army of the people that put me in this situation for no reason?" Vangar laughed awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head and said: "Well it''s a bit of a stretch to ask for that, as I said it''s just an opportunity but don''t be so quick to decline, I haven''t explained things fully yet!" "Aren''t you curious about what''s above this planet, what exists beyond your scopes of understanding?" Felix didn''t really think about those things up till now as he shook his head and asked: "What''s there?" "Well I could tell you from now that if it wasn''t for us the planet would have been enslaved by those things beyond the stars, the thing that you just fought in the arena is called a Bangord and it comes from a nearby planet, we have warred with this planet for almost 3 years now and we are still stuck at the beginning phases of the war due to how resistant this race of beings is." Felix didn''t know what to say, it seemed that while the other tribes were fighting amongst themselves the human tribe was fighting for the good of the planet, but that didn''t mean his aversion towards them lowered, it was still there, but he was also impressed with their ability to hold off a planet full of beings like that. "Oh and let me tell you something, the one you defeated is considered to be an infant, an just born walking among their ranks, I saw how you struggled somewhat against it think about 1-2 billion of these things fighting with a strength of about 200x times higher than the one you fought." Felix couldn''t really imagine such a situation, it sounded like hell descending at that point who could fight with those beings? "I see that you don''t really think such a thing could happen but the facts don''t lie, you have seen and fought the monster, in the future who knows if we will be able to hold on fighting them without a talented someone to take the lead?" Felix knew that all of this speech was bullshit, there was no way they would lose with people as strong as Vangar fighting on the battlefront. Seemingly as if he read his mind Vangar said: "Well it doesn''t seem that I can convince you but you will sooner or later realize that this little planet can''t hold you, you will need to go further and at that time you will have to talk with us, and at that time we will be very happy to welcome you." Vangar ripped the bars that held Felix captive rather easily, they seemed just like pretzels in Vangar''s hands as he easily threw them aside and said: "I will guide you back to the exit, getting to your tribe should be easy afterward." Felix took two steps out of the cell as he looked at Vangar and memorized his face, he looked to be thinking about Vangar''s offer but then he shook his head as he said: "After you." Vangar looked to be rather disappointed as he shook his head and started to walk away while making sure that Felix followed him so he wouldn''t get lost. Chapter 91: Returning to the lion tribe Felix started to follow Vangar and but from time to time he couldn''t help but look around, after they left the arena all he had seen were tall buildings made from metal or cement, even though everything looked cold around him, the temperature wasn''t low, it was actually quite nice. Vangar didn''t explain anything to Felix as he took to a similar tube to the one that he arrived in, he pressed a few buttons before telling Felix: "You will be transported ten thousand kilometers from the lion tribe and from there on you will be on your own, also you are forever welcome to our metropolis, whenever you want to visit you can use the same tube that will spit you out, anyways I will have to go now." Vangar disappeared as he left Felix alone. Felix couldn''t wait to enter the tube and leave, even though he was rather curious about his surroundings it was better to leave rather than going around and somehow offending someone to enter a similar situation to before, he wasn''t strong enough to tour the human''s settlement yet, maybe when nothing would interest him on the other four continents he would decide to take a stroll in this city of metal and concrete. Felix jumped into the tube as it sucked him, he felt wind engulfing him as he started travelling through the tube at high speeds, in the end, he was spat out from the tube in a forest, he looked behind to see a tree behind him closing up and the tube disappearing. Felix looked around and he didn''t find the forest to be familiar which meant he never travelled around these parts, Felix didn''t even travel half of the Tarot continent so there were quite a lot of places that he didn''t know. The forest didn''t seem to be populated as there were no sounds of beings moving, no heartbeats could be heard in the forest, it was thoroughly dead. But after Felix thought for a short while, the forest being deserted made sense, considering it was a place where the human tribe had their transportation tubes they would make sure there were no people around to sniff their technology. Felix started to walk through the forest and after a short while he left it, a path appeared in front of him as he walked it, the more he walked the more he found landmarks that he recognized which meant he was going on the right path. After one to two days of travelling he finally reached the capital of the lions again, he sighed as he saw the gates of the capital and entered. The moment he arrived in the capital Siracha immediately left his tent and started running meeting with him half-way into the capital where the inns were. Siracha couldn''t believe his eyes and senses as he recognized it was the true and only Felix, there was no fake nor spy from the human tribe, he coughed awkwardly as he dodged Felix''s gaze then came forward and gave him a big hug! Felix didn''t squirm away from the hug, he understood Siracha''s position, actually from what he saw the man tried to save him back then but if he made any moves he would have surely gotten his brains scattered on the floor tiles of the building. Seeing that Felix wasn''t mad at him made Siracha feel a little better as he said: "I''m sorry for what happened Felix... I cannot say anything in my defence, tell me what do you want and I will do my best to give it to you as an apology." At this point, Felix''s gaze moved away from the normal world, Vangar opened his eyes a bit and he wasn''t sure what the lion tribe could even give him at this point, seeing that Felix didn''t know what to ask for made Siracha think for a few seconds before he laughed and said: "I think you must have seen quite a lot of new and interesting things at the human tribe so you think that our Lion tribe doesn''t have such good things, anyways I was supposed to give you this beforehand so let me impart it to you." A spark of soul power injected itself into Felix''s soul as he learned the vitality breathing technique, Felix''s eyes lit up as he learned the technique, the vitality breathing technique would improve all aspects of him to the point that his lifespan would increase, it was unknown how many times would Felix''s ability save him from old age, while Siracha did say that he would revive to the peak of his body when he died regardless of the cause Aaltarox didn''t mention anything about that. "And this isn''t the last thing you will get!" Siracha motioned with his hand for Felix to follow him as they walked towards his tent. There Siracha told him to wait for a few seconds before he started to look around through his old things trying to find something appropriate that Felix could use. There were quite a lot of things scattered around Siracha''s home and as he searched through them Felix just looked around. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw a bone inscribed with the human''s language! Felix''s eyes narrowed as he took the bone and started to read from it: "Year 0139, our people started to evolve, our hair started to shorten and our bodies grew in size, it seems that our intelligence rose considerably after we have created the wheel and found fire and it didn''t stop from there, after ten years we started to write, after twenty we started harnessing electricity." "Year 0250, we have created a city powered fully by electricity, things go well for our settlement, our numbers are increasing continuously and so is our army." "Year 0300, our city had been invaded by creatures from beyond the stars, fortunately, they were overpowered by our huge numbers but loses were inevitable, however, we have scavenged and reverse-engineered their technology thus creating space ships and improving our grasp over their technology increasing our repertoire of Scientology techniques." Felix saw that the bone stopped the story there, he looked at Siracha who was still searching, and asked: "In what year are we?" Siracha responded without looking back: "The Year 1039." Felix''s eyes widened, they were already fighting extraterrestrial beings since 739 years ago! It seemed their improvement started to stagnate after a while because from the information on the bone he deduced that nothing much had changed if he compared with what he saw when he was in the human settlement. But this wasn''t something that he had to bother himself about. Siracha finally found something as he came near Felix and opened his hand to let out a shining light appear, it was a shining pearl, Siracha laughed as he presented it to Felix and explained its uses: "This little thing here will help you with your breathing techniques training speed, I can see that you have made quite a lot of improvements and that you even have the aura of two new techniques on you, hold this pearl near you and the convergence of Hex energy will speed up along with the circulation through the targeted places, unfortunately, from all the things that I have this is the best thing that I can offer you for your current level." Felix didn''t mind as he wanted such a thing, he tried to take the pearl from Siracha''s hand but Siracha didn''t give it away as he said: "Wait for a little I have an idea!" He took a piece of leather as he made a necklace with it then tied it around Felix''s neck. "Now this is better, where you go you will have a better training speed and when you don''t want to use it anymore you can take it off and put it in your bag." Felix nodded and then left Siracha''s home, Siracha just waved at him as he sagged onto his throne while thinking: "It''s good that he is back and he doesn''t hold a grudge, he is a very understanding fellow, I''m quite sad that I can''t help him more." While Felix was walking around the capital trying to get back to the inn so he could eat something then get to the training he met with Lindo! Lindo immediately gave him a bear hug as his flustered face told everything: "I almost thought that I wouldn''t be able to see you again, those human fellows are really scary from what my grandpa said!" "Oh come on Lindo, you thought that I would die so easily? I have more than one life you know!" "Yeah but you were against someone that even my grandpa couldn''t fight against, I''m actually both impressed and happy that you came back so soon!" Manitola came from behind as she smiled at Felix letting them have their reunion, Lindo blushed as he coughed and said: "While you were away the alliance between the Haron, Tarot, and Balton continents finally found about the weakness of the Sparron continent''s newly procured weapons and they want to deploy us to the frontlines, they even asked about you!" Felix wasn''t sure what to say at this point he just came back from a traumatic experience but on the other hand, he knew that the Sparron continent wasn''t a dangerous location so he could finish this quickly and then get to training, he really wanted to see what was above the stars beside these green things. He looked towards Lindo and nodded then looked at Manitola who looked to be rather down, Felix guessed that she thought the Sparron continent would be able to defend themselves with their new weapons but it was too much of a stretch. Felix didn''t know how to comfort her before he looked at Lindo, Lindo understood his signals then hugged Manitola in broad daylight. Some of the passersby''s looked at them but didn''t comment considering Lindo''s social standing. "Well since they needed them they might as well prepare for leaving..." Chapter 92: Sparron continent war (1) Felix didn''t know the way to the Sparron continent but that wasn''t a problem considering he would move along with the army, as for preparations they needed to be done thoroughly so they wouldn''t end up in trouble when they would invade the continent. Felix first went to his inn so he could eat something and rest in a proper environment for a short time before he met up with Lindo and Manitola at the army barracks. There Lindo waved to him as he patted a spot beside him and Manitola so he could sit there, all of the army personnel were sitting at tables waiting for someone, the army barracks were quite wide and tall as they were housing around 100,000 troops in total, most of them were above average recruits ready to go to war at a moment''s notice. A podium stood a few meters away from all of the tables where the troops were waiting for the person to explain to them the strategy and breakthrough the alliance had made against the weapons of the Sparron continent. They waited for around 10 minutes before a figure that wore red armor walked in, it was Landers! Felix hadn''t seen him in a long while and he was rather happy he was still ok. Landers smiled towards Felix and Lindo''s direction before coughing to take the attention of every troop in the room. A projection appeared behind him which showed a detailed explanation of the weapons that the Sparron continent troops were currently using. "Ok so for starters they have these Hextech canons which we have bought quite a few as well, but unlike ours, theirs are one version more advanced and they also gained a few other gadgets that we couldn''t get from the special vendor." "One of the first gadgets is this." Landers pointed to a round green ball with a white pin at the top: "This is called a hextech bomb and it can store a huge amount of hex energy from the air, when the pin at the top is removed a timer starts and after a few seconds all of the hex energy is released in a fiery supernova of energy, the damage is to the extent that even a captain level expert can''t handle being hit head-on!" Then he pointed to a long-bladed knife, the blade''s color was rainbow and the handle was pure white, the combination looked rather bad: "This is their melee weapons, they are coated with an unknown poison that once entered your nervous system would transform you into a living dead under their control." "Another thing about this knife is that it can lengthen its blade even further than it already is." "These are all of the weapons they have shown up till now, it''s unknown if they have any other trump cards under their sleeves but we will need to be careful." "Now that you are familiar with the weapons of the enemy, it''s time to explain to you the weaknesses of each of them." Landers pointed to the canon as he explained: "The canons while strong they don''t have a fast firing speed, while their power is high they have a big recharge time after they enter overheating, they start this overheating time after around 3 shots." "Another weakness is that they don''t have any good shooters, for now, they couldn''t train them so suddenly even if they prepared beforehand for the invasion, so their aim is rather poor, however as things proceed this weakness will disappear so we have to make sure we hit them hard and fast." After he finished the explanation for the canon he moved towards the bomb illustration: "This thing is very volatile and could easily become a weapon in our hands as well, we need people with a good aim to shoot them with small projectiles while they are in the hands of the resistance members. Any direct hits would trigger a reaction in the shell making the bomb explode prematurely without the pin being removed." And lastly for the knife: "While the knife can lengthen itself to impale you with the toxin, due to the way the blade was made its rather brittle and easy to break, as long as the blade doesn''t cut you to insert the poison in your bloodstream you can easily break it by hitting it in the middle with a weapon of your choice, all you have to do is make sure the knife doesn''t cut you or you are a goner, there is no antidote and we will have to strike you down." Landers finished his explanation of all of the weapons as the projection behind him disappeared and he clapped, the troops were talking with each other already commenting about the high-tech weapons that the Sparron continent got their hands on, they were all rather intrigued about them and they couldn''t wait to fight them head-on to see what they were all about. Landers coughed to retake their attention as he said: "In this situation, the Haron continent had been nice enough to lend us their flying device so we can arrive at the battlefield at the quickest speed possible." "We shall go now!" Landers waved his hand as he gestured towards the door. The whole barracks started to shake as the troops got up at once leaving the barracks in a military march, outside Felix saw something that made him rather interested, it was a gigantic ship that he didn''t see when he came to the barracks, it was painted fully black and it was made from an unknown material, it didn''t seem to be made from the same materials as the buildings in the human''s place. It was not a human product? Those meddling ravens could create something like this? Why didn''t he see anything like this in Wu Xiao''s memories... As Felix wondered about these things the troops were already being loaded up into the flying ship. Landers came from behind as he looked at Felix, he was the last one to leave the barracks, he saw how Felix stood there petrified in front of the ship and he couldn''t help but chuckle as he asked: "First time you saw such a technological marvel?" Felix nodded, it was true that he had seen some impressive things at the humans but he wasn''t shown anything voluntarily nor did he see something so big and it could also fly? "Don''t be scared, let''s get in, it will take us around 5 days to reach the Sparron continent." Felix took a few steps on the ramp that leads up to the entrance of the ship and then entered along with Landers, Lindo waved at him and asked: "Had enough of looking at the ship?" Felix nodded, he was pretty interested in the ship because if he was honest it looked quite cool. "Ok now, that everyone is seated we can talk with the captain so we can lead off!" Landers left to the captain''s room as the ship started to shake and rise, finally after a short while they were in the air! There were some windows placed around the ship and Felix, Lindo, Manitola, and a few other people were seated near one of the windows, Felix looked through the window only to see a sea of white, he had never been so high in the air and it felt quite nice. Felix enjoyed the feeling of flying while Lindo''s face looked rather green, it seemed unlike Felix he was feeling sick due to the height, Manitola was massaging his back in a circular motion to help him relieve the sickness but suddenly his eyes bulged out, Manitola understood what that meant as she took out a paper bag and made him vomit into it. After he released the contents in his stomach Lindo looked better as his sickly countenance took a turn for the better, he sighed as he looked at Felix who was entranced with watching the white fluffy clouds and decided against bothering him after he saw how entranced he was. Felix felt something within him stir as he looked at the rapidly moving clouds in front of him, it was a feeling that he had never experienced before, he imagined himself being the one flying through the clouds, the one that went through at rapid speeds doing a bunch of tricks and then settling on a fluffy cloud to meditate or even sleep. He wanted to fly, this was a wish of his that came just by looking at his current surroundings but it was a genuine wish, he didn''t know why he felt like this but he liked it, this was the first time Felix had a pure-hearted wish, this was the first time Felix had a goal regardless of how foolish he thought it was. And he enjoyed this feeling, up till now he was drifting from place to place without a goal in mind but now he had a small one... he wanted to fly, even if it was for a few seconds he wanted to be in the clouds by himself, without the use of a ship, he wanted to feel the puffy clouds on his fur. He started daydreaming as the ship went along the air currents going towards the slaughter-filled battlefield filled with profit hungered monsters who wanted to capture and enslave some people who were weaker than them and the weaker party who wanted to defend their family and land... Chapter 93: Sparron continent war (2) Felix''s daydreaming didn''t go unnoticed as people started to look at him, he could be so relaxed when they were going into a life and death battle? Felix''s nonchalant attitude before going into battle made the people that were around him feel rather depressed, they knew about his ability to revive, at this point Felix''s exploits were public, he was a great warrior of the tribe and he deserved the fame he got. However, this fame also came with the responsibility of looking proper and serious in front of your warriors, Felix''s current situation made him look like he didn''t care about the life and deaths of the troops... which was pretty much true. Felix didn''t really care about 99% of the people present, he would only help Lindo and Landers if they were in trouble and maybe Manitola but he wouldn''t put his life in peril to save her, after all, they were only friendly acquaintances and not true friends. Felix''s state made the others talk about him: "This is high lieutenant Felix, right? He looks so relaxed its as if he doesn''t even go to war but shopping instead!" "Shhh, don''t you know about his ability to revive? If he gets in a deadly situation he would just spring back up and continue fighting and if things get too hairy he can just run away, he is a cat tribesman, his stealth helps him both in fighting and retreating." "Well he certainly looks rather dreamy there, it''s as if he doesn''t even think about us..." "As a high-ranking member of the army, he should act a little bit more proper in front of his troops." Felix''s antics riled up the soldiers but not in a good way, they were whispering to each other talking about him and his lack of care, Lindo was getting angry as veins started to appear around his temples, he was ready to shout at them only to see a hand on his shoulder, it was Landers who was shaking his head at him. "But Landers I..." "It''s ok Lindo, look at Felix, do you think he cares about all of this?" Felix didn''t even spare a glance at the muttering crowd, he was still looking through the window, even though the muttering broke him out of his reverie and his sharp hearing could catch everything that was said but he could care less about everything that was said about him. In the meanwhile, while everyone was talking about Felix and the upcoming battle the ship was quickly flying through the air, time passed and a few days quickly went by. From the windows, Felix could see a gigantic patch of land that stretched almost endlessly below them, the patch was mostly green which indicated that it was tree filled continent. Felix couldn''t wait to get down and stretch his legs, staying in the cramped ship with other 100,000 people who were constantly talking about him didn''t feel really well, he ignored them for 2 days but by the third day he started to get annoyed and by the fifth day he wanted to jump down from the ship or throw the most vocal ones down himself. Lindo almost got into a fight but he was stopped by Landers. Manitola just sat on the sidelines and watched everything happen. Felix sighed as he finally left the ship taking in a deep breath and feeling the fresh hex energy in the air, it was quite different compared to the hex energy from the island and the Tarot continent... it was of a higher quality compared to those and Felix could feel that his breathing techniques could improve faster on this continent. Lindo came near him along with Manitola as they both took in a deep breath, Manitola even looked a little bit more spirited as she muttered: "Back home..." Felix could somewhat understand Manitola''s feelings as he had been through something similar to her with his kidnapping so he patted her leg to make her feel better. They had landed near the beach at the edge of the continent as they couldn''t land nor fly further or they would be shot down by the hextech canons, while the ship was good for travel it wasn''t good for battle as it would be too slow to dodge nor was it made to maneuver against the canons, no matter how bad their aim was they would still be able to hit the gigantic ship. Felix looked at the sandy beach and saw hundreds of erected tents around, they were rather huge and they could hold around 1,000 soldiers each. The beach was pretty much filled with these tents and beyond the beach was the start of a forest, in front of the forest there was a big and long trench which was the defensive line of the Sparron continent defenders. The moment Felix and the others disembarked they didn''t have time to do anything as Landers whistled and made them go into formation: "The enemy is right in front of us, the war has been ongoing for more than a few months but there has been no progress up till now but with the information that we have gained it''s finally time to break through their first defensive line!" The 100,000 people saluted in unison as they gave out a mighty lion roar. The commotion alerted the whole attacking camp as they rushed out of their tents and when they saw they were just reinforcements they started to rain insults on them: "You damn brainless lions, why do you act likes this when you just came to the fight? Up till now, we have fought until we couldn''t move and we just want some rest!" "Yeah, some people are trying to get some sleep before they die on the battlefield!" "Have some common sense, you see no one on the battlefield that means the main fight has ended... and what happens after a fight ends? Of course, we recuperate!" The curse rain didn''t stop until the people entered back into the tents so they could continue their rest. The lion troops were red with shame as they looked down at their feet, Landers coughed as he took their attention: "That was a bit too much guys, I know you are pumped up by my speech but you don''t have to shout about it yet, look you even alerted the enemies about our reinforcements." The troops all craned their necks to look at the trench and they saw some eyes appearing looking at them as if they were retarded. At this point, the lion troops realized that they weren''t as smart as they thought they were. Well they were all rather young recruits and while their strength was decent their tactics still needed to be refined and that could only happen with experience, unfortunately, the lion tribe didn''t have any systematic war education implemented yet so most of their veterans came from continuous battles. Felix looked at Manitola as she seemed to start shaking when she saw a figure in the trench, it seemed she was going to go against someone she knew from the get to go. Lindo came closer to her as he hugged her and patted her back while saying slowly: "It''s going to be ok, it''s going to be ok." Manitola stopped shaking as she hardened herself and stopped showing any weakness. Felix analyzed the battlefield, the trench made it hard to engage in melee battles and if he dropped down there by himself he would be surrounded by the opposing party, getting in a melee fight with those people while they are clustered together with those poisonous knives wasn''t a good idea unless... An idea popped into his mind, the armor that he got from Aaltarox was very resistant against slashing attacks so it could be useful in this situation. Time passed shortly and all of the troops left their tents, they were fully rested and they all marched together as the lion reinforcements joined them. They made a majestic army that consisted of around 300,000 people and now with the lions, they reached a staggering 400,000 people in total. The beach was filled with multicolored heads ranging from blonde to black and even green-haired folks standing around waiting for the battle to start. Landers jumped to the front of the army along with an expert from the raven tribe and one from the kangaroo tribe, they weren''t the shamans but they were strong captains, even though they were under Landers in strength they were still respected figures. They both saluted Landers and pointed towards the trenches as they said: "Charge!" It was time for the war to fully start! And things started with a bang as a hextech cannon roared to life shooting a melted ball of hextech energy towards Landers and the other two captains, the ball was shot so fast that the two couldn''t react at an accurate time and they would have both been hit by it if Landers didn''t jump in front of it. Landers crossed his arms in an X as he tanked the hextech cannon shot, his red armor started to melt due to the intense heat from the high temperature of the melted ball and he felt like shouting in pain but his blue aura flared to life as he dissipated the hextech ball before glaring at the shooter who was behind the trench and aiming for a second shot! Chapter 94: Sparron continent war (3) The cannon user behind the trench was aiming pretty well considering they only fought for a month or so using the weapons in question. But the fact was that Landers had to block the attack or else his commanding officers would have been crippled or killed by that shot, he could have easily dodged it if he wanted to. Landers ripped off the melted parts of the armor as he threw them away, they became useless at this point and they would only impend him. He frowned as he felt the heat of a second shot approaching him, he took a glance behind him and found that the other two had already found a hiding place so he easily sidestepped the shot letting it sail behind him and exploding in the previously populated place. While the shots were strong they could be easily telegraphed by those with great visual acuity, Landers''s vision was very great as he was almost at a general''s power now. However, things weren''t that good for the normal troops, the sniper who hit Landers wasn''t the only one who got a hextech canon. While the other shots were rather scattered and not really aimed properly there were quite a lot of people on the beach which meant even scattered shots would hit their target. It was quite sad to see them flail around for a few seconds until the canons entered their overheating mode. Even though there were some deaths here and there they were mostly the weaker ones who couldn''t dodge in time, it was not because they were clustered together, even though they were rather close to each other they already created some ways in which they could dodge the hex energy as teams. They held their hands together as they created human chains, with the whole body strength they moved in unison to dodge the attacks, sometimes jumping then throwing each other out of the was, this way they could minimize the death count because it was impossible for everyone to dodge, at least 1 person needed to be left behind. Of course, this was only for the basic troops, Felix, Lindo, Manitola and the stronger individuals could dodge by themselves regardless of how many troops were around them. Felix looked at the snipers that were behind the trench, they were all being protected by the melee fighters who were in the trench, they were all fending the people who tried to come and kill their ranged attackers. Up till now, the Sparron continent had very low to no deaths because of their currently impenetrable defenses. The trench combined with the hextech canons created a defensive and offensive combo that was hard to beat without overwhelming strength, however, the shamans of the invading tribes couldn''t interfere right now as they were sure that the shamans of the Sparron continent also had something under their sleeves, so they would interfere only if the shamans of the Sparron continent interfered first, letting them expose their trump card. Felix could see that it would be hard to get through this formation of theirs normally, they basically covered up all of their weakness creating a hedgehog situation, they couldn''t be touched, and if they decided to attack it was better to get out of the way. Felix knew that he was the breakthrough piece in this equation, he was the only one who could go beyond the trench and assassinate the cannoneers, he had the armor that could help him going through the trench even if he was found out. To help things go how they were supposed to be Felix donned the armor from his mind palace, a small light encased him as the blue and white armor appeared, the light was startling the people that were in his surroundings. "What the hell is that?" "An armor? How did he even don it that fast?" "Hey, where did he go?" The troops were quite startled seeing Felix don armor and disappear but Lindo was used to his antics while Manitola didn''t know what to say since she was going to attack her own people. Felix''s stealth could be considered perfect at this point, his disappearance only triggered a little commotion at the end of the troops but the enemies didn''t know anything about him. He jumped over the heads of the sea of people creating some reactions here and there but he was using almost no weight as he sometimes glided over their heads, it couldn''t be helped because he couldn''t literally go through them, this was also his way of dodging the hextech canon attacks. Atleast he would be able to control his weight somewhat or else these people would become pancakes, Lindo even stepped on someone''s face when he dodged one of the attacks. Finally, after a while, he reached the trench where he jumped directly into it, it seemed to be a bad idea at first as he was met with a multicolored knife ready to skewer his guts, and just as he thought, they could see through his stealth somehow, or they could identify his location he wasn''t really sure how it worked but the knife was really going for his guts. However the moment the knife hit the hard white part of the upper armor it immediately cracked and broke into two pieces, the armors ability to defend against piercing attacks combined with the brittleness of the knife meant that there was no way the knife would be able to damage him. The trench was full of fox tribesmen and the breaking of one knife didn''t deter them from trying to poke Felix full of holes. Most of them looked scared at first glance, they weren''t people meant for war but they were doing their best to defend their home. However, all their attacks were futile, their attempts at slashing Felix open didn''t do anything as their weapons broke every time they met Felix''s armor. Some of them looked at the handle in their hand then at Felix''s armor as they roared and charged at him trying to beat him in hand-to-hand combat. Felix easily dispatched all of the attackers and jumped out of the trench only to find himself face to face with a green small ball that was ready to explode, he used his tail to deflect the ball into the trench below him. A fiery explosion appeared in the trench, the cries of the surviving fox tribesmen could be heard as they slowly descended into death as well, the explosion pretty much razed everyone in the trench. Felix didn''t give a glance to the deaths of the foxes as he disappeared again, even though they knew his general location there was no chance they would be able to hit him while he was invisible, the hextech canons needed a precise aim, how could they hit something they couldn''t see? And even if they saw him Felix''s agile body would never be hit by such an obvious weapon as the hextech canon, while it was good in the siege and defending, in head-on battles it wasn''t really useful. Felix''s appearance amidst their ranks made the defenders despair, they already saw how their first defending station was blown to smithereens by their own attack which was deflected by the enemy, they didn''t think they would be pushed away from the beach this soon! Felix''s eyes were analyzing the more important cannoneers as he suddenly identified the one that shot and Landers. He appeared behind him as he used his claws to immediately decapitate him while his cannon was still cooling from overheating. The sudden situation of a head flying into the air and blood spraying like a geyser erupting attracted every defender''s attention, they knew Felix was in their midst but the tool that helped them to identify invisible people was in the trench, one needed to jump in and out of it to travel it since it was also rather wide making it impossible to jump it in one attempt. Now that the searching tool was broken they were like headless chickens, they didn''t know what to do as they looked at each other and started to abandon their posts! While defending their home was important, dying while letting the invading army go further was useless! They all started to throw away their weapons as they melded with their surroundings and started to disappear, Felix narrowed his eyes, these foxes knew stealth too? He sighed as he made sure there was no one around anymore before he turned his stealth off, he waved his paw at the army who were still watching what happened with their jaws on the ground, everything that happened up till now didn''t take more than 5 minutes! Felix''s blitz attack disabled the trench and scared away all of the cannoneers by killing the strongest of them. As for the escaping ones Felix couldn''t catch them by himself, he was all alone and there were quite a lot of them around, they were around half the number of invading troops standing around 200,000 people, the trench was also filled with around 20,000 people but they could still defend the forest entrance while being at a numerical disadvantage. Felix sighed as he looked at all the scattered hextech canons around and shook his head, this was one win in the war, the first battle! Landers appeared near him as he smiled at him: "You turned the whole situation on its head by yourself, I still remember when you just went out of the collapsed maze by yourself it''s almost as if it was yesterday, great job!" Felix nodded as he looked at the whole alliance picking up their jaws from the ground, he was sure he earned their respect now, not that he cared anyway... Chapter 95: Sparron continent war (4) The aftermath of the beach assault was short and uneventful, most of the defenders had run away after they found out that they couldn''t do anything to Felix and the people in the trenches were vaporized by their own attack. Manitola started to walk making her way through the crowd, finally reaching the trench she looked down into it trying to see if the person that she saw when they first arrived died there. She looked around but she couldn''t see anything that resembled her friend, they were all carbonized to the point that nothing was recognizable. At this point, she hoped that her friend left the trench before Felix attacked. But it was unlikely, she knew her friend well and she wasn''t that strong, nor that talented so she must have been put in the trench to defend the important people, he had seen a few people she knew man the hextech cannons, even though they weren''t friends they were acquaintances, she wasn''t sure if they saw her though. Lindo approached her and seeing how she was so thoughtful made him give her some space, there were times that a person didn''t need to be comforted, they just needed some time with them so they could sort their thoughts out. Felix looked over the whole army as he basked in his glorious win before taking off the armor and letting it return to his mind palace, there was no reason to keep it on at this point. Landers was surprised by Felix''s armor but he stopped thinking about it afterward, who knew where he got it from? God''s chosen were rather mysterious individuals so there was no reason for him to snoop around Felix''s secrets as he was a trusted person of the tribe. Felix got away from the eyes of the crowd as their stares started to become a little annoying, they still couldn''t believe that Felix got rid of the first defensive base all by himself, while all of them failed after months of grueling fights and thousands of deaths. Were they really that incompetent or was Felix very strong? Their morale was rather crushed at the moment but they didn''t have to fight anymore so it was good enough. Lindo walked towards Felix along with Manitola as they laughed awkwardly: "Well It seems our combination move training wasn''t really useful... you did all the work by yourself." Felix nodded and said trying to console them: "Well their defense was pretty good so only I would have been able to infiltrate it with the armor that I got from my God." What Felix said made sense, the trench was too wide and they wouldn''t have been able to jump above it even if they were stronger, the people in the trench would have surely shot out some of the knives to impale them and zombify them while they jumped above it. "Well if you look at it like that, yeah you were the only one who was able to destroy this forward base... let''s hope that the other defended points won''t be as hard to breakthrough." Felix nodded, he wasn''t sure he would be able to capture other parts of the continent by himself, but now he opened the way for the alliance army. Of course, he would continue fighting on the continent until it was fully conquered, he decided to start his continental adventure with the Sparron continent, he wanted to fully go through all of the continents of the planet and experience everything the planet could give him before he would go to Vangar, he was really tempted to join them back then but he was also rather angry with Shima''s actions against him so he wasn''t really ready to forgive them. He needed time to cool down and contemplate along with experiencing some new things. All of the tents at the beach were packed up as they started to move into the forest, now that they had beaten back the defenders they had to go in further so they could conquer more of the land until they conquered the whole continent! Of course, this was a very long process and they didn''t think they would be able to conquer the whole continent very soon, there were places that even the locals haven''t visited yet due to their lacking strength. The moment the invading party entered the woods they felt eyes looking at them, the eyes seemingly came from everywhere in the forest, Felix, Landers, Lindo, Manitola, and 100,000 lions made up one of the teams as the alliance split up in four directions, now that they have broken through the annoying defense at the beach they knew that it would be easier to fight them in the forest, plus the forest paths weren''t big nor long enough to handle 400,000 people. It was a rather creepy feeling being watched like that. Landers took the attention of the unit as he said: "Don''t be alarmed, they are not enemies, they are spirits of the forest, the accumulation of Hex energy in the air combined with the fact that the continent is mostly covered with forests created living creatures that reside in the trees, and this isn''t the only thing the trees carry, they are also very useful resources that can be made into armors, weapons or even used for other things, they can be sold to the people that create the special bags for an exorbitant price or special goods." The eyes of every person from the alliance started to glitter as they looked at the trees surrounding them, they ignored the feeling that they were being watched as they couldn''t wait to cut some trees down, they have already gathered all of the hextech canons that the resistance dropped and they also did some tests with them, besides the heating period there was also a charging period where the canons couldn''t be used because they were inferior goods. Even though the sparron continent residents had such great resources they didn''t bear to cut down the trees because they were also living beings, so they had to fight them with these inferior goods. Actually, they weren''t really good weapons but the ingenuity of the Sparron continent people was what kept the army at bay for months. While weaker the Sparron continent was more advanced in culture thus their intelligence was higher than those from the other continents who were still stuck in the warring periods, the Sparron continent was actually rather a peaceful one and that was why their people didn''t have high battle powers but there were other ways they would be able to fight and the Human tribe was rather happy to help them. The further they went into the woods the more they felt their backs being watched and at this point, there weren''t the nature spirits who were observing them. Felix could feel his fur stand on end as he was being watched. His fur standing on end was his body''s signal that whatever was looking at him was threatening enough to take his life! Even Landers stopped as he looked around, he was rather weary himself, he didn''t get the same reaction as Felix as what was extremely dangerous to Felix would be something equal to him at worst and weaker than him at best. The path in the forest was rather dark but the ground below them could still be seen, there were no troubles but the treetops were rather shady. Suddenly someone from behind shouted: "THEY ARE IN THE TREES!" Felix looked up into the trees his eyes were wide as he took two steps backward, a dart almost impaled him in the head. The moment the dart touched the ground, the ground where Felix was beforehand turned a deep purple and started to smell very toxic. If the dart hit Felix in the head he would have surely become a pile of mush by now. Felix frowned, even though he had restored 1 life after the souls of those in the trench were absorbed by his body he didn''t want to lose it so quickly. A soft curse could be heard from above as the people in the trees started to run from tree to tree trying to disappear from the lion tribe''s eyes. However Felix already got their scent and he was faster than them, the moment they tried to escape Felix jumped into the trees and started to chase them, he was rather familiar with tree hopping and the moment they looked back to see if they were being chased, Felix was already in front of them, his paws hit them in the head making them lose balance and fall to the ground below. There were two women and one man who tried to assassinate Felix. Landers, Lindo, and Manitola already ran ahead of the crowd and arrived seeing their downed bodies they quickly caught them up and tied them together using some iron rope. Seeing Manitola''s face made the captured people shout: "TRAITOR, YOU HAVE BETRAYED OUR TRIBE, THE PRINCESS OF THE TRIBE IS COLLUDING WITH OUTSIDERS TO KILL HER KIN AND TAKE OVER THE CONTINENT!" Manitola didn''t look well at all as she was being shouted at by people she knew, every person that fought on the battlefield were talented people from the fox tribe and people that had been in contact with Manitola at one point. Her face scrunched up as she recognized these people, they were attendants that once had taken care of her in her youth. Landers knew that it wasn''t the time for Manitola to see what would happen here so he waved his hand indicating for her to leave, Lindo decided to go with her so she wouldn''t feel alone, after all, he was the only person that was connected with her. Felix didn''t count as they weren''t true friends. Felix dropped from the trees as he looked at the tied-up people and then at Landers, waiting for his orders. Landers got closer to the resistance people and took out a small knife from his armor before saying: "So you want to tell me what you know, or do you want me to start working?" There was a malevolent expression on his face as he said that, it seemed a round or two of torture were going to commence. Chapter 96: Everythings fair in war and love The two women and one man looked at each other, it seemed they have made their mind up as they glared at Landers and bit their own tongues! Landers knew that something like this could happen so the moment they tried to bite their own tongues the iron rope that was tying them up together started to flicker as electricity went through it and zapped the 3 of them, numbing their whole bodies making them unable to move. They were pretty much paralyzed as they looked at Landers with wide eyes, their bodies would have shaken from fear if they weren''t physically unable to. Felix looked at what happened with wide eyes... what was Landers going to do to them? His response came quickly as Landers untied them, they all fell to the ground bundled up due to the paralysis. The moment they touched the ground Landers got near to one of the females and cupped her face with his left hand before putting the knife near her mouth and saying: "Such a beautiful face, it would be a pity to die with it disfigured wouldn''t it?" Felix''s current situation gave him vibes that reminded him of Shima''s treatment and he didn''t really like what he saw, he didn''t think that Landers would be able to do such a thing. Landers looked back at Felix and seeing how he was quickly getting disgusted with his behavior made him rather awkward, he knew from Siracha that Felix must have gone through some similar situation and this was triggering bad memories for him. Landers sighed as he put the knife back and told Felix: "You should go back." Felix shook his head as he said: "I..." Landers told him with an authoritative voice: "I''m your superior and you should go back to meet with Manitola and Lindo, this isn''t a place that you should be, if you can''t handle the procedure then you don''t get to look at it, simple as that, also don''t think that they would have felt sorry for you if you fell in their hands, haven''t you seen how they were ready to poison you to death back then?" Felix knew what Landers said made sense, in this situation when they landed into their hands and they needed information to further their conquering attempt so if they didn''t want to give the information normally they would have to resort to extreme measures. Felix still didn''t like what was going to happen but there wasn''t much he could do, but this was mostly because he still had some trauma left from being handled like that by Shima, normally he wouldn''t have cared. Landers sighed as he asked: "Have you settled down? If you still can''t withstand the images that will come I recommend you go meet with the others now." Felix took in a deep breath as he responded: "No... I think that witnessing this might help me with my trauma." "It could help but it might as well reinforce it, are you sure?" Felix nodded and sat down nearby getting a good view of whatever was going to happen to those 3. Landers decided to go ahead and continue, he took out his knife again and pointed it at the same woman''s face this time he didn''t say anything as the message had been already sent. He inched closer and closer with his knife towards her face, it was a known fact that fox tribesmen prized their beauty regardless of gender. However, he started with one of the women because of her minuscule facial reactions, from what he saw he realized that she was scared of death even when she was trying to bite her tongue, so she would cave in easier when it came to torture, right now he was playing the psychical torture and if it didn''t work he would move to the physical one. The paralysis started to slowly wear off as they could finally move their mouths again, the woman eyes started flickering as she looked left and right but she knew she couldn''t move her body yet, she saw her comrades being huddled together with her and they were in a similar situation, up till now all she could see was the knife that was being pointed at her face. It would be a lie to say that she wasn''t tempted to tell Landers what he wanted to know, her mental defenses were slowly cracking under the pressure that Landers was putting on her but the other woman and the man finally started talking again: "Hold on Miku, we know that it''s hard but hold on!" Landers sneered as he said: "Think that because you can move your mouths that you can bite your own tongues already? Think again!" The moment Landers said that the other two tried to bite their tongue only to find out that their jaws were too slack for them to do anything, while they could talk they didn''t have enough strength to bite their tongues! It was unfortunate but they could either spill the beans or die in painful torture, there was nothing to stop Landers from doing the same thing again with the iron rope. The woman that didn''t have to stare as the knife was getting closer to her face had it easier as she continued saying: "Miku don''t give up! I and Marcus are backing you up, we are both going to the otherworld together with you!" "So don''t relent, don''t betray our tribe just like that bitch Manitola did! We need to endure!" "It''s easier said than done." Miku said while having a sad expression on her face, Landers was actually taping the knife on her face and he seemed ready to do some handiwork! While she was ready to die she didn''t want her corpse to be defiled, who knew if Landers and the others were going to throw their disfigured corpses back to their resistance towns? It was painful enough for her relatives to hear about her death but if they were to see her body in that situation... they would surely die of a heart attack or something similar. While she could bear to die she couldn''t bear for her relatives to follow her as well... she wanted her elderly mother to die of a beautiful natural death so she could to nature properly. Miku opened her mouth as Landers looked her directly into the eyes: "I can tell you what you want to know... but please promise that after you kill us that you won''t do anything to our corpses... please bury them here so we can all return to nature." While Landers was doing a job, he was neither a sadist nor a man that would break his word so he promised her: "I will bury you here and If I break this promise I shall be smitten by my ancestor''s spirits!" Miku smiled, it was a very sad smile that showed she had accepted her fate, even though more of her comrades would die her family was full of civilians and she knew that in such conquering situations the civilians would be spared, they could be used as work hands and they were weak so they wouldn''t be able to revolt even if they wanted to. Miku started to give out all of the information that she knew about the resistance in their region, multiple regions had defensive barriers or tech given by the human tribe and theirs was the weakest, they were in the south near the ocean and while the forests were plentiful they didn''t have as many resources as the other regions, well they had their wood but they didn''t want to give it to the humans. In this situation, Landers felt that the time they needed to conquer the whole continent increased again, her explanation didn''t make him feel good at all about having this intelligence. He looked down at the three people who were slowly regaining their motor skills as he sighed, the knife that he held in his hand went directly through the skull of Miku as he approached the other two and snapped their necks like they were two chickens. Felix sighed as he watched everything happening, he didn''t even have to torture them physically and, the mental torture was enough for one of them to break and tell him everything that he needed to know. Landers was a man of his word so he dug up a big hole and put all of the corpses inside, Felix didn''t feel like eating them and Landers would have stopped him if he tried to, considering a promise is a promise. Felix looked at the dug earth and sighed as Landers put the ground back and filled the hole even leaving a small drawing there as a memento that will disappear sooner or later. He bowed towards the grave and said: "It''s not that I''m cruel but you are too weak, in this life we are just unlucky to have been born to different factions, conflicts are unavoidable and so are deaths, I hope that in your next life we will be friends instead of enemies." Felix found it rather strange that Landers would even hold a eulogy for strangers that he just met, but from what he could see he was as serious as he could be... maybe there was more to Landers than being the best of his branch and an upcoming new general. Chapter 97: Strike them down faster than lightning This was a new side of Landers that Felix hadn''t seen up till now, besides being a good leader and a big brother figure he was also a very good soldier for his tribe, he would do anything that it takes to complete the mission, but he wasn''t a man that would break his promises even to his enemies. He was an honorable man! After finishing his eulogy and filling the hole in the ground, Landers walked towards Felix and asked: "Do you feel different after seeing what happened?" Felix shook his head: "Not really, I didn''t really feel much when I looked at you doing that to them, maybe it was because they weren''t cut open like I was but I didn''t really sympathize with them..." At this point, mental torture wouldn''t really work on Felix unless it was done directly on his soul by a specialist so he didn''t really relate to Miku who buckled under the mental torture that Landers inflicted on her. Landers nodded and told him: "Well since we got what we wanted we need to go back and meet up with the troops, they have spilled the location of the nearest village which they came from, and their defense weaknesses so we can go and conquer it if we get a true base with a good defensive capability on the continent things will become easier the further we go in." Felix followed Landers back as he told the 100,000 Lions: "It''s nigh time to attack the first forward base of the Sparron continent defenders, I and Felix have gained the information needed to reach the base and attack its weak points, follow me!" The lions were talking with each other before Landers came but the moment he appeared and told them what they needed to do, they immediately entered the military formation and started to march following Landers from behind. Lindo, Manitola, and Felix took the closest place towards Landers as they followed him, after walking for around 3 hours they finally reached the village. It was called a village but it was more of a city, the structure was very tall having big walls that protected the village, they stood around 4 meters tall and they had sharp brambles protecting the top and bottom making it hard to scale. At the top of the walls, scouts were looking down making sure no enemies were approaching the village, there were also some scout towers behind the walls standing at 5 meters tall, archers stood at the top of the walls looking through wood binoculars to see even further than the one on the walls. The gates that lead to the inside of the village were made from dark iron and they were pretty much impenetrable. The scouts on the walls also had bigger hextech cannons installed at the top so they would rain down fiery death upon the invaders, the difference between these and the ones that could be held by hand wasn''t size only, their strength was also a few notches higher, but they were also slower at shooting and even easier to telegraph, however, if the army was clustered together too much the gigantic balls of energy would surely damage them quite hard. Landers was watching everything from a low vantage point that was covered by the trees and bushes, while the scouts could see far they couldn''t see through objects. Landers already scouted everything and found out that Miku didn''t lie to him, everything was as she described, fortunately, they had some weaknesses over them or Landers would have had to sacrifice a lot of his troops to conquer this village. He looked towards Felix as he mouthed: "You know what to do." They already went through the plan and Felix was the best for infiltration operations. Felix nodded and disappeared as he used his stealth technique, he started to run across the empty field in front of the village''s walls, no one was the wiser as they didn''t see anything. However the closer Felix got to the walls the slower he walked, he knew that they had some type of technology that could identify his general location so it was better to play it safe even though he knew where to go. The walls had no holes nor openings but the same couldn''t be said about the ground below. Felix dug up a little dirt from the ground as a hole appeared in front of him, it was the escaping tunnel meant in emergencies but now it would be used for invasion! Felix dropped down in the tunnel as he looked around, even though the tunnel was dark because it wasn''t currently in use, he was a feline and he could see rather well in the dark. He slowly made his way through the tunnel until he reached the end of it and climbed upwards on a ladder, then he opened up the patch of ground that covering the opening to exit to the other side. He got out of the hole and put the ground back so there would be no accidents then he looked around. There were no people in the room he was in, but he could feel some people behind the door. While he didn''t know where he was if he opened the door himself he would surely take their attention which wasn''t good. Felix took out a communication stone from his backpack and called Landers: "I''m inside but the door to the outside of this house is guarded, I need a diversion for the guards to run away so I can exit the house and open the gates!" "Roger that!" Landers cut the connection between their communication stones as he looked at the big gates and waved his hand as he shouted: "CHARGE!" The moment he said charge a sea of people started to appear from the woods, the Lions attacked in formations as they shot the cannons that they took from the beach, hitting the walls or even if they were lucky, hit one of the bramble parts. They didn''t have enough time to train with them properly, after all, they were quite different compared to the ones that the Lion tribe acquisition, because the Lion tribe was considerably poorer in resources they could only get the first version of the cannons and compared with the ones that they got from the beach they were quite different, both their weight and the shooting techniques you needed to operate them differed so the army''s aim wasn''t that good. The moment they appeared the archers at the top of the scout towers started to shoot poisoned arrows at them while the ones at the top of the walls started to load the big cannons, they were already charged and the loading increased their explosive power, as the cannons at the top were charging, at their muzzles particles of light appeared meaning that they would shoot soon! Landers wasn''t sure if he would be able to tank a shot just like he did on the beach, while that one didn''t injure him it did melt some of his armor but the big cannons gave him a sense of pressure that made him realize that if he took a shot, while he wouldn''t die he would be injured and his battle power would be lowered. But he didn''t really have to take the shot... he just needed to redirect it! Landers took in a deep breath as the light at the top of the walls was increasing, there were 3 cannons on the walls and all of them were aimed at the big army below. Landers cupped his hands together in front of him as his deep blue aura engulfed him, the hex energy in the air converged directly into his hands as a spark of energy started to travel among his arms towards his hands creating a small ball of energy there. The ball of energy grew until it engulfed both of his hands and at the same moment the cannons were ready to shoot! The moment the ball of energy couldn''t grow anymore Landers pointed it under the muzzles of the cannons as he let out a mighty shout saying his technique for all to hear: "Wind Inferno!" The attack rapidly shot out of his palms in the form of a pale blue beam that almost looked transparent, it was wide enough to engulf all 3 of the cannons but Landers knew that it was a fruitless endeavor to enter a struggle with them, so the beam of energy wasn''t aimed at the muzzle but below it! Landers''s beam of energy moved quicker than the one from the cannons as it struck directly under and made the muzzles face upward! The moment the muzzles turned upward the cannons shot out the compressed energy they had charged up till now creating bright balls of yellow energy that discharged into the sky! The energy exploded creating a sea of fire that started to rain down both on the walls, army, and even the houses behind the wall! The army could deal with the fire as they easily extinguished it before it approached them but the same couldn''t be said about the civilians living near the walls. Shouts of pain could be heard as some people started to catch on fire and the guards had to get some water and douse it on them so they wouldn''t burn to death. Felix could feel the two guards who were protecting the escape tunnel run to help as he exited the house and looked around, he could see pandemonium happening around, everyone was running like headless chickens while some people caught on fire and the guards were dousing them with water. Felix didn''t wait, he was already in stealth as he slowly inched towards the gates only to find out that the buttons that were supposed to open them weren''t near them! Felix looked around and frowned a little, where could the gate controls be placed? Chapter 98: Capturing the village Felix couldn''t see any gate controls anywhere around him and he knew that Landers and the others wouldn''t be able to hold on, there was a limit to how many times Landers could redirect their attacks and he wasn''t sure if he could recover fully during their cooldown period. He frowned as he started to look around making sure to not trigger any traps or anything like that, he also had to make sure there were no stealth detectors planted around or his cover would be blown. He wasn''t sure how they looked but he trusted his gut instincts, if he felt like he shouldn''t walk by that location maybe it meant that there was a stealth detector placed there. However, up till now, he didn''t get that feeling yet. He circled the gates but he couldn''t find anything at the bottom... which meant there was a chance the controls were up the walls where the guards were currently concentrated. Some stairs led up to the top of the walls and Felix started to walk towards them slowly, there was no one in view at the stairs nor was anyone climbing them at the moment, all of the guards had been sent up there to help with either manning the canons or they were given some bows so they could shoot the enemies below. Felix started to climb the stairs slowly as he made his way up, fortunately, there were no stealth detectors put around the stairs and he finally got to the top of the walls. The moment he appeared at the top he felt that going forward would be tricky, he saw the controls of the gates they were around the stairs in a small tower that looked to be decorative at first glance. It was guarded even in this situation and his gut told him that stealth wouldn''t help him in this situation. Since he couldn''t use stealth he decided to use a diversionary tactic, he shot a few of his claws towards the guards from a tricky angle so they wouldn''t know where it came from making them think that they were being attacked by the enemies. The two guards who were near the controls braced themselves as they took the hits to the chest and stomach, they slowly started to bleed as they clutched their injured parts, even though the claw shots were one of Felix''s weaker attacks, the bodies of the fox tribesmen were quite weak to the point that Felix''s weakest attack could injure them quite a bit. The injury wasn''t something that would incapacitate them but they would have trouble fighting properly afterward. The moment they got injured they shouted towards their comrades: "They have snipers!" The guards then took cover by jumping down on their bellies however no more attacks came, this also made them stop charging the cannons giving some breathing time to the troops below. Felix quickly ran towards the controls as the guards were on their bellies and pressed the big button which he guessed would open the gates. The moment the button was pressed the gigantic gates below started to rumble and move as steam shot out of the hydraulic pumps that worked to open them. Landers smiled as he shouted: "Charge!" Now that the army could charge inside the cannons couldn''t be used anymore in fear of injuring the civilians who didn''t get to evacuate in time, there were multiple escae routes in the city and Felix used just one of them but the one he used was also the closest and most convenient. The Foxes knew that fighting here wouldn''t give them an advantage but they didn''t want to give up and be enslaved like that. Even though they couldn''t use the big cannons anymore they still had their handheld ones which they could use to fight them head-on! The fight was long and arduous, the foxes fought up for a very long time as they would rather die than being enslaved. Atleast the army personnel and guard personnel did, they fought with all they had but unfortunately for them, they were severely outnumbered 10:1 as they had around 10,000 people who were fight-ready. The population of the village was in the hundreds of thousands but most of them were civilians who wouldn''t be able to do anything in a fight of this scale. Felix watched from the top of the walls along with Landers, Lindo, and Manitola as the fighting foxes were killed. Manitola couldn''t take it anymore as she shouted to the survivors: "Stop this is enough, you have fought well up till now but you are just wasting your lives. Wouldn''t it be better if you lived? Wouldn''t it be better for your families to see their fathers and sons home and well? As long as you surrender peacefully the lion army won''t treat you badly." Manitola''s words came from her heart, which was being smashed every time she saw one of her brethren die for nothing, in the end, the village would still fall to the lion''s paws and all of the deaths would be useless, this was only the first batch of reinforcements from the lion tribe and more were going to arrive as soon as they finished their training along with a prepared officer. Felix, Landers, and the others were meant to spearhead the invasion as they were some of the strongest warriors of the tribe, the moment they captured a village they would be able to slow down the expansion and use the resources of the continent to expand both economically and territorially. They could use the resources to buy even better equipment from the human tribe and continue their invasion, at this point the first people who were going to make a base on the continent were going to be the ones who were going to make the most profit. At this point, the Lion tribe could even break away from the alliance as they didn''t need its help anymore. The first thing they needed the alliance for was breaking through the blockade at the beach but Felix alone had done that quite quickly to boot! If Landers was honest with himself he didn''t really want to be in this alliance in the first place, the Balton and Haron continents couldn''t be trusted, especially the Haron one. So Landers decided to call the headquarters to see about Siracha''s opinion: "Lander''s calling, I have a report to do." Siracha''s voice came out of the communication stone as it asked: "What is it? I hope it''s good news." Landers cleared his throat as he reported: "We have captured one village on the Sparron continent already and I have wanted to ask you if it''s the right time to break off from the alliance." A burst of jolly laughter could be heard coming from the other side of the communication stone as Siracha replied between the peals of laughter: "Hahahaha Very good, you have done well Landers, you might be even able to get that general promotion soon, Hahaha." Landers interjected as he said: "To be honest I haven''t done much, all the credit is due to our little cat, Felix." "Oho? I thought it would take him some time to recollect himself but he is already going so hard at work? I guess another reward is in order." "Tell him this, this newly conquered village will be his from now on, he shall be the mayor and leader of the village!" Landers was surprised, to say the least, he couldn''t believe his ears that Felix was the boss of this place now, this was both a huge responsibility as well as a huge gold mine. If he lorded over this place properly he would surely develop into a mogul of the Sparron continent with his current relationships and connections. But as he looked at Felix who was still nearby and cleaning his fur with his tongue he wasn''t sure if the cat was cut for such type of work. Landers closed the connection between him and Siracha as they finished talking and he started to take a few steps towards Felix as he said: "Congratulations, the shaman has decided for you to take care of this village as the mayor from now on, it''s a big responsibility." Felix frowned as he asked: "Mayor? What does a mayor have to do?" Landers responded easily: "Mostly nothing and you get to enjoy 60% of the goods of the region where you are in while the 40% is given to the tribe." Felix felt a little better, he thought that he wouldn''t be able to continue his march with the army through the continent because he became the mayor. But it seemed he thought wrongly. Landers read Felix''s expressions quite easily and he understood why he previously had some aversion towards the mayor rank he had been given. However, if it was a normal person from the army who was given this function as the mayor he would have been discharged so he could do his work as the mayor of the village properly. But in Felix''s situation, he was a hidden blade that the lion army couldn''t do without so he was going to enjoy the benefits of the mayor position without doing any actual mayor work as someone else would do it all for him as his secretary. Landers even got someone in mind already as he glanced down at the army who was finishing with calming the citizens, getting rid of the bodies of the dead ones, and helping the injured ones who surrendered. Chapter 99: Mayor of the village Landers waved his hand down at one of the female lions in the army of 100,000. She got the message because he had also notified her with a mental ping before he waved at her. She took the stairs to the top of the wall and quickly made her way to Landers where she saluted to show her respect to the upcoming general. She was rather tall and her body was covered by the issued armor of the lion tribe which was rather low-key, painted camo green with a tint of dark here and there from the processed iron. She had short-cut hair so it wouldn''t get in her way when she was fighting and a scar running from her left eye to her nose. She had a wild feeling to her as if she had gone through many life and death situations and the scar on her face was one of the first proofs of that. Landers nodded as she stopped her from saluting and said: "You have been selected for an important mission." Her eyes started to light up, she always wanted to prove herself to the upper echelons of the army and now she was going to have a chance to do that! She saluted again as she waited for her debriefing, Landers smiled as he told her about his plans: "You shall become the new mayor''s secretary and help him with all of the things he needs to do to keep this place up and running." The woman''s smile deflated like a balloon as she heard the mission she had been given, she wanted to fight on the frontlines and improve her rank in the army not work behind a desk! She already worked behind a desk for quite a long while before and she got tired of it, that''s why she joined the army in the first place! As a proud lioness, she wanted to fight on the battlefield to defeat the enemies of the tribe! However, she didn''t really have the guts to decline Landers, but she gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes and poured her heart out: "Vice-General Landers, please I don''t want to go back to that type of work... I have joined the army for one reason and that''s to fight on the forefront of the battlefield! Why would I want to go back to that stuffy work?" Landers knew that he couldn''t force her to do something that she didn''t want to do, he wasn''t that type of person so he shook his head and told her: "If you don''t want to, I won''t force you." The woman let out a sigh of relief seemingly as if she escaped death. But Landers wasn''t done as he said: "While I won''t force you I still need you for something, could you tell me if there is anyone in the army that would like to take the job as a secretary, and we need someone who knows how the work goes, we can''t take any amateur." The woman shook her head for a few seconds before she said: "There are no people that I know that would like paperwork, most of the people joined the army because they didn''t like their jobs, well excluding the drafted people but even they wouldn''t like to do such tedious work, after all, we are all lions here and if I''m honest we are all meant for action." Landers sighed, while what she said was true that didn''t mean they didn''t need people to work the logistics, if everyone acted like this then a hole would appear in the whole society of the lions and they would collapse, there should still be people who would agree to Landers''s job in the army but this woman just didn''t know them. "Then go and tell them that there is help needed for the secretary position under Felix as he is the new mayor." The moment that Landers mentioned Felix the woman''s eyes changed as she started to think more about the proposal. Landers shook his head, she was reluctant at first but the moment she heard Felix''s name her attitude took a 180* change. Felix was rather looked down upon in the ship but after he easily took care of the beach barricade and seeing how well he did in the village opening the gates in a good time made the army respect him immensely. After all, strength equaled respect in all societies, it only differed how strength was perceived. She thought that she would have to be under someone unknown to her or someone that she didn''t respect but considering it was Felix she could do an exemption this one time. She looked behind Landers and saw Felix and how he was still cleaning himself, then nodded to herself as she said: "I agree to be Felix''s secretary." Landers smiled as he clasped her shoulder and said: "You won''t regret this Marlyn, I only called for you first because you are the most suited for this job and you will be rewarded accordingly for your work!" She smiled as she asked: "Could I talk with him?" Landers laughed as he said: "Sure sure." But then he stopped her for a few seconds as he said: "Just you know he won''t be here to help you with your work, you will have to do the work alone, you have to consider he is our strongest weapon in infiltration and assassination and he will continue to come with us in the expedition while you will be left behind here along with some other people from the tribe so they can make sure there would be no riots, soon troops from the tribe will come and install themselves here making this our first base on the Sparron continent." Marlyn knew what the first base on the continent meant, it would become the center of the hubbub from the reinforcements of the lion tribe and anyone who would take resources from here would have to pay, the taxes would flow directly into Felix''s pockets along with any income coming from selling the surrounding resources as he was the mayor of the place. It was practically a goose that was laying golden eggs! Felix didn''t look to be that interested though as he finished cleaning himself and he was now sunbathing at the top of the walls while also training in his breathing techniques at the same time, any time he was relaxed he would slip into his training mode. "I understand vice-general Landers, but I still want to do this job." She took a few steps forwards and looked down at Felix who was only as tall as her waist if he stood on all fours, she gave a small bow to him as she said: "Secretary Marlyn here to help mister Felix." Felix stopped his sunbathing as he looked at her up and down while smiling at her: "I hope you aren''t mad that I won''t be able to help you with the mayor''s work Marlyn." "No, no sir I''m not, actually I wanted to work under you because I respect you and if my work will boost your morale on the battlefield it''s all for the best, your strength is admired by the whole 100,000 recruits and I think any one of them would have jumped to help you in this type of situation but I think I''m the most suited for this job." Felix nodded at her then said: "Then I''ll bother you to work for me for now." "No problem sir!" Landers came from behind and gave her an insignia with the words ''secretary'' on it, it was golden in color and looked a bit imposing as for which building she will use for her administration Landers let her decide on that. Felix looked up at Landers while Lindo and Manitola were chatting while keeping an ear open for anything that would include their names. "Well now that everything had been settled what''s the next job?" Landers shook his head as he said: "We will leave one day after the shaman tells us about the troop''s arrival so the moment we leave there wouldn''t be a void here, who knows who would attack the village when only a few of our leftover troops and the aboriginals will remain to defend, also there is the fact that the aboriginals would riot after they saw that their oppressors left and all of our work would be for nothing." Manitola perked up as she heard how Landers was talking about her people and said: "I can make sure they won''t riot if you leave me behind." Landers took a glance at her before saying: "Don''t be insulted but I still don''t trust you completely, after all, you are one of them." Manitola fumed and she wanted to retort but Landers''s concerns couldn''t really be dispelled if she argued with him, she was a fox and she came to the tribe in an unfavorable situation as a slave so it was obvious that she would be untrusted, Landers wasn''t paranoid but even if Lindo got close to her in the time they were together who would she side with, her people that she lived for 19 or so years or a foreign boy of a different race than she lived with for a few months? Landers shook his head as he said: "You will move with the army, up till now you didn''t have to do much as the army or Felix took care of things but as we move further the tribes will start mixing, the fox tribe isn''t the only one on the Sparron continent am I right?" Manitola sighed and nodded, she already told them how many tribes there were on the continent and their average strengths so she knew his question was only there as a warning for her. Chapter 100: Fighting the other tribes (1) Manitola felt rather sad and excluded in the lion tribe, she was an outsider that came in due to Siracha''s intentions, if he wanted to he could have just let her have a pretty grim ending in the hands of the other continents contestants. She was very glad of the outcome because it was the best however she was still ostracized. After all, she was of a different race, of course, they had the right to be suspicious of her, she came out of nowhere and was from the tribe that was currently fighting them on the battlefield. Most of the lions from the 100,000 strong armies were looking at her with distrust and thinking that she was actually sending out precious intelligence from their camp to the enemies. However, that wasn''t true but she couldn''t say anything in her defense as while there were no ways for her to defend herself there were also no ways for her to get incriminated so the people only talked, they didn''t do anything to her but words also cut deep. Manitola sulked on top of the wall as her feet dangled down, she sighed as she looked down at the village and all of the bobbing heads down there, they either talked in hushed tones or looked around with a sad tinge in their eyes. It was impossible to like being under someone else''s foot, the civilians were all scared and the defenders who surrendered were glaring at the patroling lions from the army, however, all of their weapons had been confiscated and they couldn''t do anything to fight hand to hand with the superior lions so all they could do was sigh and glare. Lindo approached her from behind as he sat near her and didn''t say anything for a short while before deciding to open the conversation: "You know people don''t really hate you right?" Manitola shook his head as she gave a small smile to Lindo: "Thanks for trying to cheer me up but we both know that''s a lie." Lindo shook his head as he got a little bit closer to her then hugging her: "It''s not a lie, they are just wary of you but they don''t hate you, you haven''t done anything to incur their hate." Manitola shook her head as she said: "I don''t even have to actually do what they are saying for them to hate me, I can feel it in their gazes, even Landers who is such a good person looks at me with questioning eyes... I don''t know if it was the right decision to take me on this expedition, I already told you all I know about the continent and I''m not that useful on the battlefield as the stronger people already take care of everything before I can do anything... actually the same can be said for you as well." Lindo coughed as he almost swallowed his saliva, she didn''t have to be that blunt, did she? "Indeed, we haven''t been able to show our talents yet but that''s mostly because Felix took care of everything by himself, I''m sure that in the future where Felix will be too overwhelmed by the number of enemies we will be able to shine brightly on the battlefield as well!" "Maybe you are right..." Manitola started to get a little bit happier, in the end, results were all that mattered in this world, so if she wanted to dispel the doubt that others had against her all she had to do was fight on the battlefield and get merit! Now that she had a better goal she reciprocated Lindo''s hug, her big breasts brushing against his chest making him blush a little as he coughed. Felix was close nearby but he ignored the two love birds as he glanced outside the walls, no one was coming through the forest and everything was nice and quiet. It was a little bit too quiet, it was almost annoying how quiet it was, Felix found that something wasn''t right as he looked up from the walls, Landers approached him from behind as he said: "You feel it too right?" Felix nodded as things were too quiet he knew that trouble was arising. "Do you think that the allies of the Fox tribe have realized that we took over the village?" Landers nodded, it was most likely the thing that happened, or could have their allies realized that they broke ties and they wanted a piece of their pie? While Landers got the permission that didn''t mean they had to tell them until their troops arrived at the continent with their help. After all, the ship they used was quite fast, and on paper, they were still allies. Landers looked around but he couldn''t identify any danger even with his superior eyesight, but he felt the danger as it closed into him and Felix. Felix frowned as he felt that things weren''t as good as they looked on the surface, he took a few steps backward as he felt danger, and at his feet where he previously stood, a purple dart impaled the wall immediately cracking it! It wasn''t because there was a special attribute to the dart but the dart itself was very heavy! It seemed to be rather futuristic-looking as it was made of metal and some openings appeared in it when it landed. The openings started to spew out a purple-colored mist which Landers and Felix immediately identified as poison, they tried to kick the dart away only to realize that it weighed so much that they couldn''t move it! That was the sole reason it cracked the wall, it was so heavy that both Felix and Landers couldn''t kick it away while they worked together! Felix frowned as he didn''t breathe in the poison, while he, Landers, Lindo, and Manitola could keep their breath for extended amounts of time and get out of the radius of the poison what about the newly captured fox tribesmen and their troops? While they were strong it was unknown if their stamina was very good as up till now they haven''t gone through any long fights, Felix looked at Landers and made some signals with his paws which Landers interpreted, they grabbed Landers and Manitola as they jumped down from the wall to a place where it wasn''t infested with the poison anymore. There they started to shout: "Retreat from the village, EVERYONE EVACUATE!" "USE THE HIDDEN PASSAGES, THE POISON WILL SPREAD THROUGH THE WHOLE VILLAGE SOONER OR LATER!" As Landers shouted he looked up at the wall as the poison slowly started to fall into the village, he used the hidden passages along with the citizens and army as they left the village from the back of the wall where there were no people, or that''s what they thought. The moment they saw the light of the day they found out that their troops had been captured in gigantic steel nets as small people with mole noses dug out of the ground and glared at them. The allies of the Fox tribe and expert diggers: The mole tribe! They were expert diggers and trap makers, combined with the technology they got from the human tribe their power increased by around 200% making the capture of the ordinary troops a walk in the park for them! The citizens were put to the side and helped while the lion troops were captured, it was obvious someone leaked the news and reinforcements quickly came for help, but who could it be? The lion troops had made sure to get rid of all of the communication stones in the village so how did they learn about the successful take over? Did they have a mole in their ranks? Immediately the eyes of the nearby captured Lions went directly to Manitola as they all thought the same thing. "TRAITOR!" They all unleashed their killing intent towards Manitola''s direction as they wanted to break through the steel nets that were restraining them and kill her! They were like rabid dogs ready to bite into anything that moved the moment their eyes laid down on Manitola, but Lindo came forward and put her behind him as he shielded her from the gazes of all of the crazed lions. "This is not the time to blame someone." Landers slowly got up from the hole they were in followed by Felix, he glared at the mole people that couldn''t even get to his knees as he kept his senses sharp to detect any traps that could have been laid around. The mole people were proficient in traps but weak in hand-to-hand combat so the people who were around here were mostly trying to goad Felix and Landers into attacking them. There weren''t many of them visible as the others were underground but there were around 10,000 of them. Most of them were protecting the nets that were holding the lion troops while the others were taunting Felix, Landers, Lindo, and Manitola. Manitola''s whole body was shaking as she stood behind Lindo but then a firm grip on her shoulder made her stop shaking, she looked into Lindo''s eyes and nodded, this was finally the time for them to shine... they had trained for this type of situation and they were ready to go! They jumped out of the hole together getting in front of Landers and Felix as they said at the same time: "We will take it from here, our abilities are better suited for this type of operation, you two stay back!" Chapter 101: Lion and Fox duo debut Landers took a few steps forward while keeping his eyes on the small beings in front of him: "Are you two sure?" Lindo nodded and Manitola started a dance, her charm field was on with full effect. Lindo stood in front of her as he glared at the short mole people in front of him, he knew that they didn''t dare to attack him or Manitola but he wanted to intimidate them. However, Lindo''s intimidating tactic didn''t work as one of the mole people turned with his back around them bent over, and started to beat his ass softly while saying: "Come over here you re***ds, this granddaddy of yours wants to give you a hug!" While he was saying these things he also let out a smelly fart towards Lindo''s direction with such precise aim that it directly went towards Lindo''s nose. At this point, Lindo was so angry that veins popped up his neck arms, and even head as he glared at the mole that did that, and if he glared any harder his eyes would pop out of their sockets. "Lindo keep your cool!" Manitola told him as she put her hand on his back. Lindo wanted to take a deep breath but the air was contaminated so he continued to keep his breath as he took a few steps forward while Manitola followed behind him. His eyes were closed but if they were open it could be seen that they were red now... He was currently moving rhythmically through the space between the mole people and Felix''s group. The moment the moles saw how he moved their eyes bulged out of their sockets as they started to rub them, they didn''t see that well anyways but the moment they realized how Lindo was walking accurately dodging all of the remaining traps they didn''t know what to believe. At first, they thought it was their poor vision fucking with them but they realized that it wasn''t so, Lindo was actually dodging all of their intelligently placed traps! It was like he had eyes that could see through solid matter! However, as they took a look at his face they realized that he had his eyes closed! The mole person who was beating his ass to taunt Lindo fell on his ass as he looked at him dodging all of the traps with such high accuracy then he shouted: "Everyone scatter! Princess Manitola has that charming ability don''t let her get near you!" Lindo nodded to Manitola as she jumped on his back and he started to jump from place to place as if he was a frog. Manitola''s charm field jumped up and down with him as he quickly got close to a bunch of mole people who tried to escape only for them to get engulfed in the charm field and slowly walk towards Manitola as if they were possessed, then Lindo unleashed his hex aura as he knocked all of them out with the pressure of it alone, mole people were weak but ingenious so even Lindo''s white-colored aura could knock them out. There were around 10 groups of mole people each having 1,000 people in them, but they were so small that they didn''t take much space if any space at all, them being clustered together just gave a better opportunity for Manitola and Lindo to shine. While they did try to scatter they realized that they would meet their own traps if they dug into the ground as they were armed to react at the smallest tremor of the ground. Now they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, while their digging speed was very fast their running speed wasn''t so they couldn''t escape Lindo, their short legs couldn''t help them much in this situation. The moment Lindo and Manitola jumped to a group they would all cluster around Lindo before being knocked out. They were a deadly combination for these small people. It didn''t take a lot of time for Lindo to herd them all over into one place and throw them into their trap making them start cursing as they were clustered together into a steel net. They wanted to shout for freedom but they knew it would be useless to ask for it as they talked among themselves. They chattered together as they saw how Lindo let the nets down letting the troops escape. "This guy... he must be the commander of the troops! Look at his Galant figure and moves!" "Indeed... he is a great person and he even conquered Princess Manitola..." "Not an undeserved loss!" Lindo was mad at the mole people but now that they were praising him so shamelessly he almost became red like a boiled lobster. Manitola blushed as well as she heard the comments of the moles, how could they say that Lindo conquered her? She wasn''t such an easy woman! Felix found something was wrong as these moles chattered continuously, it was as if they didn''t care at all what would happen with them next, or that they didn''t fear them, but their current situation was as bad as it could be, they were their prisoners in a trap of their own making, how could they be so relaxed? Wait for a little, a trap of their own making? The moment Felix thought about this he saw out of the corner of his eye that one of the mole people slipped through the steel net as if it wasn''t even there then cut the rope that was keeping it suspended above the ground. All of the moles immediately scattered as if they were pigeons who saw bread crumbs. Manitola and Lindo became pale as they tried to capture them only to gain around 2,000 before the rest drilled into the ground and disappeared. They had disabled the traps somehow, Felix just wondered why they didn''t do it in the first place before they were captured by Lindo. Lindo and Manitola dragged another steel net behind them while keeping their eyes peeled onto their captives. They knew they fucked up in this situation, they had let their prisoners escape and had only captured around 2% of them back. It was a big failure! Landers smiled at them as he looked at the still unconscious new captives and put his hands on each of their shoulders while saying: "You have done great, you even saved our troops while capturing some of the enemies troops, while you have let some of them get away there is nothing we can do about that, we are on the enemies territory and we are fighting unknown machinery and traps, we have to do our best to learn from you two." Felix smiled at them as he said: "You have done a good job, Lindo you have improved on your killing intent detection so much?" Lindo was bashful as he scratched the back of his head and laughed: "Yeah, I''m even close to learning killing intent masking as well!" "Wow, you have trained really hard to unlock some new abilities, unlike you I have been focusing on the basics..." Landers let them talk to each other as he got closer to the captured mole people and glared at their unconscious form, he now had more people to interrogate. While Landers was doing his special interrogation under the gazes of the freed lion troops, Felix, Manitola, and Lindo started to chat. "I can''t believe you improved so much Lindo, it was seemingly yesterday where you couldn''t even get up from the ground when we trained using that ruby that your grandfather gave us." "Yeah time passed really fast while we were doing so many things, anyways I wanted to talk something with you." "Hmm? Aren''t we already doing that?" "No no, I mean we need to talk about something important." "So you don''t think your improvement was important?" "Ah... you are driving me crazy, can you not take everything that I say literally?" "Ok I was just messing with you Lindo, what do you want to tell me?" "Actually I''m not the one who wants to talk with you." Manitola took a few steps forward as she approached Felix and said: "This is a talk that we need to have in private." "Hmm talk in private? What do you need to tell me that Lindo can''t hear? Isn''t he like your boyfriend?" Manitola''s face turned red like a tomato as she coughed and said: "It''s about our God''s chosen status, I don''t think you have had a God''s chosen friend who could have told you everything, it seems that you don''t use your abilities to your full extent." Felix tilted his head to the side, Bizkier didn''t tell him everything he knew? It was unlikely he looked to accepted him as a friend even though they were enemies at first but maybe there were things that Bizkier didn''t know? Seeing how Felix was confused she asked: "What you had a God''s chosen friend?" Lindo shook his head as he said from behind: "She doesn''t know about Bizkier because of her situation in the barrier, but go with her anyway, maybe she has some new information to tell you." Manitola was embarrassed as she coughed to clear away her embarrassment then said: "Yeah just like Lindo said, why don''t we go a little bit further into the forest so we can talk in private?" Felix didn''t find any problem with that as he took the lead walking towards the forest that was only a little bit away from the city walls. Chapter 102: More knowledge about the Gods It took them two minutes to get out of earshot so they could talk privately, Manitola looked around to make sure no one was around before she threw out a barrier created by her charm field, anyone who tried to pry on their conversation would only be able to hear static noises. While she wasn''t very great at battle her utility hex techniques were quite plenty, her charm field was just the conglomeration of all of her hex techniques into one combat-oriented technique. Felix looked at the transparent barrier and then at Manitola as he asked: "So what do you want to tell me?" Manitola hummed as she said: "There are quite a lot of things but first let''s start with the basics." "How much do you know about the Gods?" Felix mimicked her humming as he said after a short while of thinking: "Well, I know that my God is considered one of the weaker ones... and well not much besides that, my God didn''t tell me much about himself nor did Bizkier tell me anything about Gods in general." "Oh, so you are practically clueless, well it''s easier that way since I can explain from the start." Manitola took out something from her special bag as she threw it into the air, it was glittering a deep blue color and it looked just like starlight. "The gods are born from the stars and they fall to the planets they are assigned by the universe where they are locked there." The starlight morphed into little stars then into humanoid forms before they slowly started to fall towards the ground where they were seen to be chained into it. "Gods are meant to be the guardians of the planets but they aren''t allowed to interfere in the battles of mortals." The starlight morphed into a bunch of different tribes attacking each other while the gods were just looking on, still chained and unable to do anything. However, the images started to change as a tribesman who was fighting fiercely on the battlefield started to glow, the same thing happened with one chained god as the chains broke and he started to levitate, however when he tried to move away from his spot he realized that he could only move around his compatriots and he couldn''t interact with the people that he saw fighting. He wanted to help the person that glowed, he realized that only because of that person he was able to move so he created a connection with him. "Even though Gods cannot interfere, they can select champions on the planet which they can give multiple lives and special abilities." As time passed more Gods were unshackled as people who were compatible with them appeared and they made them their champions. In the end, the Gods who got more champions would be stronger than those who had fewer champions. The starlight morphed into the form of the humanoids as they started to argue and even fight, but that''s when something interesting happened, the moment the stronger gods tried to kill the weaker gods, providence came from the heavens and struck the stronger gods until the starlight turned black. A heavenly voice was heard saying: "There shall be no conflict between the Gods! Only mortals are allowed to conflict!" The moment the voice appeared the strength of the stronger gods who tried to kill the weaker was sapped away being absorbed by a ray of light. "So the gods fought against each other and the transgressors who began everything were punished..." The humanoids writhed on the ground as they clutched their heads and shouted soundless wails. "The power of the gods was taken away as they abused it, however, they would be able to recollect it in the future as long as they didn''t do the same thing again." Gods were beings that were pure in one way, they were either pure good, bad or neutral. They all respected some type of laws that were imposed on their psyche. "Felix, did you understand everything up till now?" Felix nodded and asked: "So every planet has its own bunch of gods?" "Indeed from what the Goddes that I serve told me there are countless other planets out there with intelligent life forms on them, but she said she didn''t know anything besides that as there are no information channels for the Gods to have besides the ones that the mortals know, so in other words what the mortals of the planet know, the Gods know as well, they aren''t omnipotent nor omnipresent." Felix nodded but then he asked: "What does this information help me with anyways?" Manitola shrugged as she said: "Who knows maybe in the future you will have to talk with your god again, maybe you can blackmail him for something with this information?" It was most unlikely but Manitola still had to teach Felix about the Gods, not because she wanted to but because the Goddes she served instructed her to for reasons unknown to her. Even the starlight she was using was given to her by the Goddess. The starlight started to morph as the humanoid people started to put themselves in order: "A ranking for the Gods had been created, the more champions the higher the strength of the God and the higher his ranking, even though the Gods didn''t attack physically again they still wanted to feel superior against the Gods with fewer champions so they created this ranking system." The voice agreed on the ranking system as it didn''t appear like before. Felix looked at everything that was happening as the starlight morphed accordingly to Manitola''s words: "After that, the gods started to recruit champions en masse only to realize that not every champion was good for them, they needed to become more selective regardless if they were compatible or not." "Thus afterward connections to the Gods were severed from multiple champions without any communication beforehand..." "This bit of history isn''t that important for us so I will skip it." "Anyways in the end the Gods had finally realized that one God''s chosen for each God was the best situation and as long as the champions got stronger the Gods would get stronger as well." "Here''s where we come in." "God''s don''t usually have much to do in their plane so they enjoy looking at mortals, since they can''t fight they want us to fight for them so they can be entertained." "They use their champions as their eyes, my Goddess has seen your abilities and she told me that I should teach you more about the Gods." Suddenly Felix felt lightheaded as his eyes started to slowly close, his eyelids felt heavy as he fell to the ground in front of Manitola and Manitola sighed: "It seems this conversation has alerted Felix''s god, I wonder what does he want to talk with him?" When Felix woke up in his mindscape he looked around only for a booming voice to appear in his ears: "Don''t listen to that woman''s stories anymore Felix!" "Hmm? Why Aaltarox?" "Because I talked with her Goddess... she wants you!" "What?" "Oh I forgot how simple you are, she wants you to be her champion!" "But Manitola just said that Gods shouldn''t have more than one champion." "Yeah, she was going to discard Manitola before she finished the contract with you." "That''s not very nice." "You know what else is not very nice? You being stolen from me!" "It''s been such a long time since I finally found a worthy champion and she wants to take you away from me? I''m going to fight it out with her!" "Isn''t that disallowed?" "No, only killing is disallowed but fighting is allowed." "Anyway don''t tell that girl what happened and if you hear the voice of a woman in your head please don''t respond to her ok? The abilities she will give you won''t be as great as the nine lives that I can provide you with, just look at Manitola!" Manitola was indeed not really strong but she still got 4 lives and some illusionary ability that she hadn''t got to use yet, it was a part of her charm field but those with a strong enough soul wouldn''t be affected. Felix was ejected from his mental space as he woke up in front of Manitola who was ready to continue the lesson only for Felix to shake his head and said: "I think this is enough, how much time has passed?" "Well around 1 hour but I don''t think they need our help with the interrogation." "It''s ok let''s go back, there is no reason to continue this." "If you say so..." Manitola and Felix started to slowly make their way out of the forest as they saw the walls of the village again, as they got to the back of the village they saw how Landers was cleaning a knife with blood marks on it, he gave both of them a smile as he said: "Enjoyed your learning session?" Felix nodded as he responded: "Yeah, I learned a lot of new things, what happened to the mole people?" Felix looked at the steel net and he could only see blood in there, there were no mole-people. Landers shook his head as he said: "They were rather obstinate so I had to take out the hard measures on them, they spilled out what they knew but it seemed the traitor''s identity is anonymous, quite annoying." Manitola left Felix to talk with Landers about the traitor''s possible identity while she went back to Lindo who was looking at the empty steel net where the mole-people previously were. It seemed the hard measures that Landers had taken on the mole-people had affected Lindo somewhat. Chapter 103: Arriving reinforcements? Lindo looked terrified as he kept looking at the empty steel net and Manitola had to shake him out of it. "What happened Lindo?" "I don''t think you want to know." Lindo had witnessed a part of Landers that he had never seen before, he became especially scary the moment one of the moles farted in his face just like they did to him. "It''s ok, we are comrades and friends, you shouldn''t be scared of Landers." "Don''t you think I know that? I''m just a little bit shocked..." "Come on it shouldn''t have been that bad right?" "You don''t even know the smallest thing about it as you haven''t been here to witness what I have... just take a look at the normal troops." Manitola looked around but found out there were no normal troops around, she looked at Lindo and shook her head saying that she didn''t understand. "They couldn''t stomach seeing what was happening in the first 10 minutes then they left, the poisonous substance had already dissipated and the fox tribesmen had been taken back into the village." As she looked around she realized that there was no one here anymore besides Landers, it seemed he waited for them but she knew that they didn''t leave for more than 20-30 minutes. He worked really fast! Felix walked forward after talking with Landers, it seemed their reinforcements were on the way with another captain and even a general! Landers saw that they were outnumbered and considering they were ready to cut off the alliance with the Haron and Balton continents they needed some type of insurance. 100,000 troops of recruits weren''t the insurance they needed though, what they had right now wasn''t enough to continue the expedition into the continent. It wasn''t even enough to defend the current territory they captured, the deviousness of the inhabitants of the Sparron continent was quite high and Landers needed some experienced people to help him, Felix wasn''t enough, no matter how talented and strong he was, he was still just one person. "So when are the reinforcements supposed to arrive?" "Very soon, be patient, after they come we will continue our expedition, as for the other parts you should already know about them." Felix was rather itchy wanting to continue the fights, after hearing the stories about the gods he felt fired up a little. It wasn''t that he wanted to reach height as tall as the gods but he felt that the surrounding world was wider than before. Felix was a person that enjoyed himself as long as he found something to be fun, he didn''t really care much about other things besides the people that were close to him. So now that he found battles to enjoying he wanted to continue them until he got bored. Felix walked alongside Landers as they entered back into the village leaving Manitola and Lindo alone. Manitola looked around for a few seconds before she got closer to Lindo and said: "You know... I have been contacted by my tribe." Lindo''s eyes widened as he asked: "So you are the traitor?" Lindo felt pained as he said those words while he looked down, his fists were clenched as he was ready to strike her down on the spot! Manitola quickly shook her head as she tried to diffuse the situation: "No, no, even though they wanted me to rat you out and give information I didn''t, but they are concerned about me and they want me to go back..." "And you want to go back?" Lindo''s voice trembled as he said that, he knew that the only reason she was telling him this was because they had made some strong ties together while Felix was away. Manitola hesitated for a few seconds before she hugged Lindo and told him: "I truly do want to go back, I''m sorry, my true family is there and I need to be with them... I''m so sorry." Lindo''s eyes teared up as he reciprocated the hug, however, his hug was forceful, unlike hers which was genuine his hug was so strong that some of Manitola''s bones started to crack. Lindo continued to cry as his tears started to wet Manitola''s dress. "Hey, Lindo.. ugh you are hugging me too hard." "I know..." "Lindo please let me go!" Manitola started to struggle out of Lindo''s hug but Lindo was physically stronger than her, the race difference combined with the gender difference made it impossible for Manitola to get out of Lindo''s strong grasp. "You are hurting me, Lindo, what are you doing?" "I''m sorry Manitola but before my personal life comes the army''s orders... I cannot let you." "I''m first a soldier of the army and second a person of the Lion tribe and letting you go would be bad for both institutions." "But Lindo I thought we..." "Yes we, but before we it comes to the institution''s wellbeing." "I trust you very much." "Then why can''t you let me go?" Lindo shook his head as he said while continuing to tighten his grip on her: "While I trust you how can I trust your people? Even if you don''t want to tell them what they want to know we are in a state of war and I''m sure they would take the peace of the continent over you, regardless of what your relatives will say." "But I..." Manitola shook her head, she didn''t think about this, she couldn''t actually believe something like this, the people who took care of her since she was a baby would go against her and even torture her for information? "Do you know why I was so shocked looking at what Landers had done to those mole people?" "You... you have imagined that I was the one that Landers was torturing?" "I couldn''t help but do it Manitola, we know about your status in the army currently, they all think you are a traitor and... I don''t want that to be the truth." "Promise me you won''t leave... promise or else I don''t know what I will do!" Manitola eyes widened as Lindo''s eyes bored directly into hers, tears were still pouring down from his eyes as he said: "Don''t leave... I don''t want anything bad to happen to you... it would hurt even harder if it was done knowing that I could stop it from happening... please don''t go." Manitola was speechless, it seemed Lindo really got attached to her to a very high degree, she liked him as well but Lindo''s degree of attachment was more extreme than hers. She still tried to struggle out of his embrace but she realized it was pointless... she just couldn''t do it so she accepted her fate. She shook her head as she said: "I won''t go ok? I won''t go so let me go." "How would I know that you won''t leave after I let you go? Your agility is impressive and if you want to run away you would be able to easily considering you are faster than me when it comes to escaping." Manitola sighed, she wanted to escape that way but it was really impossible. "Don''t be scared Manitola, I promise I won''t tell Landers and the others that you tried to escape, even though I''m a soldier of the army I can keep things between us as long as you don''t do the things that you aren''t supposed to." Manitola still didn''t believe that her family and friends would torture her for information but considering her current situation she could only stay with Lindo. "I want you to swear an oath using your Goddess''s name." Manitola swore under her breath as she looked at Lindo''s face, how did he know about the God oath? "Don''t look at me like that Manitola, my grandfather is the shaman of the tribe, of course, I would know some things about God''s chosen." Manitola sighed as Lindo let her move her left hand which she put over her heart and started chanting: "I Manitola of the central Fox tribe hereby swear on the Goddess''s of love and charm name that I will not leave Lindo without his permission." Lindo nodded as he felt the surrounding Hex energy entering Manitola''s body as if it was rope tying something. Then he let her go. Manitola gasped for breath as she realigned her bones making popping sounds all over her body, Lindo''s grip was really strong and her body was weak, if he hadn''t controlled his grip he could have crushed her death if he wanted to. "Let''s go back to the village." Manitola trudged back with Lindo but she didn''t feel well at all, swearing upon one''s god was a rather restrictive thing that hurt her a bit, until she would get back to normal it would take some time and after that, she still had to follow Lindo around due to the oath. Lindo stopped her before they entered the village as he looked into her eyes again and this time gave her a genuine hug, his whole body shaking as he said: "I''m sorry... I''m sorry but I''m doing it for your good." Then his shaking stopped as a sunny smile appeared on his face and entered the village through the gates, he didn''t need to worry the others with his looks, nor did he want the smarter ones to become suspicious so he acted just like he did most of the time. Chapter 104: Going forth to capture a traitor The moment Lindo and Manitola entered the village they met up with Landers and Felix who were still chatting, Felix found out that communicating with someone with a better grasp of the breathing training technique would give some insights that speed up his absorption of the surrounding hex energy but not by much. It wasn''t even 10% compared to the pearl that he had as a necklace but it was still an improvement so he was rather happy about that, it could be seen from the way he was bouncing up and down. "Haha I understand you are excited by learning a few tricks about the breathing technique but the reinforcements are almost here so we will have to go soon." Felix nodded and said: "Then I''m going to practice for a while, call me when we are ready to go." Landers smiled and shook his head as he watched him go to train, for a cold-blooded killer he acted really child-like. Landers''s attention was taken by Lindo and Manitola who walked into the village, Lindo looked a little bit more upbeat than usual so Landers understood what happened as he came towards them. He elbowed him in the shoulder as he looked at Manitola and Lindo: "So you two umh.. came back a little bit later compared to the others." Lindo nodded and said with a smile on his face: "Yeah, we are even closer right now." Lindo then put his hand over Manitola''s shoulder and took her closer to him. "I understand you are young and have a lot of pent-up energy but we are in a war situation so I want you two to control yourselves ok?" Manitola turned red while Lindo coughed a little bit as he said: "We will make sure to control ourselves." Landers smiled as he ruffled Lindo''s hair and told him he could go. Lindo and Manitola started to walk away trying to find a concealed place where they could rest before they would leave. Felix was at the top of a house as he breathed in and out the hex energy in the air going directly into his body. He looked down as he saw Manitola and Lindo rushing somewhere. Felix wasn''t sure what they were rushing about for, was there another enemy attack and they identified it before everyone else? He got down from the top of the house and followed them slowly while in stealth, he wanted to take the attackers by surprise! Felix followed them until they stopped around the southern part of the walls and they sat down under the shade of the walls talking to each other: "You are lucky that my acting skills are so good, sigh I''m sorry that I have made you go through that." Manitola shook her head as she sulked near him, she didn''t like what he did to her but what else could she do besides accept it? It was for her own good anyway. If he knew about a better solution he wouldn''t have been so extreme but how could he placate both sides? Manitola wanted to leave but if she left she would surely leak information that would be extremely detrimental to the army, even if she wanted to or not. Lindo sighed as he started to meditate to calm his nerves, he had taken this hobby after seeing Felix doing it so many times. Felix appeared at the top of another house as he looked at them, they were just relaxing but his sharp hearing had captured some of the conversation. "Acting skill? Why would Lindo need to act?" Felix thought for a short while before he dropped down from the house silently and approached them. Manitola shook Lindo seeing that Felix was approaching. Lindo woke up and smiled at Felix as he waved at him and asked: "Yo, why are you looking for us? Are we ready to leave?" Felix shook his head as he asked: "I''m just curious about something... why did you have to act earlier?" Lindo started to sweat as he laughed and said: "Me acting? I''m just doing what I usually do, you must have misunderstood." Felix shook his head as he said: "I heard you with my own ears when you said that you were acting... now tell me what''s this all about." Lindo cursed under his breath, while he had his guard up to see if anyone was following them Felix''s stealth was still too advanced for him to do anything about it, and considering Felix wasn''t attacking him he couldn''t use his killing intent detection to sense him, while his newly improved killing intent detection was better than before it still only worked on things that are meant to injure him. "I can explain Felix... I..." Lindo was under much pressure so he couldn''t really make up his mind on what to say, what can he say to Felix to make him leave them alone? He didn''t have enough time for this... Felix found Lindo''s behavior rather strange as he took a few steps forward which made him almost jump. He looked towards Manitola as he asked her: "What''s wrong with him?" Manitola fidgeted under Felix''s gaze then decided to say the truth: "I... I tried to leave to my family and Lindo stopped me." Felix cocked his head to the side and asked: "So what''s wrong with that?" "I uh..." Lindo came forward and explained for Felix: "While it wouldn''t be a bad thing normally, you have to consider our current situation first, her family might be made from civilians but what about the elders of her tribe who are in the military force? The moment she arrives she would surely be made to spill all of our information and secrets thus making things harder for us from now on. We cannot let her go." Now that things were explained properly Felix nodded, he understood the problem at its root so he said: "Well I guess it can''t be helped and if Landers heard about it you would be in trouble." Lindo nodded, it seemed that Felix understood, while he was rather smart when it came to fighting, his social IQ was rather low and he took some things literally. "Ok since you know what happened you can go back now, we don''t need you to attract more attention to us." Felix nodded, he didn''t have bad blood with Manitola so there was no reason to tattle on her and Lindo was his friend so helping him was normal under these circumstances. Felix decided to go back to training his breathing techniques leaving the duo alone. As Felix went back he thought a bit about what happened, Manitola wanted to go back? Was she really the traitor? It couldn''t be, she was the easiest to frame and considering how loyal Lindo was to the army he wouldn''t have protected her if she was the traitor, after all, they were together almost 95% of the time so there was no chance for her to send out a message without Lindo seeing it. While on the surface everything was looking okay, both Landers and Felix had already talked about the concern of the traitor, both of them were brainstorming a way to make him reveal himself and then capture him before he could send any more messages. But it was easier said than done, there were 100,000 troops and the moment the reinforcements came which totalled around 300,000 more troops it would be even harder to catch the culprit. Felix frowned as he jumped from house to house until he reached a place with good enough Sun and sat down to concentrate on his breathing exercises. But it didn''t take much time before Landers came to find him and said: "Felix I think I have a lead on the traitor, it''s rather crazy but after some investigation, I realized that the traitor is in the logistics team!" Felix moved his head to the side and put on a confused expression on his face, no traitor? Then how did the mole people know about the capture of this village? Landers took a communication stone out of his special bag as he cracked it with his fist, inside there was nothing as Hex energy left the stone, the engravings used for the communication stone to work were outside, why did Landers waste the communication stone? "Seeing that you are confused I shall explain to you." "The hex energy that left the communication stone isn''t from its original creator which meant that the stone was tampered with." "The communication stones are given by the logistics team who are creating them using their own hex energy as a key between, so the person who created this stone is the culprit!" Felix nodded and asked: "So who is it?" Landers scratched his mane as he whispered: "There are around 1,000 people in the logistics team that were sent with us but I know all of them by name so we can interrogate all of them and find out who was the one that betrayed us." "I already invited all of the logistics team in the house of the mayor and I need your help, you need to enforce what I have done on the mole people on the most suspect people, and you can''t refuse, there are too many people and I can''t do it all by myself, the mole people were rather small so it was easier to torture all of them at the same time." Felix frowned, mental torture was different from physical torture but considering it was a direct order from Landers... he decided to abide by it, maybe he could get over his trauma and get stronger this way too! Chapter 105: Whos meddling with the Lion tribes affairs? Felix followed Landers towards the mayor''s house... actually it was his house and this was the first time he would see it from the inside as he didn''t really have the time nor did he want to go inside after he got the news, he wasn''t really that interested in it. But now that he saw it, it looked to be rather cozy, after he entered it with Landers he realized that it was rather spacious as it could hold the 1,000 people from the logistics team and still have enough space for another batch of the same number. Landers appeared with Felix in tow as he took a look over all of the 1,000 people. He scanned their expressions to see if any of them was antsy or distracted by something. If they were true blue-blooded patriots they would act strangely after they had betrayed their tribe, he knew most of these people since they were cubs but he would have never thought that one of them would betray the tribe. Felix sat in the shadows, he didn''t need to do anything yet as there were no reactions yet but the moment someone acted strangely he would work in tandem with Landers to catch him! Landers stopped looking around as he went to the subject: "I''m sad to say this but there is a traitor among us!" This shocked all of the 1,000 people and some of them even started to act up. It was normal considering there was a traitor that could act up in this situation. Who knew if he was going to suddenly attack one of the people around him when he was caught just to take some people down with him? They all wanted to distance themselves from each other but Landers amplified his aura as he projected it on them making them unable to move at all. "Now Felix come!" Felix jumped out of the shadows as he dragged out the few people who freaked out the worst. They were all recruits so even though a normal spy would have been able to control his emotions these people were easy to read. Felix dragged along 20 people who were the most suspicious as Landers went to work on them directly in the face of the other 980 people, if the spy could control himself so well that he wasn''t one of those 20 people Landers''s torture would put pressure on him, it wasn''t an outsider that was the spy so there was a very high chance he would capitulate if he saw what would happen to him. Landers''s work was quite fast and efficient, he first started with the normal psychological torture, and all 10 of the people that were under him started to talk as if they were canaries, it was obvious that none of them was the spy as Landers could easily see if they lied or not. If they lied that meant they had something to hide and normally that wouldn''t happen in front of a superior like Landers. In the army, you couldn''t say yes or no, only yes! If your superior commander told you to eat dirt you would eat dirt! In this situation, these innocent people were under mental pressure from Landers, all they could say was the truth. It seemed that while they didn''t know anything about the traitor they did have some inside information from the logistics team which pointed to one person acting suspiciously these days! This person wasn''t from the 20 that were captured but he was in the crowd slowly making his way outside the house only for Felix to appear near him and kick him in the stomach with his hind legs. He didn''t go directly to torture the people Landers assigned to him, even though he wanted to get over his trauma it was easier said than done. However, he kept his eyes peeled to any person in the crowd who tried to escape. The moment he saw one person trying to move away from the frozen crowd he knew that he was guilty of something. His hind leg attack pushed him through the crowd until he was in front of Landers. "Hmm?" Landers grabbed him by the wrist as he pulled him up as if he was a child that did something wrong. The person was rather short for a Lion standing only around 1,65 meters, he had a freckled face and brown eyes with a small mane of blonde hair. He wore the logistics uniform which consisted of the normally issued armor of the army with a symbol of the logistics department which was two crossed lines one horizontally and one vertically. He had a regular face that was easy to forget so even Landers forgot his name but he thought for a few seconds before he said: "Wait for a little, I remember you, you are Madgar''s son, Peripo!" At the mention of his father, Peripo glared at Landers and said: "You shouldn''t have the gall to call my father''s name after what you have done to him, how well he took care of you and you... you!" Landers cocked his head to the side and said: "Your father was discharged from the army and thrown out of the tribe after he grew too old, it''s standard procedure for all male lions." Peripo gritted his teeth as he looked directly into Landers''s eyes and said: "For such a veteran decorated with so many awards couldn''t there an exception be made? You all threw him aside the moment he wasn''t useful anymore like he was a weapon, he was a person just like you and me, how could the tribe throw him away when he was supposed to be treated like a hero?" Landers sighed as he realized that they had found their traitor. There was a chance he didn''t even get any contact with the enemies and he did everything just as revenge for his father but Landers still decided to interrogate him. Felix watched while keeping his gaze steady and not losing his composure, he was trying to build up his resistance to this type of stuff. And after finishing the interrogation it was just like as Landers thought, there wasn''t actually any connection between Peripo and the mole tribe, their connection was intercepted by the mole tribe only because the communication stone he was using was tampered with and it leaked the communication logs. No matter, it was good that it wasn''t a stronger traitor or traitor that could actually do something besides leaking some communication logs but what Peripo said made Landers a little bit thoughtful. It was an ancient law that the males would be cast out of the tribe once they became too old and left to fend for themselves regardless of what they did. This had happened since before they gained intelligence and it remained in their blood. However Landers did know this was a rather barbaric practice, they weren''t that backward savage anymore. He took a look at Peripo''s mangled body, because of his doing he had got capital punishment and was killed after the torture, the other people who were captured and tortured would be compensated and discharged from the army to live a good life back at the tribe, this was a mistake on Landers''s part and he would pay for it. However, the ones that were under Felix didn''t want to take the compensation nor discharge, of course, the ones that got tortured wanted something but naturally, tigers didn''t like to dilly dally and they joined the army for a reason. Since they didn''t want the compensation Landers didn''t insist and told them they could go back to their posts. Landers looked at Felix and gave him a thumbs-up as he said: "You have done another great job, I saw that you still couldn''t bear to torture those that went under you but because of that you had been able to catch Peripo, I guess that sometimes you need to think differently." Felix shook his head as he said: "No I''m actually quite disappointed with myself but I can only aim to improve from here, I could have caught him even if I was torturing them but anyways I think we are done here right?" Landers nodded: "You can go do whatever you want." Suddenly a trumpet was heard outside with the hearty voice of general Diorno that Felix could recognize anywhere: "Reinforcements have arrived!" It seemed the reinforcements had finally arrived as Landers and Felix left the mayor''s house to look outside. 400,000 troops were lined outside the walls of the village in the head standing Diorno and near him Catro! Diorno laughed as the gates opened and invited him along with the army inside the village. Suddenly his eyes narrowed as he looked at Lindo and Manitola who were slowly approaching the gates from afar, it seemed that Diorno wasn''t really happy to see his son with that woman. Chapter 106: Familial troubles Lindo was both happy and flustered as he saw his father entering through the gates. Happy because he didn''t get to see his dad very often due to his job, and flustered because his dad disapproved of his relationship with Manitola. It was mostly because his father wanted him to marry a female lion instead of someone from a different tribe. It wasn''t that he was against such type of practices but he wanted healthy descendants, he wanted to be a grandfather and it was unknown if the hybrid between a fox and a lion could even survive. Of course, as the people on the continents evolved and gained a human form interbreeding was possible but mostly besides tribes that were similar between them as the dog and wolf tribes. Some of the cat-like tribes could also interbreed but hybrids were mostly weaker than pure-blooded beings, it was because the DNA chains of the tribes have evolved into unique patterns, in this situation every person living on this planet was unique in its own way, because of this uniqueness it was harder for different DNA chains to fuse creating a new life. Diorno took a few steps forward and looked at Lindo: "Son... and you." He glanced at Manitola but didn''t say anything to her as his gaze made her take a few steps backward, but Lindo stepped in front of her and shielded her with his back. Manitola felt a little bit better as she grasped Lindo''s hand while he confronted his father: "Father I don''t think this is the time for us to talk... our current circumstances aren''t the greatest." Diorno looked at Lindo and said: "No, actually this is the best time, there is still a bit of time left before the first batch of troops will leave so we have enough time to talk!" Lindo really didn''t want to have that talk with his father, he liked Manitola and he didn''t want to see anyone else. Seeing how defiantly Lindo looked at him made Diorno sigh, he couldn''t really force his son to do anything in this situation, but he still wanted to talk with him. Felix and Landers looked from the side while the troops had already scattered through the village. Now they were only awaiting the orders of Siracha. Catro had already distanced himself from the drama as he had better things to do as the main logistics person, all the main calculations would end up being done by him. Diorno and Lindo were in confrontation as Manitola twiddled her thumbs behind Lindo, she wanted to say something as well, and seemingly as if he felt that she wanted to talk Lindo gave her a reassuring smile as he dragged her forward letting her stay shoulder to shoulder with him as he hugged her with one arm. Lindo''s actions made Diorno shake his head as he said: "Son have you ever thought about leaving descendants behind?" This question stumped Lindo... of course, he wanted to have a few children of his one day and as he looked at Manitola lovingly he wanted her to be the mother but Diorno''s words hit him in the chest like a sledgehammer: "Don''t get me wrong, I see that you like this fox woman really much but she won''t be able to bear your children." Lindo shook his head as he asked: "How would you even know that?" "Oh, you thought that I was said she was infertile?" "No no, you got me wrong again, a Fox and Lion can''t mate because of the racial differences Lindo, if you want to stay with her you will lead a childless life." Children were very important in the current society, they were the future of the tribes and they were greatly taken care of, especially the ones that show potential. In Lindo''s situation, his children would surely be rather talented regardless of who the mother was, even though his full potential hadn''t been unlocked yet his pedigree didn''t lie. It was a father''s pride to see his son/daughter become someone great and Diorno wanted his son to turn out great, having his own talented children could be called an achievement already and he also wanted to hold his grandson/granddaughter in his hands atleast once in this lifetime. Lindo thought for a short while before he said: "Is there no way?" Diorno shook his head as he said: "I would have supported you unconditionally no matter how weak or untalented your wife would have been as long as it was one from our tribe, I cannot give you any advice regarding interspecies breeding." Lindo scratched his head but then said: "It''s ok I will figure it all on my own." He gave Manitola a love-filled look before bowing to his father and saying: "I''m sorry father but I cannot leave Manitola nor can I love anyone else, I hope you understand." Diorno sighed before he took out a flask of alcohol from inside his armor and took a big swig. "Go, get out of my face." Lindo sighed as he left Diorno who was making his way towards Landers. "I heard something about a traitor?" Diorno took another swig from his flask while Landers said: "Yeah old man''s Madgar son, it seems he didn''t like how his father had been treated after his discharge so that was his way of getting back at us..." Diorno frowned but didn''t say anything, he knew that the way they treated the old male folk wasn''t good at all compared to the other tribes but this wasn''t one of the main problems of the tribe, however, he decided to talk with his father about this later as there were chances that what happened today could happen some other day as well but on a larger scale. Diorno nodded towards Felix who was just observing him before deciding to take a rest, he was the base''s first defender and he would only leave it as a reinforcement only in cases where his heavy-hands were needed. "I''ll see you later Landers, Felix." Landers looked at him leave before sighing as a new communication stone started to vibrate inside his armor''s chest pocket. He took it out before sending out a transmission using his voice enhanced by hex energy: "150,000 troop members are required to come to the entrance of the village, it''s time for another expedition!" Now that the reinforcements had arrived they could split up and continue their conquering attempts without worrying about any future invasions as their stronghold was protected by a general level expert. Landers waved his hand at Felix indicating that he was supposed to come with them and also Manitola and Lindo, they were all experienced people that were superior to average lieutenants even inching towards captains in power level, they were powerful people that the army couldn''t do without in their conquest expedition. After all of the troops were arranged at the entrance they started to march outside the village with Landers at the head, Lindo, Manitola, and Felix just a little behind him. Fortunately, they had an expert with them that could lead them to the villages around the continent, Landers looked at Manitola and waited, his expression told her everything she needed to know. She broke a branch from a nearby tree and used it to draw a map on the ground in front of them: "We are here." She pointed to the forested area that she drew along with a small village that she pointed at: "This is our village." Then she pointed towards another forested area: "There is a bunch of scattered villages in that forest but we will need to cross a few ravines and bridges to get there and our number of people is quite high so it will take some time, there is also a high chance we will meet the people from the Haron and Balton alliance and they must have realized by now that we have broken contact with them." Landers nodded: "What tribes are inhabiting those villages?" "Well, there is the snail tribe and the woodpecker tribe, that''s mostly their territory." "I see..." Landers did some hand signals indicating for the troops to follow him just as before. They started traveling in a pack as they left the forested area only to find a gigantic ravine stretching in front of them for 20 meters. There was a bridge linking the two forest areas but it was rather narrow and only 2 people could walk on it at a time and considering they had 150,000 people it would take a lot of time to cross it. Landers frowned, they did have the time but he didn''t want to wait for it! While they crossed this bridge the alliance of the Haron and Balton continents would be able to capture villages and resources! The stationed troops back at the village were already cutting down trees and harvesting herbs. They couldn''t wait for such a long time, Landers couldn''t even calculate how many hours it would take for the whole 150,000 troops to cross the 20 meters long bridge. He looked towards Manitola. Manitola sighed as she brainstormed a way to move all of the troops from one area to the other without using the bridge, having to use her knowledge about her surroundings and the continent as a whole. Chapter 107: Going one step at a time It took Manitola around 5 minutes of brainstorming to say: "I''m not sure how we will be able to move the troops if you don''t want to use the bridge." "Below the ravine, there is a long winding river and if anyone will fall in it they would surely die, the walls of the ravine are very smooth so we can''t scale them." "The quicker route towards our destination is also available after we cross the bridge..." Landers felt a rather sour taste in his mouth as he listened to Manitola, he didn''t want his former alliance buddies to capture any of the cities or villages on the other part of the forest, considering they were just at the entrance of the continent which was kind of unpopulated because this wasn''t the most resources rich area. The capture of the first stronghold meant that they had the advantage but if they let the others capture strongholds in more resource-rich areas all of their work would be for naught! "Ok then, you are the expert on the Sparron continent, do you have any ideas on how we would be able to move such a huge amount of troops?" "Hmm, well I can''t say I know how, if we talk normally it''s impossible besides the slow way." Landers frowned as he asked again: "Is there really no way?" Manitola shook her head indicating that there was really no way. Landers felt quite angry but he shook his head to clear his mind, there was no reason to be angry, in this situation it would be more likely for him to get extremely annoyed. He wasn''t sure why he got angry. Landers sighed before doing some more hand signals indicating for the troops to move onto the bridge and walk. The troops didn''t say anything as it was an order and they slowly made their way to the bridge in groups of two, while the bridge was wide enough only for 2 people, it was a rather long bridge and it could support a few more people, however, Landers didn''t exaggerate as it was unknown how much weight the bridge could bear. They had to take things slow, step by step which annoyed Landers and bored Felix. Felix shook his head as he looked at all of the aligned troops, the more he watched them go the more bored he became, they were so many and they were going rather slow to not move the bridge. He looked at Landers and got an idea as he said: "Hey Landers, what do you think If I go ahead and scout the areas ahead to make sure the intelligence is correct?" Landers looked at Felix and realized he only wanted to do that because he didn''t want to stay still and wait here but having a scout in this situation was a good idea, while Manitola''s information was genuine how would she know if anything changed while she was away? Now they needed to make sure if the information was also up to date! Landers nodded and told him: "Ok then, go ahead to verify the information but make sure you are careful, who knows what type of traps would be ahead?" Felix nodded telling him that he understood then jumped atop of the troop''s heads using them as springboards to travel the bridge. The soldiers were indignant at first but when they saw who was doing it they kept mum and let him do as he pleased. Felix arrived at the other side of the bridge and saw the opening of another forest there, he entered slowly as he activated his stealth technique then looked around, he had memorized the map that Manitola had drawn so he knew where the villages were supposed to be situated. The forest was just like the other one, he felt being watched even though he was invisible which showed the trees weren''t actually looking at him through physical eyes but with some other senses. He felt rather strange as he walked through the forest by himself. He was really being looked at rather intensely compared to before, it was like millions of little eyes were targeting him insistently and he was naked in front of them. It wasn''t a nice feeling at all! Felix looked around the woods and then unleashed an attack on a nearby tree which he felt looked the most insistently at him. His claws went directly through the bark as if it was tofu then a cry could be heard coming from the tree. A small green wisp left the tree as it started to turn red while it circled Felix. "Huh?" Felix couldn''t understand a thing the wisp was currently shouting at him but he guessed it wasn''t anything nice. The little thing continued to circle him while spewing intelligible things until it calmed down and perched atop Felix''s head, the moment that happened Felix felt as if the eyes around him suddenly stopped peeping at him as they all disappeared in unison, Felix was still in stealth so he wondered how the little thing identified him. However the moment he thought about that the wisp disappeared as well! But he could still feel him on his head, he was rather light but he still had a rather strong presence. Suddenly he felt something wanting to connect with him, it came from his head! Felix decided to connect with the wisp considering he had made all of the other eyes disappear. A voice appeared in his head that said in a very high-pitch tone: "Don''t harm the trees, you big bully!" Felix knew it came from the green wisp as he responded: "I only did it because the observation was getting on my nerves..." The wisp understood it so he said: "That''s why I shielded you from the eyes of my brethren, but don''t take it wrong. We rarely see someone with so much natural power in them, we are just interested in you and maybe you would want to sign a contract with me?" Felix was puzzled, contract? What the hell was this little thing talking about? Also, Felix remembered that Landers said that the trees weren''t supposed to be sentient, wasn''t this wisp basically the soul of the tree? Seeing that Felix wasn''t talking made the-wisp start the conversation again: "You see the contract with us is beneficial for both parties, we..." The wisp started to explain the benefits of the contract while Felix just found everything that happened up till now to be rather strange. What natural energy? Why were these things attracted to him? He came at first thinking that he would be able to scout and not waste time waiting for the troops to cross the bridge but he came face to face with a strange tree wisp? He wasn''t sure what he was supposed to do in this situation, ditch the wisp and go back to scouting or talk with the wisp and make the contract? From what he could sense the thing wasn''t lying as its emotions could be seen from its color, Felix had already found a secluded place where he exited stealth and the green wisp was staying in front of him chattering intensely. His head almost hurt considering he was sending all of that information directly to his brain as he patted it and said: "Can you stop for a second so I can understand everything clearly." The wisp started to turn pink from embarrassment as it stopped and Felix questioned: "So this contract you spoke off... you get to become a flesh and blood person if we create it?" "Yes, Yes indeed! If I stay with you I would be able to leech from your natural energies and after a long time passed I would evolve into a real person!" "And I will get your abilities to absorb the surrounding natural energy and combine it with hex energy?" "Indeed, Indeed, and you will also be my master after the contract had taken effect, so you won''t have to worry that I will betray you after I become a real person!" "Hmmm..." It would be a lie to say if Felix wasn''t tempted, the ability to fuse natural energy with hex energy was something only natural-born shamans could use, the natural energy meant harnessing the elements of nature just like Siracha had his own lightning armor that improved his fighting prowess by a huge deal. This was another way for him to improve his fighting prowess and from what he understood from the incessant chattering of the little guy in front of him, the ability would become permanent, and his descendants would also carry it over. Felix had somehow found out the origins of the shamans without even trying, however, he wasn''t that interested in what he found as he asked the-wisp: "Are you the strongest of your kind?" The wisp also explained how the stronger the wisp the better the talent of natural energy and hex energy combination, there were a few talents that Felix was interested in and all of them were combat-related, the stronger the wisp the better the chance to get a combat-related ability. Felix waited patiently for the wisp to express itself, he had enough time considering there were still around 149,000 people that needed to cross the bridge. Chapter 108: Feeling the natural energies The wisp remained silent for a short while which puzzled Felix a bit, he was so chattering before but now that he asked him this question he became quiet? Was he one of the weaker wisps then? Then a burst of laughter appeared in Felix''s head as the wisp said: "Hahaha, of course, I''m the strongest! Why do you think all of the other wisps stopped looking at you when I perched on your head? They know better than messing with me!" Felix was rather unconvinced as he asked: "Then why have you paused for a while after my question?" "Eh... well I can''t lie to you, strength is a rather subjective matter for wisps, meaning that our strengths aren''t really calculated the same way you fleshly beings do, but you can believe me when I say that I''m the strongest amongst the wisps of this forest." "Of this forest? Then how would you compare yourself with the wisps of the other forests?" "Well, all I can say that we are mostly equal in power." "Well then what are we waiting for? Let''s sign that contract!" The wisp started to shake indicating that it wasn''t that easy as he said: "It will take some time and we need some items for the ceremony to be held first." "What type of items?" Felix asked while cocking his head to the side, maybe he had some of those items in his special bag. "Well for starters we need some strong medicinal item." "Why?" "Well you are full of natural energy but you can''t feel it at all, so the medicinal item is gonna help you to start feeling the natural energy, I need you to siphon the natural energy into me for the contract to be created, and in your current situation you don''t have a single way to charge that natural energy into me." "Does any kind of medicinal item work?" "Yes, it doesn''t matter as long as it''s strong enough as I will modify it using my body." Felix took out a few red pills from his special bag and showed them to the wisp as he asked: "Are these good enough?" The wisp approached the pills then let out some light shine from his body to the pills seemingly analyzing them. Then two the pills started to slowly float into the wisp disappearing only leaving behind three. "Two pills are enough for one contract, the second thing that we need and also the last would be an appropriate location where the natural energy is the most abundant to boost the chances of you getting a good natural energy manipulation ability." "And where is that location?" "Hmm... well it has been populated by one of the fleshly body tribes for a long time so I''m not sure if they would allow you to get there." "Which tribe is it?" "Mmm... they have long ears and furry whitetails, they are mostly grey and very rarely white, there are also some black ones and they usually jump quite well, I''m not sure how they are called though." Felix listened and realized that the wisp was describing a rabbit, he still remembered how he ate his first horned rabbit but he didn''t know that an actual rabbit tribe existed, weren''t rabbits such lowly beings that they haven''t evolved to the point of intelligence yet? But Felix also remembered finding some fish that he ate, however, the fishmen tribe also existed. It seemed there were a lot of tribes that he didn''t know about. But Felix knew that the rabbit tribe should be rather weak and it was also one of the tribes that were supposed to be nearby, but Manitola hadn''t mentioned anything about them. Felix looked at the wisp and asked: "Where exactly are they?" "They are below the ground!" Well, this made more sense. "Do you know any way to get to their tribe?" The wisp made a nodding motion as it said: "It''s very easy, we are currently below one of their cities all you have to do is dig down deep enough and you would fall where you are supposed to." "Ok then stay back!" Felix''s claws left his paws as he used them as shovels, dirt started to mount up around him as he dug it up quickly. A small hill was slowly being created near Felix as the wisp hovered near him and perched itself on his head again, he would be able to phase through the dirt if he wanted to but he wanted to be near Felix when he fell into the rabbits'' city. As he dug he started to go down and after he dug for a while he started to feel that there was nothing more to dig as he started to free fall. But at an opportune moment, the-wisp started to glow softly to slow down his descent to the underground. There he saw tall humans with rabbit features jumping around or walking slowly while munching on carrots. They all didn''t see Felix as they were either too preoccupied with their things so he had enough time to activate his stealth. Felix slowly floated down on a rooftop with the help of the wisp as he looked around. He looked around then sent a mental message to the wisp: "Are we in the right place?" The wisp sent a negative response: "We are closer to the most abundant natural energy place but we aren''t there yet, just follow my instructions." "Go down and hide amongst the crowd." Felix jumped down from the rooftop and blended in with the crowd as he easily made his way through the people without alerting anyone. "Now go to the left and exit the city." Felix left the crowd then exited the city just like the wisp told him and he found himself in a tunnel. The tunnel was long and narrow only good enough for the rabbits to use, however, Felix wasn''t that tall nor that wide if you excluded his a little bigger than average belly. The moment he jumped into the tunnel he realized that he could sense something but he wasn''t sure what it was, maybe it was those natural energies the wisp talked about? Felix started to walk faster through the tunnel as the wisp told him: "You are getting closer to the natural energies, just keep going like this until you reach an intersection then take the left." The wisp itself was concentrating as Felix could feel it through the mental connection between them so he decided to kick up the gear. He sped up as he exited the tunnel only to arrive at a gigantic altar that was rising from the underground, he felt very small looking at it as it was at least 50 meters tall and he could feel strangely connected with it. An excited high-pitched voice came in his mind: "This is the place, this is the place I have felt for such a long time, go inside!" Felix jumped down from the tunnel and the wisp used his floating ability again as Felix floated down until he reached the bottom of the altar. "Now use the stairs in front of you to reach the top of the altar to gather natural energy in your body." Felix did as he was told as the natural energy in the surroundings was attracted to him but he felt rather strange as it was a very familiar feeling, in the corner of his eye he saw the unmoving heads move again as one more popped up, he had lost 2 lives after Shima''s kidnapping and there was no opportunity to get them back but now they were coming back to him! However this was strange, he knew that his ability needed the souls of others to be recharged... did that mean that natural energy came from souls? Now it made sense why the wisps could sense he was full of natural energy, it was because his ability stored the souls of others to give him more lives! "Wait for a little... if so much soul power is converged on this altar..." The closer he got to the top of the altar the more he felt something wasn''t right as an iron smell hit him directly into the nose, it was the familiar scent of blood. He wasn''t a stranger to the smell and he knew something must have happened at the top before he arrived. He activated his stealth technique again as he slowly made his way up to the top of the altar where he found a pool. The pool was filled with blood and from the smells that he detected, some herbs? The pool wasn''t very wide but it was deep, Felix had already soaked a paw in and he couldn''t feel the bottom so he didn''t want to enter it. However, the Wisps words made him falter and almost fall in: "This is it, jump in with me and we will be able to create the perfect contract, let me just take out the medicine that you gave me so we can start!" It was obvious this pool was created with sacrifices of thousands if not tens of thousands of people and he was supposed to soak in it? He wasn''t sure if those people were innocent or not and while he didn''t care about his enemies he didn''t really like to hurt civilians unless they offended him, he had his own principles, but he was also very tempted to create the contract with the-wisp, the special ability that shamans had was very important to him as it would increase his battle power by quite a lot... Felix was in a dilemma. Chapter 109: Moral Dilemma versus promises of strength Felix''s moral dilemma stopped him from taking another step into the pool in front of him, the wisp was quite confused as he looked at Felix struggling to make a decision. Why wouldn''t he go in? The two medicinal pills that Felix gave him were already hovering above the wisp and it was ready to throw them into the pool to start the chain-reaction needed to create the contract between them. "Come on... actually, I forgot to ask your name, but come on just jump into the pool and we will be able to make the contract, you looked really happy about being able to sense and control natural energy, why would you hesitate now?" The wisp was trying to talk Felix into doing it as he wanted to become a fleshly being really badly, he wanted to experience things that he had never felt before and he could only observe those things from a distance. The wisp nudged Felix from behind as it said: "Come on go in, you won''t feel anything bad when the contract takes part, you just have to sign it." "I..." Felix decided to be truthful with the little bundle of energy: "I don''t know if I can do it." The wisp''s high-pitched voice sounded lost: "Why? There is no one around, I could have felt their life energy and warned you, come on I''m not trying to fool you here, you will truly get the ability as long as you make that contract with me!" The wisp was trying its best to convince him everything was genuine. However, Felix told him: "It''s not that I don''t believe you but... where has this blood come from?" "Hmm, so that''s what you fleshly beings call the physical part of natural energy? Blood?" "Well I could guess it came from the rabbit tribesmen who were sacrificed here, I could hear their shouts of pain with the help of the tree''s roots." Felix cringed a bit as he looked at the wisp and asked: "And you didn''t do anything to help them?" "Well, why should I? They were all weaklings not worth my contract, they had a low amount of natural energy in their body." Felix sighed and realized that something was wrong with him, why was he caring about people that he didn''t even know? Regardless if they were innocent or not, they were already dead, could the trauma that Shima had inflicted on him be deeper than he thought, besides the fact that he couldn''t torture other people? Maybe he triggered some type of empathy in him? Up till now, he had very few bouts of empathetic feelings and they were mostly quite weak due to his inhibited feelings but Shima''s actions made him think about others and put them through the same thing he went through thus realizing that they wouldn''t like it. He put himself in others'' shoes and vice versa and realized things a little better. But after he realized this thing he also felt that it was a mistake to kick away such a golden opportunity for the sake of some dead strangers. While he would empathize with them that didn''t mean that he liked it. He actually quite disliked the feeling especially since it was towards people he never even seen once in his life! He wanted to get rid of this hidden trauma as quickly as he could, however, he wasn''t really sure how but the first step was always getting stronger! He slowly started to dip into the blood pool as the wisp became happy while following him inside. He threw the two pills that hovered above him into the pool as it started to bubble, the blood heating up slowly but surely... Felix felt strange as the wisp deepened the connection between them while absorbing the surrounding blood into its gaseous form. He felt something fully connecting with his soul the more he stood in that blood... it was some information, the wisp was sending him information on how to control the natural energy, along with an explanation of what natural energy truly was. To put it bluntly, natural energy was the combination of body and mind combined with the surrounding hex energy the elements could be controlled based on the user''s bodily talent. Actually the stronger the wisp the better ability wasn''t the truth, even the wisp itself didn''t know about this but the only thing that mattered was the body of the user, Felix could understand it as he had a physical body and the wisp didn''t so he didn''t understand that part. But even though the stronger wisp the stronger the ability wasn''t entirely true there was something to it as it wasn''t entirely false either. He could feel his body quickly getting stronger under the connection between him and the wisp as he was filtering the blood and giving him 50% of the medicinal power that was useful to him while the other half went to the wisp. His body started to crack as his muscles slowly inflated then deflated like a balloon until they were of normal sizes, his height and weight were also slowly getting reduced before he was the size of an average dog but now he was slowly getting compressed back to his normal cat height. His immense weight was also slowly being reduced reaching normal levels for a human but still very heavy for a cat. However, even though these aspects of him were reduced he could feel his body bursting with strength! He tightened the pearl necklace around his smaller neck as the special bag on his back slowly adjusted itself as well. He closed his eyes as he felt the contract between him and the wisp appearing in his mind. After he read carefully through it he signed it with his soul binding them together, him as the master and the wisp as the friend/servant. The wisp sent out happy vibes from its soul as it quickened the absorption of the surrounding blood. Felix slowly felt his body reaching a plateau however he realized something as he started breathing in and out, this was the best situation to fully master the strength breathing technique! He had already mastered the stamina breathing technique improving his stamina by a whooping 1.30x in total, he still didn''t know how that was calculated but Catro sounded really sure when he explained it to him. The strength breathing technique required him to temper his whole body using the hex energy but he could substitute the hex energy to create the formation on his muscles using the blood! Normally his body couldn''t get strengthened anymore and the blood would be wasted on him but with the breathing strengthening technique he would be able to break through his bodily limits! He started to breathe according to the instructions in the strength breathing technique as the blood that was given to him by the wisp was being focused towards all of his body''s muscles, slowly but surely a white formation started to appear over them, the formation looked like spiked chains that surrounded his muscles. He could feel the stages of the white breathing technique being completed quickly as he ran through the 1st, 2nd,3rd.... until he reached the peak 9th stage, he was even ready to break into the green aura state! However he didn''t do it, he already completed the stamina breathing technique and now he was done with the strength breathing technique, he only had the soul, intelligence, and endurance left. He had already started on the intelligence one and he was at the first stage, however, the surroundings weren''t good for the training of this breathing technique. His notion of time was slowly cut off as he trained and unknowingly to him the others had already passed the bridge! **************** "This is strange, Felix hasn''t reported in a very long time and the connection to his communication stone had been cut..." Landers muttered to himself as he kept a hand under his chin and waited. "Felix isn''t a tardy person, did he get caught up in something? Could he have been found out?" It was a very low chance of it happening but Landers thought that Felix had been captured after he made a mistake, it couldn''t be helped, it took them around half a month to cross the bridge with the whole 150,000 troops and there hadn''t been even a word coming from Felix in all of this time! He sighed as he waited for a few more hours before shaking his head, he didn''t want to lower their morale so he didn''t tell the troops about what happened to Felix but he couldn''t fool Manitola and Lindo as they insisted on asking what happened: "Well it''s just my conjecture but I think he might have been captured while he tried to scout the villages we have targeted." "It''s impossible... the snail tribe is extremely slow, there was no chance he would have been caught by them and the woodpecker tribe while very territorial they aren''t very strong, even if they found Felix they would have just chased him away, but there are also chances new technological traps had been put up around their tribes..." Landers asked: "So it''s more likely that the woodpecker tribe caught him?" "Yeah, while the snail tribe has one deadly ability it would be useless against Felix with their slow speed." Landers cracked his knuckles as he said: "Then we shall start with the woodpecker tribe first." Chapter 110: Attack the woodpeckers! Save Felix! The army started to march directly towards the woodpecker tribe but first, they deployed some scouts to scan the area, they didn''t want to fall into the same trap that Felix supposedly fell. Landers was at the head of the troops as Manitola told him whatever she knew about the woodpecker tribe: "They are quick and they have very strong beaks, they could easily penetrate the black iron armor with their beaks alone if you let your guard down." "They are quite fast and their weakness is their brittle body, however from what we saw they would surely get some type of technology to make up for this." Landers listened with rapt attention, he needed to save Felix! He knew that he wouldn''t die but he knew that the cat was rather shaken after being kidnapped once. He didn''t want him to go through a similar situation but that might have happened already considering the time they wasted to cross the bridge, Landers was blaming himself for what happened to Felix, maybe if he sent someone else with him instead of sending him alone... Landers shook his head, nothing else could be done now but charging into the tribe and saving him! The scouts came back and strangely none of them were caught in any type of trap, they reported what they saw which confused Landers quite a lot: "What do you mean the village is half-abandoned and the only people there left are the young and weak?" "We only reported what we saw vice-general Landers, we aren''t sure if it''s a trap or not, should we head inside while in stealth?" The 150,000 troops weren''t only footsoldiers, there were the stealth troops and logistics mixed in there as well, while the assault troops made up the bulk of the number. Landers sighed, if they wanted to trap them with such an obvious scheme they would play their game! Landers moved the troops directly into the village taking over it rather easily... he scratched his head thinking that he would now be surrounded or something similar, things would pop out of the ground and start shooting at them, however all he found out was that he had thought wrongly. Felix was nowhere to be found nor were there any troops or the like, the village was truly abandoned, the weak, old and young easily told them that their army went to support one of their allies which were attacked by kangaroos and spiders. At this point, Landers was confused, what happened to Felix? Was he captured while the troops were marching to help their allies and now he was with them? That was even more unlikely considering they didn''t have the home advantage while on the run. Landers scratched the back of his head, they captured the village rather easily but he felt empty inside as he saw not even a patch of Felix''s fur around. He sighed as he asked Manitola: "Besides the snail tribe do you think there is any other tribe that would be able to make trouble for Felix?" Manitola thought long and hard about it and her eyes lit up as she remembered something: "Actually I think there might be one tribe but they are really reclused, they usually live like hermits underground and they don''t interact with the other tribes at all, the only one they interact with would be the living tree''s souls." "They are called the rabbit tribe and they have some strange practices, while they resemble the fox tribe as we both make our burrows underground they are uncharacteristically bloodthirsty and fanatic to the point that even some gods detest them, well the evil ones love them so they have multiple God''s chosen because of that, and they could be considered rather strong." "Do you think they might have captured Felix so they would sacrifice him?" "Well it could have happened, they usually sacrifice people from their own race but sometimes they would attack outsiders if they felt they carried abnormal amounts of natural energy...l" "Yeah, he is most likely there." Manitola put a palm over her face as she realized that Felix must have been captured by those fanatics, he was a special God''s chosen and even she could feel the abundant natural energy coming from his body, let''s not even mention them who were experts on this type of stuff. Basically, around 90% of them had a contract with the tree souls as they all dealt in one occult thing or the other. Manitola looked around for a short while before saying: "Leave the troops in the village, we don''t need them to infiltrate the rabbits, they would attract too much attention, I know where Felix would be taken if they want to sacrifice him, I once went with my mother on a diplomatic trip to them and their leaders showed us their sacrificial altar." Landers nodded as Lindo looked concerned about Felix''s wellbeing, Manitola started to run while waving her hand towards the two of them meaning that they should follow her. The duo quickly ran with her around 20 kilometers away from the village before she said: "Dig down, we can''t use their entrances so we have to make one of our own, If I remember correctly this is an empty patch here that we can use, we should be able to infiltrate the nearest village to the altar then make our way there, we should hurry even though their ceremonies take a long time up to 20 days its unknown if they shortened it due to Felix''s special condition." Lindo and Landers nodded as they helped Manitola to dig deeply into the ground throwing dirt everywhere around them as they finally started to fall after a while. They slowed their descent as they grabbed the ground behind them with their claws and made their way down. They found themselves in a place filled with garbage so smelly that they almost fainted, however, they steeled their willpower and jumped away from the garbage. Only Lindo was unlucky as he fell due to half of a rotting carrot, he hit his head onto the garbage and his face was then covered with rotting carrot pie. Manitola almost giggled but she knew they were in enemy territory so she stopped herself, helped Lido up, and took a handkerchief from her special bag to clean Lindo''s face. Lindo sighed as he was rather embarrassed by what happened but continued to follow Manitola as they took abandoned streets until they reached the exit of the village and left it to only find themselves in the same tunnel that Felix had used. They traveled the tunnel until they reached the bottom of the altar, however, Manitola frowned as she smelled the air and said: "The blood smell is so intense around here usually... why is it diminishing at such high speeds? Could they have butchered Felix up already and now they are using the blood?" Landers gritted his teeth as he heard Manitola''s guess, his leg muscles started to tighten as he used all of his leg strength to jump directly to the top of the altar! There he looked around only to see an empty pool that was going down to the bottom of the altar. There was no one around but he could still smell blood down there which meant the person who was using the blood was still there! He jumped from the top of the altar as he slowly made his way down until he found something that made his jaw drop to the ground! He saw Felix quickly absorbing the remaining blood in the altar as a wisp that was slowly transforming from green to red was standing on his head and doing the same thing as him. Landers took a few steps through the slowly diminishing blood and looked at Felix... it was him and he was unharmed, bar the fact that he became smaller by quite a bit. His hand inched towards Felix but he stopped himself, he knew that he was using the blood to improve his body and breathing techniques as he recognized the breathing pattern... Suddenly Felix opened his eyes as he looked at Landers and cocked his head to the side while saying: "Landers? What are you doing here?" Landers chuckled as he scooped Felix up and put him on his shoulder then said: "Well, I could ask you the same thing don''t I? And who''s this little friend of yours?" Unknown words came out of the wisp for Landers but Felix decided to translate for him: "I don''t have a name but I''m Felix''s friend now, he made a contract with me!" Landers nodded and thought: "Interesting, Felix actually contracted a tree soul? I never thought that they would be anything but antagonistic to people outside of the Sparron continent..." "Well we should go now, it seems you have depleted all of the blood in the altar and whenever the people that own this place will learn about things won''t end up well, it''s better to leave right now!" Felix nodded, he wanted to leave as well after he finished so he sat tight on Lander''s shoulder as he jumped again leaving the altar through the hole at the top. Seeing that Felix was well and uninjured on Landers''s shoulder made both Manitola and Lindo let out a small sigh as Landers grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and started to run, he really didn''t want to deal with whoever was controlling these rabbits! Chapter 111: The rabbit tribe learns While Felix and the others were running away things weren''t as calm as they were on the surface in the upper echelons of the rabbit tribe. The civilization of the rabbits was wide-reaching, they had an immense underground Empire that spanned across the whole Sparron continent. The altar was placed in a focal point of the Empire being surrounded by quite a lot of cities but the capital of the Empire wasn''t near the altar, it was around 20 cities away. However, that didn''t mean they didn''t install any measures to protect the blood altar. The moment the altar was emptied by Felix they should have gotten a notification but the thing was that the system was intricately connected to the tree soul wisps from above and if they didn''t want to they wouldn''t alert them. Considering that Felix''s wisp was the leader of the forest above them how would the underlings have the guts to betray their boss? However, they couldn''t keep this news sealed for a long time as the patrol that was supposed to check up on the altar every half a month to see how did the blood they harvested end, there were transformations in the blood that had to happen to achieve the perfect medicinal capability they needed to baptize their warriors. The moment they arrived at the top and saw how the altar was empty without even a drop of blood remaining they grabbed the long ears atop of their heads and almost wanted to jump into the altar to commit suicide, it would have been better than going back and reporting to the upper echelons about what happened here. However Felix and the others were already getting away and there weren''t any suspects, the alarm set by the upper echelons hadn''t been triggered which meant the wisps hadn''t seen anything? They couldn''t be blamed for that right? They shook their heads as they continued to clutch their ears, they knew that no matter what they said considering their leader''s attitudes towards something like this happening they were toast! The patrol consisted of 3 male rabbits and one female rabbit and they were all rather beefy, their muscled bodies were shaking so hard, painting a stark contrast between their attitude and their looks. They started to mumble as they started to walk backward until they tripped and fell down the stairs of the tall altar. They only woke up from their mumbling when they reached the bottom of the altar as they looked up again with wide eyes not knowing what to do. One of the males said: "Should we... should we report this?" The other two males shook their heads vehemently while the female finally got up her senses regained as she bonked all of them on the head with her fist. "We have to report this regardless of what will happen, have you all forgotten the teachings of our military teachers?" "But our lives are at stake here Mirela!" "Shut up!" *Bonk* *Bonk* "No matter what this is a big transgression against our tribe, we haven''t left anyone alive to be offended so they would do this right?" "Uh... why are you asking us we are just patrolmen, you are the one that actually came from the military because you were discharged." "Oh right..." "Anyways you pussies should head back to the city if you don''t dare to report things truthfully, I will hold the responsibility for what happened here!" The male rabbits couldn''t help but praise her in their hearts as they ran away leaving her alone near the altar. She shook her head seeing their frightened figures leave her sight before she started to jump away. While the capital of the rabbit empire was quite far away there were always shortcut made for military-grade personnel ready to be taken. It took her around 2 hours before she reached the throne room of the current ruler of the empire. She kneeled in front of an empty throne as she waited for a short while before a tall rabbit-person with a body packed with muscle laid down on the throne, he was so buff that it was unknown if he could reach his own back anymore, he wore a red robe that was draped over his muscular body which showed that he had stopped some important ''activity to get to Mirela. "I hope it''s something of utmost importance my dear, you know how hard it''s for the imperial family to have progeny and you just disrupted a very important session of mine." The woman looked down and waited for the emperor to finish before she asked: "Can this little one report what happened?" The man nodded as he said: "Go ahead." "It''s unfortunate to say but the main altar blood supply had been sucked dry by an unknown assailant, the alarm created by the tree soul wisps hadn''t activated which can mean two things." The emperor didn''t let her finish as he continued for her: "The first reason would most likely be that we were betrayed by the wisps, the second being the person who did the raid was so skilled that the wisps couldn''t actually see anything but that''s impossible." "Yes, milord... with your terrifying intellect there is no reason for this little one to continue her report." The emperor shook his head as he looked down at the kneeling woman and said: "I need more details, could you tell me if you smelled anything strange at the altar?" Mirela thought for a short while then she remembered that she smelled something different besides the normal aroma of the blood fused with herbs from them, there was another unknown smell that she hadn''t smelled before. "Milord I have indeed smelled a different medicinal smell at the altar..." The emperor smiled as he got up from his throne taking a few steps forward, with every step Mirela felt her surroundings tightening as the air in her lungs refused to leave. "I...I..." "Don''t be scared, you have done a great job to report this to me but... you know no matter how you would explain the smell to me it wouldn''t be enough for me to identify it, I need to feel the smell myself!" "But Milord I... I served the military with everything I got, I killed and slaughtered in your name to fill the altar to the brim, you... you!" "I will send you off with a parade after I''m done with you." The tall figure put his meaty hand on Mirela''s trembling face as something slowly started to slip out of her head, a translucent figure that resembled Mirela was pulled out of her body as it tried to squirm out of the giant''s grasp. Suddenly the man opened his mouth wide letting out two extremely sharp incisor teeth which he used to rip off the translucent head of the person in his grasp, the moment that happened the soul body slowly started to dissipate as the voice of the emperor was heard once more: "Hmmm... red healing pills altered by a tree soul wisp? They are made with blood originating from the Tarot continent and considering the current affairs that are happening above... the lion tribe must have been involved!" ************************** Landers felt a chill go down his spine as he jumped up from the hole that leads to the city of the rabbits, something was wrong and he realized that they might have been found out but it wasn''t something that he hadn''t thought about, while they escaped quickly and without any trouble, he wasn''t sure what Felix and that wisp friend of his did while they were at the altar. What they might have left behind could have lead to the discovery of their shenanigans and if they wasted time trying to erase whatever clues there were they would have been caught regardless and it would have been way worse. Landers sighed as he glanced at Felix who was still on his shoulder, he was cuter now but he could feel that his aura improved marginally and that his physical strength was already closing into the captain level, actually, he might even be able to duke it out with Catro now if strength was the contest. Manitola and Lindo looked at each other before looking at Felix and didn''t know what to say as they asked: "Who''s your little friend?" The wisp was still on Felix''s head but instead of an indiscernible voice, the same high-pitched voice that sounded in Felix''s head could now be heard coming from the body-less being: "I don''t have a name yet but I hope that Felix would give me one as he is my master!" Felix was as surprised as they were, the wisp could actually talk without having a mental connection now? It seemed the blood he absorbed went to work rather fast, but it was still a gaseous body. A mental message came to Felix: "I understand what you are thinking but I won''t be able to gain a body until I have leeched off from the natural energy that you normally discharge, this is why it takes a long while to get a body but the process is not painful and beneficial for both parties as we will be sharing the natural energies between us creating a cycle that would improve both my upcoming constitution and your already strong one!" Felix nodded and then looked at Landers who was ready to admonish him: "I understand what you wanted to do there but any mistake and you would have been toast regardless of how many lives you have Felix if I didn''t come and wake you up at the opportune moment what would you have done if the ones who came would have been a patrol team? Even if you killed them there was a chance the fight between you and them would have attracted the attention of whatever superior power is controlling the Empire below and things wouldn''t have gone well, do you understand?" Felix nodded if he thought a little bit more about it, what he had done was very reckless and he was extremely lucky as the sacrifice was done before his arrival... well it wasn''t entirely luck as he wouldn''t have known all of this if it wasn''t for the little guy perched on his head. He concluded that everything that happened up till now only happened because he was talented! Chapter 112: Chain reaction While Felix and the others were chatting away from the rabbit''s empire, the Emperor was already getting ready for war! The meaty rabbit emperor had called for the army after he concluded where the pills that dissolved into the blood altar came from. He stood at the head of the army as he said majestically with a strong tone: "Our altar has been desecrated by outsiders, the hard work of the army had been completely wasted and all the fruits of our hard labor had been enjoyed by someone else!" The army troops immediately started to talk amongst themselves, 95% of the people in the army were all full of muscle, they had the same build and height and their only different features were either their haircuts, hair color, or the way their rabbit ears looked. The blood altar was meant for the army and the imperial family to enjoy, it was meant to strengthen the bodies of those who made great contributions to the empire. However, now all of the hard work of the army which went towards getting a bath in the altar was pretty much done for nothing! The army was both protecting and expanding their territory underground while also getting rid of the disobedient people to fuel the growth of the blood altar. Some of the army people had red eyes as they glared towards the ceiling of the underground palace. They were all situated in front of the emperor''s palace as they saluted after hearing the grave news, they were around 2 million in total and they were all mostly mad with a little bit of disappointment and hatred as well mixed in there, however, they didn''t break formation nor did they let their emotions being seen on their faces as they waited for the Emperor to continue, they wanted to know who had the gall to steal from their empire! If they didn''t care about the things that happened above the war with the other continents wouldn''t have reached this stage this quickly. The Emperor sighed as he put a hand over his face showing his distress and giving the impression that their enemy was very strong. "With my continuous investigation and brave sacrifice of discharged ex-soldier Mirela I have found about the identity of the culprits, they are one of the strongest tribes of the Tarot continent, the Lion tribe!" The troops started to talk amongst themselves, they didn''t know about the lion tribe, and how could they? They lived in the underground since they were born and the news from the outside was strictly regulated by the imperial family. "The lion tribe consists of many strong people and they have countless generals, even though we also have our own strong people you all know that it''s due to the blood altar." "We don''t have the same techniques as the lion tribe but our strength is plenty, if we can''t beat them with techniques we shall crush them with numbers and pure raw strength! They deserve capital punishment for doing what they have done!" "YES!" "YES!" "YES!" The army started to clap creating sounds of two rocks banging together at high speed, if the palace had any glass windows they would have surely been destroyed by now. The Emperor waved his hand silencing everyone as he continued: "I have already found the location of the Lion tribe''s troops, they have invaded the continent on the large scale with the people from the Haron and Balton continents!" "Normally I wouldn''t have made you interfere in the fights of those on the surface as it wouldn''t matter to us who controls the surface, but they have done the thing that they should have done the least!" "It''s nigh time for us to retaliate for the thing they have done to us, a batch of the troops are currently located at the woodpecker tribe''s village, go there with 300,000 troops and unleash a massacre on them!" The troops started to break as 300,000 of them left the formation saluted and started to use the tunnels around them to reach the surface. **************** While the troops were going to attack the woodpecker village, Felix and the others had finished talking and they were ready to return to the village to finish the takeover. Landers took out a communication stone as he transmitted towards Diorno: "We have caught one village beyond the bridge and we will need an expert to look it over, can you send a captain-level individual from the troops left at your disposal? We are also going to leave 50,000 troops behind to protect the village and install fortifications because unlike the initial village this one is pretty barren." Diorno''s voice came out of the communication stone: "Roger that, we shall send someone soon enough." Landers sighed as he closed the connection between their communication stones, he looked around and saw how the woodpecker tribesmen were either looking away or down not daring to look towards the troops nor him, even though he was sure the troops didn''t do anything to them while he was gone to find Felix he still found it rather strange, why were they so scared of them? He stopped a child who was running around as his mother had lost sight of him for a second and he wasn''t as scared of Landers and the others even though he had been warned by his mother multiple times. "Hey kid, can you come here for a few seconds?" The woodpecker child took a few steps towards Landers and asked: "What is it Mr invader?" "Why are all your folks so scared of us? We haven''t done anything to you have we?" The child shook his head as he said: "Mom said that I shouldn''t get close to you but she isn''t here now, but she also said you guys are really bad and you came here to enslave us..." The child didn''t really know what to believe as Landers inspired a calm aura that soothed the child so he didn''t feel threatened by him: Suddenly the child seemingly remembered something important as he said: "Oh yeah now I remember, I think mother also said that you will incur the wrath of the rabbits, and it''s better to be as far away from you as possible, I''m not sure why she said that though..." Landers''s pupils shook as he heard that, how could the mother of this child know such a thing? They haven''t even been at the rabbit tribe for a long while, at most 3 to 4 hours while Felix had been the one who infiltrated it longer, he had done so stealthily so there was no way he had been seen by anyone, how could that woman know that they have done something to the rabbits that would anger them? From what Manitola told him they were recluse so that must have been common knowledge. He frowned and decided to give a visit to the woman as he told the child to guide him to his mother... The child was reluctant at first but Landers took a medicinal pill out of his armor''s inner pockets and dangled it in front of the child, he had secretly extracted the strong medicinal energy from it and now it was akin to candy. "If you show me where your mother is I will give you this delicious candy!" The child didn''t have candy at all before but he could smell that it was rather sweet so he nodded and grabbed Landers''s hand as he took him to a nearby house. The child entered the house and Landers followed behind, the woman at the kitchen counter was cooking and was ready to scold the child when she heard the door of the house open, it was an unwise thing to run around with all of the lion army troops being around. However, her body started to shake as the plate she was ready to put on the counter fell from her hands the moment she saw Landers and her child with a red pill in his hand he realized that he had sold her out for a piece of candy! Landers told him he could play outside now as he smiled at him and the door of the house closed behind him. Then his face turned frosty as he took a few steps towards the mother who was still shaking: "Don''t be frightened mam, I''m here to inquire about a few important things for our Lion army." The woman started to stutter: "I... I... I..." "The first question is, how would the rabbit tribe attack us if they are recluse?" "I.. I..." "Answer me!" At this point Landers didn''t exude that calming aura anymore as his power turned savage, his hand planted into the wall behind the woman, his frame was towering above hers and her woodpecker features started to naturally appear by themselves due to the fright, her mouth started to elongate into a beak as feathers started to grow out of her skin, tears started to drip out of her eyes as she said: "I... I...." Suddenly her face turned cold and serious, her fully formed beak was then launched directly to Landers''s face ready to pierce his head! Chapter 113: The power of the rabbit tribe While the woodpecker''s woman attack was quick and sudden Landers wasn''t a vice-general in title only. With reflexes quicker than lightning he dodged by moving his head to the side barely evading the attack at the last second, then with his free hand, he gave the woman in front of him a punch directly to the stomach knocking the air out of her, her transformation slowly reverted as she clutched her tummy and fell to the ground in front of him. The wall behind her slowly started to break as spider-web cracks appeared on it after the impact until the wall was destroyed and a hole in the shape of a fist appeared there. Landers frowned as he looked at the woman who fell in front of him, she started to cough up blood and he realized that he used a little bit too much strength, he still needed to get information from her so she couldn''t die on him already! He took out a red pill from his armor inner pockets then crushed it as he forcefully stuffed it into the woman''s now human nose, the woman automatically started to snort it as she breathed then her paling complexion started to return to normal. Landers splashed some cold water on her from a bucket he found in the house waking her up in the process. The woman still shook as she looked up at Landers, her expression told him that she would be a tough nut to crack and he didn''t know how much time he had... He was a man that cared about ethics quite a bit but at this point, he realized that he might have to break them to do what he was supposed to. His left hand slowly inched towards the woman''s head, the woman realized that nothing good would happen to her the moment that hand latched on her head and she started to move back only to realize that she already moved with her back to the wall and she couldn''t go any further. She could see Landers''s hand come closer and closer to her face and she closed her eyes... she knew that she was done. ************** Landers left the house, there were some spots of red on his armor but considering the color of the armor and that of blood was almost the same people didn''t really realize what happened behind the door of the house. Landers looked at the sky before muttering: "She didn''t know anything." He wanted to punch something, all the things that the woman said were speculations that she imparted to her child thinking that he wouldn''t say anything. He had broken his ethic code to get the information needed and he didn''t get jack! Well, there was nothing to do now, no point to cry over spilled milk. He looked around at the troops as they installed defenses all over the village, he knew that the rabbits would have found out what happened by now but he wasn''t sure if they knew who did it, he couldn''t really believe the words of the woman. He watched as the kid that told him everything was ready to get back inside the house after he got bored of playing but Landers waved his hand at him with a smile and said: "Hey kid why don''t you come with me for a little bit." The kid didn''t find Landers''s actions suspicious at all, he already talked with him once and he thought of him as a friend after he gave him that candy. Landers led him to a nearby alleyway but after a few minutes, only Landers was the one that came out of the alleyway. Felix was chatting with the wisp while dangling around the outer skirts of the village, unlike the village of the foxes this one didn''t have a wall so the troops were currently constructing one. However, things started to become strange as the ground below them started to shake as if an earthquake was happening. The foundation of the wall that the troops had started shook unsteadily and broke down as a sandcastle would. Felix felt something wasn''t right as he stopped chatting with the wisp who he decided to name Willy. He jumped on the top of a house as he looked at the ground insistently, the troops also realized that something wasn''t right as earthquakes generally didn''t last much time but this one was already going on for almost a minute! Suddenly holes appeared on the ground and body-building rabbits jumped out, they looked around for a few seconds before they started to engage the lion troops with a viciousness that was entirely uncharacteristic to its horned counterpart, Felix actually wondered who were the carnivores between the lions and the rabbits in this situation. Felix didn''t know what to say as he saw the rabbits popping out of the holes, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, 200,000, 300,000. 300,000 bloodthirsty rabbits ready to kill arrived at the village and they unleashed their full battle prowess upon the unsuspecting Lions, even though their ambush was somewhat destroyed by the shaking ground they were twice the amount of the lions and their bodies were superior, their battle techniques were lacking but one swing from one of their meaty arms would send one or two Lions flying regardless of what type of blocking technique they used. They were all behemoths strength-wise and while the Lions weren''t weak they couldn''t compare to the beefy rabbits. But while they lacked strength they were smarter than the rabbits and they would trick them from time to time killing them through some deadly precise attacks. But as Felix observed he realized that it was quite hard to injure and kill these rabbits, their thick skin gave them a defensive power that even his fortified body could only rival and not be superior. Even after all the blood, he had absorbed from the altar his body only got as strong as those rabbits, defensively speaking. This just emphasized how strong these rabbits were, Felix''s body was almost at the captain level and these rabbits all had bodies as strong as his! He jumped down from the top of the house he was on as he started to turn invisible, Manitola and Lindo also appeared as they charged into the troops of rabbits while Landers''s aura inflated as he dropped from the sky like a meteor directly in the middle of the rabbit army. His eyes turned frosty blue as he unleashed a lion roar making the rabbits stop and clutch their heads, while their bodies were strong that didn''t apply to their souls as well. The lion''s roar envigorated the allies while it injured the enemies, it was a skill that Landers hadn''t used since he was a captain and had to lead his crack troops in sieges. The rabbits were clutching their heads as the lion troops started to attack fiercely retaliating for the losses they had taken at the beginning of the fight. Around 10,000 people died from the lion''s side and 3,000 from the rabbit''s side before Felix, Lindo, Manitola, and Landers interfered. Lindo jumped from side to side with Manitola on his back dodging every attack that was sent towards him as Manitola used her charm field stunning the opponents around thus giving the army troops enough time to skewer them or decapitate them, their bodies were strong but they still had the normal weaknesses that every living being had, the neck and the heart. Felix had already gone wild as he activated his combat breathing technique to the maximum, after his strength breathing technique had been maxed out he also started the endurance breathing technique that transformed into runes that appeared on his bones. His whole body was like a well-oiled killing machine as his fur stood on end, his eyes turned emerald, and streaks of golden lightning started to appear around his body. The successful combination of the natural energy and the contract with Willy gave him the affinity to control the elements just like Siracha, it was unknown if Siracha''s influence over him gave him the lightning affinity or he was just lucky. A lightning armor started to engulf Felix''s small body as he became so fast that not even after images were left behind, headless bodies started to drop to the ground as geysers of blood erupted from the stumps while heads flew into the air. Felix''s nails left dark after-effects into the air as flames engulfed the downed bodies after a few seconds. Felix let out a roar that made the whole rabbit troops focus on him as they shouted: "THIS ONE IS DANGEROUS, HE MUST BE THE ENEMIES'' GENERAL!" Landers frowned as his spotlight was stolen by Felix and his aura inflated once more creating a death radius around him whoever stepped in his territory was transformed into a pancake. But his attacks weren''t as flashy as Felix''s so even though he also garnered some attention he was considered a smaller threat compared to Felix. Landers wasn''t a vain person so he sighed after he did that, he didn''t want to burden Felix with the focus of the whole rabbit army so he decided to go all out! Chapter 114: Landerss full power! Landers started to unleash his full power while the majority of the rabbits'' army was focusing on Felix trying to take him down due to their misconception about Landers''s strength. Landers'' eyes started to morph from the normal human-looking eyes into feline eyes as his lion features started to get more accentuated. His short lion ears started to lengthen a bit and so did his tail. His deep blue aura started to revolve around him as it intensified in power, the field around him that was quickly killing rabbits started to enlarge engulfing more and more rabbits. This attracted the attention of the army of rabbits as they realized that they misjudged Felix as their leader. While Felix was fast strong and durable his aura was only white which showed that he wasn''t a high ranking member of the army at first the rabbits were puzzled but they still attacked him with all they got as he cut into them directly with his whole strength, they were also keeping an eye on Lindo and Manitola as they danced around the battlefield stunning and helping the Lion army to defend themselves. They were a big problem on the battlefield for the rabbits. However, Lindo was very fast and the fact that if they got near Manitola they would practically lose their minds which were already pretty weak, to begin with, made them unable to deal with them they could only helplessly get harassed and die and the only thing they could do was push with their numerical advantage. Landers''s power up didn''t go unnoticed as the rabbits that were sieging Felix started to run towards Landers however Felix wouldn''t let them go so easily. His lightning armor started to flicker around his body as his speed increased once more the only things left behind where he was before were some lightning sparks and surrounding him were only the decapitated bodies of his enemies, he flickered from patch to patch of rabbits as he helped the common soldiers to kill the rabbits that were fighting them head-on. Landers finished powering up as the field around him turned every person that wasn''t someone from his army into a pancake, fortunately, he could properly control the range and the power of the field as it didn''t affect his allies at all, unlike Bizkier''s power. Landers shouted to the sky again as he started to rampage through the army of the fearless rabbits, who even though we''re getting annihilated they just didn''t seem to want to retreat, their eyes were scarlet as even if they became limbless they would do their best to drag some lions down with them, even if their guts were sticking out of their stomachs they would bite their enemies to their deaths with their long incisor teeth. They were crazy as they fought regardless of their safety or wellbeing, this way a lot of foot soldiers from the Lion army met their end, unfortunately. However the self-destructing way of fighting quickly started to raze down the number of the rabbits, they attacked with around 300,000 in number but they weren''t even half remaining after fighting for around 3 hours. While the Lions also lost around 20,000 people the death difference between the two armies was enormous! Felix was the one with the highest kill count with Landers just a little behind him, Lindo and Manitola were more supporting units so they didn''t kill as many people. Felix''s eyes were almost spewing fire as he was drenched in blood from head to toes, he had killed so many people that he had lost count and he got hungry midway, the moment that happened he jumped up on the head of a live rabbit soldier and bit down on his head, even though he was way smaller than him he gobbled down one way before he started to munch on his head until the head disappeared. After that he got focused on by the remaining rabbits as they glared at Felix, it seemed that while they would be able to take death they wouldn''t want their comrades to be eaten. But strange changes started to happen in Felix''s body after he ate the rabbits'' head, it was obvious that the rabbit''s body was filled with the blood from the altar that he absorbed as well, but now that he took another dosage from a different storage place he could feel that his hind legs were slowly starting to itch... his body was somehow improving again but only his hind legs were getting relatively stronger. Felix immediately remembered Shima''s words, on how he was special and how his specialness would be able to create the ultimate warrior of it would have been harvested, Aaltarox also said that him eating would increase his bodily strength and it was one of the most basic interdimensional abilities someone like him could get... Up till now, he didn''t think hard about this ability but now he realized that he needed to eat different beings to increase his bodily strength further beyond the limits imposed on his body by his DNA. He was basically evolving every time he ingested some DNA from other beings, his ability would take the DNA and take the better parts and fuse it with himself. Felix roared to the sky as his speed increased again to the point that no matter how they squinted or tried to sense his location they wouldn''t be able to find him anymore, only Landers could see him appearing and disappearing around as if he was teleporting. Felix continued to eat the heads of the rabbits that he slew until he felt that his hind legs couldn''t get stronger anymore. At this point, only 10,000 rabbits were left but 50,000 out of the 150,000 the lion troops also died. Landers finally decided to end everything as he shouted towards his remaining troops: "RETREAT, I SHALL FINISH THIS HERE AND NOW!" While he wanted to interrogate those people that attacked them it was most likely that they wouldn''t tell him anything from the state of their minds, their actions spoke for themselves and it would be rather exhausting to torture people with such strong bodies, as for psychological torture, Landers knew that these rabbits were very, very, very loyal to whoever sent them here so they most likely wouldn''t spill the beans no matter what he did to them. The lion troops started to run retreating behind Landers, Felix jumped away from the crowd of Rabbits as they tried to follow him and unleash their ultimate attacks, however, Manitola jumped down from Lindo''s back as he retreated which made him falter as he said: "Wait! What are you doing?" Manitola smiled at him cheekily as she said: "I''m going to help Landers, don''t worry I won''t get near them, I just need to be a little bit freer." Manitola closed her eyes as she started to do some hand seals, pink hex energy started to surround her whole body like a barrier which slowly started to extend and expand creating a gigantic field that she threw away from her directly to the 10,000 troops which were trying to chase Felix. The troops were engulfed by the gigantic field making them halt as their eyes glazed over and they looked like fools, saliva even dripped from their mouths as they stood there. Manitola breathed heavily as she fell backward, Lindo caught her and kept her in his embrace as Landers nodded at the two. He jumped into the air starting to hover there, his hands started to move haphazardly while Hex energy started to accumulate in front of him in the form of a crimson ball. The ball increased until it was 2 meters in height and 1 meter in width, then Landers put both of his hands forward pushing the ball from behind throwing it directly towards the unmoving rabbits. The crimson ball moved at pretty quick speeds at it struck the whole 10,000 troops carbonizing them until nothing remained behind leaving a gigantic black crater on the ground and creating a subsequent hole as the ground broke showing the tunnels that the rabbits dug to get here. Landers almost fell from the sky as he clutched his chest, he was exhausted and out of hex energy after that last attack, they have fought for almost 2 days continuously without rest and his energy was fully sapped, the captain that was meant to look over the village had arrived a few hours ago and helped them in the fight but he didn''t make much of a difference. He tried to call for reinforcements but there was no opportunity for that to happen. Landers slowly floated to the ground as he grimaced at his lack of energy, there weren''t many wounds on his body and he was already taking a pill to heal them but restoring his energy will take some time, time that he could have used to take over more villages. There was nothing he could do now, they already antagonized the rabbit empire and while they killed a lot of their troops it was unknown how many of them the enemy still had, he had to do his best to recover his energy but first, he needed to call for some reinforcements from back home! The number of troops they currently had on the continent wasn''t enough if they were going to deal with the whole army of the rabbit empire, they had to get the help of the human tribe in this situation as they already cut ties with the Haron and Balton continent alliance. Landers sighed... things weren''t really looking good for them at the moment. Chapter 115: Send even more reinforcements! Landers continued to clutch his chest as the air left and entered his lungs while he tried to recover his energy, he winced as he took out a communication stone from the inner pockets of his armor and connected it with Diorno''s communication stone. "Diorno do you copy? We have been ambushed by the rabbit tribe and we lost 50,000 men, however, we killed 300,000 enemies and we need further reinforcements." Diorno''s voice came out surprised: "300,000 and lost only 50,000? Well that''s a great military achievement, we shall send reinforcements immediately and we will call the headquarters to send even more, but I guess you know that it will be rather hard considering we already cut ties with the other two continents." Landers responded with gritted teeth: "Indeed but you know there is the other option..." "Well we are in war times and while Felix was kidnapped by them, in the end, he came back so I guess they have fixed whatever problems they had with each other, however, I guess their price will still be quite hefty..." "I don''t think they will charge us more than usual but that''s still a lot, make sure to send the message to Siracha and I need someone here asap because I can''t really do anything anymore until I''m at least half recovered." "Understood, I cannot leave my post but I got the right person to protect you and the others while you recover." "I will be waiting." The connection between their communication stones cut off as Landers sighed and cracked his arms and hands. He plopped down on the ground and looked around, there were tons of bodies around bar those 10,000 that were vaporized by him, most of them were in bad positions, mostly head-less but some of them had their chests slashed open and their guts spilled out, some of them were arm-less and leg-less. Here and there he could also see the troops fishing out bodies of the dead lions with dark expressions on their faces, surprisingly the woodpeckers had 0 casualties as they all ran away the moment the rabbits attacked seemingly as if they knew they would arrive, but it was not possible, most likely they knew some rumors about the way the rabbits attacked and ran away ahead of them thinking that the rabbits would be able to get rid of them and they would be free again. Regardless of the situation he first needed to take a rest before he would question the woodpeckers again. Felix flopped near him patting his belly, he had eaten a lot of rabbit heads and the improvement of his hind legs reached the maximum so eating any more rabbits wouldn''t help him anymore. His belly was full as he stood there face up while looking at the sky, it was noon and the clouds were drifting by while the sun shined brightly. While the duo was resting amongst an ocean of corpses the troops were working their best to get rid of the corpses one way or another while fishing out the remains of their dead compatriots. However no one said a peep while they were doing that, they had seen how hard the duo had fought during the ambush of the rabbit troops and they knew that they needed some rest, if another ambush appeared they needed them at their full strength to survive. Manitola and Lindo finished their sector as they got some sweet rest as well, they were also very helpful on the battlefield and their tactical support was the thing that saved quite a lot of lives. Manitola and Lindo plopped near them as well as they nestled together like two love birds. Felix glanced at them and then asked Landers: "So when will the reinforcements arrive?" Landers looked at the passing clouds as he said: "Most likely a few hours later, the stronger individual will arrive first before the other troops as we need someone to protect us... the troops can still fight." Even though the troops were also rather exhausted the experts took the brunt of the damage as they fought directly in groups of hundreds of rabbits and protected the troops with their bodies so they would also be able to deal damage to the strong-bodied rabbits. Felix nodded as he closed his eyes, he wasn''t very exhausted but he needed to digest the rabbits that he ate and consolidate the improvement of his hind legs so he couldn''t fight really well at the moment. ********************* The rabbit emperor got up from his throne as he glanced towards the ceiling of his palace, he realized that the troops he sent must have died by now as more than 2 days passed since he sent them and there was no news coming back from them, the rabbit was rather impressed considering he sent double the enemies troops and they were able to slay every one of his troops, even though he could be considered one of the few experts the empire had he knew that the army couldn''t be kept at bay normally even by those of his caliber unless they were more than 1 in number. He frowned as he realized that there was more than one expert above the surface, he could either attack directly or send 3x more troops meaning around 900,000 but that would mean he would send around 60% of his army and he didn''t know what kind of reinforcements the enemy would get, while they were very strong the Lion tribe wasn''t any slouch either and he only dared to attack them because they were on his home territory, a gigantic ocean splitting the continents apart making it hard for them to send further reinforcements, however, he inferred they must have got some by now and he wasn''t sure of their number. The emperor shook his head as his ears flopped on his head, he returned to sit on his throne as he thought for a short while before sighing: "Allying with those on the surface... it hadn''t happened since the construction of the rabbit empire... but we alone aren''t enough." The man had enough troops but he knew that if he sent them the enemy wouldn''t go down without taking at least 90% of them down weakening the Empire considerably, they also didn''t have the altar filled with blood anymore so he couldn''t raise any more troops in the short run. Creating an alliance with mixed troops was the best choice in this situation. He had the contact information of the majority of the stronger tribes on the continent as he took out a communication stone from a nearby table before inserting his hex energy into it and waiting, a suave voice came out of the stone that asked: "What may I have done to get the honor to talk with the Emperor of the rabbits? The great Khan Mulan himself." "Don''t try to sweet-talk me you vixen, the last time you visited with your princess was the last time you have caught me unguarded. I have come with a proposal regarding the current affairs of the whole continent." The voice sounded interested as it said: "Hmm? The great recluses who only care about their territory decided to care about the fate of the surface? Very interesting, I guess the invaders must have gone underground as well huh?" "The details arent'' important, what''s important is that I''m ready to supply you with 100,000 troops for an alliance, you know that we aren''t good at tactics so I''m going to let you control them perfectly, what do you say?" The suave voice didn''t say anything for a few moments before responding: "This seems good for us but it doesn''t seem that you get anything from it, what are you playing it at Mulan?" "Nothing, I''m just really angry due to the things that happened to me when the invaders decided to give my empire a visit without me knowing... or else I wouldn''t have decided to ally with you, you should know that." "Oh, so your losses are so big that you came running to me? You are lucky I require some brainless meatshields, send them over!" The emperor gritted his teeth as he almost broke the communication stone in his meaty hands, he didn''t like being insulted especially by those he looked down upon but now that he came with the alliance suggestion he didn''t say anything besides: "I will send them soon... wait for them." ******************** Felix stretched his body as he jumped up, he already digested everything and he was as good as new, his stamina was full but his stomach was now empty, however, strangely he didn''t feel hungry at all as he looked around. The bodies surrounding him and Landers had been cleaned up and gotten rid of, in the distance he could even see Catro talking with the troops telling them what to do regarding the bodies of their comrades. "You will send them back with the incoming reinforcements, we shall use the same traveling device that the reinforcements will come with, keep the bodies whole until that happens, or well what remained of them." Catro sighed as he finished the last explanation then looked at Felix and Landers who were resting near each other. This was an image that he preferred instead of the head-less or limb-less bodies of his subordinates. He started to walk towards them as he wanted to ask them something regarding the battle. Chapter 116: No more attacks? Landers already saw Catro coming towards them so he got up from the ground and waved his hand: "So you are the one Diorno sent, well I can''t say I''m going to be troubled about the defenses while you are around." Catro shook his head, he saw that Landers still had the mood to joke around after everything he and the others went through. "You are still the same no matter in what situation you are, anyways I''m only going to be able to defend the 4 of you by myself, unlike you and Felix I''m not good with crowds." Landers nodded and asked: "So why you came over? Want to talk about something?" "Actually yes, I want to know more things about the battle, the troops are too preoccupied with getting rid of all of the bodies for me to talk with them and since all you do is sit around I guess you have time to talk." Landers nodded and Felix propped himself up on all fours as he jumped on Landers''s shoulder and said: "Ask away Catro." "Very good, I wanted multiple points of view as well." Landers started to recount what happened from the moment that the ground started to shake to the last fiery attack that he unleashed on those 10,000 remaining rabbits with the help of Manitola. "I see, I see... it seems that our location is either easily identifiable by the enemy or we have another mole in our ranks but considering we just got rid of one, it''s a little bit unlikely another one would pop out so soon and break their cover." "It seems that they must have some special observing capabilities that we do not know about..." What Catro said was the truth, the tree souls were the ones that made a contract with the rabbits and were currently sending information to the underground empire. Catro thought for a while but he couldn''t make a conjecture this quickly as he needed more information. "Anyways we should need to prepare ourselves for another battle, this time the enemy might go mad because of their loss and send even more troops, our troops are already using the bridge to walk over and it will take a long while but we will need to defend ourselves until all of them appear." However, as they waited and kept their guards up they realized that there no more troops coming, nothing was happening anymore and as time passed Lindo, Landers, Manitola, and Felix fully regained their energy but there were no signs of attacks happening any soon. Catro frowned as he realized that something was wrong, why were there no attacks? He sighed then shook his head as he realized that the enemy might have chickened out due to their immense loss of troops. Landers realized that the leader of the rabbits might not want to lose anymore because they lost the blood altar that was creating the troops in the first place, anymore losses wouldn''t be recovered in a short time anymore thus the person didn''t want any more needless bloodshed, so he must have taken another approach. Landers shared his thoughts with Catro which made Catro come up with a conjecture: "It seems that they might have allied with the other people on the surface to create a mixed army to defeat the invaders, this is the most likely outcome as the rabbits would surely not discard the fact that we have offended them in such a way." He glanced towards Felix, they wouldn''t have made such an enemy if he didn''t do what he did. But it couldn''t really be blamed all on him as he looked at the top of his head and glanced at the green wisp of light that stood there. He sighed again and decided to continue to guard as he was assigned the woodpeckers village to protect now, Felix and the others were still supposed to continue their expansion work, the surroundings of the village were rich with trees that were of a higher quality compared to the ones that surrounded the fox village so he needed to get a team to cut them up and send them to the human tribe as payment for the next batch of reinforcements that will arrive with their help. Catro never had free time after he became the logistics captain so he waved his hand at Felix and the others and started to walk away, he had been defending them for a few days already and they were all rested up so they didn''t need his help anymore, he had better things to do if there wasn''t going to be any sudden invasion happening any soon. Landers cracked his bones as he stretched, he was fully healed and ready to continue the expansion work as he looked at Manitola and Lindo who were also getting up from the ground. Felix sat on his shoulder as he sunbathed with the wisp perched on his head, they were ready to head out as they wouldn''t leave any troops behind here considering reinforcements were already coming through bypassing the bridge. But first, he needed to lecture the woodpeckers who came back after they realized that the fight between the rabbits and the lions was over. He jumped on the tallest building as he cupped his hands in front of his mouth to increase the distance of projection of his voice. "All woodpeckers gather in the middle of the village, this isn''t a request!" The woodpeckers were rather scared of Landers, even though not all of them saw him how he took care of that mother and child duo some of them glanced through the windows of their houses and saw what happened with the child so they knew Landers meant business. The mayor of the village came forward and kneeled in front of Landers as he said: "Oh, great conqueror please forgive us for whatever transgression we have done." Landers shook his head as he looked at him and asked with a sarcastic tone: "You don''t know what you have done wrongly?" The mayor''s eyes flickered as he thought for a second before saying: "We... we didn''t alert you before the rabbits attacked and we took the opportunity to escape..." "Atleast you understand what you have done wrongly, unfortunately for this, I will have to make an example of someone so this would never happen again while we are the leaders of this village." The mayor started to shake as he knew that he would be the most likely person to be made into an example as he was a person of power no matter how small it was. Landers waved his hand as a wind brought up the mayor to the top of the house where he was, Felix jumped down from his shoulder and took a few steps backward as he looked at what was happening. "Attention to me!" Landers grasped the neck of the mayor as he lifted him in the air as if he didn''t weigh anything at all, then the hand that was clasped on his neck started to increase its grip slowly cutting the oxygen supply of the mayor. The mayor was a middle-aged man who looked quite average at first glance, the mayor''s face started to turn red and purple before life slowly left his eyes, he tried to unclamp Landers''s hand from his neck multiple times during the choking process but in the end, he died as his body became limp. "This is an example for all of you, this an example to show that we mean business and you should give us the help that we need when we need it, if you continue to be fence-sitters this will be the fate of each one of you, we aren''t tyrants but if you are going to go against us we can''t help but become ones, however, if you are helpful to us don''t think that we will treat you badly, we will reward you as we will reward our own as you now belong to the family known as the Lion tribe!" Landers dropped the mayor''s body to the ground as it crashed bringing his neck to an awkward angle if he had a chance reviving if his heart was restarted now that chance disappeared. "Bury him, this had been all for today, but my friend Catro who will be responsible for the village will be the one you will report from now on, especially all of the information you know about the other tribes, their quirks, and habits." Landers jumped down from the house along with Felix as they started to gather the troops so they could leave for another expansion expedition. There was still the snail tribe nearby and it was strange how the snails didn''t attack up till now. The troops gathered together as they marched in formation with Felix and the others at the head, going directly to the snail tribe''s village according to Manitola''s instructions. Landers looked at Manitola who was being lovey-dovey with Lindo and coughed as he asked: "I have a question for you, up till now some time had passed and I think the snails should have found out if something was wrong with the woodpecker''s village so they should have investigated by now, I understand that the woodpeckers would still be reinforcing whatever allies they have but are the snail troops out of their village as well?" Manitola shook her head as she said: "Well snails are very slow and they are only strong because of their highly acidic secretions that are also poisonous, they are basically living weapons and they are mostly used by the other tribes instead of them attacking with their own capabilities, their shells are quite tough and hard to break but their bodies are soft and if you have some long-range hex energy abilities you should be able to kill them rather easily if your aim is good enough to hit them through the opening in their shells." "They aren''t a relatively strong tribe so I guess their village must have been most likely abandoned as they joined up with another tribe as their weapons." "Hmm... so which tribe is the nearest besides the woodpeckers that the snails could ally with?" "Well if my memory doesn''t lie to me, I think it''s the hedgehog tribe!" Chapter 117: The hedgehog tribe is prickly (1) "The hedgehog tribe huh? Well, tell me their location then." Manitola nodded as she pointed towards the north. "It''s somewhere around those parts, the hedgehog tribe is hard to approach due to their natural barrier, they usually shed their spikes once a few years and they use them to create walls and traps with them, even when I visited with my mother we needed an experienced guide from their tribe but I think I have memorized every one of the important places where traps are placed, however, their whole village is surrounded by their spike wall which is impossible to get behind unless they let us inside." Landers put his finger on his chin as he said: "Is it really that hard to break the wall? Manitola shook her head as she said: "You will see when we arrive." Landers didn''t ask for more, they started to move according to Manitola''s directions and they reached a part of the forest which became rather dark, it was still day outside and it didn''t near evening so it was quite strange to see darkness slowly descend around them, but if they looked back they could see a sunny place creating a contrast between the two locations. Manitola stopped Landers and told him: "We are very close to the territory of the hedgehogs which means there must be traps planted around if I remember correctly..." She took a branch from the ground before poking the ground around her for a few seconds, suddenly in front of her the ground caved in and as she looked down she saw some purple spikes at the bottom of the pit. "Poisonous spikes... it seems it is true, the slugs had allied with the hedgehogs." Landers patted her on the shoulder indicating that she should continue, Lindo was just behind her making sure that if something unexpected happened he would be able to help her. They continued through the darkened forest as their sights got more and more impaired, even Felix who was supposed to see easily through the dark felt his sights darken which indicated that the darkness wasn''t natural. Fortunately, Manitola''s memory was rather good so they hadn''t fallen in any pit traps nor had they tripped any ropes that would have unleashed a volley of poisoned spike darts. The traps were rather simple but effective, if Landers didn''t have Manitola''s help this time around he was sure that he might have lost some soldiers here and he wouldn''t have gotten unscathed from this stuff himself. It seemed that Siracha''s foresight was great as he saved Manitola thus binding her to the tribe and making things easier for them during their expedition. Having an expert on the place they were supposed to conquer was the greatest thing the Lions had achieved but they weren''t the only ones with inside intelligence..., Siracha told Landers that the older woman who was with Manitola was taken by either the Balton or Haron continent which meant that one of them were advancing at speeds comparable to theirs or even higher! Finally, after a few hours of dodging elaborately placed traps they reached a 10 meters tall wall made entirely from spikes, there was no gate in view nor was anyone at the top of the walls but Landers did feel that he was being watched. Felix immediately asked Willy about the sensation of being watched: "Hmm... well it''s not tree souls, strange it seems that it''s not something organic or I would have felt it." Not organic? Felix realized that it must have been some kind of gadget from the human tribe then! Felix whispered his finding to Landers who nodded and looked at the wall from top to bottom before realizing that what Manitola said was the truth, it was actually quite impossible to break the wall even if they all attacked it at the same time, the wall was very thick and long and trying to scale it would lead with you being poked until you bled to death. Actually, he was wondering how would the hedgehogs leave the village without a gate? He looked towards Manitola who understood what Landers wanted to ask her and she responded: "As I said before only those that are allowed enter the village, there are actually no tunnels nor secret entrances, they open the middle of the wall with their powers." "Their powers?" "Yes indeed, even though they shed their spikes they can still control them remotely with their minds and hex energy, they can also transfer control to a different hedgehog so the guards of the wall can be changed if a hedgehog gets too old and dies." "But wouldn''t that put extreme burdens on those that tried to open the wall? there are so many spikes that they can''t even be counted!" Landers found their defensive idea to be rather great but it also seemed to have flaws. "Not really as they can share the burden with the whole village, they have around 400,000 battle ready hedgehogs and even the children and elderly have some kind of battle power and endurance, they are actually one of the more battle-strong races of the continent but just like all other races their bodies aren''t strong, their defense is their spikes and if you found a way to bypass them they would die in one shot, their bodies are actually even weaker than my people''s." "I see, well thanks for all the information, it''s great to have you on our team." Manitola nodded and smiled politely, they did save her from a rather bleak future with the other two continents as they could have easily not taken her in and she was grateful for that so she helped how she could, she was also rather motivated due to being Lindo''s girlfriend... however she still had her regrets. Felix jumped down from Landers''s shoulder as he took a look over the whole wall, he had scaled a mountain when he went against the black bears, the mountain was way taller than this wall but he knew that this was a different situation. He decided to ask Willy, he was a special entity with different abilities than his and he might be able to help: "Willy, what do you think, how would I be able to scale this wall without alerting the locals nor injuring myself in the process?" While he was back at full lives again he didn''t want to waste them in a situation that he could easily avoid dying, he felt that as his body got stronger it would take more and more energy to regain his lives, and Aaltarox did say that after his body passed a certain strength after he died his strength would regress because he wouldn''t have enough resources to revive Felix to full power. Willy made a ''hmm sound as he thought for a short while before saying telepathically: "Well, you could use your lightning armor and try to fly over the wall." Felix''s eyes started to flicker as he said: "I can actually fly???" Willy shook his head as he said: "It is not really flying, but more of a super-powered jump and the ability to float for a few seconds in the air before you will fall, even your friend Landers can''t really fly, when he attacked those rabbits back then he did a similar thing to what you will do now." Felix knew that after he jumped over the wall he would need to either beat some hedgehogs into submission to open the wall or trick them somehow to open it, he looked towards Manitola who was more knowledgeable about them, and asked: "Do the hedgehogs have any weakness?" "Well they have one, if you put them on their backs it would be hard for them to get back up but it needs to be done in their primal form, or they would need to hit the ground really hard in their humanoid form as their hair would be pretty spiky so you could insert them into the ground." Felix nodded as he said: "Noted." Felix then closed his eyes as he breathed in and out as lightning sparks started to appear around his body, Landers and the others looked at him wondering what he was up to, they understood that he must have got a way to pass the wall if he asked about the weaknesses of the hedgehogs but they didn''t know-how. Lightning started to quickly engulf Felix after a while as an intricate armor of blue color surrounded his body, his eyes turned emerald as the muscles in his legs started to contract, the ground under him slowly started to crack as his body slowly disappeared, he didn''t want to alert the hedgehogs as he was currently glowing due to the lightning surrounding him so he turned his stealth on. Felix''s body then unleashed all of its strength against the ground as he created a small crater however the sound was somehow nullified as Landers clutched his right arm with his left while sighing, a small spark was sputtering at the end of his palm as he started to mutter: "A great plan, however, it would have helped if he told us about it first..." Felix could feel himself flying higher and higher as he already jumped ten meters into the air and he looked down at the top of the wall, he slowly started to float in the air as he passed the wall and entered the boundary of the village, Willy slowly started helping him to float down until they reached the bottom of the wall on the other side. Felix''s lightning armor stopped working as he breathed roughly, the ability put quite the stress on his body but fortunately, he could also heal quickly from it due to his advanced healing factor, if he forced his body he would be able to regenerate at the same time the lightning armor drained him of energy but it would have some after-effects that he wasn''t sure he would like to experience. As he reached the bottom Felix looked around and saw two guards standing straight near the wall, they had spiked long grey hair that reached their ankles and they wore red armors with no insignia on them. Both of them had green eyes and they looked rather similar which indicated they must be brothers. Felix stealthily moved between them as he finished analyzing his surroundings, he could see that the village was rather big and the houses were widely placed around, some of them were even made in the crowns of the trees placed around. He knew what to do in this situation as he glanced towards the two guards who still didn''t realize an enemy infiltrated their village and was eyeing them like a predator would do their prey. Chapter 118: The hedgehog tribe is prickly (2) Felix observed their long prickly hair as he thought about Manitola said, he didn''t reveal himself as he slowly approached them from the front and then struck one of them quickly in the stomach making him fall back to the ground where his hair was stuck into the ground. Felix already talked with Willy to silence them so they wouldn''t be able to shout for reinforcements, the wall was a little bit of distance away from the buildings as it was a poisonous hazard now due to the help of the snails, at first glance it looked like it was only normal spikes but poisonous ones were hidden here and there in the wall, even Felix and the others didn''t realize it at first glance but after he jumped to the other side Felix realized that they were lucky no one touched the wall. Willy sent out some waves of hex energy as he said: "Silence of the woods!" The downed hedgehog''s voice was sealed while the one who was still up glared around as he realized that someone was here! There was no reason for his compatriot to fall this hard to the point that he would be stuck into the ground. He tried to shout for help only to realize that his voice was gone and he felt a headbutt striking him in the chest, taking all of his air out of his lungs and making him go into the same situation as his compatriot. Felix appeared in front of them as they both glared at him trying to remove themselves from the ground only to grimace in pain, their spikes were stuck into the ground and if they tried to forcefully remove them it would lead to immense pain, shedding them naturally wouldn''t have this effect but it wasn''t the shedding time yet! Felix looked at them and wondered how would he be able to make them open the wall? He wasn''t sure what could he do to make them crack under pressure, should he do as Landers? Felix gritted his teeth as he continued to contemplate for a few seconds, he knew that Willy''s sealing spell wouldn''t last a long time so he had to work fast! His claws popped out of his paws as he glared at the downed duo and whispered directly into their ears, even though he looked like a cute floof ball now that he had reduced in size, his current appearance made the two hedgehogs sweet internally, how could such a cute being have such a dark soul? They thought. His whispers told them that the cat wanted for them to open the walls which were direct disobedience of their orders, they would be punished but not killed, and considering they were a new generation of guards they wouldn''t be punished too harshly, but there was also the fact that the opening of the wall meant that they would be invaded. The two hedgehogs were in a dilemma as they saw Felix''s claws slowly reaching towards their necks but he didn''t swipe, he slowly started to make a slight nick there as drops of blood started to drip onto the ground below. A soundless scream left the mouth of the hedgehog duo, the pain was somewhat more intense than they thought it would be, they actually felt their throats drying up for some reason as the blood slowly dripped from their necks. This was a type of torture that Felix had learned watching Landers, he created a small incision with his claw at the middle of the enemy''s neck letting them lose blood and dry their throat at the same time, with the relatively strong bodies of the adult hedgehogs they wouldn''t die due to such a small incision, of course, if it was widened even a little bit more they would surely bleed to death. This was a torture method that was based on complete control of one''s strength and precision. Felix watched on coldly as the duo''s life force dropped to the ground in front of him and their eyes slowly started to slacken as their oxygen was also slowly depleted at the same time. He took out two small red pills from his special bag as he fluttered them above the faces of the two hedgehogs while mouthing: "This is medicine, do what I want and you can have it!" The duo felt something snap inside of them as they saw the medicine being fluttered in their faces while they slowly bleed onto the ground below them, they wanted to get up but they were slowly weakening due to the blood loss while also being stuck due to their spikes being implanted into the ground. If they were at full power they would have been able to struggle and after some time get out of their embarrassing position but currently, they were continuously weakening so there was no chance they would be able to do that. The duo felt their lives flashing in front of their eyes as they saw Felix continuing to flutter the medicine in front of their faces, they gritted their teeth weakly as they nodded at Felix showing their indication that they wanted to cooperate. Felix smiled at them as he crushed the pills and made the duo snort them, the cut on their necks quickly healed as they tried to shout only to realize that their voices were still sealed. Felix waved his paw at them in a negative manner as he said: "No no no, you don''t get to talk yet, open up the wall in front of us first." The duo tried to point towards their backs indicating that they needed to be free if he wanted them to open the wall only for Felix''s eyes to narrow as he said: "Don''t try to fool me, I know you can control the walls with your thoughts alone, now open up before I decide to find some other guardians!" The duo was supposed to endure but every intelligent being would have a fight or flight response in situations like these, they would either fight to the end with the being that was threatening their lives or cave into the pressure of the upcoming death and flee away, in this situation where the duo couldn''t flee they decided to give up and do what Felix wanted them to. They closed their eyes as an invisible power seeped out of their beings, the spike wall in front of them slowly started to shake and create an opening as Landers and the troops slowly started to rush in but making sure they didn''t touch any of the spikes. The duo wanted to close the wall to trap the enemy troops between it but Felix was above them smiling dangerously at them as his claws slowly inched towards their necks again, but now they could feel his killing intent directly on their heads. Unfortunately for them their nefarious plan was easily seen through by Felix and stopped by his ingenious murderous paws. One step after another Landers and the troops slipped their way through the wall and arrived at the inner place of the hedgehogs, unfortunately, due to the commotion of the wall opening up any chances for an ambush had been discarded. The hedgehog army started to gather to counter-attack the invaders as they realized that something wasn''t right the moment the wall started to shake, every hedgehog had a big snail in their arms as they pointed its back ends towards Felix and the others. The hedgehogs numbered 400,000 in total and each had their own snail in their arms meaning that the total number of enemies was 800,000! However Landers wasn''t necessarily scared of the number difference as he took the front of the army and started to power up, trying to get the whole focus on him, he was now at full power and fully rested, ready to rumble! Lindo motioned for Manitola to jump on his back as he was ready to activate his advanced killing intent detection and start running among the hedgehog troops. Felix slowly disappeared as he entered his stealth mode ready to attack at a moment''s notice, the troops took out hextech canons as they aimed towards their enemies while the ones that didn''t have them became ready for a melee brawl. The guardian duo was also kidnapped and taken as prisoners before being placed at the back of the army still reinserted into the ground after they were recovered and tied up. Landers put his arm down as he initiated another conquering war! The snail''s rear ends started to spew purple-colored gas that slowly started to disseminate into the air the moment Landers did his arm gesture. Landers knew about the snail''s poisonous abilities so he made his troops retreat only to realize that the wall behind them was slowly closing in! If they left now there was no chance they would be able to enter again but if they remained who knew what kind of poison they would encounter? Manitola did say that it was highly acidic poison which meant their bodies would be burned. Landers immediately gave out the command: "Take out and don the new black iron armors, this is an emergency!" Chapter 119: The slug tribe is delicious The troops quickly planted their feet on the ground as they inserted their hands into the special bag that they tied at their waists before taking out an intricately painted dark armor that they donned on their bodies. The moment the armor was put on their bodies the ground below slowly started to dent-in due to the increased weight. The purple gas slowly started to approach them however the moment it made contact with the dark armor it started to sizzle and pop then dissipate by itself. However, the armor was made only for the torso and it didn''t cover the whole body as the dark iron was a rare material, while they could make quite a big number of them with the ore vein that they found under the black bear''s cave they couldn''t spread the armor to cover the whole body, only some of the more important vitals. However, it was enough to withstand the poison. The hedgehog''s eyes bulged out seeing how the lion troops were confidently walking towards the poisonous fogs while the snails continued to do their best to excrete as much poison as they could. With the addition of the armor, the troops could walk forward through the poison but that didn''t mean that it was an easy endeavor, the armor was dissipating some of the poison but the snails were also excreting more at high speeds. At this point, the troops also had to withstand some of the poison with their bodies, some of them were still feeling ok as they continued but others weren''t as lucky as their skin slowly started to turn purple and they became paralyzed. The others who were unaffected tried to help them up only to realize that their comrade''s bodies stiffened up as if they were dead! They knew something wasn''t right but somehow even though they stiffened up their vitals still seemed to be working properly, their heart beating normally and their breathing was also normal. Since their lives weren''t in peril they decided to leave them there as they continued to go through the poison. Landers looked behind and saw his troops diminishing as he frowned and asked Manitola: "Will they be ok?" "Don''t worry, while acidic the poison can be negated with the armor your soldiers wear, the ones who got paralyzed must have weaker bodies as their anti corps can''t handle the poison." Landers didn''t understand what Manitola said besides that his soldier''s bodies were weak but he wasn''t the one who trained them so he felt a little bit responsible, if he trained them such a situation wouldn''t have happened now! There was no time for regrets now as he ripped off the mangled armor on his body before donning the black iron one. He charged directly towards the hedgehogs with a mighty war cry that inspired the soldiers, his aura flared to life as he ignored the poisonous gas that was being continuously aimed at him, his body was so strong that the gas had no effect and the acidic portion of it was blocked by the armor. Felix came from behind as he tried to slap the snails out of the hedgehog''s grasps while they were focusing on the lion army and Landers''s assault. Manitola and Lindo were already hard at work as they used their combination to stun and charm the hedgehogs stopping some parts of the encirclement where poison started to disappear. After creating a breakthrough point the army focused on it as they were encircled, behind them was the spike wall, and around them were the hedgehogs, they were in a disadvantaged position and they needed to take the high ground. Felix started to assassinate the snail holding hedgehogs that were closer to him as he unleashed a tornado of claws that left dark marks in the air which dissipated after a few seconds. Those claw marks found their targets as the hedgehog''s heads flew into the air with shocked expressions. Felix wondered what kind of improvements his body would get if he ate some hedgehog but looking at the spikes over the heads made him reconsider eating the head as he approached a downed body instead. He scarfed it down quickly while the others were focused on the battle, the moment he finished the last bit of meat he felt his body heat up as his fur stood on end and started to harden, he could feel his fur hardening slowly and also sharpening. It was a strange feeling as if he had gotten a new organ he had never even heard about before. Felix concentrated and he felt that his fur returned to normal if he wanted it to, it was quite an interesting thing. Unknowingly to him, he had achieved the most basic bloodline power of the hedgehog tribe. After experimenting with his new ability for a few seconds he continued his killing and eating, he hadn''t reached even the halfway plateau of his new ability and after around 5,000 bodies eaten he felt full and that he had completed the ability as his fur reached the maximum hardness and sharpness. Using his new ability he started to spin creating a sharp orange tornado that unleashed a massacre as limbs and other body parts started to fly into the air while he was in the middle of the hedgehogs, while their hair would sometimes prevent them from getting killed they would still lose al limb or two. But Felix wasn''t the only one who went on a rampage as Landers fought with all he had as he created great opportunities for the troops to advance and kill their way in, getting in a better position and taking the high ground! This lead to a total collapse of the hedgehog''s formation and their deaths numbered in the tens of thousands while the lions didn''t lose any people up till now, while there were victims to paralysis they could be healed with time. The hedgehogs started to retreat further away from the wall as they realized that the snails weren''t useful at all in this situation, they thought that they would be able to weaken their enemies with the poison first before unleashing themselves on them, and easily getting rid of these nuisances that invaded their village but they were wrong! The little cat and their commander were too fierce! They could soak all of the attention and from time to time some of their troops would lose control of their bodies and automatically start to walk towards Lindo who had Manitola on his back, thus becoming easy targets to be mobbed. The hedgehogs knew that this plan was a failure as they rolled into balls and threw the snails away, they rolled into their houses as they barricaded there while leaving the 400,000 snails to the mercy of the lions. Landers stopped the tribe as he looked at the houses of the hedgehogs, they were also made from spikes combined with mud and hardened with fire if he guessed correctly. The snails tried to run away which was quite funny, looking at their shells trying to move away at 1 meter per hour, the lion tribesmen that were immune to their paralysis started to bang on their shells making the snails retreat into them. Then the shells were grabbed up as Manitola said: "They are weak towards salt or they can be boiled in water, even though the shell is strong against blunt attacks, shockwave attacks can go through it and transform their bodies into sludge." The troops nodded as they looked around for a giant wok that they filled with water before creating a big fire that started to boil the water in the wok. The snails weren''t really useful so Landers decided to kill all of them so they wouldn''t be nuisances in the future, while their poison wouldn''t work due to the armors, what would have happened if they didn''t have them? Also, it was unknown what was the upper cap potential of the snail''s poison. The shells were being thrown one after another into the wok as the boiling water started to kill the slugs creating hellish screams from the dying beings. The lions weren''t really affected by the screaming but the hedgehogs who were now hiding in their houses couldn''t help but feel really bad as they were the ones that abandoned their allies. The leader of the army looked through the window as she saw what was happening to her allies and frowned heavily. The snails were indeed useless against these folks but their armors looked to be made from rare materials which indicated that not everyone would have them, thus while useless against the lions they would be useful towards the other invaders. Losing their whole tribe in this situation would be a great hit to the defending alliance of the Sparron continent as they would lose a living bio-chemical weapon that could continuously regenerate. The leader of the army was a hedgehog woman with blue spiked hair, she wore an ascot at her neck and a blue military uniform that camouflaged her hair, she was currently in one of the houses that had a clear view of what was happening to the snails and she knew that after they were done with the snails they would be next! While the houses were made to retaliate with the spikes if they were attacked, they were only made of mud and had low durability thus they wouldn''t last much time under the continuous attack of the lions. However, she knew that the best time to retaliate would be when they would attack the house so she steeled herself and started to whisper amongst the troops that were inside the house with her also sending some messages to the other scattered around the village. In total, they lost around 50,000 people while the lions had 4,000 paralyzed people, after making the calculations she looked towards the window once more as she concluded the plan to repeal the invaders away from her village and people, they already evacuated the civilians so they could fully go all out now! Chapter 120: Hedgehogs fight back (1) While the hedgehogs were finishing their plans, Felix got closer to the wok full of snails and started to smell around, if he was honest with himself they did smell quite nice. And he also wondered what type of ability would he get from the poisonous snails. Felix watched the wok boil as the fire was burning under it while the army was getting ready to shake the hedgehogs out of the houses. Landers approached Felix and saw the glint in his eyes, Willy had told Felix a few times that it was unknown what would happen if he ate the boiled snails as they were poisonous but Felix didn''t listen to him. Landers patted him on the head as he said: "You want some snails?" Felix nodded, he would have gotten them by himself but he didn''t want to throw the wok to get the snails as there were still quite a lot of unboiled ones waiting around. Landers knew that Felix would get stronger if he ate and even though he had eaten quite a lot of hedgehogs he decided to help him with this one, after all, Felix wasn''t issued dark iron armor but he still easily endured the poison which showed that his body had reached durability that was unprecedented when it came to other cats. After he fished out a few snails he threw them on the ground in front of Felix as the cat entered the big holes and started to suck out the boiled meat of the snails and eat it. Felix could feel that the meat was very spicy and it was most likely because of its poisonous properties but with his current bodily strength his anti corps easily took care of the poison. As for the acidic parts they didn''t even do a dent on Felix''s entrails. After finishing the first snail Felix couldn''t feel anything special happening so he continued to the second one, the third one, and so on until he had eaten all of the boiled snails with Landers''s help, thus emptying the wok and making the allocated soldiers throw more snails until an elderly voice was heard from one of the snail shells. "STOP IT! WE BEG YOU TO STOP IT, YOU ARE MONSTERS!" An elderly snail slowly made his way out of his shell as he glanced at Landers and let his head down his popped out eyes looking to be subservient as he said: "We surrender, please stop boiling my people, you have already killed around 30,000 of them and our reproduction process is very hard, please have mercy, we will be at your every beck and call!" It seemed that under the constant pressure of death and tribe annihilation the leader of the snail tribes finally relented as they realized that there was no chance that the hedgehogs would still help them at this point, they were the ones that abandoned them in the first place so they could run away faster! The elderly snail didn''t like to bow his head to Landers and Felix but the moment he saw how Felix was eating his people so eagerly it made him realize that if he didn''t give in honestly he would one day end up in the stomach of the little cat! Felix had finished eating the last boiled snail as the troops stopped while looking at Landers for instructions, would he take the snails in or annihilate them? Landers looked at the elderly snail and said: "Since you are so honest in you giving up, I will accept your offer and from now on you shall be the subservient tribe to the Lion tribe but considering it impossible to make sure you will not betray us, I want you to make an oath on your ancestors that you will serve the Lion tribe faithfully." The elderly snail would have gritted his teeth if he had any but he just said in a serious tone of voice: "I Belgard the Third Shaman of the snail tribe swear on my ancestors that I will faithfully serve the Lion tribe along with my people until one of our tribes shall become extinct!" The words created black energy that surged into the sky and disappeared, invisible chains started to tighten themselves around every living snail. Landers nodded as he said: "Now that you have done that you are officially the Lion tribe''s ''allies'' and we shall need your help for now." The elderly snail nodded as he waited for Landers to pick him up, which he did. Landers pointed towards the snails as he told his people: "Pick up the snails and aim them at the buildings of the village! We shall make all of the hedgehogs leave them even if they want to or not!" Felix patted his belly as he looked at the ongoing spectacle, surprisingly after eating so many snails he didn''t feel like he unlocked any perk or ability that changed his body, it was quite strange. Unknowingly to him, the poison that seeped into his body thousands of times from eating the snails tempered his already strong anti corps making him immune to most poisons. But he couldn''t know that as even though he would be able to monitor his insides during his breathing training he didn''t have such a good insight that he would even see such small things as cells and their changes. Landers and the army pointed the behinds of the snails towards the village as they unleashed their poison! "Let''s see how you will like tasting your own medicine!" The hedgehog army leader frowned as she looked through the window and saw the purple gas coming towards them, she didn''t take into account the possible betrayal of the snails, she thought that they were going to try and bring down the houses on their heads which would lead to them having a perfect counterattack... However, they had the antidote to the poison and the spikes that lead to their ankles were durable enough to withstand the poison. Landers frowned as he looked at the poison engulfed houses and put his hand up as he indicated for the snails to stop shooting poison out of their behinds. He looked at the elderly snail in his hand as he asked: "Why aren''t they getting out?" The elderly snail thought for a few seconds before saying: "I think... I think we have given them the antidote to the poison..." Landers tsked as he threw the snail away from his arms: "Useless for now, get out of our way and go back to our own village." The snail elder looked at Landers and said: "We... can''t scale the wall." "I didn''t mean right now! Just wait for us to finish but make sure you aren''t in the way!" The elderly snail nodded as he whistled making all of the snails slowly start to move towards the wall getting out of the way of the Lions. Landers nodded seeing how things went smoothly as he looked at the nearest building. His muscles started to tense up as he unleashed a punch so fast that it easily broke through the spikes that were meant to protect the building and created a huge hole in it making the hedgehogs in it scream as the after shockwave hit them and dizzied them. The lion army then unleashed themselves on the dizzied hedgehogs either killing or capturing them. Landers nodded as the headcount indicated that they have gotten rid of around 30 hedgehogs. There were quite a lot of buildings around in the village some bigger than the others, and while the village wasn''t very widely placed there were some peculiar tall buildings in the middle. Felix looked around and started to do the same thing as Landers did, however, his paws only left a small hole in the house he chose instead of breaking it down halfway like Landers did. The houses made of mud were actually tougher than they looked! Felix decided to go all out as he unleashed his lightning armor and battle breathing technique before throwing his paw in front of him creating a similar shockwave to Landers, his being weaker by a few tiers, but the attack was successful as one of the walls of the house was cracked down, but unlike Landers''s attack the after shockwave was absorbed by the other walls and didn''t inflict any damage on the hedgehogs that stood inside. The army attacked and continued their capturing/killing of hedgehogs. The hedgehog leader frowned as she looked at everything that was happening, they were slowly getting closer to the place she was hiding in with a bulk of troops standing around 1,000 in number, she knew that the way they were currently placed she needed to work with guerilla tactics to defend the village but by the looks of it she would need to enforce her plan already if she didn''t want to lose any more people to the greedy claws of the lions. She closed her eyes for a few seconds before she steeled her conviction and jumped through the top of the ceiling arriving at the top of the building she was currently in. She then sat cross-legged atop the building as he breathed in and out, her blue long spiky hair slowly started to shed and insert itself into the building creating nodes of control as the people inside started to do the same. The normal building started to shake taking the attention of the army Felix and the others. Suddenly more buildings started to shake as other Hedgehogs jumped to the top of them. Very quickly the buildings stopped shaking as spiky arms and legs grew out of the sides and out of the foundation, a malevolent head engulfed those that stood atop the roofs of the buildings as the eyes of these mud and spikes giants started to glow with blue energy, the surrounding hex energy slowly started to dissipate as it was all absorbed by the newly created golems. Thousands of golems stood in front of the Lions army as they looked at them down from heights around 2,50 meters to a maximum of 10 meters. The tallest golem wasn''t the one controlled by the leader of the military but by the shaman of the tribe who didn''t make himself visible up till now! The head of the tallest golem opened up as the shaman of the hedgehogs made himself visible. Chapter 121: Hedgehogs fight back (2) The shaman wore hastily tied armor to his body as it could be seen that it was hanging on his body incorrectly, after the head of the golem opened up the man decided to first talk with Landers and the others trying to make them back off. He made a small glance towards the leader of the army, the shedding of one''s spikes wouldn''t hurt if it was done naturally but it was obvious every person who activated a golem had to shed their spikes to create controls for those that controlled the golem from the inside. This forceful shedding was extremely painful and he wondered how the army leader was still awake after she had done that, he knew why the others had their bodies engulfed in the heads of the golems, they most likely passed out and their subordinates helped them so they wouldn''t fall from the top of the golem. Only hers was opening up as she glared down at the lion army from above, it was obvious she was weakened as she breathed roughly and clutched her chest. The shaman waved his hand at her then shook his head, she needed rest as she did good enough, now it was the time for the normal troops to shine with the gadgets they had gotten from the human tribe! "I shall say this only once!" "Will you leave peacefully or should we throw you out?" The shaman''s voice became imposing as he said those words, a gentle aura engulfed him as he glared down at the invaders that had killed his people and terrorized the civilians, then at the traitors that were currently slowly making their way closer to the wall of spikes. He detested the snails for not enduring until they finished their plan but he also understood their plight so he decided to leave them be after he got rid of the lions. He already guessed that they wouldn''t back away regardless of how mighty their golems were. Landers took a few steps backward to see how many golems were in total and as he counted he realized that they were around a few thousands of them. And all of them had an important figure of the hedgehog tribe on top of them supplying them with hex energy and spikes from their heads, besides the shaman who was directly controlling the golem while someone else must have used their spikes to activate the golem. Landers wasn''t sure how strong these golems were so he thought for a little not even bothering to respond to the shaman''s question. He was already thinking about how to take down the golems, he realized that the weakness was the head but he couldn''t fly that high without getting exhausted at least for the taller ones, he would be able to fly to the shorter ones with average energy consumption on his part. But for the taller ones... It was unknown what he could do in that situation. Felix started to move, turning on his stealth as he ran towards the nearest golem, Landers made the troops go back as they wouldn''t be useful in this situation unless they would be able to scale to the top of the golems which was unlikely. Felix agilely started to run onto the spiky leg of one of the shorter golems that stood around 2,30 meters. Because of his fur''s improvement, the spikes didn''t have any effect on him as he ran along until he reached the mud part of the golem where he drilled inside the house using his claws, the hedgehogs were doing their best channeling their hex energy into it as they controlled the golem ready to make it pounce towards the Lions down below to crush and skewer them. While they were so focused on controlling the golem they didn''t realize that a small hole the size of a cat appeared at the bottom of it. Before they could realize what was happening Felix unleashed a tornado of spiked hair started to skewer the hedgehog troops that were controlling the golem. Blood started to drip down from the house towards the ground through the hole that Felix made as the hedgehogs in the golem died gruesomely. The golem stopped working as it had no personnel anymore and the person who powered it up who stood at the top in the head realized something was wrong as he just woke up only to find out that the head was crumbling and he was falling! With a sick ''splurch'' the weakened body of one of the top people of the hedgehog tribe hit the ground and died as his neck remained in an awkward angle and his head broken open. While the head was a weakness if you could get inside the house and kill the controlling people the golem would pretty much become useless. However, Felix was the only one who could ignore the spikes that were used as arms and legs for the golem. Even Landers would get pierced by them if he wasn''t cautious. As for the others, there was nothing to talk about. Seeing that one of their golems was taken care of so subtly and stealthily made the shaman widen his eyes as he gritted his teeth in anger and then waved his hand indicating for the attack to commence! The golems moved rather quickly if you would take into calculation their weight and height. They started to move and attack even releasing batches of spikes to impale the Lion on the ground. Landers frowned as he looked at his troops and told them: "RETREAT AS FAR AS POSSIBLE, I WILL MAKE SURE YOU DON''T GET INJURED." At this point, the troops became a burden but they would still be useful if they took care of the giant contraptions of the enemies so he had just to keep them safe until he got rid of the golems. Felix moved to another golem as he created another hole into its back before drilling in. While Felix was very advantaged in this situation he couldn''t get rid of thousands of golems by himself at a quick speed. While he would be able to escape he couldn''t guarantee for the others, he didn''t really care about the troops but he had a little place for Lindo and Landers in his heart and since Manitola was so important to Lindo it could be said that he would try to save her as well. Landers puffed up his aura as he started to fly landing on the heads of the shorter golems and ripping the resting people out of the heads with his bare hands. Then he watched as the golem ran out of power and their arms and legs started to slowly break and fall. Landers and Felix weren''t the only ones who worked their way up the golems as Lindo and Manitola did as well, somehow Lindo used his advanced killing intent detection to find a way to dodge the spikes by using a minimal amount of force on the soles of his feet making the spikes unable to damage him and combined with his ability to dodge even if the controllers in the golem''s belly wanted to make the spikes attack him he still easily dodged them. Unfortunately, they could only attack 3 Golems at the time and there were thousands in total thus leaving the troops to deal with the others even though they weren''t really able to, it was a fact that the power golems was pretty darn high as they were special creations of the human tribe which they sold to the Sparron continent for their defenses, this was only one of the golem''s variety that the hedgehog tribe got. The troops of lions tried their best to dodge the clumsy but fast golems while also trying to trip them using steel ropes and other things which they succeeded with the shorter ones but the taller ones went ahead and stomped on some of them killing them in the process. Landers was getting angrier and angrier by the second as he dismantled more and more golems but it was inevitable that his troops would die, he wasn''t able to be in more than one place at the same time and even though Lindo Felix and Manitola were doing their best to get rid of the other golems they just weren''t enough. Landers'' troops started to shorten in number but so did the short golems, leaving behind only those taller standing at the 5 meters and above which counted to around 1,000 or so. They had killed and destroyed quite a lot of golems as time passed, it took them around 3 days to reach the number of 3,000 golems as things didn''t always go smoothly. Landers'' troops were reduced to around 70,000, dead bodies and meat pancakes were strewn around the village ruins and rubble. Landers clutched his left injured arm as he breathed hard, the 1,000 golems were inactive due to the lack of hex energy both in the bodies of the controlling hedgehogs and in the air. Felix was supporting Landers while Lindo and Manitola were leaning on each other, most of the surviving troops were injured to the point that they couldn''t move anymore but the same could be said about the hedgehogs as well. It seemed they ended up in a tie? Chapter 122: A tie with many victims The tie between the hedgehogs and the lions wasn''t something that both sides wanted to see, for one the hedgehogs lost a lot of the golems that they invested heavily into along with a lot of their army forces. The Lions also lost a lot of their troops, more than half of the ones they used in their expedition, this was the biggest loss they had since they had arrived on the continent, it hurt Landers deeply as he looked at the dead strewn around, most of them were flattened to the ground and imbedded there making it harder to retrieve their bodies afterward. The hedgehogs weren''t in a better position as numerically speaking they lost a lot more people in combination with their golems. Landers couldn''t help but cough a small knot of blood as he looked at all of the death around him making Felix worry a little about him as he supported his body. Landers shook his head to clear it, he knew the horrors of war and that if he decided to invade another person''s territory he should expect retaliation but that didn''t mean it didn''t hurt when he saw how his troops were slaughtered, at least he understood how the people he conquered felt, even though most of the time he did his best to reduce casualties on both sides if things were possible. He took a few steps forward as he looked at the inactive golems, putting his view atop the tallest one where the shaman of the hedgehogs was coughing blood and glaring down at the remaining Lions. "I can''t believe they are so tenacious..." Even though he and his people had killed 80,000 Lions it still wasn''t enough for him as he wanted complete annihilation! He gritted his teeth as he looked around at the wreckage that was his people''s village along with the three hundred thousand bodies of hedgehogs lying around. They were either in parts or even blood puddles, some of them were unrecognizable as if they went through a wood chipper. It was grisly sight after grisly sight but there was nothing they could do besides look at it, both of the parties were too tense to move more from their current positions as they would be opened for attacks. They had fought tooth and nail until they couldn''t anymore so they were wary of each other. Felix let Landers down to the ground as he put himself in front of him, he still had some stamina left but it was very minimal, while he had trained the first part of the stamina breathing technique to the peak he didn''t break through to the next part so his aura could turn green, he still didn''t complete all of the breathing techniques and he felt something special would happen if he completed all of them first before having that breakthrough, and he was still missing the agility and speed breathing techniques. Landers coughed a bit more as he looked at Felix: "You have done great up till now, I''m not sure if we can even get reinforcements at this point as they might be in trouble as well, who knows when the rabbit tribe would strike again?" Landers''s body shook as his heart rate started to slow however all he did was beat his chest a few times as he got his heart working again. While he wouldn''t die from this amount of injuries his body would automatically hibernate to replenish his exhausted energy as for now he lost all bits of energy and even overdrafted on some of his hidden reserves. But he couldn''t go to sleep now! He tried to get back to a sitting position but he felt his whole body was like putting, he had no strength in it as he grasped the dirt below him leaving a hand imprint but nothing more, Landers hated this feeling of weakness as Felix tried to get him up on his back, maybe it was time to leave. Felix could still escape as he still had enough stamina for that, but not for fighting, the surrounding hex energy was also pretty unexisting at the moment so he couldn''t use his techniques anymore. He was pretty much a sitting duck even though there were still troops left. Felix made an eye signal towards Manitola and Lindo which they understood... but they didn''t really like it, especially Lindo. He looked at the remaining troops, 70,000 people were quite a lot of living souls, how could he bear to abandon them? Especially since they were brothers and sisters from the tribe. Lindo felt sick to his stomach, would he really need to abandon his brethren here so he could escape? He loved Manitola dearly but that didn''t mean he lost his mind over her, he still had his morals that he grew up on, his love for the tribe was only equaled by his love for Manitola. He wanted to make a compromise but as he saw the gaze of the hedgehog shaman looking them down as if he was a hawk and they were mice made him realize that there no way he would accept a compromise after everything that happened. He glanced around, he knew that the moment any sudden moves were made the remaining hedgehogs would attack their troops, 95% of their troops were injured and he wasn''t sure if the guardians who opened the gate were still alive, the pandemonium created during the fight made him unable to see where the two were buried. He would go and look but they were watched by the hedgehog shaman while he was recuperating. Felix was also out of juice and he could feel that the hex energy in the surroundings dried up, with Felix''s condition he wouldn''t be able to use his stealth! Felix''s stealth would have been the best tool in this situation, he could have saved everyone here! But it seemed that while he did great things he would also have limits and he reached his at the moment. Lindo didn''t know what to do as he glanced at Manitola for support. Manitola couldn''t read his mind but she knew him well enough to know what he was thinking about: "Dear, you should do what you think you can do, we are all exhausted here but if you have a plan you should put it into practice if you feel that it will work, at this point you either save all of them or lose them all, from what I can see Felix can still escape with Landers, as for the two of us... I will follow you with whatever you want to do!" 90% of her words came from her love for Lindo and 10% was mostly because she wouldn''t be able to leave if Lindo didn''t let her. She gave him a gentle hug as he looked behind him at his brethren who were either trying to bandage their wounds or stood in defensive positions to make sure there would be no sudden attacks from the enemies. Lindo decided at that moment as fiery energy slowly started to manifest in his stomach, he didn''t know what it was but it gave him the courage to do what he felt was right! He slowly started to crouch towards the ground as he made his way amongst the corpses trying to find if there was the duo who could open the wall, if they were the plan would already be dead but if they were still alive! Currently, the shaman hedgehog couldn''t focus on each of the lions so he only looked where they have huddled more together and Landers''s and Felix''s location, so while Lindo had moved from where he previously was the shaman didn''t realize, after all, he didn''t have more than 2 eyes and the other hedgehogs were in similar situations as the Lions, they had it a little bit better as they weren''t injured and just exhausted by the hex energy deprival so they were at an advantage compared to the Lions who were both exhausted and injured to the point that they couldn''t even lick their wounds properly. Lindo continued to ''swim'' through the corpses of his comrades and hedgehogs as he tried to identify which one of them was the guards. He smiled as he left the area full of corpses as he realized that the guard duo wasn''t in it! That meant they were still alive! He took a look back to the snails who also endured quite a few losses and as he took a better glance amidst the snails he realized that the guard duo was amongst them! It seemed the snails must have protected them realizing that they were the only path outside this death trap. Lindo slowly approached the snail chief as the old snail whispered something to him. Lindo''s eyes lit up as he heard the old snail''s words before he nodded and slowly returned towards one of the closer warriors of the Lion tribe before he whispered something to him as well, it was the elder snail''s message with something from his own as well. He had finally found a way to not only save every survivor but also retaliate and capture the village in one fell swoop! Chapter 123: Brilliant turn around The plan was rather simple as he found out about the survival of those two hedgehogs and the tip from the snail elder, he found a good way to get rid of the golems that were supporting the hedgehogs using their own people! He already shared the information with all of the other troops and thus they knew when to get out of the way when the plan will commence. Lindo went among the snails as he got close to the two tied hedgehog guards. The duo was still conscious even though they looked to be rather weak, their pale faces shown that they weren''t really uninjured. Seeing that Lindo was approaching them made the duo glare at him, they hated what happened up till now as their brethren were killed and injured and all they could do was watch, while they would have tried to do something with the wall they were surrounded by snails and if anything happened they would have been poisoned to death. While they loved their people and hated what was happening but if it were for them to die for nothing, dying wouldn''t help the surviving hedgehogs at all so they gritted their teeth and endured watching everything that was happening, at least the lions were in a similar situation to them, this soothed their aching hearts a bit. However Lindo''s approach made them both puzzled and wary at the same time, they knew that he didn''t come here with good intentions as he whispered something with the snail elder and then went ahead to share what he talked about with his compatriots. Was he going to force them to open the wall so his troops could escape? They were inclined to do as he wanted, they knew that any more fights would lead to needless deaths at this point, both sides were injured and exhausted and any more fighting wouldn''t lead to anything good, maybe they would even wipe each other out which was something that only the snails would want to see, while they were currently under Lion''s jurisdiction if both sides died they would be free until another batch of the Lion tribe would find them, thus they could even run away. Lindo coughed taking the attention of both guards, they looked at him, waiting for him to talk. Lindo approached them until he was practically nose to nose with them as he told them: "I have an offer for the two of you that you can''t refuse." The duo looked at each other before looking at Lindo, what was this offer they couldn''t refuse? Lindo nodded as he took a few steps backward to create a little bit of breathing space between them and said: "You will help us win this battle, even if you want to or not." The duo''s eyes narrowed as they looked at Lindo and they sneered in unison as they said: "Think you can make us betray the tribe? While we have opened the wall that''s the furthest you can get from us!" While they were scared of death at first, witnessing their brethren heroically sacrificing themselves against the invaders while they were tied and stashed away, unlocked some feelings in them that they didn''t really have before. Pride to belong to the hedgehog tribe and an undying will to protect said tribe. Lindo''s plan needed the wall to work so if the duo didn''t work with him complications would arise. He was the only one who could move normally under the hawk-like gaze of the hedgehog shaman... but Manitola could also do it if he was the one to stay there so the shaman wouldn''t doubt anything if his eyes ever moved across the place they were at, if he found it empty he would be suspicious but if he saw someone there his suspicious would surely be smaller giving enough time for Manitola to employ the plan. Lindo started to go back to where he was before as he didn''t have the means to force the duo, he could see from their gazes that they would be a tough nut to crack and he knew the best person to crack that nut. Manitola kept to herself as she rested by herself until Lindo came, she asked him gently: "Have you found the best way to save them?" Lindo nodded as he told her the plan which made her eyes widen and then light up as she said: "This seems like a good plan, I understand, stay here I''m going to help those two see reason." Manitola left her place leaving Lindo there instead as she trudged through the corpses just as he did. After a short while, he reached the snails and entered the snail encirclement meeting with the guard duo. The guards recognized Manitola as she was the official princess of the foxes and she had traveled amongst many tribes of the Sparron continent when she was young, the moment they saw her they thought that she may have come to help them, while she did came with the Lions it was pretty much obvious that she didn''t come by her own will, at least that''s what they thought. "I would have bowed to you, your highness if these bindings weren''t restraining me so." One of the hedgehog guards said as he eyed Manitola, he had quite the deal of respect for the leaders of the continent, just as everyone else from the hedgehog tribe did. Manitola didn''t mince words with the duo as she clasped her hands together before unleashing a pink domain of hex energy that engulfed the duo making them slack-eyed as they became mesmerized by her technique, they were pretty much her puppets now, this was a technique that she couldn''t use often due to the enemies that she had encountered, every one of them either had some type of mental resistance so even though she might be able to charm them she wouldn''t be able to get full control of their bodies and souls. Manitola then untied them as he let them get up and move closer towards the wall. The wall slowly started to shake as Manitola controlled the hedgehogs to move the wall but unlike before the wall didn''t open up. The wall''s shaking attracted the attention of everyone as they looked back at it, the hedgehogs were especially surprised considering they thought that the guards must have died by now, surprisingly they were still alive and kicking! The wall shook continuously, harder and harder! Until the spikes that made up the wall slowly started to levitate and after that, they started to spin at immense speeds as if they were drills. The hedgehogs started to smile thinking that they had won this, the guards finally escaped and they were ready to get rid of the lions! However the moment they thought they won they realized something horrifying, the spikes weren''t targeting the Lions but them! The spinning spikes inserted themselves in the skulls of the top brass as they flew at immense speeds not even leaving after-images behind. The top-brass who were the hearts of the golems then fell to the ground with big clean holes in their heads, their grey matter spilled on the ground in huge amounts after their bodies hit the ground from such an altitude. Only the shaman had enough foresight to dodge the spike that was meant to claim his life but that didn''t mean he came unscathed as a big slash appeared on the right side of his face still dripping blood and scarring him for life. The hedgehog shaman was as angry as he could be as he clutched his chest, his heart was beating too fast because of his anger and he was ready to have a cardiac arrest only for him to close his eyes and breathe in and out for a few seconds before stopping clutching his heart. He knew that they have lost the initiative, somehow the Lions got the guardians under their thumbs and made them work against their brethren. The shaman was still angry but he didn''t let that get in the way of his thoughts... what could they do in this situation? The wall surrounding them was tall and surrounding the whole village, controlling the wall meant controlling the lives of everyone inside it... Even though it took a lot of power to control the wall they didn''t need to shoot more than another volley before every hedgehog that survived would meet their doom. He took a few steps backward as he felt his head growing heavier and his consciousness being depleted. The blood loss combined with the exhaustion was making him blackout. Landers looked at what was happening and he was confused, what was going on? Who was doing this? Lindo smiled as he finally got up from his hiding spot and ran towards Landers and Felix with that big smile on his face. The moment Landers saw his smile he realized that what was happening had to do something with this little bugger, he felt quite proud due to his ingenuity in a deadly moment and he would have patted him on the shoulder if he could... Finally, this was another victory for the Lion tribe, a pricey one but still a victory... Chapter 124: Bitter sweet victory Landers looked at Felix as he motioned with his eyes to support him up, he wanted to see everything that happened properly instead of from his downed position. Felix helped him up as he looked at Lindo and put his paw up indicating that he did a great job. Lindo continued to smile as the barrage of rotating spikes stopped, and he oversaw the corpses of the hedgehog''s leaders, not all of the surviving hedgehogs were killed as it was impossible to make the guards do something they couldn''t. Manitola looked down at the over-exhausted guardians at her feet, they gave their all under her mind control and they ran out of energy, blood was running down from their mouths and ears as they used every drop of energy they had in their bodies to the point they injured their vitality and lowered their lifespan. It was obvious they wouldn''t live much anymore and as she looked up she saw a big opening in the wall, the duo had made themselves useful and it was time to give them their farewell... Manitola put her hands on each of their throats as she slowly clenched them cutting their oxygen supply and ending their lives, at this point, there was a high chance of death for them anyways so she just quickened the process making them suffer less. She shook her head to clear her head and then told the snails to burry them, they deserved at least this much for the work they did, as unwilling as they were originally. Some of the snails took the bodies and went ahead to find a good place to bury them. Manitola returned to Lindo''s side as they both looked at the surviving hedgehogs crying at the deaths of their leaders. The blue-haired army leader laid down in a puddle of her own blood and brain matter as a younger officer was clutching her hands, there was a spike lodged in her right eye and the back of her head was blown open. It was obvious she was dead as she could be but that officer never let go of her hand as the time that she got her head blown open replayed in his mind over and over again, she did it to protect him! Landers looked around and didn''t feel that well as he saw the hedgehogs crying over their dead ones but he sighed as he knew this was war, they had their own dead to take care of so even though he pitied the hedgehogs he still had to take over the village. In war, there were no sides that were right or wrong but only the winners or losers. The winners were right and the losers were wrong, 90% of the wars were started by greed just like this one, while the other 10% were by misunderstandings. Felix didn''t feel anything as he looked around, the deaths of these people didn''t affect him at all even though he was supposed to feel even one thing but it seemed that the death of strangers didn''t trigger his empathy. Landers patted Felix''s head as he told him: "Can you help me up? We still have to get rid of the surviving hedgehogs as they would surely not just stay there and do nothing, they might be plotting their revenge already, while it would have been nice to incorporate them into our army it''s impossible at this point." The hatred that was sowed between the two tribes couldn''t be washed away even if the hedgehogs annihilated the whole Lion tribe, which was pretty much impossible, the Lion tribe was very big and the capital of the Lions wasn''t the only place the Lions thrived on the Tarot continent. Felix nodded at Landers and asked: "Shall I go and get rid of the others?" Landers didn''t think for even one second as he gave the order: "Go." Felix started to make his way towards the survivors along with the lion troops, the upper echelons were all dead and only the normal troops remained, without the stronger people the golems had already fallen to the ground like junk heaps as they became useless, no one was able to power them properly and the surviving hedgehogs were too engulfed in grief to even think about trading their lives to power up the golems, plus there was no hex energy in the surroundings anymore either. Felix''s actions weren''t lowkey and no matter how grief engulfed the hedgehogs were they still saw how he was advancing with the 70,000 troops behind him, they knew that they were going to die at this point so they might as well take some more people down with them! With a mighty warcry the remaining hedgehogs grouped up into a formation of 40,000 people and ran towards the lions with their fists up ready to brawl with them, both sides were injured and exhausted so that''s what happened, it was worse than a street brawl, there was no finesse remaining in their attacks as they would even use their mouths to bite off the enemy''s flesh, they fought like animals as they tried to outdo each other. But no matter how wildly the hedgehogs fought it out, the lions now had the numerical advantage and the expert advantage as Felix fought through the waves of hedgehogs slowly, unlike before his speed was so slow that everyone could see him but his moves changed a bit. Unlike before where he went directly for the vitals this time he would strike a few important spots on the body and paralyze them before letting them be ravaged by the lion troops, he was acting just like Catro would! It couldn''t be helped, even though he usually acted high-profile and used big moves this time he was almost out of energy so he needed a fighting style that conserved energy and dealt a lot of damage at the same time, he also couldn''t use any breathing techniques due to the lack of the surrounding hex energy so he was stuck like this. However, he still had his outrageously strong body and fighting experience combined with the lack of strong individuals in the enemy team he easily tore through the ranks, slower than before but with the same efficiency. As time passed the hedgehogs thinned out until a thousand or so were left, then something unexpected happened. A pulse of energy pushed everyone away as the hedgehog shaman rose from the corpses of his comrades, he had red eyes and the gash around his head was pulsing as green veins slowly appeared in the gash ready to make their way out of his head. He was extremely angry as he looked around and realized that most of his tribe''s warriors were dead, there were only 1,000 left and he was filled with extreme grief as he looked at the bodies surrounding him. He snapped his eyes wide open as he glared at the lions who were ready to deal the finishing blow on his troops as he clenched both of his hands before putting them around his waist, he shouted as yellow energy slowly converged on his body creating a mini supernova that surrounded him. Landers''s eyes became wide-open as he wanted to take a few steps backward but he almost fell only to get supported by Lindo: "GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE, HE WILL SELF DESTRUCT!" His shout took the attention of every lion and Felix as they started to back away as fast as they could but a sinister laugh came from the hedgehog shaman as he said: "You all shall accompany my hedgehog tribe to the underworld!" The supernova started to expand at high speeds as it engulfed the surroundings transforming them into ashes and then suddenly imploding! The explosion created an immense crater along with a deafening sound that made the snails go into their shells. Lindo, Manitola, and Landers got out of the explosion in time but unfortunately, Felix and the others were still caught in it, they couldn''t move really quickly after they exhausted their last amount of energy to get rid of all of the surviving hedgehogs. Everything in a 600 meters radius was reduced to dust due to the explosion, a gigantic crater covered the same radius that was around 2 meters deep. Landers fell to his knees as he watched the dust settle down, all of his troops were dead and Felix was somehow nowhere to be found... wasn''t he supposed to revive? What happened to him? He felt his chest hurt as he clutched it and waited for Felix to appear but he felt something was wrong, why wasn''t he coming back to them? The explosion couldn''t trigger multiple times and make all of his lives be shaved away, could it? Landers wanted to drop into the crater and search for Felix only for Lindo to stop him, he was going to go as he was in a better situation than Lander energy-wise. Landers wanted to say something but he shook his head in the end and decided to let Lindo do it. Manitola hugged him before Lindo jumped into the crater falling until he hit the bottom. At the bottom, he looked around trying to find Felix, however no matter where he looked he realized that there wasn''t even a tuft of fur that resembled Felix, which made him worry as he continued to look around doing his best to search every nook and cranny, Felix couldn''t die right? He had nine lives! Chapter 125: A strange underground place Lindo was starting to panic as he couldn''t find anything that resembled even one bit of Felix, was he truly annihilated by the explosion? Lindo couldn''t believe it, he felt entirely responsible for what happened as he didn''t make sure every upper echelon was truly dead before sending the troops in. He tried to dig into the bottom of the crater thinking that somehow Felix might have been trapped there only to realize that the bottom was crystallized and so hard he couldn''t do anything to it... maybe Landers could but he was really weakened at the moment and thus unavailable. He wasn''t really sure what to do in this situation, could he even go back and show his face to Landers and Manitola without Felix? The troops were surely dead but Felix''s disappearance was a mystery. Standing in the crater won''t help him anymore and he already searched wherever was possible for him so all he could do was go up and give them the news... He started to scale the crater making his way up to the surface, when Landers saw that he came back up empty-handed he felt something in him snap but he controlled himself as he tried to get up, he still had a report to do and the civilians of the hedgehog tribe also needed to be taken care of, hopefully, he would be able to bind them to the tribe just like he had the snails. However, the moment he tried to get up he almost fell face forward if it wasn''t for Manitola catching him. "You should rest vice-general, you already have done all you could." Lindo tried to support him as well but Landers slapped his hand away weakly having no effect on Lindo but showing Landers''s intentions. *Cough* *Cough* Landers put a hand towards his mouth as he coughed before saying: "Lindo you will have to do the report and the cleanup aftermath, we also have to wait for reinforcements and we need some time to heal, fortunately, we still have the snails to help us, while we did lose all of the lion troops which saddens me greatly we have around 350,000 snails left." The snails didn''t have civilians as they were all biological weapons of the same strength, the fact was that their actual combat prowess was really low and the only thing they were useful for was their poison any half-smart person would be able to avoid their crude way of launching their poison and easily get rid of them, however in strategist''s hands the snails could become great weapons. Lindo headed to get the hedgehog civilians back into what remained of the village along with the snails. *********************** Felix groggily woke up as he wanted to clutch his head, everything was shaking around him and he felt like shit. He became unconscious the moment the explosion engulfed him and the lion troops and his reviving ability automatically sent him to the nearest safe location as he couldn''t control it, it was similar to the time Shima experimented him but unlike back then where his ability was restricted here he was actually sent somewhere but the thing was that he didn''t know where he was! As he looked around he realized that he was somewhere underground as he was familiar with such places he had been to such a type of place more than one time but he couldn''t say he really knew where he was. His location was new and he could feel that his body was full of energy as he got up, he looked in the corner of his eyes and realized that he lost only one life which was a good thing, he thought that he might have lost more. Now that he finished checking himself he started to thoroughly observe his surroundings to see if he really was in unknown territory. It took him a little bit of time as he realized that he didn''t know his way around and that his sense of direction was somehow messed up for some reason. He tried to take a left only to go to the right and find out he arrived back from where he started. He was in an underground labyrinth and he couldn''t find his way out! He tried to do something but all he realized was that he couldn''t get out, it was quite strange as he thought about it, if he moved right he would go left and vice versa, maybe he should go up or down instead? He tried to dig into the ceiling only to realize it was so hard that his claws broke the moment he tried to drill into the ground. It was rather strange as he tried to go down, the earth below was also hard but less so however being underground Felix didn''t really want to go even further as he didn''t know what could he find there. But in this situation there wasn''t much that could be done, he would either die of starvation by not being able to find the exit of this damned labyrinth or go down further and investigate what was there. Since both options weren''t good he would take the option where he would actually be able to do something. So he started to dig, the earth was rather hard but not impossible to dig as it was on the ceiling so after some time passed he created a passage big enough for him to travel through, he could feel his stomach growl which indicated that the time that passed wasn''t short. He found it quite strange that such a long amount of time had passed, was his perception of time distorted as well under the ground? He sighed as he went through the passage he made as he fell further underground. He felt the wind soaring around his ears at high speed which was strange considering the hole he made wasn''t that long so why was he falling so quickly and for such a long time? Suddenly he felt hitting the solid ground as the falling sensation stopped, he looked around once more and saw that he was in a different location now, houses that looked to be meant for mini-sized persons were surrounding him and he realized that his body was currently immobile for some reason. He took a look down at his body and saw that it was being bonded by steel chains that were inserted in the ground below him, he tried to move his body only to realize that there was no way he would be able to move anywhere in his current position. Small houses... intricate trap that made him unable to move, he already knew where he ended up and the person that approached him cemented his hypothesis. It was a small man standing around 40 centimeters, he had his eyes closed and a small mustache with a bulbous star-shaped nose, it was one of the mole people! Felix wasn''t sure how he ended up in their lair as he tried to struggle and rip off the head of the mole in question as he didn''t like his current position at all, it triggered some memories that he would rather fully forget. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he struggled he couldn''t get out of the bindings as they were somehow tightening around his body the more he struggled, thus he stopped his attempts at escaping realizing that he made things worse. The mole-man laughed a bit seeing Felix''s attempts at escaping and after he settled down he opened his mouth and said: "Enjoying your 5-star bindings?" Felix didn''t really know what he meant so he just glared at him which made the mole shook his head as he said: "You are quite interesting, I never thought that one of the lions'' men would be able to find our village and still be dumb enough to come by himself, I thought that our first meeting should have thought you something about our race but it seems the impact was rather minimal." The mole shook his head as he continued: "Well whatever, now that you are in our hands you will be a great trophy that our leaders will thoroughly enjoy, hopefully, you will have some important information that you will be able to supply us with." Normally Felix would have done something up till now, but he felt that his strength was leaving him for some reason, it was an experience that he never had before it was somewhat linked to his surroundings, but before he could even look around to see what was happening to him he slowly started to blackout. The mole-man from before slowly approached Felix''s unconscious body along with some more mole-people as they looked at his downed form and started to lift him, the mole-man with the star-shaped nose didn''t do anything as he watched the others lift him before taking a pebble-sized communication stone from his clothes and inserted his hex energy into it. A sultry voice could be heard coming from the other side of the stone that asked: "Migdal? You are one that rarely calls you got some good news for me?" Migdal''s lips turned up as a smile bloomed on his face: "Yes your majesty, I have got the best present for you with it we might even be able to go a step ahead of those pesky lions that trouble us on the southern parts." The voice that came out of the stone sounded interested as it said: "Ohoo? Tell me more I''m very interested." Chapter 126: A cat in the bag Migdal started to recollect all of the information he had of Felix before sharing it with the Foxes'' leader. The sultry voice sounded quite interested in Felix''s accomplishments that the mole-people had dug up, even though they didn''t know about the rabbit''s fight because it was tightly holden under wraps by the rabbit emperor, the moles still dug out quite a lot of information about him and his abilities. Felix had been through quite a lot of battles on the upper parts of the continent and it was impossible for all of them to not be recorded in some type of way, and the moles had their ways in getting information along with their abilities to create traps, they were the surveillance and recognizance troops of the resistance along with a few sprinkles of logistics mixed in. They were the best at what they were doing and the information that they were currently giving to the leader was 100% accurate. The female voice came out of the pebble-sized communication stone as Migdal finished his report: "Are you sure you got the right information? I can''t believe one person could do so many things!" "It''s true your majesty, I have witnessed some of those feats myself and I think he has some rather important information that could be of use to us, he is one of the main fighters of the invaders and he should have access to top-ranked secret information." "Ok I will be waiting for you to send him here, I can''t wait to get my hands on him." The sultry voice stopped as the connection cut off, they have finished their conversation and Felix was currently being hauled to a wood plank. The plank had some wheels strapped at the bottom and the moles started to push it after they tied Felix to it properly. While they had gotten quite a lot of special traps and unique contraptions from the humans they hadn''t acquired any transportation objects as they were too expensive even for the rich Sparron continent, at least the prices they asked for were too outrageous to the point that they had been declined even though they did have the things they asked for, the price was just too big for the taste of the inhabitants and it wouldn''t be different from being enslaved. Felix''s consciousness was fuzzy as he felt his surroundings move but he couldn''t even crane his neck to look around, he just felt as if he was drifting by a lonely boat on a stormy ocean. Things were strange in this half-conscious state, he could see things that he didn''t see before, his senses were both muffled and sharper than they were in his conscious state, he could even somehow taste the colors that surrounded him. It was quite a bizarre adventure for the little feline. Felix could feel his surroundings move at a slow speed every time the moles moved the plank with him on top of it even though he was unconscious so even though he didn''t know where he was he still got a feeling for it, it was somewhat strange as if he could know where he was and not at the same time. The moles took turns to push him as he was rather heavy for the little beings, at least it would be like that until they met with the welcoming party of the foxes that would take him away from their hands. Felix could even hear them talking: "Damn this guy is rather heavy for his small size, he is only as tall as us!" "We aren''t really the strongest, to begin with, but he seems rather heavy than normal." "You are just a bunch of sissies, he isn''t that heavy you are just too weak!" "Hey we aren''t cut for this job, to begin with, we are only doing it for the extra cash!" "Then stop bitching and continue your work!" Their vocabulary was getting rather colorful to the point Felix didn''t even want to hear them anymore, the mole people were sophisticated on the surface but uncouth under their facade. He would have sighed if he could, he was getting really bothered by being lugged around like he was a sack of potatoes and he was also getting rather tired of it. Unfortunately, he still couldn''t feel his body, it was a different experience than the one where his soul left his body, he was sure his soul was still in his body, while the soul was active the body was unresponsive. He didn''t know what the moles did to his body but he didn''t like it at all, he was sure that the chains that tied him weren''t strong enough to stop his overly strong body so the moment he hit the ground he must have been injected with something that weakened him and another dose put his body to sleep. The thing was, how much time would it take for that substance to leave his body, or how could he expel it by himself? These were questions that he didn''t really have answers to, but he could experiment. Even though his body was unresponsive at the moment he could slowly move it, as time passed from the moment he became half-unconscious his control over his body was slowly coming back, but then he heard something that made him realize that what he thought was true: "Hey guys, I think the effect of the experimental catnip is wearing off, how much time did chief Migdal say that it lasts?" "Hmm, around 5 hours per dose and he took 2 doses when he fell in our village, not even 3 hours passed yet and you think that he needs more? You do know that we need him alive right?" "I''m not sure, I think I saw his tail move..." "Are you sure you saw his tail move? We have an exact amount of medicine that we need to inject in him, what if we use it now and he still wakes up later and we don''t have anything to sedate him with?" "Well uh... are we close to the foxes'' party yet? It won''t be our responsibility anymore after we exchange with them." "We are almost there, just wait a little bit more you sissy pants, I can''t believe you are so scared." "Hey you haven''t been there when he unleashed himself on those troops, he is a monster! He was severing heads like he doesn''t have an iota of empathy like he didn''t know these people had families of their own, he is a cold-blooded killer!" "Oh come on, this little fluffy guy is a cold-blooded killer? Don''t you think you are exaggerating a bit?" "I don''t want to talk about this anymore, let''s continue!" Felix felt his body jolt as he continued to attempt to regain control over with, however, the jolt didn''t come from his attempt but the fact that the plank had hit a pothole. However that jolt was the thing that Felix''s body needed the most as he could feel his soul slowly getting control over it, his paws started to shake as he slowly started to move his body, his strength returned to 100% as he unleashed his full power cracking his bindings and breaking them! He got up from the plank as glared at the small people surrounding him only to feel something get injected into his back his body slowly started to go limp again as he turned to look who stabbed him in the back, it was a muscular mole with no shirt and scars all over his upper body, he had an eye patch over his left eye and a small mustache, he had an empty syringe in his small but muscular hands as he glared at Felix: "It seems it was the right choice to listen to that sissy, you really are something special huh? Being able to shrug off 10 hours of medicine in 3 hours, but this time I guess that tripling the dose won''t kill you with such a strong constitution right?" Felix struggled to try to remain awake as he used his paw to hit his chest trying to expunge the liquid that entered his veins and was slowly dissolving into his bloodstream. "Stop struggling, this is the best serum that the human tribe had created against the feline kind, it works on you, the lions, the tigers you name a feline and it will put it down accordingly to the amount used, you shall go into the foxes'' hands either if you want it or not!" Felix didn''t want to go through a similar experience as he already had Shima''s actions imprinted on him, he struggled to the best of his ability but the serum was just too tough to deal with, it seemed that while they couldn''t find the secrets of his body, the experiments that were done of him weren''t for nothing as they created this serum... Felix''s body flopped back onto the plank as it returned to its original state, he couldn''t move at all anymore and his attempts at flushing out the serum from his system didn''t work, he gritted his teeth in his half-unconscious state as he became angered to a high degree, he couldn''t believe he ended up in the same situation as before even though he knew killing intent detection! Unless... the little muscle mole guy knew killing intent masking? It seemed he made a mistake as he didn''t account for all of his surroundings before making his revenge... Suddenly he could feel his body stopping as they reached a certain place where he sensed more people approaching his unconscious body, he could feel that they were stronger than the moles and also way taller... it seemed the foxes had arrived at the pick-up spot at the same time the moles did... Chapter 127: Interrogation attempts Felix felt that he was currently being picked up as he didn''t feel the plank roughness on his back, two delicate hands scooped him up before throwing him inside a burlap sack! The sack felt rough on Felix''s skin and he felt really uncomfortable even though it was a similar experience back to the time when he went with Landers to visit the humans. However, even though he was in a sack he could still hear clearly what was happening outside due to his body''s advanced hearing, they thought that Felix was unconscious so their guards were rather down making them talk about things that they wouldn''t naturally talk about about if Felix was awake. "Her majesty seemed quite interested in this one, I wonder why?" "It''s not our job to think about her majesty''s interests but act upon them." "Stop being such a spoilsport I just wondered what made this little cat special." "Stop wondering and let''s go, the moles did say that he is rather resistant to the serum so we must make haste!" Then sounds of running were heard as the trio that put him in the sack quickly made their way from the meeting point and went towards the base of the foxes. The base was quite far away from the meeting point so they had to stop a few times to recover their stamina. The moment they stopped for a short while Felix''s body started to twitch as the serum was getting expunged from his body by his strong anti-corps, the serum wasn''t poison and it didn''t do any damage to his body thus his anti-corps didn''t know what to do at first but they were slowly getting used to it and the effectiveness of the serum was getting lower and lower. The third injection wouldn''t even affect him anymore. Felix somewhat realized that and he knew that he needed a plan to escape, doing the same thing as before wasn''t the smartest thing as he already experienced what would happen if he went in without a plan. He needed something to escape but he wasn''t sure what he could use, fortunately, they didn''t touch his special bag nor any of his belongings but he wasn''t sure how much time it will be before they were taken from him, anyway he didn''t really have anything useful in the bag but he had grown attached to it. Felix sighed as he felt they stopped once again, the voices continued to talk: "Just a few more hundreds of kilometers and we are there I heard that the leader had already prepared a room for this little guy before we left, she said that she will oversee the interrogation process personally!" "It isn''t surprising, her majesty really hates the fact that the invaders desecrate our surroundings, she wouldn''t mind as much to lower herself to the level of the invaders but we got the news that the invaders had started to cut down the sacred trees!" "Yes, that preposterous..." Besides some new information, Felix found out that these people liked to chat a lot about miscellaneous things that he just tuned off because they weren''t of any use to him in his current situation. He wanted to know if he was going to be alone or what type of interrogation would their leader do on him so he could prepare himself. If he could find the enemy''s hideout and then escape he would be able to help the Lion army attack the resistance at its core. To deter the bandits one needed to strike at the bandit chief! Felix knew that in this situation the best way to do that was endure the torture that was going to be inflicted on him, escape and then expose the location, even though he was in the burlap sack and half-conscious he could still somewhat recognize the path they had taken and run it back in his mind to remember it properly if he got to take at least one look at it, which he could do so after he escaped. He could feel that the trio had rested well enough as they started to move again, they quickly approached the headquarters of the foxes at last, even though Felix felt that a long time passed only 20 or so hours passed in reality. The trio easily slipped into the headquarters as they were high-ranked personnel and made their way to the special room that the queen had assigned for this mission. Then they unceremoniously dropped Felix on a cold steel table before using some manacles to tie him to it. They took another syringe from their pockets before inserting it into Felix''s leg making his soul quickly fuse right back with his body turning off the half-unconscious state he was in. Felix already knew where they were so he only took a glance around before glaring at his captors, the trio were all-male fox-people with fox ears and tails but they wore cloaks that covered their whole bodies besides their heads as they already took their hoods off. They grinned at Felix in a chesire way that somewhat resembled his own grin: "It seems the sleeping beauty had finally woke up, pay attention cause our queen has decided to grace you with her presence!" A sultry voice could be heard coming from everywhere at the same time after the man that said that finished his sentence: "Oho? What had the cat got for us?" A beautiful female fox appeared from nowhere, she had silver-colored hair and ears, her grey eyes peered deeply into Felix''s own, she had a small impish grin on her face as she looked at him and she wore a beautiful green battle-dress that would help her camouflage along with military boots to complement her looks. The way she looked into Felix''s eyes was rather creepy as he felt his head getting dizzy, but it wasn''t because of her beauty. He could sense that she was trying to transmit her soul wavelength into his to extract information from him, however, Felix''s soul had been tempered multiple times so her attempt at charming him didn''t work at all. Seeing that her first method didn''t work didn''t discourage the fox-woman at all, she gave out another impish smile as she said: "Your name''s Felix, right? I have heard so many things about you and considering what I felt right now it seems that most of them must be true." No weakling would be able to endure her methods of interrogation, even the weakest ones, and from the contact that she made with her soul shield she immediately understood that she would need her best techniques to get into Felix''s soul and make him spill his guts. Seeing that Felix wouldn''t talk at all made her put her hand on his tummy which triggered a negative reaction from him as he was ready to bite her hand off, he didn''t like to be touched there especially by strangers. "A sensitive spot isn''t it?" The fox woman touched his tummy a few times as she smiled seeing how he wanted to rip off the manacles and bite her hand off but he was unable to, yet. "Oh stop being such a drama queen little guy, why don''t you tell me what you know and I might be able to let you leave?" Of course, she was lying after Felix told her what she wanted to know she would explode his soul and cut off the connection between him and his god making him unrevivable. Felix was an immense threat to the resistance and with him gone their winning odds would increase immensely. However the more she tried the more she realized that she actually couldn''t do anything to Felix! She tried all of her advanced soul techniques only to realize that Felix''s soul was both flexible and strong at the same time meaning that all of her attempts ended up in failure. She became frustrated as she tried all of her techniques regardless of ranking but all of them were useless! She put her hand on his tummy as he wanted to try some type of physical torture if the psychological one didn''t work due to his strong soul but she realized that his body was also extremely hard! She frowned as she punched him in the tummy only to hear a sickening crunch from her knuckles as they broke into pieces and she almost shouted out in pain, seeing the unsavory expression on their leader''s face made the trio back off a little as one of them said: "Should we try some torture tools?" "Yeah your majesty, I don''t think it would be wise to torture him with our bare hands I..." The man immediately shut up as he saw the blood dripping from the woman''s knuckles. "Bring out the torture tools!" "Of course your majesty!" The trio immediately disappeared and came back soon after with a tray full of saws, chains, ropes, and different other assortments of items that were created to inflict as much pain as possible. ''Her majesty'' immediately went ahead and took a sharp saw from the tray before immediately getting at work trying to saw Felix''s paws off only to realize that the saw was slowly getting its teeth broken as it made contact with Felix''s fur alone, it didn''t even reach his skin! The woman threw away the saw in anger making it clatter on the floor below, she angry bellowed to her subordinates: "Get me something sharper!" She glared at Felix who was smirking at her with the same attitude she smirked at him the moment they first met eyes, it was obvious that no matter what she did she wouldn''t be able to hurt him. And he was also getting his way around these manacles that were tying him to the table, sooner or later he would escape! Chapter 128: Successful escape attempt While Felix was trying his best to subtly get out of the manacles that bound him to the table, the silver-haired fox leader was having a mental breakdown as she looked at the tray filled with broken torture tools. She couldn''t believe that Felix was immune to her attempts at torture, but the truth was that it was indeed so. No matter what tool she used, no matter how much pressure and strength she applied. the tool would break upon Felix''s fur, her attempts at injuring his soul were also pretty futile as all they did was make Felix''s soul react and counter her making blood drip from her nose. She was pretty much fuming as she looked at the trio and said with gritted teeth: "Are there any more torture tools available?" The trio looked at each other for a few seconds before shaking their heads in unison, these were their sharpest tools and the ones that inflicted the most pain, if these couldn''t do anything what would the weaker ones do? The foxes'' leader was literally fuming as smoke was coming out of her ears. She was so angry that her hex energy had created a phenomenon. It was quite the comical sight and Felix couldn''t help but snicker seeing her like that, her red face immediately approached his the moment she heard him snickering, and she looked quite angry up close. "You are laughing? HAHAHAHA, YOU ARE LAUGHING?" Considering how mad she was, Felix''s laughter triggered something in her that she didn''t even know existed. Her maddened state made the trio that brought Felix to the headquarters question if this was truly their queen or not, up till now they had never seen her like this and they had served her since she was a little kid, they had been her lackeys since they were born! They grew up together with the future queen and did whatever she told them to, they always prevailed thus they created a pampered monster that wouldn''t know what to do in this situation, and from what Felix saw she didn''t resemble Manitola at all which meant that she wasn''t her mother. However, Manitola was a princess. So how come the queen of the foxes wasn''t her mother? It was rather strange as Felix slipped one paw out of a manacle and then the other, only his legs were tied to the table only for them to slip out as well, the silver-haired queen was too focused on shouting and glaring at him to realize that Felix''s paws were inching towards her neck. Suddenly she felt her oxygen supply being cut off as she finally realized that Felix wasn''t tied up anymore, the trio couldn''t see anything that happened due to her body shielding Felix''s small one. Felix looked her directly in the eyes as he whispered her something: "I''m going to leave now." The trio knew something wasn''t right the moment the queen stopped shouting but they didn''t want to anger her further with their inquiries, however, one of them decided to ask her due to how worried he was: "My queen, are you ok?" Muffled sounds came out of the queen''s mouth which indicated something was blocking her ability to speak, the trio immediately jumped near her. Only to find that she was clutching her neck and was slowly slumping towards the ground due to how weak she was currently. Felix was nowhere to be seen, which made the trio became fully alert as they looked around hoping to find him only to realize that he had escaped! His escape was swift and he didn''t make any noise as he entered stealth, the queen got up from the ground as she finally regained her oxygen supply before glaring at the ceiling and shouting: "GUARDS, CATCH THAT DAMN CAT!" After her Majesty''s shout, tens of thousands of fast and well-equipped guards left the headquarters trying to identify which direction Felix went in before trying to catch him. Felix laughed as he looked at them trying to catch him, he was currently at the top of their headquarters which was a small hill. It seemed that the buildings were built underground like burrows they were similar but also different from the ones of the rabbits. Felix already memorized the location, he looked around to identify where he was, but a second glance made him realize that he just didn''t know where he was! He really wasn''t sure as the foxes'' headquarters location was very secretive and put in a secluded place, normally they wouldn''t live out here, but their circumstances made them relocate their living place. Even though he didn''t know where he was, he decided to take the same path that trio used to take him to the headquarters if he just took a good look at it he would be able to remember everything that he had experienced when he was in his half-unconscious state and get back to the mole people''s location, then he could get back to the hedgehog''s village and from there he would know how to get back to Landers, Lindo, and the others. He quickly retraced his steps while making sure he evaded every patrol that tried to capture him, it was a child''s play with his current stealth experience he was pretty much invisible to them, even if he stood directly in front of their noses. After a few hours, he lost all of the patrols as he took the route the trio did slowly remembering everything that happened during his half-unconscious state, as he remembered he also made his way to the meeting point where the moles previously handed him to the foxes, there he found an empty syringe which confirmed his thoughts. He was on the right path! Thus he continued it took him around 3 days to reach the entrance of the mole''s cave and he ignored it as he didn''t want to trigger any other trap inside it, even though he hated the moles for what they did to him it wasn''t time for revenge yet, he had critical information that he could give to the lions! ********************* Landers almost felt like sobbing, they hadn''t heard from Felix in almost 20 days and everyone thought that he most likely died in the explosion, only he still believed that he would come back to them, even Lindo was somewhat skeptical as he saw personally how the bottom of the crater looked so he thought that it was most unlikely that Felix survived he was also the most affected one as he sulked alone, not even letting Manitola near him. Landers sighed, with Lindo''s help and the hedgehog civilians, they had remade most of the buildings they destroyed. During the 20 days of rest, he also restored all of his stamina and now he was back at full power, however, they still didn''t leave the village even though Siracha had given them orders to return. Landers felt that if Felix ever came back he would look for them at the hedgehog''s village first and he would be disappointed if there was no one there to welcome him so he decided to wait for a month before he returned to their first base. Manitola approached Landers as he was currently sitting in the shade of a newly built building, Lindo was nowhere to be seen and the wall of spikes that surrounded the village was broken at one part as it couldn''t be repaired without the power of the hedgehog shaman. However, Lindo''s silhouette could be seen lingering around the wall from time to time he looked listless as he glared at the spike wall, seemingly putting all the blame on it for what happened to Felix. Manitola sat near Landers as she sighed then said: "It seems that Lindo blames himself really hard for what happened, can''t you go and talk with him so you could make him feel better?" Landers responded while shaking his head: "If he didn''t listen to you how do you think he will listen to me? These types of wounds heal with time and there is nothing we can do, the only quick fix would be if Felix appeared and forgiven him personally." Manitola felt rather sad seeing her beloved acting like that, he was heartbroken that his best friend had died because of him! Lindo glared at the spike wall in front of him as he gritted his teeth and put his fist near his heart as he said under his breath: "Only if I didn''t make that damn plan with the slug elder... only if I went myself to fight instead of Felix, he is such a talented person, the one that should have died should be me, I''m so untalented and weak even though I have the bloodline of a shaman.... why? why couldn''t it have been me?" His heart was hurting, his head was hurting, he had been asking himself this question ever since he had gotten up from the crater that was now filled with fresh soil, he had stayed near the crater until they filled it to the brim for the reconstruction of the houses. He still couldn''t believe that Felix wasn''t with them anymore, at first he thought just like Landers, that he would surely appear sooner or later but as time passed he realized that he wouldn''t come back and it was his fault! A big sigh left Lindo''s lips only for his eyes to widen dramatically as he looked towards the horizon, he was currently at the big opening on the wall and if his eyes didn''t betray him he saw a familiar silhouette approaching, but it couldn''t be him could it? Lindo cleared his eyes a few times before he started running directly to him, he couldn''t believe it, he had returned! Felix was back! Chapter 129: Felix is back! A myriad of emotions was going through Lindo''s brain the moment he saw Felix''s silhouette. He didn''t know what to feel at this moment, but he was certainly happier than he was before. It was obvious from the big shit-eating grin on his face as he ran towards Felix, ready to give him a big hug. Felix was puzzled at Lindo''s actions, he had only left for around 20 days and now he acted like this? It wasn''t like he died and came back from the dead. However, he didn''t dodge Lindo''s affection. He knew that something was wrong with him as he could read it in his eyes. He wasn''t as cheerful as he used to be, but Felix could also feel that the moment he laid his eyes on him, his vibe changed a bit. It was visible from ten miles away that Lindo had no confidence, but the moment he laid his eyes on Felix his confidence returned tenfold! Felix didn''t know that he had such a big impact upon Lindo, and he wondered why? Why was Lindo so happy to see him? Why was he so sad that he left for a while? Even though the circumstances of his leaving were less than savory they should know that he had more than one life, so that explosion couldn''t have done him in for good no matter how much time he was missing, they should have known that he was still alive. It was rather strange in Felix''s opinion, but he reciprocated the hug as Lindo ran to him scooping him up and giving him a tight hug making sure he was the real deal, no other reason. After they hugged for a few seconds Landers ran outside the village along with Manitola, both had wide eyes as they looked at Lindo hugging the little Felix they were both really happy that he had come back safely, as they went ahead for a group hug. Felix made his way out as it got a little too stuffy for him as he asked: "What did I miss? Why are you all so down and depressed?" Landers coughed hiding a small embarrassment blush as he said: "We were just really worried about you. You had disappeared and didn''t even leave a thing behind showing us that you might have been alive we have thought of the worst, thinking that the explosion killed you multiple times." "Heh, such a small thing won''t kill me more than once." Felix declared proudly while putting his paw over his chest while also puffing it up. "Yeah, we see." Lindo backed away the moment Felix made his way out of the hug as he looked down, he still felt responsible for the fact that Felix died in the explosion along with 70,000 of his brethren, even though Felix did come back in the end the same couldn''t be said about those 70,000 souls. Landers sighed as he saw Lindo still being depressed, it was his call that created the situation, but how could they know that the hedgehog shaman was still alive after the spike barrage was launched? It was pretty much impossible and a tragedy to boot for the lion tribe but this was war and Lindo should move on, there was no general with a flawless record as there is no human without mistakes. And even if there was such a general in the vast universe, he didn''t currently exist on their plane. Landers tried to explain to him these concepts, but Lindo still felt guilty regardless of what Landers told him. "Come on Lindo stop mopping around." Felix jumped onto Lindo''s shoulder as he said that and continued: "No matter what you do you can''t stop deaths, some die earlier some die later, but all people die, well with my exception and the others god''s chosen." "Anyways what I want to say is that there is no reason to mop around for those 70,000 people, they have died because of you, but they were resigned to death the moment they joined the lion army, your mistake was something that any higher-up could do in that situation so from now on all you must do is seek to improve yourself so that wouldn''t ever happen again!" Felix''s speech came from his experiences on the battlefield and his multiple deaths, dying once didn''t change anything in Felix besides giving him a gigantic fright. However, as time passed he learned some things about life through death. He wasn''t even that scared of dying anymore but he knew logically that losing a life was rather wasteful so he didn''t want to die willy nilly unless it was necessary or unavoidable, especially since Aaltarox said it will be harder to revive him the stronger he would get. Lindo looked at Felix, and he almost couldn''t recognize him anymore but as he thought about his words he found out that Felix was direct with him 100% of the time, never would he beat around the bush, and he would always say his mind even though he was not a talkative person, this part of Felix was what he remembered the best when they were still on the Tarot continent and they were talking about their dreams, this part of Felix struck him as the truest show of his personality to him. At first, he was reluctant thinking that this Felix was a fake one planted by the enemies to make them let their guard down so they could attack and retake the village his guilt was very high, clouding his judgment and making him think that Felix was still dead even though he was in front of him. However, things changed the moment Felix opened his mouth and poured those words on Lindo, he knew he was the real Felix as his eyes lit up and the clouds above his mind dispersed, making him see clearly. Even though he was still rather guilty for those 70,000 soldiers that he doomed he knew that to make up for this one fault he would have to win, win, and win to make it up for the souls that returned to the ancestor''s side, they wouldn''t want him to mop around for them, they were warriors, and they had decent deaths on the battlefield. Lindo looked towards the sky as he put his hand towards his chest, and promised the dead soldiers that he would win battles for them! Felix smiled as he felt that Lindo was slowly starting to return to his usual self before slapping himself on the head as he said: "I almost forgot because of Lindo, Landers I have some very important intel about the headquarters of the leaders of the resistance and the location of the mole tribe!" Landers''s eyes widened for a few seconds before he laughed and said: "It seems you haven''t been missing for almost a month without doing anything, very good, very good. But first, let''s return to our first base as people are already on their way here to govern the hedgehogs and more troops are being sent from the Tarot continent via the human''s transportation device, I''m pretty sure Siracha will be happy to hear we have found the headquarters of those sneaky foxes first." Manitola stood behind Lindo as her fox ears flopped down, she didn''t like how her race was being talked about but what could she do? In the grand scheme of things, she would miss out on both sides and Lindo already tied her to the Lions. She sighed as she looked at Lindo, who became thoughtful after hearing Felix''s report. Manitola gave him a nudge as she whispered to him: "Dear I want to talk something with you." Lindo woke up from his daydreaming as he looked at Manitola nodded at her before indicating that she could talk. "Not here it''s something rather personal only meant for the ears of the two of us, let them talk about the plans of the invasion." Lindo wanted to talk with Landers and Felix about the plans as well, but he wasn''t so insensitive to leave Manitola behind when she wanted to impart something important to him. The duo left Felix and Landers behind as they went inside the nearby forest until the only visible thing was the wall of spikes which spanned around 10 meters into the sky. "So what do you want to talk about?" Manitola put her fingers together as she twiddled them around each other not knowing how to start before taking in a deep breath and opening her mouth: "I want you to stop the lions from attacking the headquarters of the foxes." Lindo couldn''t believe what he was hearing, was he hearing right? "You want me to do what?" "I want you to..." He stopped her from talking as he made a silencing motion with his hand: "I understood from the first time, however, I cannot do this, Felix had gone through a lot of trouble to gather this intel, I know that you love your family members and race just like I do but at this point, we have to agree to disagree but I will make sure your relatives won''t be killed." Manitola wanted to say something else but stopped herself, she knew that she already bargained for quite a bit, however, she also had her own love of her race just like Lindo had his for the lions, every being had to love its compatriots and this applied to almost all of the living tribes in the universe. Manitola sighed as she decided to accept what Lindo proposed, it was the best option for the current her and the fox race, it couldn''t be helped as they were the losers in the intercontinental battle, only if they were stronger back then nothing like this would have happened, but now there were no ifs... Chapter 130: The vital information Lindo put his hand in front of Manitola as a gesture for her to take it while he said: "Let''s go back we have talked about what we needed to talk about it''s time to go back." Manitola took ahold of his hand as they slowly walked through the woods back to the hedgehog village. There they saw how Landers and Felix were still chatting about the possible plans they could use to storm the moles and the foxes, first they needed to choose the better approach and the target. Would they choose the moles first? Or would they attack the head, destroying the foxes in one fell swoop? The moles were the foxes'' eyes as they were the intelligence unit of their army, and if they lost the foxes would be blinded. An enemy without any intel would be half-defeated. However, this would also trigger a chain reaction from the foxes as they would understand that their intel line had been taken out, it was also possible they might have also migrated already due to their hideout''s location being found out by Felix, the same could be said about the moles. But they could still go there and investigate with an army as it wouldn''t hurt, Landers knew that it was very less likely that they would find them in the same place, but scouting the location would also be good for any future ways to find them again. Not all races could withstand the different climates so if they would relocate they would do it in a similar place to what they were currently using. The sparron continent while filled with trees had different climates at different places, the route that the lions had taken had a spring climate and was one of the least harsh ones, the kangaroos and giant spiders took the autumn and winter seasons while the ravens took the summer one. Each part of the continent had its special resources that the tribes coveted, they have arranged themselves accordingly to their needs. The fox tribe was also pretty big and covered all of the 4 places, each place had its own kind of foxes which evolved based on the surrounding climate. The spring place ones could be considered the weakest type of foxes but also the smartest which lead them to be the leaders of the continent, it wasn''t like the other foxes were stronger by much however if they were put side by side the differences were obvious. Landers shook his head, as he finished talking with Felix after he shared all of his knowledge about the continent with him, he needed Felix to know what he was dealing with instead of going in blind just like he had done up till now, normally he should have told this to him earlier but he also learned about this stuff only recently, as the spies they sent into the former alliance mates finally sent back some information. Felix nodded after Landers finished his explanation, these were some things that would help him in the future and it was good to know them. Landers then looked to the side as he saw Manitola and Lindo returning before motioning with his hand as he told them all of the new information he got before glancing at Manitola and asking: "You haven''t told us about this, why?" This time his glance was filled with a strange soul power as his aura strengthened, this was a withhold of precious information that would have helped them quite a lot, and it was punishable with execution in military laws. Manitola didn''t flinch under Landers''s gaze as she said: "This wouldn''t have helped you with the current situation, after all, we are in the spring part of the continent, plus the other parts are disconnected from us by long rifts that we can only pass by flying above them with a special technique that only the leaders of each of their part know, so even if you want to advance onto the other party''s territory you would need the technique, or well just like your former alliance mates, have a ship that could fly." Landers became speechless after her rebuttal, he did act a bit too headstrong here as she was right, this information wasn''t helpful now but it was still crucial for the future so he could only put his head down and just give her a warning in his mind as she could have still shared the information at an opportune time. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let''s go back and get the reinforcements, we should be ready to attack!" Lindo was pumped up as the promise from before echoed in his head, he needed to win some battles! Landers nodded at his enthusiasm before they started their journey back to the first village, which took them one day, there they met with Diorno who was still taking swigs out of his small alcohol container, seemingly as if the thing was permanently full. Diorno nodded as he saw Landers and the others before saying: "I have heard your report and the reinforcements are on their way, they should arrive by... right now." Out of the ground near them, an elevator popped up in the middle of the city, and out of the elevator, countless Lion troops made their way out as if the elevator could hold the whole world in it. Diorno smiled as he said: "Siracha really didn''t hold back anything, if my reports are true we are currently at three million four hundred thousand strong." There were so many people that the streets became congested and they started to leave getting outside the village to reduce the cluster. It couldn''t be helped as the village wasn''t extremely big only being able to handle around 1 million or so people. All of the troops were awaiting orders as Landers scratched the back of his head while saying: "Don''t you think this is a little bit of overkill? I see that he also included quite a lot of captains in the set-up as well, you know that the enemies don''t even have more than two to three hundred thousand people right?" What Landers said was partially true as Manitola told him about the fighting force of the foxes but she didn''t know that they got rabbit reinforcements. Diorno shrugged as he said: "It''s not my place to question Siracha''s deployment, maybe he is thinking larger scale for the future, maybe his appetite is big enough to eat the whole continent? Who knows, but it''s most likely that the other tribes had made a great advancement in the conquering of their parts so Siracha wants to quicken things around here, but I''m not sure as he didn''t say anything regarding that during the call." Landers shook his head, he didn''t think that it was possible that the others would have conquered the other parts of the continent yet, it was way too quick, and the natives were putting up fierce fights that lasted rather long times. "Whatever but first we need to enforce the plan and put the soldiers into formation before we march there, Felix wasn''t really incognito when he found out about this information so it''s most likely that they would have fled already." Diorno laughed as he said: "You think they can flee anywhere? That''s their best defensive place and there is no chance they will abandon it as there is a high chance we would find them when they relocate and annihilate them faster." "We? That means you..." Diorno stopped laughing as he got up from the sitting position he was previously in and cracked his neck and knuckles after he put his alcohol container back inside his armor. "Yeah, I''m ready to move, pops said that he wants things to be done very quickly and no offense, while you are pretty strong you haven''t broken through the boundary that separates us yet." Landers knew that was the truth so he took no offense to that as he asked: "Do you want to lead the troops?" Diorno shook his head at this question: "I know you haven''t interacted much with me so let me tell you this, I''m not good at leading troops, all I''m good at is smashing heads!" A glistening light appeared on Diorno''s sharp teeth as he gave a toothy smile to Siracha, a peculiar aura engulfed him as he looked at Manitola and Lindo before snorting and saying: "My happiness died out a bit, I''ll be waiting for your signal to leave with the troops." Landers thought for a bit before saying: "We have a lot of troops so it would be better to install them to the villages that we captured along the way, leaving only 800,000 troops to capture the last two most important places before we will continue our way through the continent, what do you think?" Diorno waved his hand as it didn''t concern him, he decided to leave the thinking to Landers who was smarter than him, however, the man didn''t know that Landers wasn''t far away from the way he was doing things, he was just more considerate of his subordinates and the fate of the tribe while Diorno was more chaotic. Landers took a few steps towards the walls as he used the stairs to reach the top, there he looked down at all of the gathered troops, he knew that to start things properly, before making the allocations he needed to warm and energize them up with a speech. Landers coughed a bit to gather the attention of everyone around as Lindo, Manitola, and Felix stood to his left and right. Chapter 131: Attacking an empty nest After making sure that everyone was looking at him, Landers opened his mouth for a speech: "I know that all of you came here for one reason only, the same reason that you have joined the army in the first place, to expand the glory of the Lion tribe, and improve its infrastructure through war!" "I know that some of you didn''t join the army voluntarily, but would it have been better to rot in the tribe as healthy young men? Would it have been better to waste your life away without any merits to your name?" Landers''s speech started to stir up the crowd as they thought about his questions. They realized that joining the army was the best way to grow in the lion tribe, but there were also problems with joining the army. "I would like to say a few more words before we go to the designed battlefield." A serious expression overtook Landers''s face as the troops looked at him: "I can''t say that I will be able to get all of you back safe, but those that think they are not suited for this operation can choose a different deployment." Then he introduced the two other villages'' locations and told them to go there as reinforcements, the people that were too scared to go with Landers to the main operation stood around 300,000. 150,000 for the woodpecker''s village and 150,000 for the hedgehog''s village. The remaining 3,100,000 were the troops meant for the most important operation up till now. But they couldn''t leave their first base alone, so 400,000 troops needed to be left behind as well. Now they only had 2,700,000 troops left for the main operation. This number was still an overkill considering the number of enemies they had to face wasn''t even half the number of their reduced and scattered troops. "Now that we got that out of the way is finally time to go!" They couldn''t wait for the troops to pass the bridge, so they would use the elevator that the humans lent them this time around. The elevator was a transportation device they created to quickly get around the planet, getting the things they needed and/or wanted. The elevator was very spacious as it could hold up to 5 million people at the same time. From the outside, it looked like it was just a small box. But the moment you would glance inside, you would see a gigantic space bigger than the average village! Now it could also be used as a tactical military transportation device. Siracha paid a hefty price, and the tribe''s treasury had become a little smaller to have this device lent to the army. Felix went ahead with Landers and the others as they entered first. The interior of the elevator was smooth and futuristic. The tiles below were sparkly white, and it reminded Felix of the building he and Siracha first visited where they met Shima. It was not a particularly good memory, but this current setup triggered it, making Felix frown a little. Landers saw what happened but knowing about his past made him not question his frown as he understood. The troops slowly loaded the elevator until it was a little above half-capacity. Then one of the captain-level individuals from the army came over and told Landers how the elevator worked. They had to introduce the location and some coordinates or how the location generally looked for the thing to work. Felix knew how the location looked, so he was held up by Landers towards the pad they had to use to input their destination. Felix learned how to use the pad as Landers instructed him, then used his paws to input the things he saw, immediately putting the elevator to work. The doors of the elevator slowly started to close as a fluorescent light engulfed everyone inside. It didn''t take more than a few seconds before the elevator started shaking and then stopping. Slowly afterward, the doors opened again, and Felix, Landers, Lindo, and Manitola found themselves in a different place. To Landers and the others, the place couldn''t be more foreign, but to Felix, it was very familiar. The base of the foxes laid in front of them. Unprotected and, unguarded which was very strange considering only a few days passed since Felix had escaped. Landers took a few steps forward, only for a strong hand to be put on his shoulder. Diorno appeared from behind his crimson hair slowly fluttered behind him as his aura activated. He looked down at the empty base and snorted while he cupped his two hands together, creating a small ball of crimson energy that he launched directly at the opening of the burrow. He was sure they didn''t abandon the base yet. They only made it look like it was abandoned to confuse the future invaders that would attack, creating an opening for them to use their traps! The small ball of crimson energy was his welcoming gift for those sneaky foxes that liked to play like this. The moment the ball touched the bottom of the entrance, it started to expand quickly until it was around 5 meters tall and 3 meters wide, engulfing the whole entrance and creating a crater of the same height. The explosion shook the lands around them as trees fell, and the local wildlife was scared away. However, nothing came out of the burrow, now, a big hole appeared where the entrance was, and the troops could see that while though the burrow seemed to be outfitted for people to live in, it was currently abandoned. Felix made a motion with his paw indicating that Diorno should stop bombarding the base. He knew that destroying the base wouldn''t help them at all, and it would be better to investigate personally. He was the smallest and nimblest in the current troops. Combined with his stealth, he was the best at investigating the current situation. He activated his stealth as he made his way down the newly made crater courtesy of Diorno. He knew his way a little around the base as he already escaped from it once, and after making sure no one was inside it, he returned to the top of the burrow and shook his head. Diorno was puzzled. He really thought that they wouldn''t leave their fortifications this easily. Were they crazy? He shook his head as he looked at Landers, indicating that he should know what to do in this situation. Landers nodded and looked over the 2,700,000 troops before shouting: "Make groups of 100,000 people each and search for the Foxe''s location, if you find them, immediately report through the communication stone. So then we can regather and conquer them!" The troops saluted as they shouted in unison: "SIR YES SIR!" Then, they started to disband into smaller groups as they broke their military formation, grouping up with people they knew. The troops scattered into the surrounding forest as they tried their best to find the missing foxes. But things weren''t done, as Felix looked around before making a motion with his paw towards the remaining people. Which were Landers, Manitola, Lindo, and Diorno. "Even though the foxes aren''t here, could the moles have escaped as well?" Felix''s question was something that the others failed to ponder on after they saw that the foxes ran away, leaving their nest empty. They knew that at this point, scattering the troops wouldn''t guarantee that they could catch them, so they should at least get rid of the second most important threat! Diorno face-palmed as he heard Felix''s words and said: "Why haven''t you told us this before we had scattered the troops?" Felix shook his head as he explained: "More troops wouldn''t be better for the mole''s headquarters, they are infested with traps of all kinds, and the more people there is, the higher chance they would trigger a trap." Diorno nodded as he stopped his antics: "I see, then shall we go?" He already understood that a small team of elites would be better suited for this operation and decided against making a fool of himself by berating Felix again. Landers looked at Felix and told him: "You should take the lead as you know your way around these parts better than we do." Felix took the lead and started to run, not waiting for the others to follow him. After all, they were all very fast, so he didn''t need to wait for them. It took Felix and the others around 6 hours of running through the woods before they reached a small cave. Where Felix previously realized that it was the entrance towards the subterranean place of the moles. They slowly made their way inside as they kept in the middle of the road, not getting closer to the walls nor too far. Who knew what kind of traps the moles put in their front entrance? This time, Felix didn''t take the lead anymore as he wasn''t the most durable in their team anymore now, Diorno being first and Landers second. Diorno made his way through the darkness easily as he used his night-vision that felines were blessed with. All of the people currently underground had night-vision, so they didn''t have problems navigating down in the cave. But when you thought that you had no problems, the problems in question would appear and start beating you on the head. The same applied to this situation. Diorno thought at first that Felix had exaggerated the mole''s ability to create traps. However, somehow he found himself stepping in a small mound of dirt. The mound of dirt was rather simple and unassuming at first glance, but what would a mound of dirt do inside of a cave? It was unnatural, and Diorno immediately realized that he walked directly into a trap! Chapter 132: Traps wont keep you away from me! Diorno looked down at the mound with an untouched gaze. He didn''t think much of the traps of the moles, after all, he was a general-level expert. What could these tiny things do to him and his sturdy body? Diorno knew that such beings could only rely on outside help to do battle as they were untalented. Their actual strength was very low. So as long as he got through these traps, the moles would be an easy target to capture or annihilate. But Felix still reminded him about the dangers of the moles he knew best how he was taken advantage of by that serum and knocked out. It seemed that the mound trap didn''t do much besides releasing some spikes that Diorno crushed with his pecks. They were also poisoned, but Diorno''s body was so strong that he was immune to the level of poison they attached to the spikes. Landers didn''t say anything as Diorno took the spikes face-front. It was better to not antagonize him, even though he didn''t look angry. Diorno continued to walk forward while the others followed him from behind, using him as a meatshield. Since he was so strong, even if they triggered a trap, he would be able to take it all with no damage! But things weren''t as they looked on the surface. As the only one who was triggering traps was Diorno. His body was too big, and his dexterity took a hit in the close space of the underground cave. So it couldn''t be helped. Fortunately, even though he triggered quite a lot of traps, none of them did any damage to him. Felix started to smell his surroundings, when he was taken out of the cave he was in his half-unconscious state, so he could still vaguely remember where they were and where they had to go. Felix gave some instructions to Diorno who was bumbling in the dark: "Take a left to that stalagmite, then go down, I have the feeling that we are closing into the moles'' village." Felix''s senses told him that they were very close to the mole''s village. His sense of smell was the one that triggered the most during this journey as he remembered all of the smells of the cave. Diorno did as Felix instructed as he took a left then started to dig, finally creating a hole big enough for every one of them to go down through. They made their way through the hole as they stealthily approached the small houses in the dark, they finally had reached the moles'' village! Felix was ready to go onto them and attack as he was still quite angry for what they had done to him. But Landers put his hand forward, indicating for him to not rush ahead. "We need a plan to take care of all of the moles in one fell swoop, from what can I sense the village isn''t abandoned, but it also seems that they have been expecting us, so the moment we take even one step into the village we can expect to be bombarded by some ingenious traps." "So what do you propose?" Diorno said while keeping his arms crossed one over the other, if it was after him he would have already rushed inside and destroyed everything, the moles'' village had no strategic value besides being easy to defend and hard to attack stronghold, there were also no resources to speak off around, but that could also mean that they were either stockpiled somewhere by the moles or that they didn''t dig deep enough. Diorno knew that the Sparron continent was extremely rich in resources. Compared to the other continents, so the underground must be rather rich as well. Landers started to rub his chin for a few seconds before saying: "Diorno you go ahead and attract all of the pressure upon yourself. We will come from behind and flank them." "Simple and straightforward as I like it!" Diorno cracked his knuckles as he entered the small village and growled. His voice traveled through the whole village, igniting the atmosphere as if it was gunpowder. Suddenly arbalests appeared at the top of the small houses shooting dense arrays of arrows towards Diorno, ready to transform him into a porcupine. But the attacks didn''t land on him at all as his growl transformed into a shockwave which deflected or redirected all of the arrows towards where they came from. A shout could be heard coming from amongst the small houses, but there were no silhouettes of mole-people visible: "They had sent a general to our village, SHIT!!" Countless more contraptions appeared, such as poisonous spikes, arbalests, fire attacks, and finally the moles themselves appeared. They charged Diorno with their small bodies attacking him from all sides as hundreds of thousands of them filled the whole village, they were like a small sea of dwarfs. But no matter what means they employed or the attacks they used Diorno would parry, redirect, or even simply nullify whatever they sent at him he was like the perfect martial arts master which had no weakness. His aura appeared to be a rather pale purple as it appeared and weakened the moles with its pressure. After a short while, the moles were perfectly focused on Diorno, and it was time for Felix and the others to flank them! Landers appeared from behind as Felix, Lindo, and Manitola jumped on the ceiling and dropped amongst the moles creating an earthquake that made all of them drop to the ground due to the lack of balance. That''s when things started to complicate, the moment they all appeared was also the moment the buff one-eye mole appeared as well, the same one that stung Felix with the serum. Felix recognized him as he growled and decided to attack him directly only for his body to slowly sway to the side as he felt weakness gripping his body, dense vapors of white steam started to surround all of them, including the moles, but while Felix''s team was losing strength and swaying on their feet the moles weren''t affected at all! The one-eyed mole smiled at Felix and the others: "What do you think about the new product just sent by the humans? Do you think they were doing business only with you when they gave you the elevator?" Felix found his surroundings spinning around him, and he could see from the corner of his eye that Manitola was also affected, which was strange considering this thing was supposed to only affect felines. Manitola was a fox and a canine, so it shouldn''t work on her... The one-eyed mole took a few steps through the sea of moles as he arrived in front of Manitola and shook his head: "Your majesty. Your mother the princess had been very worried about you, but what have you done while she was worried about you? You have helped the enemies infiltrate our continent without any scruples. You are a traitor through and through and not worthy of the royal blood!" Manitola couldn''t say anything as the steam was inhibiting her ability to stay conscious, she could barely stay on her legs as she leaned on Lindo who was almost falling as well... Diorno''s eyes were wide open as veins popped up around his forehead. His anger was visible as his red eyes almost spew flames. Landers tried to break the weakness from his body but the steam was too thick and he couldn''t cut through it and escape. Only Felix somewhat felt better, and as time passed, he realized that the effect of the steam was slowly minimizing on his body until it became inexistent! He knew that this was the best occasion to create a surprise attack so he faked his struggling, making it look like it wouldn''t take much time before he succumbed to the power of the steam, and only after a short while passed, he fell to the ground with a twitching body. The others were still struggling, and they only felt worse as they saw Felix falling first. Diorno even snorted as he saw Felix fall to the ground as he thought he would last longer. Lindo was the second to fall along with Manitola leaving only Landers and Diorno holding on, the mole troops didn''t approach them as they stood around 5 meters away from them so their attacks wouldn''t be able to reach them. They knew that when backed into a corner, the resisting duo would unleash an impressive ultimate attack that would erase the majority of mole-people. They also knew that they wanted to capture them alive due to their specialness as informants, so they betted that as long as they didn''t antagonize them too much, they wouldn''t use attacks that would end up with both of the sides getting heavily hurt. Diorno was ready to unleash hell on earth as he felt his body growing heavier and his eyelids slowly going down, he stole a small glance at Landers and saw how he still endured with the best of his ability which gave him a burst of energy, if Landers who was weaker than him could endure so could he, and he could even fight back! The moles glanced at the downed people and were ready to take them away and tie them properly so when they woke up they wouldn''t be able to escape. They wouldn''t make the same mistake as the foxes. But when they tried to pick Felix''s body up they realized something was strange as Felix''s paws moved slowly then decapitating the two moles dozen of moles that tried to pick him up. His fur started to stand on end as his eyes turned a deep emerald color while Willy who had been silent up till now, helped him gather energy to unleash his lightning armor, increasing the speed of his armors deployment compared to when he activated it alone. Chapter 133: Immunity to the feline knock-out gas Felix''s situation made all of the moles panic, even the cool as a cucumber, one-eyed buff mole wanted to clear his one good eye to make sure he was seeing things right. They couldn''t believe that Felix was immune to the special gas that the humans invented and modified specifically for felines and the fox tribe. If their eyes worked properly, Felix was a cat, right? "Damn it..." The one-eyed mole was the intelligence leader and the best in the mole tribe, being the smartest and strongest informant under the fox tribe, however, he was stumped by Felix''s ability to withstand the serum made by the smartest people on the planet. The one-eyed mole knew that Felix was rather resistant due to the previous events where he kidnapped him, but he didn''t think he would become immune! He knew how technologically advanced the humans were, so he never thought that some primitive like Felix could withstand anything coming from the humans. But it seemed that brute strength triumphed technology in this situation! There were hundreds of thousands of enemies left, so Felix knew that he wouldn''t be able to defeat all of them easily, he needed the help of the others! How could he get rid of all of the steam that was circulating and surrounding them? He thought for a few seconds before his eyes lit up as he told Willy: "Help me absorb all of the steam!" Willy was reluctant as he felt that the steam was supposed to hurt Felix, but he had to do what he said. The small wisp fully concentrated as he used his absorbing abilities to take all of the steam and run it through Felix''s body, making Felix absorb it quickly. Felix''s face started to move as his body cramped up due to the sudden influx of gas that entered his system, the gas wasn''t meant to be lethal in the first place, but it could paralyze heavily through extensive exposure. What Felix was doing now was practically injecting the paralyzing gas into his veins, normally this would have paralyzed him for months or even years, but his superior physique nullified all of the negative effects as it cleansed his insides and destroyed the gas. The one-eyed mole leader thought that Felix was seeking death, the moment all of the gas in the surroundings converged on him and disappeared only for his jaw to hit the ground after everything settled down and he saw Felix glaring at him with his electrifying emerald eyes. He knew that Felix did that to save his allies so he wouldn''t be at a big numerical disadvantage, but even if he tried to stop him, he just couldn''t approach him without the fear of his head being lopped from his shoulders. He was a schemer, and he wouldn''t put himself in a precarious position, even if he was the only one who could have done something there. He felt that his life was too important, and because of that, he lost the best opportunity to deal with Felix. Felix took a glance around, seeing that Diorno''s anger was starting to explode as his shaking body turned still, however, it wasn''t because the gas struck him to the point he couldn''t move anymore. His anger overflowed as a feral smile appeared on his face, and his aura transformed into the visage of a lion opening his maw ready to devour his prey. Diorno''s aura was like a lit fuse that finally reached its destination and exploded, creating a chain reaction that led to Landers recovering his wits and unleashing his aura as well. However, even though this happened, Manitola and Lindo couldn''t wake up, they were way weaker than Felix and the other two, and unlike Felix who had a special body, they were both pretty normal. Seeing that two of them were still downed made the moles a little bit more courageous even though they had two monsters in front of them ready to tear them to shreds, they thought that they would be able to capture the downed duo, only to find out that the moment they took a few steps towards them they became mincemeat. Diorno glared at every mole that his eyes could capture, even though he wasn''t the best father, but he would die first before he would let someone touch his son! The moles realized that Diorno was protecting the downed duo as if he was a feral guard dog. While Landers was slowly cutting their numbers down with precise and deadly claw attacks. In this underground environment, it was better to not use energy attacks or they would bury themselves. Felix started to attack with deadly precision. After he saw the other two waking up and making sure that the downed lovers wouldn''t get injured or captured. His attacks slowly thinned out the population of the moles along with Landers''s ones, the one-eyed mole was using this chaotic situation to escape as he mingled around the immense crowd of moles while giving out the last orders. As long as he lived, the moles would be able to rebuild and repopulate with him at the helm. But if he died, he knew that the moles would slowly fade into obscurity and disappear. He was the person that made the mole tribe what it was today! But the farther he got away from his people. The more frightened he felt, it was like something was following him, but he didn''t know what or how. Suddenly the ground below him started to shake, he felt something was wrong as he remembered every detail of the underground area they were in, and no one dug any holes into the ground further below. He felt sweat trickle down his body as a paw dug out of the ground and grasped him firmly, making him unable to struggle out no matter how hard he tried. His single eye widened in horror as he saw Felix getting out of the ground and smiling at him. He tried to continue struggling but no matter what he did, Felix''s iron grip didn''t budge at all, making him stuck there without any ability to retaliate. "Remember me?" Felix''s voice traveled directly into the man''s ears, making him shiver as he laughed awkwardly and said: "Mr cat, there should be no grievances between us... I was just working on the orders of the foxes. They are your biggest enemies, not us we are just tools being used by them so please spare us!" Diorno snorted hearing the man''s pleading attempts, he had seen countless such acts from the moment he stepped on the battlefield, and he knew that the man was lying, he could care less if the others were spared, and he was doing it to save his own skin! The other moles understood that fighting more would result in casualties on their part, and nothing would happen to Landers and Diorno, they did try a few more times to capture Lindo and Manitola to have some leverage against them, but they failed miserably, losing a few more thousands of moles in the process. They all threw their miniature weapons aside as they put their hands up and surrendered, they were informants, not warriors. So they did the smart thing and gave up while they still had people. Felix had quite the grudge with the little person tightly kept in his paw but he didn''t squish him to the death because he understood that he would be useful, and he would rather let his fate rest into the hands of Landers or Diorno who had more awareness about such things. Landers waved his hands and said: "Everyone should return to whatever they were doing before, but instead of spying for the foxes you should understand who you should spy for now." The moles grudgingly made their way back to their posts, while they would have wanted to try again and escape, they knew that their leader was currently in the enemies'' hands, and without him, they would lose a whole lot of prestige and future potential. Diorno and Landers kept watching over Lindo and Manitola while they were knocked out and motioned towards Felix so he could approach with the one-eyed mole. Felix made his way towards them as the one-eyed mole kept his mouth shut until Felix was close to the duo. "So I guess you will want me to swear on oath on my ancestors binding my tribe with yours, right?" Diorno snorted as he made a claw using his hand and slowly approached the mole''s head, ready to rip it off, only for Landers to grasp his shoulder and shake his hand, indicating that he would still be useful alive. And in the first place, he didn''t even say the oath yet! Diorno was very angry as his son''s life was threatened in this situation, he knew that on the battlefield things could go awry and that maybe his son wouldn''t come alive, but that was when he wasn''t present! He couldn''t watch as his son died in front of his eyes and especially in a situation where he couldn''t do anything. This enraged him quite a lot as it made him remember some painful memories about his wife. The mole leader shook and sweated intensely in Felix''s grasp as he sighed after watching Diorno put his claw away, realizing that he would live to see the day tomorrow. He closed his eye as the light of his own hex energy mixed with something else engulfed him making Felix ready to squish him only for Lindo to put a hand over his head and say: "Don''t do anything this must be his way of communicating with his ancestors and creating the oath." The one-eyed mole then slowly opened his eye as he looked around him and gave a smile while he said: "From today onwards, the mole tribe shall be under the lion''s tribe beck and call!" Chapter 134: Trying to find the fox tribe Landers heaved a sigh of relief after everything was done watching out for traps, and fighting all of these moles was quite taxing on his mind. He also had to take care of the unconscious lovers below them. Which increased his stress even more. He was used to doing such things, but he always felt rather relieved when they ended. The one-eyed mole didn''t say anything after he expressed his. And his tribe''s loyalty to the lions. It felt like he became a little more hollow than before as if he lost something rather important to him, but Diorno and Landers understood why he became like this. This was the face and vibe of a defeated person. All of his plans were solid, but who knew that such a freak like Felix would destroy all of them by simply existing. The one-eyed mole regained his wits after a short while of mopping around then said: "Name''s Giovani, what can I help you, three masters, with?" Diorno looked down at the small guy, which Felix let on the ground after he finished his oath "Well, you could start by waking up the two lovey birds down there." Giovani looked down at Manitola and Lindo before shaking his head as he said: "There is no antidote for this gas, it will wear out by itself depending on the strength of their immune systems, or at least that''s what the person who sold it to me said." Diorno facepalmed as he looked at the unconscious duo, did that mean he would have to log the two of them around like they were baggage? Landers grabbed Manitola and put her over his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes and said: "I got her." Diorno nodded as he picked up his son and did as Landers. "Giovani show us around for a little before we will tell you about our first plans for the moles." Giovani acquiesced as there was nothing he could do in this situation anyways besides obeying. He already swore the oath. Felix followed them from behind while he looked around. This time he wasn''t unconscious and he could fully appreciate the surroundings. The buildings were short standing only at 1,8 meters tall and they were made from mud and stones. They were simply made in either square or round shapes like domes. Most of the moles stood inside their houses and had closed eyes as they seemed to be praying? Giovani explained to them as they looked through the windows of the houses: "Our informaticians are all working hard to collect information from the outside using a combination of earth tremors and their instincts amplified by their hex talents." "Most of our techniques aren''t combat-oriented, but we are excellent for spying and reconnaissance. As we can collect information from the underground." Lindo and Diorno were certainly impressed by their tenacious side, as they were people who didn''t like to sit around, and they couldn''t imagine themselves working as the moles did. After they toured the whole village and saw even the secret facilities where the moles made their special traps, they finally came back to where they battled, seeing that the damaged surroundings were already being repaired by other moles. "So after you learned everything about us, what is the first job you want us to do?" Giovani knew that after they got under Lions'' thumb, they would make them work immediately, and he was right, they needed inside people like the moles. People who had tons of information on the Sparron continent. Landers stood in front of Giovani as he thought for a short second before he said: "I want all the information available on the whole Sparron continent, along with any leads where we could find the fox tribe, also we need to link our communication stones so we can have a quick way to call each other whenever the need arises." "Easy requests, give me a few minutes." Giovani left towards one of the taller buildings that they walked by a few minutes ago and returned as soon as he said he would. He came back with a small mountain of papers that he settled down in front of Landers then threw him a black communication stone before saying: "The most likely location that the foxes had run to would be an abandoned hollow tree near the border of the summer part of the continent, that''s where the delegation of the summer foxes lives and an asylum for the spring foxes during such situations, however, there might be a chance they also went back to their original hideout as they don''t like relying on the other fox tribes." Landers picked up the papers and put them in his special bag before nodding and saying: "We will call you whenever the need arises. As for now, you can go back to your job of collecting information. Call us whenever new important information pops up." Giovani nodded and left, leaving Felix and the others along with the moles who were still repairing the surroundings. Landers looked around for a few seconds before saying as he made his way towards the exit of the cave: "Ok we have got what we wanted from them but we still have a problem with these two sleeping, so we need to go back to the base and leave them there, for now. Who knows when they will wake up?" Diorno followed him from behind as Felix made his way out with them, the duo seemingly decided on something at the same time as they looked at Felix and Landers said: "We will need to go back and send these two to a comfy bed, so you will have to gather the troops and go to the locations that the moles told us about, you shall become a temporary general and lead the troops while we are missing." Felix didn''t know what to say as this was a bit too sudden, general? Him? He knew that this was a very high position, and he didn''t feel ready for that responsibility yet, coupled with the fact that he didn''t know how to lead troops at all, made him rather unconvinced about the duo''s decision. "We shall call the captains of each unit and notify them of the temporary change, also here." Landers threw Felix that black communication stone that Giovani gave him in case he needed to contact him. Felix wasn''t sure what to do in this situation... should he tell them that he didn''t feel ready? But before he could even open his mouth and say anything, they had already finished their conversations with the captains of the units then disappeared like smoke on a windy night, leaving Felix alone. At this point, Felix wasn''t sure what to do as he went back to the location of the elevator where he met with the troops. Who already gathered themselves there. They all saluted Felix as they waited for his instructions without batting an eyelid. it was the first time Felix would ever give orders, so he felt rather strange. But he controlled his emotions and said: "We have two targets right now, which are potential battlefields we will first move towards the former base of the foxes to see if they have relocated there. It''s on the opposite side of the second option, so we will use the elevator to get there, get inside!" The troops did as instructed as they all boarded the elevator, and Felix entered it last before he used the new coordinates he got from Giovani. The elevator shook for a short while before all of the troops left it, arriving in the middle of an unknown location. Giovani had said that this was the previous base of the foxes but as Felix looked around, he only saw trees and nothing else. Could have Giovani given him the wrong coordinates? If this was the former hideout of the foxes, there should have been something around here that indicated it so, like some ruins of some kind or some abandoned buildings, but there was nothing here that indicated someone lived here before. But he didn''t give up, he knew that the foxes liked to live in burrows, so they must have dug some around here. He made the troops split up and search every nook and cranny trying to see if there were any holes in the ground, no matter how small. The troops and Felix searched for around 3 hours until they realized that there were no holes in the ground, which indicated that Giovani gave them a fake location. He decided to contact him with the communication stone that Landers gave him, after a few seconds the connection was made, and Giovani''s voice came out of the stone: "Yes?" "You gave me the wrong location, there are no traces of the fox tribe even living where you said their previous headquarters were." "My apologies sir, but there is also a chance they might have destroyed all evidence after they migrated from there, making sure there would be no items that would make them traceable." Felix shook his head. Maybe he was a little too quick to jump to conclusions. He ended the connection as he regathered the troops and decided to attack the hollow tree, which was their last lead to find the foxes. After they entered the elevator, Felix entered some different coordinates, waited a few seconds before all of them made their way out of the transporting device. In front of them stood a tall and wide tree, that was hollow in the middle, and from what Felix could sense, it was full of living creatures! Felix decided to make the troops enter into a formation, ordering them just as Landers would before slowly marching towards the tree there were too many troops so a stealth attack was impossible, but why would they need a stealth attack when they had such an immense numerical advantage? Chapter 135: They are not here? I dont believe you! The troops entered formation to improve their attacking and defense capabilities just like they had been taught during the military drills back at the capital. They acquiesced to Felix''s orders making them enter the range of attack as they got closer to the hollow tree. No movements were coming from those inside the tree, as if they didn''t sense the fact that they were currently being surrounded by 2,7 million troops, armed to the teeth and ready to attack. Felix found it strange considering it was quiet, too quiet in fact. Nothing was happening even though he had surrounded their base with a high number of troops. It was as if they were both blind and deaf. Since they didn''t want to defend themselves, Felix decided to attack! He waved his paw akin to how Landers usually did, indicating that it was time to charge! The troops immediately rushed towards the tree with a mighty war cry they attacked. The attack made by the troops made the tree start shaking as foxes rushed out of the bottom of the hollow tree. They finally decided to grace them with their presence. The foxes had wide eyes and pale faces as they saw Felix at the forefront of the army, glaring down at them. The 500 foxes that left the tree stood near the tree with a bleak look on their faces. They knew that there was no chance that they would be able to escape this situation. While they had quite a lot of people on the insides of the tree, they weren''t all able to fight. The people inside the tree were good at administration, not fighting! They had been delegated there as a bridge to connect the spring and summer parts, not as guards and a deterring fighting force! While they did have some people to protect them, they already knew that they would be useless in this situation. The leader of the 500 foxes came forward as he bowed towards Felix, indicating his intention to surrender to him. Felix put his paw up, making all of the troops stop. "Oh great cat, why have you attacked us so suddenly?" Felix looked at them in the eye, looking for any traces of nervousness to identify if they would be lying: "I''m pursuing some runaways, and a little birdie told me they are supposed to be hiding here with you. I don''t think you have seen any foreign foxes seeking shelter around here, right?" The leader of the foxes immediately started sweating inside, but his expression outside was neat and composed. As if he heard this news just now. As a politician, he was very adept at lying. But no matter how good he was at lying, he was still a simple being compared to the super-powered cat known as Felix. He remained in the same place as he seemed to be thinking for a while he then kept his head down as he said: "I''m sorry great sir, but there hadn''t been any foreign foxes visiting us these days." "As you might know, great sir, due to the current circumstances, there had been no chance for the people of any of the parts to make big movements." Felix nodded and then put his paw forward, indicating for the troops to continue their march. He knew that the man was lying to him, so he wanted to make a show of force to make him tell the truth. The leader''s eyes widened in both surprise and fear as he saw the army marching towards the tree and ready to skewer the foxes along. He was a person that put his life over anyone else''s, and even though it was his job to save those spring part foxes, he still put his life over theirs as he kneeled in front of the army and shouted: "They are here! Please stop. We will guide you directly to their higher-echelons!" He caved in extremely easily, and Felix didn''t even start properly. Since he didn''t have to waste any more time, Felix decided to follow him as he took 300,000 people with him inside as more would cluster the inside of the tree. Felix followed the man inside the tree through a special entrance as the army stood outside glowering at the other foxes and waiting for further orders. As he entered the hollow tree, he realized that it was something akin to the elevator they used to move around the continent, but it was also different. Just like the elevator, it had extended space. However, unlike the elevator, the extended space was used for living, Instead of transportation. As Felix followed the fox leader inside, he could see people working in two ways they were either sitting behind desks, doing paperwork or just casually chatting and enjoying themselves with diverse activities. It seemed that the work of ambassadors wasn''t anything hard, as they could enjoy themselves doing whatever they wanted in a foreign place under the guise of better relations between nations. Felix only observed for a few brief seconds as he didn''t see any people that he could recognize, which indicated that the queen of the spring part was further into the tree. As they went lower the surroundings changed until they reached the bottom underground. It seemed that the base was created in the artistic style of humans as it resembled the inside of their buildings quite a lot. The extended space combined with the decorations made Felix realize that the building was constructed by humans. This also shown that the summer part foxes had invested quite a bit into this building. Finally, after they reached the bottom and walked forward among a corridor for a few minutes they reached some gigantic white gates that were made into a circular shape. The fox leader knocked on the door three times at different intervals, then the door opened and Felix with his troops entered. The moment this happened, a screech could be heard coming from inside the room Felix and the others currently entered: "DAMN YOU BONIFIGLO, YOU BETRAYED US!" Felix could recognize that voice anywhere as it was the so-called queen of the spring part, he became invisible as he rushed directly to her, pinning her to the ground with his body. The three stooges that were her personal guards and maids at the same time tried to help her, only to realize they were surrounded by hundreds of thousands of troops. The hollow tree was very spacious, and the others from the fox tribe were currently doing their own activities, leaving the four upper echelons to meet the visiting ambassador. Since he gave them the shelter they needed, they had to act courteously to him, but they would have never thought they would get sold out so early. They didn''t even get to enjoy the facilities of the place properly! Felix told a nearby soldier to come with some rope of some kind to tie the new prisoners. After a few seconds, they were all tied up and put neatly on the floor. Felix wanted to sneer seeing the queen''s current situation, she tried to torture him multiple times without any mercy, only to end up in a similar situation to his previous one. "Well, how the tables have turned, how do you like the position, your majesty?" Felix''s mocking words cut the silver-haired beauty deeply as her ears twitched due to extreme anger, she shouted so hard that some of the soldiers had to grasp their ears: "YOU USELESS MORONS YOUR QUEEN IS BEING CAPTURED, COME OVER HERE AND SAVE ME!" Out of the several different rooms, two hundred thousand foxes rushed out to save the queen. But these weren''t their only reinforcements as the ground started to shake with a familiar rhythm which made Felix narrow his eyes. Out of the farthest room, the sound of shouts and chants could be heard coming directly towards Felix''s troops. They were words he had heard before: "Kill! The pesky lions had arrived. We must crush them!" A hundred thousand rabbits came out of the room as they ran directly towards the troops with immense bloodlust, the foxes didn''t even have time to enter in a war formation as the battle started chaotically. Felix frowned as he picked up the queen and jumped away with her as this was no place for a life and death fight. The fighting would create tremors and damage the extended space making it crash upon them and bury them alive, not into the ground but space! Being buried into space was different from being buried into the ground, and Felix didn''t want to experience that. He could already feel that the space around them was shaking intensely from the new ongoing fights. He knew that signals wouldn''t work anymore in this chaotic situation so he shouted: "DO YOUR BEST TO EVACUATE, AND CONTINUE THE FIGHT SOMEWHERE ELSE, THIS PLACE ISN''T MEANT FOR FIGHTING!" Felix then dragged the fox queen behind him as he started to jump on the heads of the fighting people running through the opened door and disappearing from the sights of the foxes, lions, and rabbits. The foxes were angered quite a lot as they saw an outsider run away with their bound queen, while the rabbits didn''t care and blocked the way of the foxes as they fought with the lions. Normally the rabbits would have been easily controlled by the queen, and such a chaotic situation wouldn''t have been created, but Felix struck like lightning and captured the queen, making the dumb and rampaging rabbits have their way. The lions slowly retreated under the berserking attacks of the rabbits while making their way towards the door. They heeded Felix''s words and they did their best to leave these madmen and madwomen behind as they didn''t want to get buried in this place. While not everyone in the 300,000 people knew about collapsing space, some of them did and words spread quite fast, making the troops focus on retreating. Even the foxes eavesdropped and tried to push their way through their ''allies''. They even started to blame their queen in their hearts for employing the help of these numbskulls! Chapter 136: Kidnapping a queen with a giant fight Pandemonium ensued as the rabbits tried to fight the lions while the foxes and lions tried to escape their current predicament. But unluckily for them, the rabbits being the rabid berserker they were. They made things really hard for both enemies and allies. Their crazed targeting made them ignorant of their surroundings. And the fact that they were dooming everyone around them with their actions. But even if they knew, there was still a huge chance they wouldn''t understand what it meant, and they would continue fighting. They were simple creatures with limited insight. So they were controlled by their instincts and emotions. The hatred for the lions was ingrained in their beings after the emperor manipulated them a little bit. They would never let a lion escape from their sight, and they would resort to even biting them to death if they didn''t have limbs left. They were the best death soldiers and also mass-created. Thus the lions had quite the hard time leaving with the rabbits always harassing them with deadly intent. The foxes, on the other hand, had an easier time as they were allies, and they weren''t blocked intentionally by them. However, due to the number of people inside the room, they were still very clustered, and they had a hard time differentiating allies from foes. Felix would have naturally helped the troops but considering he had an important hostage right now. And the fact that the hostage dying under the collapse of space would pretty much doom this operation, it was better to leave the troops at the mercy of fate rather than gambling. Landers and Diorno gave him control over the troops, and he knew that it would be good to come with all of them back alive, but he still needed to place the queen somewhere safe first. He left the hollow tree and threw the queen along with some instructions towards one of the captains stationed outside waiting, for him and the troops, to return. After making sure that everything was alright with her majesty, he then dashed right back into the bottom of the tree, where he saw that the space was already ready to collapse and that the troops were stuck fighting it out with the rabbits as they stuck to them like glue. No matter what type of attacks they used. They just would continue their harassment until their hearts would stop beating and their heads would be severed. The rabbits had no fear of the numerical disadvantage as it was 3:1 they even started to bring down some of the lions with them as they attacked in a suicidal fashion. Felix was rather gloomy as he looked at what was happening in front of him, from the looks of it, it wouldn''t take much time before space would break and consume the surroundings until nothing was left behind, so he couldn''t add oil to the fire and fight it out with the rabbits. He needed some other way to incapacitate them without stretching the already thin line. That was keeping them alive. He knew some soul techniques and the rabbits had weak souls. Also, space wouldn''t be affected by soul attacks no matter how strong they were unless the soul was so strong that it became corporeal. Felix took a glance around to see the formation of the battlefield and target the best point. There he could inflict the damage so his troops could return. At first glance, he found a few weak key points that he could attack and immediately went to work as he could feel space tremble around him and weakening at a quick speed. Wisps of soul power left Felix''s head as they transformed into long narrow spikes. That inserted themselves in the foreheads of the foremost attacking rabbits. These rabbits clutched their heads for a few brief seconds before transforming into living dead. They flopped to the ground, their vital signs were still normal, but their expressions were vacant, showing that their souls were destroyed. The moment those important links in the chain that we''re keeping the majority of the troops blocked inside the room were destroyed, things took a different turn as the troops were finally able to retreat properly. Unfortunately, even though the soul attack didn''t have any business with the surrounding collapsing space. The deaths of those forefront rabbits triggered those from behind, making them attack even harder. It seemed like they were on steroids as their veins pulsed with immense strength, and their muscles shook while they tried to grind the lion''s troops with all of their might. But whenever one got too close or tried to block the way of the lions, he would either fall with a seizure or get a big dumb smile on his face before collapsing to the ground. Felix was starting to feel lightheaded as he continuously used his soul in diverse ways to attack the rabbits, their souls put little to no defense against his attempts, but there were just too many opponents for Felix''s soul to take all at once, he also tried to do it one by one. But he realized that he didn''t have enough time. Thus he attacked hundreds of them at the time. This put quite the strain on his soul, but this could also be considered an exercise. That would strengthen his soul even further. He reached a bottleneck with his soul, and he didn''t have the time nor the right location to train in the soul breathing technique. So any other special exercise would have been welcomed. However, the circumstances were less than savory, which made Felix improving soul be less happy than it was supposed to. Felix did his best to control his soul at its maximum capacity, but after a while, he realized that if he continued like this, he would pass out! Passing out in this situation meant certain doom, and he wasn''t sure if he would be as lucky as before, meaning that if his body was caught in the collapsing space, he would die for good! He could feel space tremble above his head and he realized that he couldn''t do anything more, he shook his head as he immediately started to rush outside the tree using his quickest speed there were still some troops left battling the last remnants of rabbits, but Felix knew they were doomed. It couldn''t be helped as the rabbits were just too suicidal! It made Felix very annoyed in this situation, but what could he do? He already did his best, and it wasn''t enough, so he needed to leave the troops behind. They were around 120,000 left and the rabbits counted towards 30,000, but their attacks were so fierce and their defenses so high that they wouldn''t die in a short time. Felix was ready to jump out of the hollow that was used as the entrance to the real base as he looked around and saw the few scrambling foxes who were gathering their belongings to run. It seemed that they were the last ones left. With a small short jump, Felix left the base behind him as the sound of tearing and breaking was heard the moment he left. He took one glance behind, only to see a rift slowly eating the 10 meters tree until nothing was left of it. He also looked down where the base was supposed to be only to see a gigantic smooth crater seemingly as if it was made by the sharpest blade on the planet, no sign of any troops could be seen either the rabbits, lions, or the remaining foxes that were unluckily caught between the fighting duo of troops. Everything was razed to the underground and nothing could be scavenged, and while the extended space was convenient and useful, it was also very dangerous. But it would have been unlikely for the humans to sell defective products unless they were withholding the better things for some reason... Felix realized something as he looked at the aftermath of the spatial collapse... the humans weren''t thrust-worthy. He sighed as he saluted, giving a small homage to the fallen soldiers. The captain that was holding the struggling queen which tried to bite him several times, came near Felix and saluted as well, he knew what happened, and there was no need for any explanations. "They were good men, Sir. They might have been fresh out of the training ground recruits, but they all joined normally and they weren''t drafted. They actually looked forward to being fighting alongside you." Felix was puzzled: "Fight alongside me? Why?" The man informed Felix while keeping his head down: "The shaman had always pushed forward your great deeds, making the teens from different parts of the continent who belonged to our tribe want to join the army of the main branch. They all looked up to you, Sir." Felix remained frozen for a few seconds there, but then his eyes hardened as he said: "We have finished our mission for now but at the cost of both some promising young men and women and the future captured people of the foxes..." Some of the foxes that were fighting in the underground along with the rabbits were able to escape, but that was a small number which was around 10% of the total number which counted to 10,000. The fox civilians were hidden god knows where because Felix didn''t see any civilian in the tree base besides those ambassadors for the summer part. The remainder of the fox army was also kept tightly under watch and tied up just like their queen, and they were ready to be hauled to the main base. Chapter 137: A big announcement Felix glanced at the queen who was still trying to bite her way out of her bindings and escape making the situation rather awkward as her subordinates already accepted their fate making her the odd one out of the 10,001 tied people. Her acting was rather childish at first, but since Felix didn''t have anything to do while the others were escorting the foxes into the elevator, he decided to observe her for some time as he would enter last. The more he looked at her. The more he understood, at first glance, he thought that she was just acting out due to anger and that she thought that her capture happened mostly due to luck on Felix''s part. But the more he analyzed her, the more he understood her. He finally realized that she wasn''t angry and that her outbursts were her way of coping with the situation. He could see a deep fear in her eyes that made him mellow out a bit, while she was certainly a bitch. Felix was above her and he wouldn''t pay her with the same actions. He was still angry at her, but his anger diminished the more he saw her tied up from trying to struggle and escape, she was rather pitiful and this made him feel that he paid her for what he did to him in the end, her torture did not affect him, and she only captured him. "What''s your name?" Felix''s voice stopped the queen''s struggling as she sagged in her bindings. Her face was down as she looked at the ground making her expression unseeable. Her antics stopped for the first time since she was captured. She kept her head down as she asked with a trembling voice: "What will you do to me?" Felix could understand that his answer would make her have varying reactions, but he was going, to be frank with her: "I''m not sure myself I think they want you to publicly declare that you will hand over the spring part of the continent to us." The woman chuckled as she wanted to clutch her chest but her arms were immobilized so she just stood there with a blank look on her face as she raised her head and looked at Felix: "Are you sure those are the only things that your superiors will do to me?" "Yeah, pretty much. We aren''t monsters you know?" "If you act well, we will just let you be as long as you swear on your ancestors that you will serve the lion tribe." The queen was puzzled as she looked at Felix, she heard quite a lot of news from the summer part foxes when she was staying at the tree, and she knew that the other invaders were very vicious, and they coveted the beauty of the fox kind. Were the lions different? Or did he just say this so she would put up less of a fight? She sighed as she knew that there wasn''t anything much she could do anymore besides sulk and accept whatever was coming to her, but as a queen and pampered person since her childhood, she could barely accept what was happening. Finally, the elevator was loaded up and Felix grabbed the queen and entered it before its doors closed and it started shaking as the captain who knew how to operate it introduced the coordinates for the home base. This operation took around one day, and when they returned they met with the happy and proud faces of Landers and Diorno, they looked at Felix with an approving gaze, seemingly saying that he passed the test that they gave him! "You have done great, even though I can see that all of the troops aren''t present, it''s impossible to do perfectly on your first operation as an order-giving general, but I''m still proud of you!" Landers patted Felix''s head then looked at the queen who was by his side, and had her head down, she was almost hyperventilating as she had been surrounded by the lion troops for a few minutes, and she thought that almost all of them were looking at her eyeing her curves, and whispering to each other things that shouldn''t be mentioned. But it was just her imagination combined with her deep anxiety. The troops could care less about her as most of them either had girlfriends or wives waiting for them at home, some couples even joined the army together. "We finally captured the last puzzle piece to finish the spring part, it seems that the reinforcements were a good idea on Siracha''s part as we are currently ahead compared to the other 2 continents." Landers then took a hold of the queen''s bindings as he ripped them apart, leaving her free. "Your majesty, we will need your cooperation from now on, do you understand?" The queen didn''t know what to say as Landers looked deeply into her eyes, she knew that he was trying to intimidate her using a combination of his aura and soul power, but that didn''t mean because she knew it didn''t work. Suddenly, out of a nearby house, Manitola''s voice could be heard: "Aunt!" The frozen queen started to relax a bit hearing a familiar voice, but then her head moved directly towards the direction where she heard the voice from. "Manitola?" Manitola quickly made her way to her aunt as she gave her a big hug and checked if she had any injuries: "It''s good that you are ok. Where are mother and the others?" "They are in a safe place for now... but I''m not sure how much time it will remain safe." She glanced at Landers and the others. Manitola shook her head as she saw how cautious her mother was of her comrades but she knew where she came from so she decided to comfort her: "It''s ok, aunt, they aren''t bad guys... well not that bad, at least they won''t do anything to the captured people, unlike some other people that I know..." Having someone she knew to comfort her and telling its gonna be okay made the queen, less stressed as she took in a deep breath and then looked at Landers while asking: "What do you want me to say?" The queen finally accepted her fate as she looked into Landers''s eyes. "Very good, all you will have to say is I''m going to leave the spring part of the Sparron continent to be managed by the Lions and swear an oath on your ancestors that you will serve our tribe from now on." It was just like Felix had said, which made her look back to him and say: "My name is Malora." She didn''t tell him her name, but now that they were going to work together from now on, she decided to indulge him. She then walked with Landers towards a hastily built platform with a new device pointed towards it. The device was black colored and placed on a stick, its shape was rectangular with a piece of glass at the top of it combined with a handle for easy carrying. "Stay in front of this while I activate it and say the words I told you." Landers walked behind the device as he pressed a button on it, making it shine slowly, showing that it was activated. Malora directly went to work as she said what she was supposed to: "People of the spring part, I queen Malora the 2nd have abdicated the throne and gave control to the Lions of the Tarot continent along with my people becoming subordinates of their tribe as I will swear upon my ancestors now!" After her ritual, the one-sided contract between her tribe and the lion''s was made, making them direct subordinates. Landers nodded as he stopped the device and told her she did well... ********************* In the other parts of the Sparron continent where the message also appeared, some ravens morphed back into their human forms as they swore under their breath and looked towards the Spring part. They were surrounded by an icy blizzard that made things hard to see normally, but they were using their souls to detect their surroundings, so they didn''t have trouble navigating through it. One of the ravens was Wu Xiao, who knew one of the reasons the lions had conquered the spring part so quickly was Felix. He felt it deep in his soul that he was the most important reason, their fight, back at the island created an imprint upon his soul. The imprint was acting both as a detector and a way to divine things about Felix, but the ability to divine wasn''t very strong because of their strength difference. "Those damn Lions... it seems that we will have to double our efforts. We can''t let them come and share a piece of our pie!" "Yeah!" While the Ravens were arguing, the same could be said about the Kangaroos and the spiders as well as their subordinates, which were of different and diverse races. Malora''s announcement was like a gun powderkeg that was set ablaze and exploded! Everyone on the continent, be they invaders or defenders decided to double their efforts at their own activities as they realized that things were taking a turn for the worse for them. Chapter 138: The Sparron continent civilization fully conquered The announcement made by the fox queen Malora triggered an event that should have happened way later into the invasion. The two other invading continents sped up their progress using the resources they had just gotten from capturing the basic villages of the other tribes that lived in their parts. Each seasonal part had its own special resources that the humans had a use for, so with a little bit of bribing and trading, the spiders, kangaroos, and ravens got their hands on some special tailor-made technology that was useful against their enemies, thus leading to the conquering of the whole continent. There were still places that no one set their foot in on the Sparron continent, and that''s where the others were currently laying their eyes on. The other 3 continents were mostly fully searched through because the inhabitants had enough strength to get to whatever location their minds put them to. Unlike the pitiful people of the Sparron continent. Who couldn''t even travel everywhere on their own continent due to their lack of strength! It took the alliance of the Balton and Haron continents around 2 months after the announcement to fully capture the leaders of their respective parts. Afterward, just like the lions, they made their own announcements which they shared with the whole continent to make a show of strength and tell the lions that they weren''t better than them! The lions were both competitors and enemies to the Balton and Haron continent''s top inhabitants and vice-versa. They wanted everything to be in balance as a tripartite power now that the Sparron continent had been dissected and shared between the three of them. And just like this, the alliance between the ravens and the kangaroos-spiders had ended. With their business done, there was no reason for them to remain in the alliance as they split up peacefully for the time. Now that the war was also over, there was no reason to keep troops on the Sparron continent anymore. Besides the ones that were needed to defend against attacks made by their former alliance mates. Considering they didn''t want to fully fall out, and fight it to the death. The future fights would only happen with personnel below the lieutenant level. It was impossible to stop such skirmishes, and they were also helpful to temper the younger generation making them gain experience and feel how the battlefield actually was, without actually fighting on the crueler version of it. While deaths were also inevitable in such situations, the upper echelons didn''t care as long as it didn''t involve their benefits. Felix was relaxing for once after a long time. He didn''t have any time to do this since he had been transported to this new world and as a cat. He originally liked to laze around, generally eating and sleeping. Since he gained intelligence those parts of his personality were dulled out by quite a lot, but they were still in his blood, making the current situation especially enjoyable. Imagine working for around 12 hours a day every day and then suddenly getting a vacation in a luxurious place that you wanted to visit since you were a child. This was the sensation that Felix currently felt even though he wasn''t anywhere special. He was actually lazing on the rooftop of the inn he made his home at the lion''s capital. Felix was sunbathing with his eyes closed as he purred out of pleasure. It''s been such a long time since he had enjoyed some time with himself that he almost forgot how it was like. Suddenly Felix could sense someone under the inn waving at him. It was Lindo and Manitola! Now that they were discharged from the army for some resting time, they both took a more casual approach on their attires. Lindo was wearing some shorts and a tank top that showed his muscles and scars, along with some sandals. His long mane of hair had been cut shorter and tied together in a bun at the top of his head. Manitola changed into a casual dress made from the specially grown plant known as silk, making it nice to touch and look at as she wore one with a floral engraving on it. Lindo had his hand over her shoulder as he waved at Felix, who was at the top of the house, waiting for him to jump down to them. Felix descended to the ground as he looked at them and asked: "What''s up?" Normally they knew that Felix liked to laze alone as there weren''t many things that someone could do as a group in this world besides exploring or fighting, or well eating, but Felix had already eaten for today. "We just wanted to invite you to a gathering with our close friends as we have a big announcement to make." Felix''s ears moved up and down as he felt interested: "Big announcement? What is it?" Lindo smiled goofily as he put his hands forward and shook them from side to side, indicating that he couldn''t tell him yet: "It isn''t time for that to be revealed, you should come with us as you are the last invited person." Felix wasn''t one to say no to his friends, especially since they made it look like it was a very important thing, so he walked alongside them towards Lindo''s house. They didn''t talk much while they were walking back to Lindo''s house, so it was quite relaxing for Felix. They used around 5 minutes to go from the inn to Lindo''s house, where they met with Landers, Catro, and Diorno. They were all seated besides Diorno who was leaning on the wall of the house and taking swigs from his alcohol flask. He seemed to be uneasy, as he glanced at Manitola and Lindo from time to time. Seemingly as if he knew something already, but he just waited for them to confirm it. Lindo clapped to get everyone''s attention as a smile crept up onto his face while he looked at everyone around. "I have called you all here for one reason and one reason only." "A great event has happened in both of our lives, and Manitola had successfully become pregnant!" Lindo''s smile was there for everyone to see. It seemed that he didn''t even bat an eyelid as he dropped the news on everyone. Diorno''s drinking flask had fallen to the ground while Catro didn''t look that interested as he had better things to do, but being the polite man he was, he got up from the couch, congratulated the duo then left because he had work, the war may be over, but that''s when the logistics team had to work the hardest to finish counting the wins and losses. Felix wasn''t sure what to say, so he just congratulated the duo just like Catro did while Landers had a big smile on his face as he approached them and patted Lindo''s shoulder before asking: "Have you thought of a name?" "Well if he is a boy, he will be called Jack and if she is a girl, she will be called Maleena." He looked lovingly at Manitola as he put his hand over her stomach. Manitola looked back at him with the same gaze as they whispered sweet nothings to each other, making the others feel awkward as hell. Diorno grabbed his flask from the ground as he put it back into his clothes and shook his head as he looked at the duo and didn''t say anything as he didn''t want to destroy the atmosphere even though he knew there was a huge chance their child would come out with deformities. Lindo glanced towards his leaving father, but he let him go instead of telling him to wait, he knew there wasn''t much he could talk to him about in this situation as he already made up his mind. He knew that his child might come out deformed and with no ability to protect himself or herself in the future, but he didn''t care. He knew he wanted to protect his child and Manitola all the same, regardless of how he ended up. He didn''t have any expectations of him either as he gave him all of his love. "Well, I hope you two will be happy, oh sorry, the three of you." Landers smiled as he started to search through his special bag for an appropriate gift. After a while, he took out a small bone inscribed with a song that his father usually sung him before he went to war in the early days. "I hope that you will sing your song to your child whenever you will have to leave for war as it meant to soothe him or her, this helped me greatly when I was young, and considering our society, you should know that these days won''t last forever..." "I understand Landers, thanks for your gift." Felix panicked a bit now, was he supposed to bring a gift as well? He looked through his special bag for something that would be appropriate in this situation. but he found nothing like what he needed he still had only food and his money inside. He felt quite awkward as he looked at Lindo who was smiling at him, seemingly realizing why he was so awkward. He waved his hand at Felix and told him: "Come closer, Felix, you don''t have to give us any gift, but I would like to ask something of you." Felix approached Lindo and Manitola as he waited for Lindo''s question. Lindo dropped his smile as he asked seriously: "Would you consider becoming this childs'' godfather?" Chapter 139: Peace doesnt last long (1) "I..." Felix was flabbergasted. He never thought they would pose such a question to him. Being the godfather of the unborn child meant that they would become family from thereon. Felix didn''t really mind it, but it was a bit too sudden for him. He never thought that Lindo would want him to become the godfather of his child, but if he thought about it a little more. It made quite a bit of sense, considering the few people which were invited to this news. But he wasn''t sure if he was ready to become a godfather, he actually didn''t want any family right now. He felt like he would be inevitably tied down here if he created a family, and he didn''t like that he wanted to be free! Felix didn''t have any dreams of the sort as he would drift with the waves, but there was one thing he couldn''t accept... being tied down somewhere. If he became the kid''s godfather, naturally, he would have to take care of him if anything happened to Manitola and Lindo. He wouldn''t mind doing it once or twice, but he was a person who had things to do, and he couldn''t make time for children. He didn''t blame them as this was the best time to leave a descendant behind, he knew that this peace wouldn''t last for long, and for people like Lindo, who had only 1 life, he needed to get to work as quickly as possible. Felix didn''t feel the need to leave his descendants behind, he really didn''t care about this part of his life, but maybe it was because he was rather unique, and there was no other one like him that could complement him, even though there was the cat tribe around. He only felt close to them but not to a high degree. They were similar but also different, and Felix wasn''t attracted to their females to the point he wanted to mate with them he also didn''t know how that would work, considering he couldn''t transform into a humanoid form. Felix shook his head as he cleared it from these thoughts, up till now he never had them in his head as he always focused on finishing his mission and doing good for the tribe, now that he finally had some free time and the fact that Lindo asked him to be a godfather triggered these type of questions in Felix''s head. Now that he had a clear head, he pondered upon Lindo''s question once more, which made it quite awkward. Considering Felix just stood there for some time after he was asked and also shook his head once. Made it look like he was having a hard time deciding. Lindo thought he would accept in a heartbeat which made him rather depressed as Felix was his only choice for a godfather, he wanted someone closer to his age to be his child''s godfather, Landers was also a choice, but he was his direct superior, and he felt like he wouldn''t want to become because of his relationship with the shaman and his father. Felix was a unique existence in the tribe. He also his best friend and battlefield brother so technically, he was the best and only choice in Lindo''s eyes. But he saw how Felix thought for a long while, which made him realize that he didn''t really want to be his child''s godfather. That made him rather sad, but he wouldn''t force him to do something he didn''t want to. He finally wanted to say something, but Felix beat him to it as he opened his mouth and said: "I''m not sure... I have never encountered such a situation and you should know it, we know each other since I have first arrived at the tribe. How much time has it been? 2 years?" "Yeah around that time, and I understand your concerns, not many people would want to become the godfather of a future mutant or handicapped person... this would lower their prestige in the tribe, you have seen how Catro just ran away like that, while it''s true that he has work to do he also must have secretly looked down on our future progeny." Felix shook his head: "No it''s not because of that reason... actually, I just fear that having someone to take care of might inhibit my future freedom." Lindo found his reasoning strange, being a godfather meant that he would have to take care of their child only if something happened to them. Did he really have such a low opinion of their prowess to the point that he thought that they would die soon and leave the child in his paws? It was very farfetched thinking they were both nice and well, and the injuries they had endured on the Sparron continent had fully healed up till now with no sequelae. Or did Felix feel some immense danger was incoming, and he thought that they wouldn''t survive it? This put Lindo''s mind into high gear as he thought about all the things that would make Felix not want to be a godfather until Felix himself decided to continue: "Maybe I''m thinking too much about it, there''s no reason for anything to happen to the two of you so I''m going to accept your offer, however, don''t expect me to do anything besides giving out a few gifts." As always, Felix would be lazy and irresponsible if it were things that didn''t concern a fight or the fate of the tribe or his training. "Well, we are glad that you accepted." Lindo smiled as he patted Felix''s head. He really liked the idea of becoming relatives with Felix as he always wanted a brother, but his mother had died before another descendant could be conceived, and his father never remarried, leaving him siblingless. He didn''t blame anyone, but he felt rather unlucky, however now that he had gained a brother that he had fought on multiple battlefields, he wanted to make things a little more official. He also wanted to marry Manitola soon. "Before you leave Felix. You are also invited to the wedding it will be held in the backyard 3 days from now so please don''t miss it!" Felix nodded then waved at them, before leaving the house. He wasn''t sure how much time of relaxation he had left so he wanted to enjoy it as much as he could. While one of the reasons for not wanting to become the godfather was that he didn''t want to take care of the child, it was also mostly because he felt something big was going to happen, and even if he was the godfather, he wouldn''t have time to take care of their child if they died. Splitting his attention on multiple paths would slow his training and strength advancement along with his wish to see the stars and fly. He never forgot the fact that he had an attraction to outer space, even though he still didn''t feel ready yet. He went back to the top of the inn where he did his usual activities, eating lazing around, or sunbathing, which was also lazing around but in the sun. The day of the wedding came, and Felix came with a bouquet as a gift along with some items that he bought from a shop that Landers recommended for this occasion. Manitola wore a white wedding dress that was short at the legs revealing her white long legs, while Lindo wore a groom suit with the difference being that his jacket was short-sleeved and his pants were short, both the groom and bride didn''t wear any type of shoes. They were both adapted to the summer climate they were living in so they wouldn''t impede the groom and bride due to the heat. Felix stood at the forefront of chairs as the only others present were Landers and Diorno. Catro didn''t come as he had other stuff to do. It was a small wedding but as the priest came out to officiate it, a familiar face popped up. It was the lightning scared one that Felix couldn''t forget, Siracha! Siracha smiled at everyone as he wore a black shaman suit which consisted of a short-sleeved dark jacket along with a white shirt underneath and some normal pants. He had a book in his hands as he was ready to officiate the ceremony. After Siracha said whatever he needed to, the duo said their vows before kissing each other on the lips and put the wedding rings on their ring fingers. The wedding was a resounding success as a party commenced afterward, dancing and singing was on the roll, and even the rather cold Diorno was put up on the spot by Siracha, making him dance and sing for the newlywed couple. After that, they all had some good food, especially cooked for such occasions, and left to their own devices. Felix went back to lazing around and training from time to time, Landers went to train recruits while Siracha had shaman things to do. As for Diorno, he was in a similar boat as Felix and did the same things as him. Time slowly passed as the lion tribe entered a golden age, there were no more expansion wars as they had enough resources, and everyone was doing well their subordinates were also well-taken care of, so there was no reason for mutinies. Everyone settled down doing the things they loved to and Felix even broke through to the 9th stage of the intelligence breathing technique as he had enough time to go and visit special places where he could meditate for long times. One year passed like that, and as Felix returned to the tribe after an attempt at training in the soul breathing technique, he got the news that his godson was being born! Chapter 140: Peace doesnt last long (2) Felix knew that he couldn''t miss this occasion as it was something very important for both Lindo and Manitola. And he was going to meet his godson, they had already found out its a boy a few months prior and told him. In such a society, males were better seen than females. Unless the females proved themselves by using their strength and resourcefulness, but in general, women were looked down upon, so Lindo was quite happy Manitola was going to give birth to a boy. Atleast even if he was going to be bullied due to his handicap, at least it won''t be too excessive as he grew up. A useless boy would be bullied even by the girls, but a useless girl would be condemned to something that was rather unspeakable. Lindo had Felix as a backup if something happened to him, but who knew what would happen in the future? Who knew if Felix would become unavailable? Even Felix himself didn''t know what would happen in the future even though his senses told him it wasn''t going to be anything nice, he actually wanted to talk with Siracha about it, but the man was always unavailable for some reason, seemingly as if he was avoiding the topic. The location where Manitola was giving birth was top secret, as the shaman himself was going to help her deliver the baby. It was Siracha''s grand grandson, and even if he knew that he wouldn''t be able to become a fighter, he still loved him dearly. Felix followed the instructions that the person that notified him gave arriving at a certain uninhabited house before entering using the door that led to the cellar. There he took a right in the cellar and arrived at a wall that he punched three times. The wall then caved in, letting Felix enter the secret location where Manitola was currently giving birth, Lindo was pacing around holding his hands together, he was praying to Manitola''s God for both mother and child to come out safely of this ordeal. The birth of a hybrid was very painful and exhausting for both mother and child, and Lindo was feeling rather scared of anything that could happen to them. He loved both dearly, and he wouldn''t imagine himself living without one of them. Manitola still had her other lives, but if the child died, he wouldn''t be resurrected! Siracha was doing his best to calm Manitola down. As he used some calming salts and shamanic mumbo jumbo. Which helped her somewhat ease her pain, the contractions on her belly continued as her water broke long ago. The head of the child was slowly leaving her entrance as Siracha encouraged her to push. With a mighty final heave, the whole child left his mother''s body, and strangely... it was in a human form! Normally the inhabitants of this planet were born in their primal form before slowly unlocking their humanoid one based on their talents, some would do it later, some sooner. But there has never been a person that had been born with a human form! The records never stated something like this, and from what Siracha analyzed, the child was both healthy, and he also had a good constitution, meaning that he could become a warrior! The cute ears at the top of the child''s head were a mix between lions and a fox, and his tail was very fluffy. He looked around curiously for a few seconds before he yawned as strength left his little body, his birth sapped him, both he and his mother of strength. Siracha handed the baby to Manitola who was resting on the bed as she put her arms forward, she snuggled with her baby while she pulled down the gown on her chest area, making the sleepy baby wake up and attack her breasts with his mouth, drinking large gulps of milk. The baby''s appetite was quite heavy as he finished the milk from one breast then moved to the other. Lindo was quite happy to see his child being both healthy and having a large appetite, showing that he would become someone with grand stature. The hungrier the baby, the higher his bodily potential. Siracha smiled as he patted his grandson''s shoulder and congratulated him and Manitola for having a healthy baby and being the first mixed-race couple who had gotten a healthy and strong baby. It was quite the precedent as all of them thought that the baby would end up deformed or handicapped in some way or another, but it seemed God was on their side. Manitola suddenly felt weak as her grasp on her child became weaker and weaker until she almost dropped him on her bed. She felt sick as her face paled and she clutched her chest. The baby filled his tummy and was now sleeping soundly near his mother, unknown to him that something was wrong with her. Siracha quickly got near her trying to get some diagnostic, only to realize that her life force was slowly being sapped by something. It was very strange as the baby wasn''t the one who did that Siracha put his hand on her belly as he realized that she was bleeding internally for some reason. She had come out of labor safely only for this to happen, which was rather strange. He couldn''t do much for her as he was a battle shaman and not a healing one, but she still had her lives to rely on so there wouldn''t be any problems. Suddenly she coughed out some blood as she waved her hand weakly towards Lindo. Lindo quickly got near to her as a pit appeared in his stomach, he didn''t know why, but he felt something wasn''t right. "I have hidden something from you... the goddess blessings were taken back the moment I became pregnant." Lindo''s eyes widened in horror as he clasped her weak hand while asking: "But... but... why?" "*Cough* She told me that I was too weak for her liking even though I was her type of champion, she wanted someone strong like Felix. Someone with a deep pool of potential." "She gave up on me because I wasn''t strong enough even though I have done quite a lot during the war on the Sparron continent." "I gave her name some resound but she told me it wasn''t enough, that Felix''s God was quickly catching up from behind, and that her position was in danger. She wanted someone different." "I knew that giving birth to this child would leave me in this situation, but I couldn''t bear to tell you and make you have second thoughts, I know you love him dearly, but your love for me might eclipse the love for him." "I wanted him to be born in this world and experience life no matter how hard it would be to him, just like my mother did to me." "It''s because life is hard that we enjoy the small things like this. It''s because life is hard that I got to meet you and have this beautiful family." Tears started to pour down her pale face as Lindo felt her pulse slowing down and the deep red blood droplets on her gown were especially glaring in his eyes as tears slowly started to drip down his face as well. "You can''t leave us! Our child just came in this world and you will leave him behind?" "I''m sorry about that... you think that I don''t care about our child... but my time has come." Manitola''s face froze up as all blood stagnated in her body and her heart stopped, life left her eyes as the child near her woke up and started crying so heavily that somehow the ground around them started to shake. A grand light appeared around the child''s body as if his aura was awakening. but it wasn''t a normal hex aura. It was a divine aura! It seemed that after Manitola''s abandonment her goddess still couldn''t find anyone appropriate, so she decided to choose her child! Lindo was glaring at the ceiling as he was ready to fly to the sky and fighting it out with the goddess that did this to his family. Couldn''t she have taken her blessing away after Manitola gave a successful birth and revived? Why was she so cruel to the point that after the mother died, she decided to take the son as a champion. His hatred was immense as a roiling sea and solid as a gigantic mountain. He hated the particular goddess for what he did as he shouted towards the sky: "NO MATTER WHAT WILL YOU DO, I WILL ONE DAY APPROACH YOU AND SLAY YOU!" She could have saved Manitola but chose not to because of her selfish reasons, she thought that she might find someone better to replace her. Only to come back to the same place. Lindo felt his heart hurt as he clutched his chest but looking at the crying baby near the corpse of his mother made him calm down as he put him in his arms and tried to comfort him by rocking him side to side. Siracha looked at this with heartache, both he and his son lost their wives sometime after their children were born, and this happened to his grandson as well. Was this a curse for their family? Felix looked at everything in front of him with a gaze that indicated he didn''t understand what happened.... how could Manitola die like that? Was childbirth really that dangerous? Chapter 141: Peace breaks like glass Felix didn''t really know what to say in this situation, but he knew that he had to comfort Lindo somehow. His wife died in his arms, and he was left alone to take care of their newborn baby. Luckily the baby was ok and healthy even though it also seemed to have felt its mother passing away. And then becoming both angry and sad. Before Felix could come forward and say some words, Siracha beat him to the punch as he patted Lindo''s shoulder and shook his head. "I''m sorry Lindo, but it seems this is the fate of our family Manitola even gave birth to a boy. This also indicates whoever will love him in the future will die after they give birth to his progeny." "I don''t believe this... I can''t believe this, is this the reason my mother also died? Why are we plagued by this curse?" Siracha shook his head as he said: "I''m not sure either. This could date back to our ancestors swearing upon our bloodline or something similar while I did talk with them through meditation, they never told me anything about such a situation." "What does this even mean... why us?? Why????" Lindo felt totally betrayed by both his ancestors and the goddess of charm and illusion. They were both beings that he could never rely on again from now on. Before this incident happened, Lindo would have never thought of desecrating the gods or his ancestors. But now, things were different, after the love of his life had been claimed by something that could have been easily avoided and if these two beings didn''t work in tandem to make things hard for them... There would have never been such a situation! The combination of the curse coming from their ancestors and the withdrawal of the blessing on Manitola made him hate those two to the bone! The fact that the goddess could have done anything and Manitola would have survived, but she didn''t and it made Lindo''s eyes open as he realized that the gods were cold beings with no emotions, who only did things that benefitted them, and them alone. He wanted to do anything but he knew how feebly weak he was. And who even knew how to get to the realm of gods? Even if he had enough strength to challenge the gods, there was no way he would be able to reach them as not even the gods themselves knew how to leave the place they were in. Lindo sulked while rocking his child gently. He couldn''t even look down at Manitola cooling corpse as he didn''t feel that he deserved to look her directly in the still opened eyes. Siracha came closer to him and after that, he put his hand over her eyes closing them. "We should prepare for the funeral..." Lindo didn''t seem ready to let her go as he finally glanced down at her still body. If you excluded her pale face she looked really peaceful. Seemingly as if he was sleeping. Lindo put his hand one more time into hers before letting go as he knew that there was no way for her to come back, she had died thoroughly, without a seed of doubt. Normally in this situation, Felix''s ability would have captured her soul, but something was different this time as Felix didn''t feel any new soul being dragged into his mental palace and absorbed by his ability. He didn''t understand what happened, but he was glad her soul didn''t get absorbed, Lindo was destroyed by her passing, and if he would have ever found out that her soul had been absorbed by Felix, he didn''t know how things would have gone. Felix wasn''t sure what to do in this situation so he just stood there awkwardly as he waited for a few more minutes before coming forward and patting Lindo''s leg. "I''m sorry for what happened... who would know that childbirth is so dangerous?" Lindo shook his head as he said: "Normally childbirth shouldn''t be dangerous, but It must be because our child is a hybrid." The child in Lindo''s arms stood there neatly as he got tired again and he slept soundly, even though the loss of his mother pained him, he still had to do what his body told him, and he wasn''t even more than a few tens of minutes old, so he got knocked out pretty quickly. "Ah Felix, I wanted to have you see a happy family with a new member, but even though we gained one, we also lost one today." "Well, there isn''t much we can do anymore. So Lindo what are we supposed to do now?" Felix had never been to a funeral before, so he didn''t know what they needed to do. "This isn''t our job anymore. Grandfather will have to call the death singers to prepare her body for the burial and we will only have to attend." Lindo''s voice started to tremble the moment he mentioned the burial part, it seemed that while he held strong. He didn''t want to separate himself from her. "You two should go as it''s not a good omen for the ex-husband to see the corpse of his wife being prepared by the death singers." Lindo started to leave, but before he fully left the room, he took one last glance at Manitola''s corpse before sighing and shaking his head sorrowfully. A happy occasion became a sad one. Felix knew that leaving Lindo alone would be rude, so he walked with him towards his house. Some people looked at Lindo and wanted to congratulate him for his baby, even though most people didn''t know where Manitola was going to give birth as months passed most people realized that Manitola was pregnant when they took walks in the capital. However, seeing his sad look while he held the baby to his chest made the others think about what could have happened and stopped coming towards him. Their trip back was uneventful as they entered Lindo''s house. Lindo settled the child into the crib that they bought for him together while more tears started to slowly drip down his face. Felix comforted him to the best of his ability, as a cat, he had the ability to drain the sadness from others with his aura, it was a natural talent that he didn''t need to learn for it to be exhibited at its full potential. Felix''s sole presence made Lindo feel a little better as he looked down at his child sleeping soundly. he smiled for a bit as he saw the resemblance of Manitola in him. He was still sad, but his emotions were becoming stable now. "Are you ok now?" Felix asked worriedly as he didn''t want Lindo to do something crazy now that he lost Manitola. "Yeah I''m ok, I''m ok. Actually, it would be better for you to leave us alone for now. Just come when Manitola''s funeral will be held." Something seemed to have changed in Lindo as he looked at Felix. Felix could see it in his eyes, he was more confident but also had a resolve to do something that he proposed to himself now, there were also some flames burning deeply in his eyes, but he didn''t know where that came from. Felix then left as he didn''t want to anger Lindo as he seemed different now. He sighed as he walked the path he usually took to get to the inn, which was now his permanent house when he lived in the capital. This event was unforgivable for Felix as he never thought that Manitola would die in such a way and so quickly to boot. After he got back to the inn, he decided to sleep so he could stabilize his tumultuous emotions as well. The moment he closed his eyes, he found himself in his mindscape... Aaltarox''s voice was heard in his mind soon after: "Long time no see, Felix." It was indeed a long time for a mortal, but for a God, it could have been even a few seconds in their lifetime. "It''s been indeed a long time, but why have you decided to talk with me now?" "Well, I have some things to say about the death of your friend''s wife." "I understand from what I saw that he has thoughts of breaching the godly realm we live in and kill the goddess of illusion and charm, which would be fine with me." "However this is an ordeal that never happened before, even we don''t know how to leave the place we are in, so I think you should tell your friend to give up on his fantasy and live his life for his kid, the kids'' talent ins monstrous, and I would have wanted to take him as my champion as well if I didn''t have you." "Anyways, this isn''t the sole reason I decided to contact you. The secondary reason is that the humans had poked a hornet nest in their intergalactic conquering events, and your planet has been targeted." "It won''t take much time before the battlefield that''s in the outer space lower itself down to the planet, and you aren''t strong enough to do anything to them considering how strong you are now." "As a friendly advice, I think you should seek the help of the humans as they have all of the breathing techniques stored in their database, meaning that if you work with them, you would be able to break through into the green aura rank with all of the techniques at the same time!" "You should have realized from what I said, the reason for the humans'' immense strength is that they have access to all of the breathing techniques!" Chapter 142: Conflicting emotions Felix felt very conflicted at the moment. If what Aaltarox said was true, he had to work with the people that captured and experimented on him, and even though they did let him go in the end, the scars were still there. "I know that it''s hard for you to accept this, but with your current strength and connections, you would never survive the invasion." "The invaders are from a distant planet that the humans had found during their interstellar travels. They wanted to conquer it, thinking that the people living on the planet were aboriginals, but they struck a steel plate. They realized they offended a civilization that they shouldn''t have." "Their reckless actions had impacted even us, even though gods cannot descend to the mortal''s world that doesn''t mean other gods that have been born on other planets cannot travel towards us and incite war, normally gods are the guardians of a planet that the universal will had bestowed upon the civilizations." "In this situation, we will have to defend ourselves because of the greediness of the humans." "Anyways, I can tell you that with your potential as long as you have the right resources and techniques bestowed upon you. You will go very far, my friend. It''s unknown, but maybe you will even reach the heights of the gods one day?" Aaltarox was speaking without thinking as he never heard of an instance where a mortal had reached the god''s realm by ascending. He wasn''t sure even if it was possible, but Felix was special as he was an interdimensional traveler, which of very few existed in their universe. Felix wasn''t really interested in the ultimate power of being a god, but knowing that he will improve further only if he cooperated with the humans left a sour taste in his mouth. "One last thing I need to mention before I leave. If I fall during this war, you will lose all your lives. Unless you will find yourself another god to bless you." "And even if you do find one, I don''t think he will be able to give you nine lives." "I have done my job of informing you, as for what will you do that will depend on you." The voice disappeared as Felix woke up from his consciousness back into the fluffy bed of the inn. That was specifically made for him. Felix remained seated on the bed as he thought about Aaltarox''s words. He digested every remaining bit of information that Aaltarox gave him as he thought about the future invasion. He needed to alert the others, so they would be prepared for anything that will happen while he would be gone to train at the human''s facility. While his trauma was still there, as time passed, the wounds slowly closed and healed, and he could even see himself working with Shima if things went in the same direction that he thought they were. There were no eternal enemies in the face of survival. Of course, he wouldn''t mind socking the prick a few times in the face so he could feel better. Felix left his fluffy bed and looked back at it one last time, not knowing when he would be able to enjoy its sheets again. First, he needed to inform Siracha before he left as he was the most important person in the tribe, and he would be able to disseminate the information that he would give him way better. Compared to Felix. Siracha had finished talking with the death singers a long time ago, and he was currently resting at his home waiting for the funeral. When Felix came to his home, he invited him in as he sensed something was eating at him, something that he wanted to share with Siracha. "What is wrong, Felix? I can feel that you are pretty agitated. Is it about Manitola''s death?" Felix shook his head as he said: "No, it''s not about Manitola. I have already accepted her death. She died as she wanted to, and that''s something I can accept." "I understand, so what''s the thing that''s eating at you?" "It''s something huge, Siracha. Something that will affect the whole planet!" "I have just conversated with my god Aaltarox, and he told me the humans had offended some off-world race that will attack our planet!" "That''s, that''s very big and bad news." Siracha almost fell from his chair as he heard that. If these aliens were strong enough to push the humans back to their mother planet, it showed that the other races living on the planet would be either enslaved or massacred. "It seems we will have to rely on them in the future..." Felix shook his head as he said: "The humans are very pragmatic. I don''t think they will accept everyone into their midst. Maybe only the most talented ones. They will be the ones given a place in their fortifications." "That means... they will abandon us after they have doomed us themselves?" "Pretty much, haven''t you seen how they acted when we visited them back then?" Felix''s words were facts and Siracha knew that which made him rather annoyed and angry at the same time as he asked: "Maybe we will be able to buy our way in?" Then he shook his head. He realized that was a dumb thing to say since the war was on the horizon. They would just take all of the resources they wanted regardless of what the other races thought. They would have the moral high ground even though they were the ones that put them in this situation, but the others wouldn''t know about it unless they had a god''s chosen who was informed about the incoming invasion just like Felix was. "I will do my best to share this information with everyone, even if we won''t be able to do much against these invaders. It''s better to be prepared!" Felix nodded. They wouldn''t be able to do much even while defending but waiting for something and being ambushed were two different things. Now that Felix shared the information with Siracha. He only had to attend Manitola''s funeral before he would leave for the human tribe. Time passed rather quickly when you were under stress or had something important to do, but you have been postponing it. And it was finally time for Manitola''s funeral. Felix wore a dark small sweater over his body, as he looked up at the clouds outside that were looking ready for rain. Even since he had been to this world, the rain had never dropped on this part of the continent. It was because the part was situated in a summer climate and rains happened very rarely. But now the sky was ready to cry. Was it a coincidence that the first rain that he would ever see on this continent was on the same day as Manitola''s funeral? Felix sighed as he walked on the path towards the cemetery. The death singers had already prepared Manitola''s corpse. Now they were just waiting for her loved ones to keep a eulogy before lowering her in the grave. Felix arrived at the cemetery at the right time as they were just about to start the eulogy. The first one to walk towards the coffin was her mother, which just got news about her daughter''s death. She was pretty much an older and more mature version of Manitola, with a few facial differences here and there. She couldn''t keep her tears inside as she looked at her dead daughter, she looked really peaceful. The death singers kept close to her coffin and made sure that nothing wrong would happen during the funeral. Lindo and the others were waiting for their turn as Felix walked near them and kept his head down. "My poor baby girl. Ever since she was a little kid, she always talked about finding her prince charming and settling down to a good home..." "She would run around saying things like ''mommy, when will I get married, I will hope you will be there.'' and I wasn''t there for her... I wasn''t there when my grandson was born, and I wasn''t there when my daughter died." She trembled as she almost looked ready to collapse. Manitola''s father who was waiting for his turn quickly came near her to support her and get her to a chair. Manitola''s father was a handsome fox-man who looked both cultured and gentlemanly as he donned a black suit. He didn''t say anything as he looked down at this daughter before leaving one small red flower on her hands. Then it was Lindo''s turn. "I never thought you would die, atleast not before me." "I always thought that I would go first, that I would be the one that would die on the battlefield courageously, and that you would mourn me, but now I''m the one who mourns you." "I hoped that you would see our little boy grow up, together with me." "I hoped that we will have happy days ahead of us." "And lastly. I hoped that we would grow old together." "Unfortunately, none of this happened." "I hope we will meet each other again on the other part." Lindo put his head down as he got away from the coffin and looked towards Felix, who was ready to go up and say something as well before Lindo stopped him: "You don''t have to say anything, my friend, it''s good enough that you have come, I know that you weren''t close to Manitola at all, but I needed someone close to me during this funeral, some friend instead of Siracha or Diorno." Felix nodded and stopped himself from going. The death singers finally had to finish their jobs as they slowly lowered the coffin in the grave using ropes and sung: "Oh great ancestors, please accept her soul to your blossom so she may rest well." The song was quite old-fashioned and short as the moment the coffin touched the bottom of the hole. They finished it. The hole was then closed as the dirt-filled it until it was full to the brim. Lindo kept his head down as he left. He needed to go and take care of his child. The death singers left to their funerary home while Manitola''s parents remained near her grave for a few more minutes then left as well. Felix had already changed into his normal gear as he was running towards the tube that the humans left for him. It was time to go back to them. Chapter 143: We invite you with open arms Felix''s silhouette was flickering imperceptibly through the woods of the uninhabited forest. If he remembered right, this was the forest that was used as a transit channel by humans. He still knew the location vividly, where he was spat out by the tube, so he easily made his way back to it. The tube came out of a tree when he was spat out, so he started to knock around all of the trees that resembled the one in his memories. He knew this was a crude way of doing things, but they didn''t really leave him any other way to contact them. It took him little time to find the tree he knew about and knock on it a few times until a small compartment opened up. The tube that spat him out beforehand started to make a suction force as it tried to absorb him inside itself. Felix didn''t resist the suction force. His small body was absorbed into the tube as the similar sensation and sound of wind quickly running around his ears was heard again. Back then, he hadn''t been able to open his eyes due to the strong centrifugal force and sucking power which left him powerless until the process of transportation was over. But now, his strength had reached new heights, and he could easily open his eyes to look around during the transportation process. His green irises expanded as he opened his eyes and looked around, he could see countless tubes just like the one he was in, and they were all transporting different things. Some of them were transporting people just like him, some of them were transporting important items, and as Felix looked a little bit to the left, he even saw some of the trees from the Sparron continent, with some items that he didn''t recognize at first glance. Willie, who was still perched at the top of his head even though quite a lot of time passed, felt a disturbance in the force as it started to shake, seeing the special trees that were housing for his kind. He wanted to jump away from Felix and save the trees, knowing that they wouldn''t end up well from the looks of it, but he knew it was impossible, so he just growled to himself as he just stood there weakly. Felix continued to look around, and he realized he wasn''t the only one that did that, humans were being transported just like he was right now, and they looked curiously at him. Felix''s incident was top-secret in human society, so they didn''t know who he was, but everyone liked a cute cat. Since Felix had been able to find the transportation tube and no alerts were shown on their portable communication devices, it showed that it was intended for him to be here. Felix continued to travel through the tube and saw different things happening all around him. Some of the tubes were even being removed and changed with different colored ones. Human society was always improving, always doing its best to evolve. Even though they were doing it for selfish reasons, it was still admirable. Felix''s travels through the tube didn''t last very long as he was spat out back into the cold concrete city of the humans. However, he wasn''t alone as Vangar slowly clapped and walked towards him from the shadow of a tall building. "I didn''t think you would come to us so soon. However, we welcome you to our federation with open arms!" Felix didn''t even sense Vangar approaching him. But that changed when Vangar revealed himself by using his voice. Felix could sense that Vangar''s strength was as mysterious as before. Even his stealth techniques were superior to Felix, and Felix could be considered an expert in stealth. Felix could see from the man''s built that he wasn''t a stealth expert, but his stealth skills were still above his! Felix prided himself as the invisible person of the planet as no one could find him now if he wanted to disappear, but it seemed he was wrong. "I see. My sudden appearance gave you quite the shock, I''m sorry for that." "No, No, I''m ok." Felix quickly excused himself as he blanked out a few seconds while he analyzed everything. "There''s no problem young Felix. I understand you are quite surprised to sense how big the gap in strength is between us. And that your training didn''t push you closer at all." "Was my expression that detailed?" "Not really, but it''s easy to read you." "So, with what business have you come around?" Felix went directly to the subject as he said: "I have heard from someone that you have collected all of the breathing techniques, and I would like to join your army to get them." "Really? That someone of yours must be quite strong to know such confidential information." Vangar didn''t seem surprised that Felix knew about the breathing techniques, seemingly as if he predicted this already. Seeing that Vangar didn''t say anything for a while made Felix rather awkward. Vangar smiled while he looked down at Felix and said: "I remember you being taller? I wonder what happened to you, that you became this short. And you seem to also have a friend from the Sparron continent on your head." Willie, who was staying down while he cooled his anger after he saw what was happening to his brethren, immediately looked up at Vangar. "Oh, little guy? Why are you feeling so angry?" Willie was as red as a boiled lobster which showed that he had a bellyful of anger. "It seems you have seen that we have gotten a new batch of trees from the Sparron continent. I hope you don''t mind that as they are being put to good use, I assure you." Felix tried to soothe Willie as he gently sent him some good vibes through their connection to lower his anger. He was going to work with these people from now on, and he needed Willie to cooperate. Considering the contract Willie took, he quickly calmed down, but he didn''t say anything as he went back to hibernating. So he could absorb the natural energy discharged by Felix''s body and create his fleshly body. "Ok, now that we have gotten that out of the way, I can help you enroll in the army and get your hands on the breathing techniques free of charge, of course." "Really? So easily? I don''t have to do anything for them?" Felix was used to having to finish some tasks first. It was the first time someone wanted to give him something with relatively no strings attached. Not considering the fact that he had to join the army academy first. "Well I can''t really say you wouldn''t have to do anything for them, there is one requirement, and that would be to join the military academy that we have created in outer space just for people like you." "Military academy? I don''t think I have ever heard of this term before." "Oh well, it''s translated from our language to yours, and I''m sure yours didn''t contain it before, after all, the outer tribes'' training methods are rather primitive." "So what do you say? Do you want to join?" Vangar didn''t even mention the fact that their planet was in imminent peril. But he pushed Felix towards the military academy. "You won''t regret it, that''s where your potential will bloom and reach its maximum, no matter how much you search through this small planet, and no matter where you go on the 4 continents, there will be no one as good as us in unearthing your potential and making you reach your full strength." Felix was already convinced. And combined with the fact that if he didn''t go, there was a huge chance he would meet his doom at the hands of the invaders, it was easy to pick. "I guess I will join." "Splendid, I knew you would say that. We shall leave right now!" Before Felix could even give an ok as a response, he felt himself being picked up while not even realizing it. Then his surroundings started to change at speeds invisible to the eye, and when he came to, he found out that he wasn''t in the same place anymore. Vangar let Felix down while he put his hands up showing around: "Welcome to the first military academy of the human race!" As Felix looked around, he could see gigantic buildings over 20 meters tall, made of a metal unknown to him. They were very dark as they didn''t reflect any light but absorbed it, as he looked more around, he realized that they weren''t on solid ground anymore because he saw glittering stars beyond the arches of the tall buildings. Where had Vangar taken him? Was he really in outer space? Felix thought that the man was bluffing at first. Why would he create an academy somewhere so dangerous? Felix thought that the academy was a place of learning through books and experiments, at least, that''s how he imagined it after Vangar''s explanation, but it seemed this was another type of academy. Chapter 144: Teaching in physical ways Felix didn''t know what to say as he took in everything that was surrounding him. It was quite breathtaking. He wasn''t really impressed with the tall buildings, but what was beyond them, he was never so close to the stars before, and this was the first time he could enjoy their resplendent light this closely. "Enjoying the sights, little Felix?" Vangar asked with an amused tone as he could see that Felix was captivated by the starlight. "This is the first time I have seen the stars so closely... I always wondered what they looked like, but it seems they are just light." Vangar shook his head as he said: "We are still very far away from those stars, they aren''t only bodies of light, but there is a chance there are also civilizations on those stars we see!" Vangar looked at Felix and waited for his reaction. Felix nodded and asked: "Just like ours?" "Not really." "Some are more advanced, some less, and we are currently ranking in the middle and expanding." "Yes, I have heard about those expansion attempts. That''s also the sole reason I''m here..." *Cough* Vangar felt a little bit awkward as Felix told him directly that they fucked up. "Well, since you are already here, you should make yourself comfortable before we start the lessons. there won''t be much to do considering we are the only ones here." Felix was puzzled. Why were they the only people here? "You wonder why we are alone? Well, If I''m honest with you, I can only say that you are the only person on the planet that deserves to be taught here." "Hmm? Why?" Felix wasn''t sure why he was the only one here. After all, he had fought quite a lot of people on the planet below. And he knew that some of them had quite a good potential. "You see, our criteria is quite strict. There are so many points that need to be filled on it so we can actually go ahead and recruit someone that no one from our planet can fill it, not even our offsprings can fill it normally." Humans were one of the most advanced races on their planet, and Vangar mentioning that not even their children could fill their criteria showed that its strictness was off the charts. "So, what''s my first lesson?" After they got every explanation out of the way and things were now clear, it was time for some training. "You already know all of the other breathing techniques, and everything you are lacking is the agility breathing technique." "So I''m going to teach it to you first." "The agility breathing technique isn''t that different from the others ones-the only difference being that you focus on different muscle parts if you would compare it with the strength breathing technique." Vangar started to impart the breathing technique to Felix through normal teaching instead of any high-tech Wizz or any special hex-filled scroll. It didn''t take any time for Felix to memorize the technique as his soul had already reached a high plateau. After he had completed both the intelligence and wisdom breathing techniques, he had gained photographic memory along with some other improvements to his soul technique and his soul stamina. He had memorized the technique perfectly as he went ahead to employ it. Easily making the surrounding energy gather towards him at quick speeds, the suction force was so strong that the usually invisible energy started to appear in the air. Felix could feel that the energy in this area was different from the one back on the planet. Its quality was way higher compared to the one on their planet. The quantity was lacking, though. After a few breaths, Felix could already feel that the energy-filled atmosphere was starting to dry at a quick speed. After more time passed, Felix had to stop because there was no more energy to absorb in the surroundings. Vangar felt awkward as he looked at Felix as if he saw a monster: "It seems your absorption ability is beyond our guesses..." Vangar, along with some scientists, had analyzed Felix''s habits and previous battle statistics to create a perfect environment for him to improve himself. They knew that one day he would come to them. And they needed a good spot to train him in. They created this academy in hopes= that Felix wouldn''t be the only one that had such good potential on their planet with his data in mind. Unfortunately, one year passed, and they still didn''t find someone as talented as Felix, and they were constantly getting pressured by outside interventions. The situation wasn''t as good as it was on the surface. The invaders were constantly pushing them back to their home planet location. Trying to root them out from the core. They needed a special weapon, one that would let them wreak havoc on the battlefield, someone who had more lives, but also the immense potential- that would let him have enough strength. To actually do something against their overpowered enemies. The humans never thought that they would reach such hard times. That they had to rely on a single person for the future of their civilization. "Well, it seems we will have to tap into the reserves that we have prepared for the future students, but we need you to fully reach the 9th stage of the agility breathing technique before I can teach you how to break through to the green aura level." Vangar pushed his foot through the soil below them as a tremor hit the whole place. Suddenly, the dry air started to get filled with that high-level energy again, and Felix could continue his absorption now. Vangar watched him from the side as he nodded contended, with Felix''s improvement speed. Felix could quickly improve himself as long as he got a good energy source that he could absorb from, and now that he had gotten his paws on this high-quality energy that was better than the hex energy from the surface of the planet, his improvements were almost double than what he had gotten in that one year of training. And not even 2 hours had passed since he started! As Felix breathed in and out, his leg muscles started to get tattoo-like inscriptions of white color around them. This showed that he had already completed the first phase of the technique, and now all he had to do was develop and refine them. The inscriptions were akin to snakes and rabbits as they encircled Felix''s muscles, trying to squeeze all of the potential out of them while also laying down the foundations for further improvements. Felix could feel the inscriptions taking shape into the form of feathery wings on different parts of his muscles. After the inscription condensed on his muscles, his ability to absorb the surrounding energy ballooned once more. The energy-filled air started to dry out again, but this time there was no reserve to help Felix continue. In the end, he finished the whole energy reserve until nothing remained in the planetary orbit academy. But after he finished all of the energy, he did end up reaching the 9th stage of refinement of the white aura level. And now that he had finally finished completing all of the breathing techniques to the 9th stage at the white level, he was finally ready to break through to the green level! Vangar clapped and said: "That was very good. Your absorption and improvement ability is off the charts." "Now that you have reached the 9th level in all of the breathing techniques, I can finally teach you how to break through to the green aura level." "First, you need to combine all of the inscriptions you have got all over your body and fuse them." "Ok, I think I got it." Felix closed his eyes and did as instructed. The fusion between the inscriptions didn''t take as much time as he thought. The inscriptions were already filled with energy to the brim, so they needed an outlet to continue evolving. The breakthrough to the green aura level was exactly what they needed and what they got. The inscriptions fused into a massive neural link that was akin to a second brain, giving Felix a new feeling that made his whole body jittery and strange. His aura started to slowly morph from white to green as his body underwent an evolution again. The power of his whole body was skyrocketing under the qualitative evolution of his aura finally, reaching a level that he had never thought he would reach before. The power of his body continued to increase until it reached a plateau then his closed eyes opened up as he looked around. He was still in the same place as before, but something was different he felt taller, way taller than he was before. He almost lost his balance as he looked down at his body and realized that something wasn''t right. Where was his orange fur? Where were his cute stripes? Because when he looked down, he only saw pale skin that didn''t resemble anything that his body ever had before. He didn''t recognize the skin nor the owner as suddenly a pale hand brought itself to the chest he was looking at, and Felix realized something. It was his own chest... Chapter 145: Momentary transformation Felix felt very confused. Was this really his own body? He touched his chest a few times to feel the sensation of a different skin. His new skin was soft and smooth to the touch, without any hair or fur. The only hair he could feel was the one at the top of his head. It was a strange experience to walk on two legs, and he almost wobbled and fell only after trying a few steps... he also realized that he was fully naked. Vangar looked away as he materialized some clothes that he threw towards Felix. It seemed he had anticipated something like this would happen. However, before Felix could bend over and take the clothes, his body suddenly started to spasm as pain invaded his receptors violently. His once tall body slowly started to shrink again, and his feline features were slowly recovering to their normal form, but his power wasn''t regressing. He felt as if 1000 needles were being inserted into his body at the same time. His pain receptors were gradually being overclocked by the immense amount of pain overflowing through them. Everything became hazy in his vision as he felt how he was getting increasingly shorter. Vangar watched from the side as he muttered: "It seems that giving him a human form is not possible... at least not permanently. Atleast not now." Felix was still going through the painful ordeal of having his cells reconstructed- while Vangar was analyzing the situation with a critical eye. Felix''s transformation was very short-lived as he slowly and painfully returned to his cat form. He could feel his insides screaming at him, both in pain and from the newfound strength of his aura evolving. Felix''s body stopped spasming as he got up from the ground and shook himself until his fur stood on end. He looked as if he got electrocuted with his fur standing on end like that. Vangar was still muttering to himself as he didn''t take Felix''s actions into account while he thought. "What the hell was that?" Felix growled as he looked at Vangar. The transformation between his humanoid form and his cat form. Was extremely painful and uncomfortable. From what Felix saw, Vangar knew this would have happened beforehand. Felix''s growl attracted Vangar''s attention as he stopped muttering and smiled at Felix: "Well, I haven''t told you about it beforehand because I didn''t think it would work, and I was half-right." "The transformation you went through was temporary and unstable, I''m sorry I didn''t notify you first, and as compensation, I have something for you." "Hmm?" Felix could still feel the pain coursing through his veins, but if he was going to get something. That made him feel just a tiny bit better. Atleast, he didn''t suffer for nothing. Vangar put his hands inside his armor as he took out a Rubix cube with no colors. Felix didn''t know what the cube was as he looked at it. While cocking his head to the side, wonderment was pretty much written over his face, along with the question: what the hell was that? Vangar went directly to the explanation: "This little device here is quite useful for you as it stores the energy in the surroundings and can be used for training your breathing techniques. It also somewhat purifies the energy it absorbs, making it of higher quality." Felix understood everything easily as he took the Rubix cube from Vangar''s hands and shook it a few times. "It sounds empty." "Uhm.. well, you just absorbed all of the energy in a radius of 20 kilometers, so there isn''t any more energy in the whole station." Felix looked around and saw the downed special bag. After he transformed into a human, the bag had fallen from his back. He took it up with his paws and tied it to his back. Then he put the Rubix cube inside for safekeeping. "Are we ok?" Vangar asked with a sheepish expression on his face. He acted just like a dog that did something wrong, and now he wanted to be forgiven. Normally Vangar wouldn''t lower himself to be this friendly with anyone, but Felix''s talent was so immense that Vangar wanted to befriend him and not offend him in any way to make him get a sense of belonging to the human tribe. "Now that you have broken through to the green aura level, you are finally at the level of a basic trainee in the human army, but with your special constitution and abilities, you are a bit above that level." "To give you more familiar terms, you should be around the high-captain level of your lion tribe, you are closing in to the vice-general level, and you shall break through to that level after you reach the 9th stage in each breathing technique at the green level." "And now that you have reached this level, it''s time for you to go through some real battles, not the ones you have been through up till now, different types of battles." "Hmm? What''s the difference between battles? I have gone through wars, normal battles, 1v1, 2v1 battles, arena battles due to Shima''s courtesy." "What other type of battles are there?" Vangar laughed as he patted Felix''s head and ruffled his fur that still stood on end: "Well, I don''t think you have ever experienced space battles and ship battles, have you?" Space and ship battles? These were new terms to him. "Well, just so you know, the battle to protect the planet will mostly consist of these 2 parts- If the invaders reach the planet, things will be getting too hairy to contemplate." "So we will need to constrict them to these two types of battles." "Since you have never fought them, I have an item prepared in one of the buildings that will help you to simulate these battles." "Now follow me." Vangar started to walk towards a certain building that was the tallest in Felix''s vision. Felix followed him to the building and entered it. The inside was no different from the usual human aesthetic, white tiles, white walls, and large rooms. Expanded by their spatial knowledge. The rooms each had a piece of tall machinery. That consisted of a black leather chair that you could lean on it on your back. There was a helmet dropping down from the ceiling, which was connected to the chair by a black hose-like cable. Vangar patted the chair and told Felix to jump on it. Felix jumped on the chair. And felt that it was quite comfortable, nothing too rough on his fur. Vangar put the helmet on Felix''s head, which connected immediately to his brain, creating a simulation directly in his mental space. Then his body went limp. His consciousness was directly transported to his mental space where everything wasn''t as before. Normally Felix would usually get a memory that he enjoys. And meditate inside it or just laze around, but now he found himself in a different place. Felix looked down at his body, and he found out that he had human-issued armor. But he was still himself as he didn''t morph into a humanoid form. Things around him were calm at first. Until tens of thousands of human troops started to rush around him, his surroundings morphed into the dark universe as stars surrounded him, he floated in space without the help of anything as if it was his innate ability to fly. It was an interesting experience as he always wanted to fly, but not in these circumstances. He could sense killing intent surrounding him from everywhere as his ''comrades'' fought tooth and nail to survive. One of them even shouted at him: "Daym, stop daydreaming! I know this is your first time. Fighting in a real battle, but you must concentrate!" The moment the person finished his words. A thump was heard as his head was severed from his body, slowly floating in the dark space. He tried to help Felix, and he died because of it. His death triggered a chain reaction as the place he protected was broken through by the people they were fighting. Their formation broke, and thus the enemies flooded them and the fight difficulty increased by a few times. Felix could feel an attack coming from the front, but when he moved his head to dodge he realized that it was a feint and two more attacks hit him from the back as a burst of sick laughter was heard from behind. The formation breaking let enough enemies near Felix''s allies at such a close range that it was hard to discern between who was an ally and who was the enemy. They were all clustered together in such away. That things became awkward for Felix, who never fought in such situations before. He could feel his heart pumping quicker than usual as he found himself in a dangerous situation. He had grown quite lax in that one year of lazing around, occasionally training. A blade''s edge would dull and rust as it remains unused, and the same could be said about people. But now that Felix was reigniting his fighting spirit, his eyes started to turn serious. It didn''t matter that he had no experience in these types of fights. He just had to get some and then dominate the battle! He was a person that went through a lot of battles, and he always adapted on the spot. And now it was time for him to do so here as well! Chapter 146: Simulation battles As an apex predator, Felix had quite the good battle instincts. Cats were normally very good hunters in the wild. But the domestication and the passing time made them lose that edge as they transformed into fluffy cute rolling balls of blobs. They were just like dough. Felix was like that as well, he had a nice life on earth as Tsuru took care of him, but after he came to this world, things changed. Ever since he became hungry and food wasn''t near him, the instinct to hunt awakened and evolved inside him. As he gained intelligence, things took a turn for strangeness. He couldn''t adapt to society really easily, and he looked at everyone as if they were not beings. He was also selfish and did whatever he needed to survive. He was a special being, but he had no goal. He was like a lonely boat drafting on the stormy sea all by itself. He was a person with friends behind his back, but he didn''t acknowledge them. The people that helped him... He did help them back because he wasn''t a total dick. He wasn''t a bad person nor a good person. All of these traits made him who he was... all of these traits were the things that gave him his ability to devour and evolve. From a normal cat to a superpowered one, through thick and thin, he had reached space. Felix didn''t know how others perceived him. And even if he did, he wouldn''t care much. This is what made him, him. All of these things went through his head the moment his dulled edge grew sharp again. The unknown assailants slowly became clear in Felix''s eyes. They were a biped race of lobster-looking humanoids with thick carapaces and long mustaches. They had fingers just like humans, but theirs were sharp and elongated, and the mentioned fingers were also the weapons they were using to decapitate Felix''s current allies. Things weren''t that good around the battlefield after the formation of the troops was broken through by the enemies. But this was where Felix had to prove himself. If something like this happened during the real battles, he wouldn''t be able to forgive himself. He had a few people- that he started to care about, and the fall of the planet would surely not be what they wanted. And he liked the planet as well, he had traveled through quite a bit of the place, and he didn''t want it to fall to someone else''s hands or be destroyed. Felix concentrated as his new aura engulfed his body, a green-mist-like vapor started to grow out of Felix''s body, and then it covered him like armor. The crustacean enemies weren''t idle while he did that. They did try to kill him just like they did his comrade. But Felix''s defenses were extremely high, and the simulation enemies weren''t of that high quality. The simulated enemies were not strong as this was Felix''s first time. Fighting in this space environment, so Vangar started him at a lower difficulty. Felix ignored all of the attacks, which made the crustacean enemies angry, and they started attacking his relatively weaker comrades. Felix knew what to do as his body was engulfed in lightning. He had activated his lightning armor! The armor engulfed his whole body as it took a different colored tinge than before. Now it became leafy green. There were some changes to the armor as some sparks appeared in it, and as they started to light up, Felix''s body started to get lighter and lighter. He was floating in the first place as the special armor helped him do it. But now, he was flying by himself as the sparks had triggered something in the surrounding energy giving him the ability of controlled flight. His ears buzzed as he flew and slain the crustacean menaces trying to do his best in this simulation. He knew that he had a long way ahead of him, considering the invaders were stronger than the human civilization as a whole. But they believed in his potential to save the planet. Felix''s abilities were constantly increasing as he slew those crustacean beings and pushed them back, outside of his comrade''s formation. He was getting more and more used to the 0 gravity and the flying aspect of the space battle. His talent and adaptive capabilities were very strong. The lobsters realized that he was the biggest problem on the battlefield. So they starting focusing on him. However, their attempts at killing Felix failed time after time. Felix''s body flickered across the battlefield, not even after-images were left behind, and no one could see him properly. His speed had evolved, reaching a spot that was never touched before by him. Combined with his stealth techniques and breathing techniques, he was pretty much unstoppable on this type of battlefield. Felix''s claws moved swiftly across the beefy carapaced necks of the crustaceous beings, easily tearing through their tough natural armor and making their heads fly into the endless space surrounding them. No matter how hard the lobsters focused on our cat, they never got- to even damage him. They were strong but also rather slow and dumb. Felix''s body was being engulfed in lighting continuously as he absorbed the energy from space. Space, just like all other planes of existence, was filled with a type of energy. This type of energy was what the humans were storing in their Rubix cubes for cleansing and improvement. Normally the space energy wasn''t useful for absorption directly as it was infested by quite a lot of other contradicting energies. The energy in space came from the multitude of planets that existed in the universe. This energy mixed with other types of spatial energy was toxic and deadly to those that absorbed it directly. Without it being filtered with the use of some special technology. What Felix was doing now was akin to a thirsty person drinking poison. However, he didn''t know that. He still felt high on the feeling of flight and power as he decimated all the enemies that stood in front of him and saving the virtual comrades at the same time. Felix''s powers didn''t last forever as he suddenly felt dizzy and queasy. His stomach retched automatically for him as he vomited on the lobster in front of him, who was trying to cut his head off. The lobster immediately became disgusted with Felix''s actions, but he continued to advance along with some of his people who were coming from behind. Trying to flank Felix and hit him from two sides at the same time, just like they did before. Felix didn''t feel so well, and he took a few hits that could have been easily dodged in a normal situation. His power was waning fast as his constant heartbeat started to slow down, he knew this was a simulation, but he still felt rather annoyed at his failure. He didn''t know the energy he was absorbing was poisonous. Because at first glance it looked ready to use, and he was also used to absorbing the surrounding hex energy for his techniques, regardless of where he was. This time he hit a hard place as he realized that his habit of absorbing energy was bad, but if he didn''t absorb the energy, he would only have his hard body to rely on, his breathing techniques would be cut off due to the lack of energy, and his battle power would drop by a lot. His physical body was strong, very strong, but it was still not enough if he couldn''t use any type of energy to support it. Naturally, the body was strengthened so it could hold more energy of higher quality. The stronger the body, the better and stronger the energy it could hold would be. Felix was dying slowly as the lobsters encircled him and tried to cut his head off and transform him into mincemeat. However, no matter how hard they tried. They weren''t able to do anything to his physical body. Even though his body wasn''t protected by energy at the moment, it was still too hard for these low-level simulated foreign warriors. Felix slowly succumbed to the feeling of death as he closed his eyes and realized he was back on the leather chair as Vangar was also taking down the helmet from his head. Vangar nodded, seeing that he was already awake and had no troubles from the looks of it. Trainees would normally panic after they woke up from their first simulated death, but Felix had already experienced this thing in a real environment. Multiple times. Felix cracked his neck as he felt it was a bit sore and asked: "How much time had I been in there?" Vangar took out a pocket watch from his armor and looked at it before responding: "Around 5 hours and 36 minutes, pretty good for your first try, and you only lost because you absorbed the infested spacial energy, I guess I should have warned you about that. I kinda forgot you don''t have your own hex links in your body, and you have to rely on the surrounding hex energy." "But that''s where the cube I gave you comes in." Vangar took another cube from his armor and started to explain to Felix how to use it properly. Instead of waiting for it to absorb energy passively. It could also be used to absorb the hex energy from the air as it was both a battery and a supporting tool in war, and it could act as both. Chapter 147: Portable energy battery "You see, this cube has mainly 2 functions, one is to gather energy and the other is to purify it." "Each function has a few options besides the automatic ones that you need to know." "The energy gathering function has three options, namely slow, medium, and fast absorption. These options are working as they are named, so I won''t have to go into a detailed explanation." "Each speed needs to be activated with a password. And based on how fast it is, the lower the finishing quality of the purifier will be. However, with this purifier in hand, you will never get to experience the same situation that happened to you in the simulation no matter how fast you make it gather energy." "This gadget was created because our soldiers had hard times adapting to spatial battles. Even though they have hex circuits in their bodies, and their bodies can create hex energy on their own, they still needed a way to recuperate quicker. But in your situation, this is the only way. To actually fight in space." "I will make sure to talk with the tech department to make you an armor specially constructed with more Rubix cubes in it than normal. Also, they will be manually activated by you with a mental password to make things easier." Felix nodded, he understood everything that Vangar explained to him, and he was ready for the real thing. Vangar could see Felix''s eagerness as he read his eyes, but he wasn''t ready yet- he still needed to learn one more thing before he would be sent to the battlefield to accumulate more power through his special ability. "Before I let you go by yourself, I will still need to teach you one more thing, or my higher-ups will be mad at me." "Even though you won''t take part in the ship''s battles because you would need systematic education of around at least 10 or so years to be qualified. You will still need to fight on battlefields that have ships, so you will need to fight with them in mind." "This time around, I won''t let you go in there blind like last time. Let me explain a little bit about the ship''s battles and what you will have to watch out for." Vangar pressed on his armor as a hologram of a battlefield appeared across the room, showing Felix a live example of a mixed battle. He pointed towards a group of armored soldiers that were fighting dark slimy tentacled humanoids. "Look at them and watch how they fight to enhance the pressure our ship puts on the enemies." There were two ships shooting laser beams at each other on the battlefield. Those two ships weren''t getting damaged due to their energy shields, so the main fight came from the soldiers. The soldiers needed to be mindful of the lasers and fight each other to create opportunities for the ships to launch bigger attacks so they would be able to break each others'' shields. Such an opportunity presented itself when one soldier killed the enemy''s high commander and then launched a psionic bomb towards the ship. It was hit head-on and thus creating a focal point where the human ship started to shoot. Breaking the shield and damaging the enemy''s ship fatally. This was in a situation where both sides had the technology of a similar level. The one with a lower level didn''t even need to be shown, as the results would have been obvious. But now it was time for the battle where they were at a disadvantage to be shown. Vangar didn''t have a live feed for that as he took out a recording from the military network that he had access to. "These are the most important images that you will ever see, considering that you will be mostly fighting in these types of battlefields after you are fully prepared." The hologram changed as a bloody battlefield appeared now. Corpses riddled with different types of injuries floated in space, as the human''s battleship was slowly getting overwhelmed by the enemies. This time the enemies were tall humanoids with blue skin and gills on their cheeks. They had elongated faces like a horse, and they wore technologically advanced armors that had a head protection device filled with a green liquid substance. The humans were at a disadvantage as they tried their best to create an opportunity for their ship to break the opponent''s ship. However, the blue-skinned aliens always took out some type of gadget that either blocked or halted the attempts of creating the breakthrough point for the humans. This lowered the morale until the aliens started to retaliate by throwing their gadgets towards the human soldiers. The gadgets they threw around were highly compressed explosives. And the moment they arrived above the formation of the human soldiers they exploded into a rainbow of colors, engulfing everyone below. And also cracking the shield of the ship behind them. When this happened, the morale hit rock bottom as they pretty much lost the battle. But things didn''t stop there. The aliens continued to massacre every human soldier. Before they moved on to the ship, destroying it thoroughly and leaving no survivors. Then the image started to slowly go blurry, as the device that was recording the battle was found and destroyed. Felix nodded as the battle finished, and he asked: "Are these the invaders that are going to come to battle us?" Vangar shook his head as he said: "No, this is an old recording of our nemesis, the blue-gilled merfolk, we have been fighting over a location filled with important strategical resources, and as time passed, we have gotten ahead of their technology. But you should understand that''s how most battles where we are at a disadvantage happen." "Now that you have an example of how and what you should do, it''s time to get back into the simulation helmet as we shall do one more simulation. Before we will send you to the real battlefield under another senior general." Felix nodded as he understood, then plopped on the leather chair. Vangar came and helped Felix with his helmet putting it on his head. After that, Felix was dragged back into his mental palace, where the simulation began. Felix opened his eyes as he found himself once more in the nothingness of space, the only illumination coming from the nearby stars. Now, he was in a different position compared to before. His back was placed against a gigantic ship, as he and some other soldiers were supposed to defend it with all their might. The enemies in front of them were similar to the blue-gilled merfolk in technology, so Felix knew that the simulation was most likely the same. As what Vangar showed him. Felix slowly started to power up. Trying to take the attention of the enemies as he knew that he couldn''t let them touch the shield of the ship with any of their gadgets. If any of their technological wizzes hit the shield, the battle would become half lost. They were at a technological disadvantage, and the only expert the human side had was Felix. The good thing was that there were no strong people on the enemy''s side. Felix could have sensed if there were. But the only danger that he could sense using killing intent detection were the gadgets the aliens were having strapped all over their bodies. Felix''s aura didn''t have a stop button as it increased till it engulfed the squadron. That was surrounding him. He could feel countless eyes being pointed at him as he attracted the attention of all of the enemies. They knew that to destroy the ship. They must first kill the morale of the defenders so they could create a crack in the defense. And ultimately win the battle. But they didn''t take into account that someone would be strong enough. To be able to destroy their technology using only raw strength. Felix''s aura wasn''t for show only as he unleashed his full power, the Rubix cubes in his armor activated and sucked in the surrounding energy at medium speeds. Unlike before, the simulation already gave Felix a Rubix cube armor, and that meant he wouldn''t have to hold back in fear of getting poisoned by the mixed energy of space. All of the items that the aliens were throwing or using at Felix didn''t have much effect on him, lasers, very sharp chainsaws made of an unknown tempered metal, lightsabers, photonic bombs. All of those items were thrown- towards Felix and his allies. In the hopes that one of them would either skewer or explode him to bits. But Felix either threw them back before they could explode or used his naturally tempered body to take the hits that he wouldn''t be able to dodge. However, he also had to tank some hits from these attacks, or else the weapons would strike the shield of the ship and break it. And if that happened, the soldiers would become sitting ducks to the weapons of the enemy''s ship. Felix almost vomited some blood as a heavy sphere hit him directly. The sphere was way bigger than his body, so it almost squished him against the ship''s shield. But with a mighty shout, he returned the sphere to his enemies, creating a vacuum in their formation as the sphere broke into pieces and exploded from the rebound force. He was slowly getting more used to the ''defend the tower'' play mode. Chapter 148: A real battlefield is different from a simulation (1) Even though Felix was slowly getting adapted to fighting this tower defense mode. It didn''t mean that he was successfully parrying all of the enemy''s attempts to destroy the ship''s shield. He was just one person, and there were multiple flanks that the enemy could use to get around him. The flanks were all defended by Felix''s comrades, but his simulated comrades were very inferior compared to the enemy''s firepower and numbers. He was at a total disadvantage here, and he wasn''t sure what to do to win this battle. He did not know military formations, nor was he a good leader. He only had the lead once when Lindo and Diorno gave him that temporary general position. He felt rather dumb in this situation when he had to make use of his comrades in tactical ways, as he only knew how to charge and fight. He needed someone else''s insight, someone who was experienced in this type of stuff as he didn''t learn it until now. Felix sighed while he parried one more psionic bomb away from reaching the shield and exploding. He looked around his comrades and decided he needed to do something or else the shield might crack soon anyways. No matter how hard he tried to defend it. It was the sad truth as he is just one person, and he couldn''t do everything in such a large-scale fight. He needed helpers. Someone that he could lend his back to, just like he had Lindo before, but Lindo couldn''t help him now. He had to take care of his newborn baby alone. He needed to find someone like Lindo, someone who could watch his back as a true friend would. It didn''t matter if they became friends or not, and all that mattered to Felix was that he got to defend the planet right now as other things can come up later. This training was vital to him, so he wanted to pass it successfully. But things didn''t always go as you wanted them to. It was sad to say, but Felix didn''t feel like he could defend every place in this situation. The shield behind him was slowly cracking in other places even though his side remained solid, but as the shield continued cracking, the cracks started to spread even on his side no matter how hard he protected it. There was no way around it. He couldn''t do it, and he had failed another simulation. He closed his eyes as he waited to be awoken back on the leather chair, but he realized after a few short seconds that he was still on the battlefield. The battle was still ongoing in front of him, the cracks in the shield were still there, but they were slowly healing. Felix could feel that his virtual comrades were doing their best to follow his example even though he didn''t tell them to do anything. Both the enemies and the allies were just AIs, but they were learning about Felix and his abilities in real-time. They were making things more balanced as they gained their intelligence. After all, on a normal battlefield, your comrades would do their best to imitate your morale if you lead the battle, especially if you did morale lifting things as Felix had done. The tides didn''t turn dramatically or anything like that, but at least Felix''s comrades started to defend their parts properly. Well, at least as best as they could considering the strength and technological difference between the two parties. However, unlike before, when they were only useless baggage, now they actually parried some of the attacks that were being thrown towards them. Of course, this was the crudest way of fighting a ship battle, but Felix wouldn''t have to fight something more advanced until he got real experiences. For now, he just needed to get himself familiarized with what he needed to do in situations like this. The battle was still ongoing as Felix''s aura continued to flare strongly, boosting the confidence of his allies and annoying the enemies. Felix''s attacks and counters started to thin out the numbers of the enemies. Even though there were a lot of them, their numbers were still finite. If they couldn''t destroy the ship shield of the enemies, they could at least exterminate all of their ground troops! Felix''s eyes started to glow as he started to squeeze the Rubix cubes in his suit dry while turning them to their highest performance at the same time. He knew that he needed to end this quickly, as the Rubix cube energy that was coursing through his body was getting of lower and lower quality, affecting his battle power. While he didn''t feel like he would get poisoned to death anymore, he still felt a little bit weaker, and this was just the first symptom that came from overdosing on the slightly purified spatial energy. Felix''s eyes became bloodshot as he put his paws together, he had seen Landers and Diorno use these techniques before, and he wanted to see if he could do something similar as it would be of great use here. If he could use that technique, he could annihilate the ground troops while also shooting at the gigantic enemy ship in front of him as well. Felix''s paws were put close together while he started to sweat under the armor, his body heat was increasing really quickly as the body was enduring the circulation of energy through the blood veins directly instead of the hex veins, which Felix did not have. This was damaging to his body because it wasn''t strong enough to handle such a high accumulation of energy. Felix''s armor started to turn red hot under the continuous energy flow from the Rubix cubes installed in it. He looked just like the previous crustaceous fellows he fought before. His face bulged up, as did his muscles while they cried out in pain. He could feel that his body was giving out on him! However, he didn''t stop as it was impossible to do so right now. Once you got on the horse, it was hard to get off. Felix could feel that his insides were boiling and that his paws were struggling to contain all of the energy that he had gathered in them, but he couldn''t discharge it right now, or it would explode prematurely. He knew that he needed to mold it into a ball, or else the moment he threw the wild energy out, it would explode, which in return would seal the fates of everyone around him, himself included! His paws trembled as he controlled the wild energy that came from the Rubix cubes, trying to tame it and shape it into a ball to contain all of the explosive power within. He could feel that some parts of his fur were slowly getting singed, leaving only the scorched skin behind. The pain that he endured was extreme but knowing it was a simulation and his body was actually ok made him endure everything. But no matter how much he endured, the pain didn''t lessen, so he shouted one more time as he concentrated the energy into his paws and threw them forward into the enemy''s direction. A gigantic explosion occurred a few tens of meters ahead, as a fiery ball of doom that looked like a mini sun exploded amidst the formation of the enemies. Felix almost collapsed outright as his body spasmed among his comrades, who were trying to resuscitate him, only for his surroundings to grow blurry. He had done his job, so he was being ejected from the simulation. Felix woke up back on the leather chair as he looked at Vangar across him, he took off the helmet that was on his head and asked: "Did I do well this time around?" Vangar nodded, and gave Felix a round hard candy: "Take it, it shall reinvigorate your mind after what you have gone through." Felix took the round hard candy and cracked it with his teeth before eating it, enjoying the taste. He could feel that his sore mind was slowly getting a little bit better, even though his body didn''t take any damage. His mind was a little bit shaken by the intense stimulation of the helmet. Felix breathed in and out as he stabilized his condition until everything was ok and asked Vangar: "How much time was it now?" "Around 9 hours if we count your recovery time." "So am I ready to be sent to the real battlefields now?" Vangar pondered for a few seconds before saying: "Well, I don''t see why not, we actually have 2 battlefields that need a leading soldier like you, and you can choose between them." Vangar created another projection using his armor''s special abilities and then pointed towards two red blinking locations on the map that he created. "The Alpha Zanto location needs you to fight a normal space battle just like you have done in your first simulation." "The Beta Blinko location needs you to fight a spaceship battle." "Choose between them, and I will teleport you to the nearest safe place that we have created near the battlefields, then report to the acting general there with my insignia." Vangar then took the special insignia that had his symbol on it from his armor, which was a small blue fist raised towards the sky, and gave it to Felix. Felix took the insignia in his paw before putting it in his special bag and looked at the map, not knowing on which battlefield he should go first. Then after a little bit of thinking, he waved his paw towards the map, indicating which mission he would take. Chapter 149: A real battlefield is different from a simulation (2) Felix''s paw was pointing towards the Alpha section of the map as he had chosen the normal space battle. He had just fought a spaceship battle and realized that he needed competent teammates to protect a ship. Because normally a ship was around 2 kilometers long and 800 meters tall, at least the one in the simulation had this size. So, he needed good teammates that would split up into different teams to protect the ship without his help while he took the larger share. However, because he didn''t know anyone in the army of the humans, it was better to start from normal battles and gradually improve his connections creating bonds with the stronger soldiers so that in the future, they would be able to work properly together. "Well, I guessed you would start with the easier battle first, so I shall send you to the nearest battle station, and the general there will debrief you after you hand over my token." Vangar pressed a few buttons on his armor as Felix''s surroundings immediately started to shake, and he felt himself becoming nauseous when he looked around and saw brilliant colors surrounding him. It was almost as if he was in the center of a rainbow. The last time when they teleported, Felix didn''t get to open his eyes before they reached their destination, but now he was able to. However, the fact that he opened his eyes didn''t make him feel better as he could feel that he was on a dangerous ride that flipped his stomach over, which was strange considering the strength of his body in general. Felix didn''t know anything about teleportation besides the fact that he didn''t like it. His surroundings turned back to normal as he found himself in an average-sized room with bunked beds put a few meters from each other. Felix stood there for a few seconds so his dizziness and nausea would leave his body and then took in a big gulp of air to feel better. The first time the teleportation happened he didn''t have such accentuated symptoms, and even though he felt dizzy before, it wasn''t to this level. He started to walk towards the metal door of the room. Then suddenly it opened by itself as it went down and into the floor. Inside came a valiant-looking middle-aged man with a crew cut and a small beard who wore the official armor of the humans with the symbol of general printed on the left side of his chest. He had an X-shaped scar over his chin and another scar going horizontally over the bridge of his nose. His right eye was also made from metal and had a red blinking light in it. He looked at Felix with a questioning look, as he never remembered having a cat subordinate before, and he didn''t get any messages from any of his superiors about a recruit coming in. Felix took out Vangar''s symbol from his special bag and gave it to the man. He immediately realized that Felix was Vangar''s man as he easily recognized the retired general''s symbol. Vangar had higher seniority in his generation, and he a powerhouse in the military. Even though he had retired, he still had a big saying over the current matters of the military, and he was also training special individuals that caught his eye. Felix looked rather young in the general''s eyes. So he thought he was a recruit coming from their planet, which was specifically trained by the retired general he always liked to do such surprises. Sending out geniuses that would help immensely with the ongoing battles. This was one of his training ways, and it showed results with every important general that rose in the ranks last 10 years. The cyborg-eye general nodded and looked at Felix''s outfit before saying: "I think the general might have already sent your equipment down at the hall, so come with me to get yourself equipped." Felix followed the man through the corridors of the long and wide corridors of the station as they made their way towards the equipment hall, where Felix found the tailor-made armor for him. The general got a message from Vangar as well. That told him that he should put Felix in the most dangerous position on the battlefield. So he could stimulate his potential properly. The message was sent directly- to the general''s armor, so Felix didn''t get to hear it. Felix donned on the armor on his small body as he felt his special bag getting absorbed by the armor, and an interface from the armor appeared in his face: [Spatial Storage filled 10%, Rubix cubes are fully charged with energy purified at 100%, armor damage 0%. Ready for battle!] The armor itself had a helpful AI installed in it. That described everything that Felix needed to know about it. Felix found the armor to be rather cool as it was both good-looking and had multiple uses besides the spatial storage and Rubix cubes energy gathering and conversion modules. Compared to the spandex armor that Aaltarox gave him. It was a little bit cooler and had some interesting features. But he wasn''t sure about its full defensive ability. As he considered donning the spandex armor under his current metal armor, the metal eyed general came near him and said: "Since you are done, we can go." Felix nodded and followed him back towards the corridors before he was taken outside the station and into the darkness of the interstellar space. There was anything around them, the only thing in existence being the spatial station behind them. Felix was expecting a full-on battle raging around, but there was nothing to be seen. "The battle is a couple of sectors away. This station is deeply hidden in fragments of space so that the enemy can''t find it. It''s our supply and resting heaven." "Let''s go. I have returned to the base only because I have felt a teleportation point activating, without any prior messages, the battle is still ongoing, and I''m not sure how our people will do without me in the long term." Felix nodded and followed the one-eyed general as they flew in the darkness of space, then their surroundings slowly started to change as they walked different routes according to the special steps of the general. After twenty minutes of walking into the darkness, they finally reached the location where they broke away from the fragment of space they were in. After they broke through the fragmented space, they used their armors in full thruster mode to reach the location of the battle. In front of the duo, a battle of epic proportions was taking place. The enemies were draconic beings who wore armors made from beast hides and infused with blue energy that protected them from the harsh vacuum of space. Their tall humanoid bodies with dragon heads and whiskers were what set them apart from the humans. Also, they had short tails protruding from the back of their beast hide armors. The fight was a very close one. Even though the difference between the technology of the two parties was immense, the draconic beings had their own mean of increasing their battle power which was no different in power from technology. It seemed that their civilization took a different approach on how they strengthened themselves compared to the humans. Their ways looked a little bit more barbaric, but the efficiency was surprisingly high! The one-eyed general slipped behind his troops as he overlooked everything happening, a clone of his slowly dispersed into dust motes as the higher-up of the enemy army cursed in his mother language, seeing that he was actually fooled. A message came from the general in Felix''s interface: [Take the lead and attack the frontlines of the draconic race!] Felix nodded as he jumped towards the frontlines, where the humans and dragons were clashing with each other at high intensity. He started to flare his aura as he powered up, the Rubix cubes in his armor slowly roaring to life as purified energy coursed through his body at quick speeds. This amount of unleashed strength would have created a huge crater if it happened on a planet, but in space, only shockwaves appeared. The shockwaves pushed back both enemies and allies alike. Felix''s arrival was both high-profile and annoying for the allies as they asked themselves: "Why did this rookie appear right now?" "If he wanted to do something good, he should have done an ambush..." "What will he do now that he has exposed his position so easily? He will be swarmed by the dragons and killed..." Even the general that stood behind the troops and pressured the enemy''s higher-up in not making a move was skeptical of Felix''s approach. Did Vangar not teach him anything about space battles? However, the next moment he closed his mouth as his eyes bulged out. Felix''s silhouette, which was there for everyone to see, suddenly disappeared as if he was never there, confusing both enemies and allies. Up till now, cats had never fought in space, so no one knew about their affinity for stealth, and the humans on the battlefield weren''t interested in the ''primitive'' races which lived with them on the same planet. Felix''s tactics were hard to understand for others, but he knew the best on how to surprise these big snakes. Doing something dumb first and then attacking from the shadows! He had intentionally unleashed his aura to reveal his location to the enemies before he disappeared thoroughly, in such a type of battlefield, it was harder to use killing intent detection because of the cumulative killing intent in the surroundings So now that the enemies were confused and couldn''t find him, he could unleash a massacre like never before! He wondered how these draconic beings tasted while he licked his lips under the helmet of the armor and then realized, how was he supposed to eat with the helmet on? Chapter 150: A real battlefield is different from a simulation (3) As Felix pondered this question, the armor had an answer: [For devouring, put your paw on the corpses, and a small cylinder will absorb the body''s essential energy and transfer it to you.] Vangar even took into equation Felix''s special ability when he asked for this armor to be made. Now that his question was answered, there was no reason to dally anymore. He had a job to do, and he wanted to do it right. The fate of his planet was mostly on his shoulders if what Vangar said was true. So he had to do his best to improve his strength as much as he could. The Dragonoid''s were keeping their guards up as they started to fly backward. Trying to create space between them and the humans. They were wary of the human''s reinforcements. The green aura that Felix showed was only at the early level, but the pressure he put on the basic troops was huge. Especially since now, he was invisible, and he could attack from any place. It was really hard to find out where he could be hiding, as all of the space around them was open. There were no places that they could search to find him, but if they were in a closed space. They would have had a higher chance to catch Felix, even in his stealth. But in space, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. No matter how good the senses of the draconic beings were, they couldn''t find Felix in such an environment, and they knew that fighting with their enemies in this situation was a death sentence. Who knew when Felix would drop from the shadows and assassinate one of them? They had their pride, and fighting the humans was also in self-defense in this situation, but they knew that their troops would take major damage if they continued this fight. The leader of the Dragonoid''s was a short male with pale white scales who wore a more decorated version of the beast hide armor. He had big bulbous eyes and a short nose, and even though he was still keeping the leash on the metal-eyed general, he now was also scanning around trying to find Felix''s location. He knew that the cat wasn''t simple and that his troops wouldn''t be able to contain him. Unfortunately, he hadn''t brought the holy child of their tribe with him now. So he could have a fighter that could hold Felix in place. It would have been a 2v2 fight, but now it was a 2v1 fight with the humans having an advantage in the field of experts. Felix''s silhouette couldn''t be seen anywhere as he was currently filtering through the potential targets that he could attack. The fight being temporarily paused gave him a good amount of time in which he could choose which flank he could attack so he could do the most damage to the enemy''s formation. Suddenly his eyes lit up as he found the best location. He slowly made his way, floating through space until he was a few meters away from his target. The target was oblivious to the fact that his life was going to shortly end a few seconds later. Suddenly, he felt his oxygen supply being cut off, and he looked warily at his beast hide armor, thinking that the inscriptions on it were malfunctioning, only to realize that his windpipe was leaking blood. He wanted to scream to the comrade near him, but the man was too focused on keeping his guard up to realize that his compatriot was slowly being dragged into the darkness of space and out of his sight. The man tried to scream but he couldn''t! He felt that his leaking windpipe was getting against his ability to speak. He tried to struggle and seal his wound using the energy from the armor, but he found out that there was a small paw inserted in his chest. He slowly drifted away from his people. No matter what he did. He couldn''t move he found out that his body was cramping up and that his life force was slowly leaving him. He knew that there was nothing much he could do anymore, so he closed his eyes. He couldn''t shout for help, nor could he seal his sudden injury. Suddenly he felt his body being jolted awake as the short general of their tribe appeared near him and pushed the paw out of his chest. The short mam snorted as his bulbous eyes looked around only to find out that there was no one around, he frowned as he thought that he might have caught Felix, but he realized that there was no chance he would be able to catch this slippery cat. If he was honest with himself, he wanted to make his troops retreat. These unexpected reinforcements for the humans had sealed the battle between the two civilizations as one person made the whole battle become entirely favored towards the humans. He wanted to shout for a retreat, but before he could do that, he felt an oppressive power landing on him. He glared at the metal-eyed general as he ignored the man''s unleashed aura and shouted to all of the troops: "Retreat, RETREAT!" Felix frowned as he didn''t get to taste even one of the Dragonoids. Why would they retreat without even trying to fight? The draconic people started to slowly leave the battlefield as they retreated towards the general location of their base and planet. The metal-eyed general looked at everything that was happening with a glint in his mechanical eye. He got an idea as he looked at the retreating dragons. He knew what to do! He commanded the troops: "Forward at full strength, ignore everything, and attack them!" The human soldiers accepted the order without hesitation, as the thrusters from their armor powered up and pushed them quickly in pursuit of the enemies. Then the metal-eyed general disappeared as well as he powered up his thrusters to the maximum to catch up to the small dragon man. Felix was also following the army from behind as he was quite angry because he didn''t get to taste even one dragon. He had started to follow them before the general gave the order, but he knew that the man would most likely emphasize this victory to try and get rid of some of their troops. Fighting a clean victory like this wasn''t the human''s style as there were no benefits for them! Felix knew how humans were, so he went ahead in this situation. He came near the backline of the retreating Dragonoids and dragged one of the more unsuspecting ones back towards him once more, this time, just like the last one, this attracted the attention of the short man who immediately tried to stop Felix once more. But this time around. He didn''t succeed. Felix looked at the man as his bulbous eyes almost left their sockets when he saw the metal-eyed general intercepting him before he could even touch Felix. This was the situation he never wanted to see! He tried to struggle and run away. If he got caught in a battle with the metal-eyed man his troops would be annihilated, and even if he survived. And escaped, he would still be punished by his civilization for losing such an important battle. He didn''t want either option to happen to him, but he knew that there wasn''t much he could do anymore, so he gritted his teeth and unleashed his power to the maximum! His purple aura flared to life as he raised a mighty shout to invigorate his troops and give them courage. However, the metal-eyed general wasn''t impressed by his theatrics as he snorted and unleashed his purple aura as well. They were pretty evenly matched, as they traded blows, shockwaves traveling through their surroundings as they took the battle above the battlefield, to not interfere with the battle of their subordinates. The short draconic man wanted to intervene, but the metal-eyed general wouldn''t have anything of that. The fighting between the normal soldiers commenced, and it was very bloody. Felix didn''t even have to do anything as the humans tore through the scattered formation of the dragons. They were all scared, and their guards were up against Felix''s stealth attacks. They were all scattering and trying to escape as the ones that were too slow died. And their bodies got dragged back by the human soldiers for their scientists to experiment on as finding more of the enemy race''s weaknesses was the main job of the scientists. Along with finding better training techniques and improving on the technology of the human society. Felix dragged one body of the dragons that he had killed. And put his paw on it as a small opening appeared at the armor section near his paw and started to quickly absorb the nutrients and important things from the body in front of Felix. Felix found that those fluids extracted from the body were starting to slowly course through his body as he felt reinvigorated, his vitality became more exuberant as his natural ability activated, and his body started to evolve, trying to take the best characteristics, that were most compatible with Felix from the dragons. Felix felt his stomach lurch as he almost couldn''t control his armor anymore, he wasn''t sure why, but he felt queasy from absorbing the dragon body this way. It was rather strange as he held his stomach, but he didn''t stop absorbing the body until it became a mummy that transformed into ashes after nothing of value remained in it. He held his head as he felt a headache coming. Maybe that wasn''t the best idea he ever had. Chapter 151: A real battlefield is different from a simulation (4) Felix''s queasy feeling didn''t stop after he finished devouring the draconic body as it intensified gradually until he almost couldn''t control his armor anymore. He felt really wrong. He looked around and saw the ongoing battle, but he didn''t feel like he would be able to participate in it anymore as his body wasn''t in his control anymore. His body felt like it was ready to drop and sleep, and this happened after he ate only one dragon member, which was strange considering this only happened when he first arrived on this plane. Were the dragons such an advanced race that Felix''s body needed to shut down to digest everything they had to give? From their battle capabilities, they didn''t seem like a strong race... Were they weak, or were the humans too strong? But from what was happening, Felix realized that the dragons had stronger bodies than his as even the lowliest soldier had created such a reaction in him. Felix sent a message to the metal-eyed general reporting his situation and that he had to retreat. The man knew a little bit about Felix''s ability but not much. However, Vangar told him that the only exemption of Felix being let to retreat was when his ability came into play. The general knew that Felix was a valiant cat, with the way he had fought on the frontlines without any fear. So if he needed to retreat, that meant something was truly wrong with him. Felix slowly retreated from the battlefield under the enemy commander''s heated gaze, who was still trying to break away from the metal-eyed man''s grasp. Felix was currently so weak that he couldn''t even employ his stealth technique. The short man remembered Felix''s silhouette as he glared at the opponent in front of him and decided to go for broke! He knew that if he didn''t escape here, he would certainly die, and death was still worse than being punished by the civilization behind him. His bulbous eyes started to elongate as his humanoid form was slowly shedding. He was transforming into his primal form and seeing that their commander was shedding his humanoid form. The troops below started to do the same. Their beast hide armors started to stretch along with their bodies as the inscriptions written on the inner parts started to light up. Felix''s stomach was rumbling as he felt his consciousness slowly fading. He had already gotten away from the battlefield when a bright light from behind took his attention as his half-conscious state disappeared little by little under the radiation of the light. He wasn''t sure why, but this light that was illuminating the whole surroundings for around 60-100 kilometers was giving him a familiar feeling, even though he had never experienced it before. It was seemingly as if his dormant cells, which we''re giving him the command to sleep, have been now awakened. And his body, which was lethargic and ready to stop working before. Was now full of energy and ready for action It was a rather foreign feeling to Felix as he had never felt so reinvigorated before, even after he slept his fair share of hours. It was almost as if he was excited by something, and he knew that it all came from the light. The battlefield was that way, and he felt that his body was now adapting quickly to the energy that he got from the corpse that the armor helped him devour. He was ready for round 2! It was also a great time for an ambush, as the enemies thought that he left the battlefield because he got injured. It was the perfect plan that he didn''t even think of. Felix activated his stealth as he returned to the battlefield only to come to a tragic sight as the formerly winning humans were now being battered around by 5 meters tall dragons with long whiskers and pale white scales. Even the metal-eyed general had a hard time fighting the bulbous-eyed dragon in front of him. It seemed that their reverting to their primal form gave them a huge strength boost, and Felix wondered why did they wait so much and even retreated instead of fighting directly in these forms. But it wasn''t time to wonder as he needed to help the humans, or else they might be wiped out if he didn''t act fast enough. He first observed a little bit on how the newly transformed Dragonoids were fighting, they were certainly more reckless than before, and some of them even had froth coming out of their mouths as they rampaged in the midst of the human battle formation. Felix now understood why they didn''t transform from the start. As it seemed, that their transformation took away some of their intelligence. Their way of fighting was way more primitive than before, it was obvious from the way they recklessly charged everywhere, and sometimes they even attacked their own allies. Their powers were certainly exponentially increased, and the lights from the inside of their armors somewhat managed to keep their sanity in check, so they didn''t go totally bonkers. Felix wondered what kind of link. Did the light from the armor had with the DNA that he absorbed and incorporated into himself using his ability... What had actually changed in his body? When he posed that question to himself, he suddenly felt his body starting to stretch as pain engulfed his senses, as he almost dropped his stealth, but he gritted his teeth and endured through it. He knew that something was wrong, but he endured it for a little while before he looked down at his transparent body, which was now standing around 2.5 meters tall with hulking muscles and no room of fat left, he still looked the same, the little cute orange furred cat, but the only difference was his height and the fact that he looked like he overdosed on steroids, his armor had grown along with him as it rippled with a metallic shining light. He knew that he had awakened this form from the dragons, but it didn''t make sense, wasn''t this the dragon''s primordial form? They had evolved from this into humanoid forms, so why would Felix unlock something like this? Maybe he was wrong, he wasn''t sure about the civilization of the dragons, and fighting in such a big form wasn''t his style. He was a stealthy type, not a brawler type. But he could make use of this form right now as it would be good to attract attention to himself and use his beefy body as a shield for the humans so they could focus on the big targets and eliminate them, now that their reasoning was half-lost, they wouldn''t run away anymore. His form revealed itself above the ongoing fight as he dropped directly on top of another behemoth, the dragon then tried to toss him off his back, but Felix bit him directly on the neck ending his life as he took out a big chunk of flesh and bones. The humans were wary of the new arrival, at first, but after they saw that it was Felix, just really big and beefy, they had calmed down. And they almost cheered as they saw him easily taking down one of those enemies that they really had a hard time defending against. They weren''t sure why he left in the first place, but now that he was back, everything was ok. The battlefield started to rumble once more as Felix unleashed his aura to its full potential, now that his body had been enlarged and strengthened by the racial talent that he had absorbed from the Dragonoids. He became a beefy tank that could take an infinite amount of hits from the opponents that surrounded him. Of course, if the enemy''s general tried to attack him, he would end up in a precarious position very quickly. But that couldn''t happen, considering the metal-eyed general was taking care of him right now, combined with the fact that the man was half-sane also made him unable to give out orders anymore, nor focus on the right things on the battlefield. The battle was half-won, and now all they had to do was clean the battlefield. Felix''s roar was heard on all of the battlefield as he decapitated enemy after enemy using his newly found and improved raw strength. His killing potential had skyrocketed after he assumed this form But it was also taking a toll on his mind. It seemed that while Felix took the ability from the dragonoids. It didn''t come free of side effects. They were indeed minimized, but that was mostly because of Felix''s exceedingly strong soul. As time passed, he felt his strength starting to take control of him instead of him controlling it, so he immediately reverted to his normal cute standard form, his armor going back to its initial size as well. Felix was surprised that it even expanded along with him at first. The moment that happened, he felt a burst of weakness assaulting him. But it wasn''t a bad thing at the moment, as he looked around he saw that the battle was 99% done. The only person remaining was the enemy''s general. Who was currently breaking away from the metal-eyed human general, it won''t be long before he escaped. And there wasn''t much that could be done in that regard. Felix was truly exhausted now, and the ground troops wouldn''t be able to catch someone their general couldn''t. However, the battle was an overall victory for the humans. Chapter 152: The first victorious battle Felix looked at the battlefield- as it slowly compressed and since the battles were mostly done. The human soldiers were now cleaning the corpses so they could bring them back to the base. And send them to the research facilities back on the planet. The enemy''s general slipped out of the defensive formation as he ran away with his quickest speed, slowly morphing back into his humanoid form so he would become a little less detectable. Felix shook his head as he felt the galaxy spinning around. His head hurt due to the long time he used the transformation ability, and he also felt rather weakened. The metal-eyed general dropped from above as he glanced at Felix''s situation then told a nearby soldier: "Bring him back to the base for rest. He had done a great job today, and 90% of the contributions will go to him." The soldier saluted and picked Felix up before starting to fly away using the thrusters of his armor. Felix felt his surroundings move. As he looked up from the helmet of his armor to the person that was carrying him. He could see the face of the person. He looked to be a rather young human as he had no other animal features such as different ears at the top of his head or something like that. The man looked down at Felix and asked: "You woke up? We are almost back at the base." Felix nodded as he didn''t feel any headache anymore. His momentary rest gave him some respite from the pain that assaulted his mind and body. He took in small breaths to calm himself as the transformation also made him rather irascible even after he reverted from it. He wasn''t entirely sure he knew what the transformation did, but he realized its ups and downs after using it once. He wasn''t sure when he would use it again. Felix coughed a bit as he felt something was lodged in his neck. But he didn''t remember eating anything besides the few moments he tore off pieces of the dragonoids heads or backs with his mouth. However, he remembered not swallowing anything as he didn''t know what would happen after he ate even more of them as he first got this strange ability after he ate one body which let him to a lethargic state, so he didn''t want to eat anymore until he was in a safe place. The soldier took Felix back to the base before he returned to the battlefield. To continue the cleaning efforts. The bodies were in the hundreds of thousands, and any extra pair of hands was really useful in the processing and cleaning operations. Felix started to slowly crack his bones as he unveiled his body and stretched it. He had a few corpses sent to him already, so he could fully absorb all of the best traits of the dragonoids. Felix started eating as he opened his small mouth, eating small bites out of the first corpse, just as if he was a rat nibbling away at a piece of bread. The bodies of the dragonoids were rather hard. But under Felix''s strong teeth, their bones cracked and broke all the same. The bodies around him slowly started to disappear as he nibbles through them. In total, he had eaten around 15 until he felt full. That''s also when things started to change again for him. His body which was fine before slowly started to transform. After he ate the dragonoids bodies, Felix also found quite a lot of things. They had small wings on their backs which were furled under their beast hide armors, and the toughness of their scales was weaker than those wings. He could feel his back drenching in sweat as something tried to come out of it. Up till now, he hadn''t grown an extra appendage or anything like that after he ate those beings. Would he grow wings now? It felt unlikely for him, but as time passed and the pain in his body continued, he felt that something was going to pop out of his back. After that feeling intensified, he could swear that he heard some cracking sounds coming from his skeleton as it slowly diverged into a new form. His skeleton shook as it transformed. Wings growing out of it and piercing through his back, blood poured slowly as the incision closed by itself really quickly, and the wings appeared. They weren''t really big as they covered Felix''s back, but he could retract them at will as he now sensed a deep connection to them. They were just like his tail, an extra appendage that he could use. He tried to take off from the metal tiles in the base, trying to fly up for a few seconds. In the first few tries, he could only lift himself only a little bit from the ground. His wings were just like a newborn dragon''s now as they have just been created, but they wouldn''t take much time before they strengthened themselves. Felix could use the Rubix cubes for both training and battle. Felix controlled the interface of the armor, making it pump purified energy into his body and especially his skeleton. His newly modified skeleton started to toughen at a quick speed, especially the new area around his back. The skin on the wings started to wilt and fall, as new stronger skin quickly grew after. The skin that fell immediately dried up and broke into little pieces before disappearing altogether. Felix could feel that his wings were pretty sturdy now, and he tried to take off once more. He slowly flew up into the base, and a small smile appeared on his feline face. This was his dream since he first boarded that airship of the ravens. He wasn''t sure when it would ever happen, but this came a little bit earlier than he expected. He started to increase his flying speed as he did hoops and loops around the insides of the base, and he realized that this flying state of his was quickly using the stored energy in the Rubix cubes, his armor started to flash a red notification. Saying that his energy reserves were being emptied at high speeds. It was even quicker, compared to the times he was fighting! Felix dropped down back onto the floor as he craned his neck back and looked at his wings. Why would they require so much energy to function? Wasn''t he using the wings as a part of his body? Technically, his new wings shouldn''t require any type of energy besides the stamina of his own body. He wasn''t sure what was wrong here. He tried to take off once again, but since the Rubix cubes were almost empty, he only flew for a little bit before he dropped back onto the ground. Felix was quite annoyed by this as he needed some answers. Since the battle was over, he could report to Vangar now. And maybe get his help with this problem. Felix had Vangar''s communication link in his armor preinstalled, so he only needed to think about talking with him before the armor would send a call. After sending the call it didn''t take much time before it was picked up and Vangar''s voice was heard in Felix''s armor: "Good job on the first mission Felix, you are ready for the second one?" Felix replied: "Not really. From this mission, I have gained a few things, and I''m not really understanding how one of the abilities I took from the dragon works..." "Oh, you need some help with that? I''m not sure how I could help, considering you are the one that gained the ability and you don''t understand it..." "No, I understand how to use it. What I don''t understand is why it takes so much energy to use it." "Energy problems? Considering your condition... I guess I could have called someone from the scientific institute... but you know about your relationship with them." The relationship with that part of the humans was a rather sour spot for Felix. However, he could compromise with them in this situation. "Call them anyways as I can forget them for what they did if they forget me for what I did. Now that I''m part of the human army we will have to work together from now on. Of course, Shima will be a small exception, and I would only work with him if he is the last researcher left." Vangar cut the connection for a few seconds before returning: "You have clearance to meet with one of the scientists for improvement on your energy control in your new ability. You can return to the planet. For the time being. You can go back to your missions after you are fully prepared." Felix nodded and felt his body being absorbed by something, while his dizziness returned one time higher compared to the last time he experienced it. He really didn''t like this teleportation thing, but it was too convenient. Chapter 153: Research and training Felix''s body couldn''t endure the after-effects of teleportation very well, it wasn''t that his body was too weak, but the distance of where he was and where he was supposed to be teleported was too long. Felix''s surroundings were moving around him as if he was on a carousel when he finally arrived at the location he was supposed to be teleported. White tiles... small but compact rooms where people in white coats were either talking. Or doing some experiments, he knew where he arrived. He was in the same place where the scientists usually came together to talk, but it seemed that everyone was preoccupied with something else or it wasn''t break time for them yet. He looked around for a few seconds to identify the scientist that was supposed to help him, but even after a few minutes of his arrival, no one came to pick him up. Did Vangar not notify them yet, or did they not get the message yet? Felix continued to wait, and only after around 2-3 hours did he meet the person that was supposed to help him with his flying. He was a man of average stature who wore glasses and the normal scientist outfit. A lab coat, a white shirt, some protective gear for his face. And finally, some white gloves on his hands. His hair was cut short from both the sides and back. The scientist was looking at Felix with wariness. As he still remembered the day that Felix attacked after his escape. He could still remember vividly how Felix used his claws to kill his former comrades. The images were vividly imprinted in his mind. No matter how highly Vangar praised Felix in the message he sent to him, he could not look at Felix just as if he was a normal soldier of the army that came to him for advice. Felix wasn''t the only one that was left with trauma that day. Time passes, and memories fade. At least, that''s what happens to normal people. However, it was different for the scientists of the humans as they all had great memories. The man in front of Felix still remembered the screams of dread that his colleagues did when they were butchered by the cat that stood across from him. And no matter how cute he looked, The man knew that under his fur laid a monstrous devil. But orders from higher-ups were orders that he couldn''t refuse. He needed to help Felix reach his full potential for the better of the planet. Every scientist in the building had their hands on the confidential information, so they knew about Felix''s soldier program. Most of them didn''t feel right when they read that Felix will be raised to be a star of the military. As they thought that he would hold a grudge against them for what they did, they even saw how Shima had been punished according to military law and detained, so they thought they would be next. Vangar''s message. Which told him that Felix wanted to make peace with them, relaxed the man a bit. However, he then read the rest of the message and started to sweat buckets as he realized he had to work with Felix face to face. All of this lead to this awkward situation, as Felix looked at the man and the man looked at him. The man''s hand trembled as he adjusted his protective gear and said with a shaky tone: "My name is Mirkov, and I will assist you with the energy expenditure problem you have." It was obvious. The man feared Felix greatly as he took a distance of around 2 meters away from him. Felix tried to take a few steps towards him, only for the man to walk backward. "Uh...." Felix wasn''t sure what to say in this situation, so he took a few steps back to give Mirkov some space. "We can start with an example. Can you fly anymore?" As long as Felix was at an adequate distance, Mirkov would gladly work with him as he didn''t feel really confident with examining him if he was too close, even though this would lead to mistakes. It was a problem that he could remediate with time. But now, he couldn''t get closer to Felix without having a mini panic attack. Felix shook his head at the question, his armor was all out of juice, and he needed to recharge it, which would take quite a lot of time in the planetal environment. "My armor is all out of power. Can we use some energy from the base?" Mirkov nodded as he put two fingers on his ear and sent a message using his technologically advanced brain like a walkie-talkie. "Send some energy nodes to the middle research facility." After that, they waited awkwardly for a few minutes before another person entered with a box full of Rubix cubes. Then he left quickly sensing the tense air in the room. Felix looked at the fully charged Rubix cubes in the box and took one from it. The armor sockets at his back opened up by themselves as two small mechanical hands took the cube from Felix''s paws and changed the used cubes that were in his armor. The energy from the cubes started to course through the armor and into Felix''s body as he slowly started to take off the floor. His flight was a little bit wobbly at first, but he already had gained some experience, and now with a new source of energy, he could continue his practice. Mirkov watched Felix take off as his wings stretched behind his back and through a new opening in the armor that was slowly being molded around his wings, creating a new shape. The armor''s AI was adapting to Felix''s bodily changes in real-time. Felix flew like this for a few minutes before he plopped to the ground, the empty Rubix cube being ejected out of the armor soon after. "Saw anything useful, Mirkov?" Mirkov thought about everything that happened, but he couldn''t link anything he saw to Felix''s immense consumption of energy. He told Felix to try again, and then he took a notepad so he could write down everything that Felix did for a more in-depth analysis. Felix continued to fly around while Mirkov put everything on the notepad, but no matter how hard he analyzed the data he gathered, he couldn''t find out what was wrong with him. At first, he thought that he had written the wrong data, but the more he read, the more he didn''t understand. The more he analyzed, the more he was engrossed with the numbers that he wrote down. He felt that Felix''s problem with flight wasn''t something that came from him but the wings themselves. Felix stopped flying as he finished the whole box of Rubix cubes. His whole body was sore and hurt from the constant energy supply that went through it without pause. His insides hurt as well, but the part which hurt the most was the wings. He had pumped them full of energy for around 6 hours and were heavily used. Mirkov finally finished analyzing some of the data as he looked towards Felix''s exhausted form and told him: "I have found the problem of your energy wastage." He started explaining while showing Felix the data on the notepad: "It seems that your wings don''t actually propel you into the air nor are they the catalyst for your flight, you could have always flown, but you haven''t done it up till now because you didn''t know how to." "The wings are used as a placebo effect on you, which means you thought you could fly because you got wings, until you actually flew, the wings aren''t the reason you can fly, and because of that you use too much energy." Felix had question marks all over his head as he heard everything that Mirkov told him, what the hell was these words supposed to mean? Seeing that Felix was confused by his methodical explanation made Mirkov almost facepalm as he decided to explain things to him in an easier-to-understand version. "You use too much energy because the wings aren''t what makes you able to fly." Felix looked at his new wings and then asked: "What are the wings for then?" Mirkov was stumped by the question. Felix''s ability wouldn''t give him a useless addon, would it? He wasn''t familiar with his special ability, besides the common information that was passed around. So he couldn''t say for sure. "Well, I could analyze you a bit further to find out what they are for, but you know..." It seemed that while they have been together for a while in the same room. Mirkov was still scared of Felix and he didn''t want to get near him. Felix started to stretch his wings as he got up from the floor, he was still a little bit tired, but he really wanted to find out what those wings of his were for if he didn''t use them for flight. Mirkov started to slowly back away as he realized that Felix was up to something. Chapter 154: The root of the problem and its fix Mirkov didn''t know what Felix wanted to do, but from the glint in Felix''s eyes, Mirkov knew that it wasn''t anything that he wanted to be a part of. He knew that proximity was needed so he could actually find out why Felix had grown these wings, but no matter how smart he was, his trauma was something hard to get over. It wasn''t that he didn''t want to help Felix, but when he looked at his small cute face, he would see the dead faces of his killed colleagues, bloody and disfigured. The closer he was to Felix, the better he saw the faces, and this was the sole reason he didn''t want to get closer to him. He was a smart man, and he wasn''t petty. Even though he regretted the death of his colleagues, it wasn''t entirely Felix''s fault. He could work with Felix, but as Felix got closer to him, he felt that notion slowly disappear from his head. The faces of those he knew kept popping in his vision as he slowly walked backward. And fear embraced him as he tripped and fell, which confused Felix greatly as he had been ok up till now. He couldn''t help it. He just couldn''t help it. He put his hands forward in an attempt to defend himself as he shook and said: "Please don''t hurt me!" Felix was confused as he started to take a few steps backward "What''s wrong with you, Mirkov?" Mirkov''s face warped under the images of his dead colleagues before Felix started to get away from him. However, the farther Felix got, the more normal Mirkov became. It was an instinctual reaction from the way his brain had been imprinted with the images- when he had escaped, during that big fight between Shima and Felix. He got up from the floor and dusted his clothes before bowing and apologizing to Felix: "I''m sorry for my behaving, but I just cannot control it. I think it should be better to continue this with someone else, .aybe someone who hadn''t been affected by that event as much as I''ve been." Mirkov kept his head down as he left the notepad with data near the box with emptied Rubix cubes. The door of the room opened, and he left without looking back as he sent a message towards the other scientists in the base: "Felix from the military needs help with an energy conversion problem and the creation of a new appendage from his ability, the rest of the information you need to know. Is in the main room with him." Mirkov sighed as he disappeared into one of the rooms of the base. Since Mirkov left Felix remained alone in the room, he had no more energy. So he couldn''t fly around. All he could do was meditate and wait to restore his stamina. The more he restored his stamina, the better he felt. That was until a jolt of pain went through his cranium and he felt the wings on his back slowly enlarging. The wings started to grow slowly, and it was a very painful experience for Felix. He wasn''t sure what was happening as he started to trash on the floor. One second he was well, and the other second he felt as if ten thousand needles were being pierced into his back, all poisoned ones to boot. He hadn''t eaten anything else, so he didn''t know why would his wings react this way, he did put them through some extensive training, and a lot of energy coursed through them. Could have that been the catalyst for this to happen? Felix couldn''t even think straight anymore as his thoughts jumbled up into a mush due to the pain he was feeling. This was worse than when he died. It was a pain that affected everything about his body. From his knees, toes, and even bones, were being ground into a soup of pain until nothing remained of them. He could feel his paws curl and his brain shake. This was wrong, this was very, very, wrong. Why was he feeling like this? What was wrong with him? Suddenly his wings burst apart as a big ball of flesh appeared there instead. The flesh was a hard protrusion. And Felix''s blood veins could be seen pulsing inside of it. The protrusion was round like an egg and equally white as it had no fur from Felix''s body on it. The moment this happened a new scientist entered the room. And came to the horrific image, he quickly ran towards Felix and did some scans, using a small handheld device that looked like a phone. "Radiation... blood radiation, cancer?" The scan results were very surprising to the man. Cancer was a disease that had been cured thousands of years ago by his ancestors. He never thought he would be able to see this disease ever again, especially in a non-human person. A small needle came out of his handheld device, and he inserted it in Felix''s protrusion which started to slowly become smaller and disappeared afterward. Then he took a silver can out of his lab coat pockets and opened Felix''s mouth before feeding him the contents of the can. Felix woke up coughing black putrid blood as he got up from the floor. He looked down at his shaking paws and felt the weakness and pain that he had experienced before slowly disappear from his body. Then Felix glanced towards the new arrival, it was another male scientist, this one wore the same outfit as the last one, the only difference being that this one was pretty tall and skinny like a bamboo pole, his hair was also done in a ponytail. He had a sharp nose like a raven''s beak and small eyes. "It''s good that I arrived before the thing popped on its own, but considering you have more lives, I don''t think you would have minded when you lost one." Felix shook his head as he asked: "What the hell was that?" "Cancer, I''m not sure how you even got it. Considering the disease had been cured for thousands of years, and the outside planets are so advanced that they should have theirs cured as well. Where would even be able to encounter cancer cells?" The man looked at the downed notepad with the information that Mirkov registered before he took it over and scanned over it a few times with his eyes, it was obvious he was of a higher level than Mirkov as it was most likely that Vangar interfered after Mirkov''s failure. "It seems that Mirkov hadn''t studied biology and energy conversion well enough before he was assigned to this part of the base." He shook his head as he looked at Felix: "Your ability seems to have given those wings because they are a natural energy gathering point for the Dragonoids, and they passively use them to gather energy in their bodies before flying." "However, unlike them you are different, your body didn''t fully evolve like theirs, and you don''t have hex veins as well, so while the energy gathered in your body it didn''t do much besides radiating it, to speak in easier terms the wings were the problem which gave you cancer. You are not like the Rubix cubes, your body cannot purify the energy that you absorbed passively and unknowingly while you flew in the universe." "I''m surprised your ability can do such a mistake." Felix was surprised as well since this never happened before. Why would his ability even do that? "Hypothetically speaking, from my point of view, your ability lets you evolve accordingly to the best options that the body and DNA you ingest but it also takes into consideration your base DNA, which is that of a cat that doesn''t have a humanoid form." "I''m not sure how this leads you to gain the wings of the dragonoids, but I guess they don''t have that many good points about them, they have limited abilities, and this is also the reason they were left behind by us, they have a limited growing path unlike us." "Now that we fixed one problem. Let''s see the other. Try to fly for me." Felix tried to do the same thing as before, and even though he didn''t have wings anymore, he slowly started to float from the ground, regardless of that. Actually, it seemed easier to him compared to before. He felt something in his body wasn''t blocked anymore. He felt free. Felix made his way through the air at a moderate pace before increasing his flight speed as he blitzed around the room until he couldn''t control himself anymore and found the end of a wall before crashing head-first into it. The man nodded seeing Felix''s flight ability, Felix had already dropped on the floor as a big bump appeared on his head that he nursed using his paws. "It seems that everything should be okay from now on, this was a problem that would have fixed itself with time, but you would have had to die first for it." "Anyways I think this should have been all. You should be able to fly with the energy that you normally find around yourself on the surface of the planet, and the consumption from the Rubix cubes should be around 1,2% per half an hour." The man bid his farewell as quickly as he came, while Felix looked at his receding back. A notification appeared on his armor''s interface as Vangar''s face appeared in front of him: "I heard you are done with your problems, ready for another mission?" Chapter 155: Another mission and information on the invaders "Ready as I can be." Felix''s voice was full of confidence now that his problem was solved. He felt that he could do anything! This was just an illusion for him as he was on a high from the substances that the scientist pumped into him to get rid of his cancer cells. However, that didn''t last long, considering his exceptionally strong body. Felix sobered up rather quickly as he asked: "What''s the next mission?" Vangar caressed his chin for a few seconds before he said: "Well, the ship mission has already been finished while you have been fixing your problem. So that one is unavailable, but considering the length of the universe, there are still quite a lot of things to do left." "I will be honest with you Felix. The invaders are pushing us really hard. and we are currently doing our best to delay them so you can grow." "Your growth is quite fast, but the same thing can be said about the invaders breaking through our auxiliary armies, sooner or later, they will reach our main army, and the war will start for real." "Right now, they are at the very edge of our farthest placed army units, very far away from our planets or main corps, but the way they invade our network, hack through our communication channels and steal information is very unique and hard to defend against." "We are getting constant headaches, and we are losing troops day by day, so the higher-ups have decided to speed up your growth plan." Speed up the growth plan? Felix felt that he was improving extremely quickly right now. If he was to compare himself to the time when he was living back on the planet, and this wasn''t fast enough? Seeing that Felix had doubts made Vangar say: "Don''t worry. The speed-up plan won''t affect you. It will be beneficial to you." "In what way beneficial?" Vangar decided to explain to him directly: "Well, you will have direct access to our most important energy source after your body would have acclimatized to the races that we will tell you to eat." "Our scientists have analyzed a lot of the captured races and have come to a consensus, the best way for you two grow has been created, and the most suited races had been picked for you to feast on so you can evolve." "Your mission doesn''t involve combat anymore as they are all meant to strengthen you. We have analyzed your combat capabilities and have found that you don''t need any more experience. All you need is your strength to get increased marginally and become used to it in a short time." "We have prepared a new place for you, a previously uninhabited planet now is full of the people that you need to consume to reach your peak. After your body had gone through all of the necessary evolutions, we will contact you once again for the last strengthening step you need to take." Felix nodded as he fully digested the plan, he knew that he needed to do this to protect the planet, so he was going to go through with everything that the humans told him as a sense of belonging had been created in him as he lived on the planet, and he didn''t want anything to happen to it and some select few inhabitants. Felix didn''t have to wait for much time- before he was having that sick feeling in his stomach again. The teleportation initiated as he saw the multicolored light surrounding him. This time the teleportation was shorter compared to the last time. Felix could feel that he arrived, and soon enough he opened his eyes as he found himself in a jungle. All of the vegetation surrounding him was of deep purple color, and as he breathed in and out through his armor, a notification from the AI came: [Planet #20246 of the Human Federation, the planet has been outfitted for Felix''s needs and is now his personal growth sanctuary until further notice.] Felix looked around and started to fly out of the jungle area to find a better vantage area as he knew that he was supposed to eat some prepared people here, but he didn''t see any in the jungle. As he flew into the green skies of the planet, he could see more parts of it, and his senses told him that it was populated. He got the general direction of the living people on the planet, and he started flying that way, Felix wasn''t sure why Vangar and the others didn''t directly teleport him to them as it would have saved them time, which they really needed. Felix turned on his stealth technique as he flew high above a grove of fruit trees that resembled oranges, but they were green and had circle patterns on them with bulbous protrusions. Felix could sense a few people in the grove, so he slowly made his way down and hid at the top of the crown of one of the trees as he heard rustling coming from one of the shrubs below. He could clearly hear the heartbeats of the living beings below, they were scared and their breathing was quick as they looked around in fear of the unknown. Felix could see that two young beings were huddling against each other in one of the shrubs as he changed his position at the top of the tree. They both were oblivious to the fact that they were being currently observed. Felix could see that they were of different races. And that meant they didn''t know each other, but the circumstances must have pushed them together to survive. Felix felt a strange feeling going through him as he looked at these two youth aliens, he knew that he must devour them to gain the properties of their races, but he also felt rather reluctant. But that feeling of reluctance didn''t last long in him as he steeled his conviction. No matter how empathic he had become along the way, he was still the same person. He slowly crept down from the tree, as if he was a spider ready to spin his web around his prey and suffocate it to death. The two oblivious targets still shivered under the tree, only for two muffled thuds to be heard shortly after. After the thuds, crunching sounds were heard as Felix came out of the shrubs with a little bit of blood sticking on his armor at his paws area, but the blood was quickly absorbed by the armor, and nothing was left behind. The shivering duo never appeared again as Felix flexed his body and felt the new changes that were coursing through it. A notification appeared in his face as the AI told him the origins of the two beings he had absorbed: [Miskus Ekolemus or also known as the race of those that don''t sleep, is a plant-based species that remove the energy conversion state of sleeping with a more advanced level of energy-absorbing through photosynthesis.] [Barthus Akomoleus is a species recently found by the federation that has high regenerative capabilities to the point that they would only die if all of their cells are destroyed.] Felix nodded seeing the information, he could feel that his body was very energetic right now, as for the regeneration thing he would see later. He knew there were a lot more people hidden on the planet that he needed to find and devour, to gain all of the abilities and bodily upgrades that he needed to defend the planet in the crisis that was to come. He started to concentrate on the energy and life levels he felt around the planet, now that he had devoured the photosynthesis plant being, he could control the energy around him in a better fashion compared to before. His energy-sensing range also skyrocketed as he could now sense half of the planet range if he concentrated properly. All he needed to do was pick a target as every being on the planet had quite a distance from each other. The only surprising thing was that he had found a duo of targets in the first moments that he had arrived on the planet... Well, it didn''t matter much. A pulse came from Felix''s forehead as he almost stumbled where he stood. This time it didn''t come from his own body as Willie woke up from his relatively long sleep. Felix could sense that Willie was removing himself from his forehead as energy coursed through the tree wisp, it seems that after this last absorption Willie gained enough natural energy to finally be able to create a fleshly body of his own. The wisp''s consciousness seemed to be fuzzy, as it didn''t say anything, and immediately started to construct a cocoon around him in the middle of the grove near Felix. The transformation was sudden and without warning, and even Felix wasn''t sure what to do in this situation, but he had signed a contract with Willie, and he had to meet his end of the bargain. Chapter 156: Assimilating rare races (1) Willie''s transformation looked to be beginning, and from what Felix could sense, it would be a rather flashy transformation. That meant all of his prey would be alerted by him and two things could happen in this situation: A. They would all run away from this direction. Making things harder for Felix. B. They would all run in this direction to devour Willie and gain his ability. From what could be seen. Willie''s evolution to get a fleshly body looked to be rather impressive. Not visuals alone, the things that went around Willie as he spun his cocoon around him were very interesting to Felix. They were new appliances of energy that he never thought about mostly because his ability evolved his body for him automatically. If he would have gone through a similar process, he would have learned them by himself, but all he needed to do was absorb the DNA of the target in moderate quantities and wait before his body would evolve by itself. Felix could sense that the people on the planet were wary of the new energy readings, they were all hiding around in different spots on the planet, and some energy readings even disappeared as Willie''s energy appeared. Some of them were scared of the new energy that released itself so blatantly. But some others were interested in the energy. Willie''s energy was very appetizing as he was a nature spirit and someone who absorbed quite a lot of ''natural energy'' from Felix. Felix''s natural energy was very pure and highly concentrated, so Willie was like a fattened pig right now. He was a tantalizing morsel for those around, and it was a dumb thing to think that the planet was filled with only helpless aliens like the two that Felix first ate. While Vangar said that Felix''s missions wouldn''t consider combat anymore, things would be too easy if they served him the things that he needed directly, or else he would have just given Felix the corpses of those races already instead of sending him to this planet. Felix knew what they wanted from him, fight the captives on the planets and assimilate their fighting knowledge along with their genes! Every race had their own way of fighting, and if Felix could combine their fighting knowledge with their genes, he would become way stronger, only assimilating the DNA without knowing how to control the new organs or special abilities that he would get would lower his peak combat potential. Willie''s situation put Felix in an awkward place, but he hoped that he would actually attract some of the beings on the planet so he would be able to catch them easily. So he could both protect him and do the mission. Felix sat on the ground near Willie as the armor gathered energy in the Rubix cubes on his back for any future space traveling. Now that he was on a planet, he could use the hex energy in the surroundings just like he did on his home planet. Felix meditated with his eyes closed as the fluctuations of energy near him kept him company, Willie''s transformation was both methodical and thorough at the same time. Felix could understand a lot of new things about the energy and fleshly body transformation from the way Willie was transforming in his cocoon. As Willie was an energy being, the transition between energy and flesh was very educational for those that sensed from nearby. Suddenly Felix opened his eyes as he glanced around, he sensed something approaching him and Willie, but as he looked in his surroundings, he realized that there was nothing. "Very strange..." Felix muttered lowly as he thought about what could have created such a feeling... then his eyes widened as he jumped a few meters to the side, a gash appearing where he previously stood and purple-green gas slowly floating into the air above it. This was a very advanced poison and stealth! The stealth was so good that Felix almost didn''t see it coming. Only with his vast experience and knowledge about stealth did he dodge at the last second. A race that was better at stealth than him? It wasn''t surprising considering even Vangar was better at stealth than him, but he didn''t think that the human federation left people on Vangar''s level on this planet. Felix jumped back near''s Willie''s cocoon as he used his armor to parry another attack which left a small gash on his armor. There were no mocking voices nor were there any conversations. This was an assassin battle, and any extra sounds would give the opponent a great advantage in the fight. Felix narrowed his eyes before closing them. He activated his killing intent detection to its maximum capacity as he flashed around the cocoon, blocking or defusing any attempts on Willie''s life. His armor was full of gashes that bleed a purple substance which rusted his armor also and made it heavier. Felix could feel the armor inhibiting his movements as the fighting continued. It was hard for him to identify the location of the stealth attacker, and he finally got a taste of how it was to fight him. It was quite annoying, there was nothing he could do besides defending, and he would have had an even harder time if his opponent grasped killing intent masking. Of course, the attacks weren''t really strong, and all he had to watch out for was the poison, it didn''t seem to be a poison that infiltrated the body and destroyed it from the inside, he had great resistance to those types of poisons, but he never saw one that rusted metal. He wasn''t sure what it would do to his body, and he didn''t want to find out either. Felix''s aura activated as lightning slowly engulfed him, the enemy had a speed advantage over him, but the moment his lightning armor activated, that advantage became Felix''s. He easily parried all of the attacks as he used the lightning to cleanse the armor from its rust and heaviness. His eyes darted around as he focused his senses around him instead of watching those distant energies that were watching the current fight. The more he focused he senses the better they became in a short distance until he could actually sense his opponent darting around like a slippery loach and launching those attacks at him. Even though they had been fighting for hours on end, up till now, both he and Felix didn''t seem to get exhausted at all. Felix couldn''t see his appearance clearly, but now that he got his location, he didn''t even need to know how he looked. His power increased suddenly as he used his armor paw to hit an empty location in front of him. Analyzing his jumping pattern, Felix had predicted where he would jump next and attacked with his full strength there! His attack connected with a soft furry body as a squeal and the first sound of the fight beside the sound of metal hitting metal was heard. Felix jumped atop the downed body of the attacker and put his paw directly over the neck of the aggressor. His claw clenched over his neck as he took a look at his appearance. The aggressor was a small furry being that stood around 30 centimeters tall. His body was practically a dark fluff ball, and two green scared eyes bore into Felix''s own. He looked like a guinea pig that had never been groomed in its life. Felix glanced into its eyes before the paw tightened over its neck until all life was wrung out of him. A notification appeared in the armor that said: [Alus Barolo, one of the races with the best-suited bodies for stealth and infiltration, their natural talents for stealth aren''t high, but their physiques make up for it as their bodies make no sound when they move, and their fur is specially grown to reflect the light and darkness in such a way that they meld into the surroundings with ease. Combined with the stealth techniques they learn since young, they become fearsome assassins even if they aren''t coming from talented bloodlines.] Felix''s armor made sucking sounds as the DNA from the guinea pig look-alike was absorbed into Felix''s body and bloodstream. Felix could immediately feel something was changing in him as his originally orange fur slowly started to turn dark. The beans on his paws were the next thing to change as they shrunk in height. But filled his paws more as they become one chunk. Felix couldn''t feel it now, but the people that were originally looking at the fight and sensed him before couldn''t do so anymore. They were all puzzled as they thought that Felix died. And the Alus Bolo warrior won, but Willie''s energy was still being exuded, so that wasn''t right... No one knew how Felix looked or what race he was from, so they weren''t sure if he was also a stealth expert. Thus the greedier ones slowly made their way towards Willie''s location, hoping that the two fought each other until exhaustion and they would be able to benefit... Chapter 157: Assimilating rare races (2) Felix could easily feel the energy of those that tried to approach Willie''s location. Since they thought that Felix and the guinea pig had injured each other, maybe fatally. They wanted to get a piece of the fat meat that was being dangled in front of them. They didn''t know if it was a trap, but Willie was just too tantalizing for them to give up this opportunity. Felix''s body slowly disappeared as he became unseeable and unsenseable. There was no trace left of him around, and even if Willie was awake right now, he would become scared. Thinking that Felix disappeared from thin air, despite their spiritual bond. Felix was crouching nearby as he observed the surroundings with his senses and advanced eyesight. He could feel how his future prey was getting closer and closer to his hunting spot. They were almost here... Felix could see their silhouettes on the horizon as they approached his location quickly. They were two big fellows with blank white faces and rippling muscles all over their bodies. They had no facial features besides their eyes, which were two big black dots. They wore dark suits that covered their whole bodies, and they walked in tandem as if they were the same person or was a body that shared one brain. Even their mannerisms were identical. They were a strange pair of twins, and Felix could feel that their energy was rather muddy. It wasn''t the pure type of energy that could be used nor absorbed. He felt disgusted by it as it reminded him of the time he died by poisoning over the mixed energy in the simulation. Did he need to eat them? He decided to question the armor''s AI: "What''s wrong with these two?" [Beep! Unknown races had been detected... these two beings aren''t in the database meant for this planet nor in the federations. They are unknown infiltrators who somehow found this planet... something must have happened with the coordinates of the planet, and they got leaked out. I shall send an SOS signal immediately.] Unknown beings? Infiltrators? That sounded pretty suspicious. Felix wasn''t sure how these two found the planet or why they were here, but he could found out after he captured them! [It''s indicated that you should not come in contact with these two, there is a high chance you are the reason they are here, keeping you safe so you can grow further is the highest priority mission in my interface!] Felix could feel his body which was ready to spring up and get a fight on with these two strange fellows, slowly mellow down and weaken. He felt his legs give up on him as the armor controlled his body to get away from their current location and find the teleportation point. Fighting unknown beings that could have strength above Felix''s was something that the AI wasn''t programmed to let happen. Felix''s safety was of utmost importance as he was the only being that could grow to the level of the invaders and even above it as long as he was helped properly. Who knew if there would be a second person like Felix in existence? Right now, he was a strategic resource that would grow infinitely in the future, and no one would want to lose such a resource due to a small mistake. Felix tried to struggle. He couldn''t live Willie alone as he had signed a contract with him, and if he broke it there would be some consequences. Of course, it wouldn''t be of much damage to Felix as the signed contract wasn''t equal at all, it was very favored in Felix''s direction, but Felix wasn''t a cat that broke his promises. The armor was bonded to Felix''s body after he wore it for such a long time, but Felix was the owner of the armor and not the other way around. His weakening body broke through the constraints of the armor as he took control back. Felix didn''t feel any danger coming from the duo. So he wouldn''t leave Willie to the lurch. He continued to stay near Willie in his perfect stealth as he waited for the duo to come closer so he can get them by surprise. Felix''s hidden aura was ready to burst as the faceless beings inched closer to Willie''s cocoon. They were almost in striking range, but the duo was still warily checking their surroundings. It seemed that while they were greedy for Willie''s energy, they weren''t very dumb as they still thought about a possible ambush. If Felix was honest with himself, the duo''s defensive stance was airtight. Even with all of his experience in slaughtering, he couldn''t find a good weak spot where he could strike, but maybe if they got a little bit closer... However, from the distance, he could see that they made up for each other''s weaknesses. They were like two well-oiled machines even though they had this disgusting feeling about them. They weren''t people that Felix could look down upon. The special aura around them made Felix''s nose itchy as he continued to wait until they were in the right position. It took a few minutes, but they were finally close enough for him to see a little gap in their combined defenses. But he didn''t attack yet... his senses told him that gap was actually a trap! It wasn''t obvious at first glance, but Felix could see the trap from a mile away due to his battlefield experience. This type of opening before the counter was something that happened a lot of times against him because it was the most optimal technique against stealth experts and assassins. But to an assassin with the ultimate patience, the technique wouldn''t mean much. And Felix had plenty of patience in him. They took a few steps towards Willie before they made motions with their featureless faces. They almost looked like they were smelling the air... It was a very disturbing sight, but Felix waited for them to finish. He knew that the last alien he had devoured gave him increased stealth capabilities, so he wasn''t scared of anything right now. Finally, they took another step towards Felix''s direction, thinking that there was truly no one around, and the two people that fought here beforehand must have injured each other and gave up on Willie''s energy. However, the last step was deadly to them as Felix struck them directly in their buff chests until pale blood dropped from the incisions he precisely made there. His claw''s sharpness had increased with his normal bodily evolutions. And the increase of his bodily power from the aura evolution. The attack was sudden and fast, making the duo unable to defend themselves and take it head-on. Blood dripped down from their injuries as they supported each other and glared at Felix with their dark bead-like eyes. They had no mouths, but sound still came from their bodies. It was just unknown where it was actually coming from. But no matter what they said, Felix couldn''t understand, then the translation feature of the armor activated, and Felix could understand them. "Brother, what are we gonna do now? We have been injured!" "Yeah, what are we gonna do?" Their tones were extremely sarcastic as they eyed Felix''s form. If they had a more defined face their expressions would be smug as well. However, they suddenly felt the pain in their injuries expand over all of their body. And then paralyze them. They tried to break the paralysis as their muscles trembled until even more blood started to spout out of their injuries, normally they sealed them already, but they realized that was a mistake on their part. Felix had also inherited the poison spawning ability of the guinea pig he ate, but his poison was way weaker and it couldn''t erode the bodies of the pale duo. All it could do was paralyze them, and if he wanted to get a poison as strong as the fellow he fought before, he would need to eat more guinea pigs'' look-alikes. But for now, this poison was good enough for Felix. Felix wasn''t idle while the duo tried to expunge the poison out of their bodies. He had already jumped atop their bodies and pinned them to the ground as he headbutted their heads multiple times until they became dizzy. Blood flowed from the openings on their heads, but they slowly closed soon after they appeared. It seemed their regenerative abilities were top-notch as their paralyzed bodies returned to their normal selves and pushed Felix away from atop of them. They shook at the same time as they tried to grab Felix by the tail, only to realize that he disappeared again. They were both angry as they tried to identify his location, only to fail. They tried to blitz Willie''s cocoon and steal him while Felix was still in stealth, however, the moment they tried to do that, they found themselves skewered from the belly down as they became two torsos without legs. Felix glanced at the downed legs, but his eyes widened in surprise as the two pairs of legs kicked him in the stomach and started to run towards the duo''s torsos. Felix got up from his downed position and entered stealth again. He wouldn''t let them get near Willie that easily... Chapter 158: Some leaked intel Felix could see from his new hidden spot that the legs he severed- were running quickly towards the duo''s torsos. Then the duo jumped on the legs with their stumps and stitched their bodies back onto them, making the clean-cut below their belly slowly seal itself. The cut that Felix gave them was deep, and it was previously bleeding. But the moment their legs met their injured area, something happened. Their wounded areas immediately sealed up as if Felix never cut them there. Then they got up and started running on their feet instead of using their arms. It was obvious they had been through similar situations before. As they looked rather experienced in what they were doing. It was obvious they were old hands at this type of thing. And they were ready to attack Willie''s cocoon at any moment, trying to find any opening, unfortunately, for them. They were trying to find a weak spot or an opening in an enemy that couldn''t be seen nor sensed. This was a new experience for them, and thus the ball was in Felix''s field. He had the advantage and the power to stop them, but their regenerative capabilities were outrageous maybe they were from the same race as that plant being he had eaten beforehand. But then he shook his head as the armor did mention that they were unknown races. The armor did say that their regenerative capabilities were off the charts, but Felix didn''t get to see any of those traits within himself yet. Maybe it because he was the type of person who didn''t get injured easily due to his cautious nature. But that didn''t matter right now as Felix could find out how the ability worked by fighting these two live examples. He circled them as they tried to get closer to Willie''s cocoon. But no matter what direction they took, they found themselves hit in a vital area by Felix''s claws. The armor AI stopped from pestering Felix, and now it was giving it live information that it was gathering from the tissues it was absorbing through the fight, analyzing their DNA and getting to know their strengths and weaknesses, while it was also sending the new information to the federation''s network. [New weak point detected, any hits under the armpits would remove the target''s arms.] It was a pretty neat thing, but hitting them in their weak points was easier said than done. Knowing where to hit and reaching the point were two different things. From their stance, it was obvious they were protecting their fatal weak points with the best of their abilities while leaving the non-fatal ones out for bait. There wasn''t much Felix could do about that unless he got rid of one of them. Unfortunately, they created an airtight defense around them, and Felix could only attack and push them back when they tried to move closer to Willie. That was the only time they let their guards down as they couldn''t keep their perfect stances while moving at the same time. Felix''s silhouette appeared below the two as he tried to hit them between the legs as that''s where the armor said there was another extremely weak spot. Felix''s kick connected with the place below the waist as a cringe-worthy breaking sound was heard afterward. If the fellows had any facial features, they wouldn''t be smiling prettily right now. They were both extremely angry as they tried to stomp Felix out again, but they failed. After all of this time of running back and forth, the pale duo realized that it was a futile effort to try and absorb Willie, he was protected way too well, and they might even get killed here if they continued their efforts mindlessly. They needed a plan and someone else to act with them, Willie wouldn''t leave anywhere as long as he continued his evolution, so they needed to escape for now. The pale duo started to quickly run in the opposite direction as they made up their minds. There was no reason for them to continue this anymore. Their speed was very quick as they passed 200 meters away from Willie, and they were slowly disappearing into the jungle. However, Felix didn''t want to lose them already as they were invaders who weren''t supposed to be here, and they must have gotten something that had to lead them to this planet. And he wanted to find out what it was. Who knew what kind of traitors existed among the humans? Or did some enemies infiltrate the system? Felix followed them from above as he flew as quickly as they ran, maybe even a little bit faster than them. The pale duo didn''t know that they were being followed as they thought the person that pushed them back was there only to protect Willie. However, when Felix dropped atop of them- after he became 2,5 meters tall and 2 tons heavy, they realized that they hadn''t anticipated this could ever happen. Felix''s heavy body stopped them from taking any step forward as no matter how good their regenerative abilities were. They didn''t grant them any strength. They tried their best to struggle, but Felix had already grabbed them in his mouth and chewed them like bubble gum. At this point, there was nothing more they could besides accepting their fate. Felix returned to Willie''s location as he spat out the pale duo, who couldn''t look any worse than they currently were. There were teeth marks all over their bodies, and their limbs were severed by Felix''s strong teeth. While the limbs did try to escape, they were held by Felix''s giant mouth, and only their torsos were spat out. Their featureless faces started to morph as their anger was so high that they could have popped a vein here and now. However, Felix could care less about their anger as he questioned them: "Who are you? Who sent you here?" Of course, the AI from the armor was translating the words automatically. The duo chuckled sarcastically as they tried to help each other up. But without limbs, it was rather hard. "Want to find out? Why don''t you try to make us spill what we know?" A voice came out of the armor but now it wasn''t Felix''s: "That won''t be needed." Vangar silhouetted appeared out of nowhere as he teleported directly on the planet and grabbed the duo. The duo''s danger instincts immediately turned on as they tried to struggle out of Vangar''s grip with all of their might, only to fail so hard that they realized their fate was sealed. Then they looked down with their bead-like eyes, not saying anything. The light slowly engulfed their bodies as the heat in the surroundings was increasing at quick speeds. Vangar snorted as he gave them both a palm on their faces, making their self-destructive attempt fail miserably. Blue tears slowly slid down from their beady eyes as they cried. They didn''t want this to happen. They didn''t like this and they just wanted to save their captured clansmen. Vangar didn''t care about their emotions, as he emotionlessly hoisted them up both on his shoulders and then looked up at Felix, who was still in his giant mode. "You should spit their limbs as well as they would be useful to the scientist team analysis speed." Felix spat out the trembling limbs out of his mouth. Which Vangar quickly caught as if they weren''t fast at all. Then he smiled at Felix as he disappeared in a small flash of multicolored light. Felix returned to his normal form as he waited beside Willie''s side, it was unknown if anyone else would approach Willie after everything that happened up till now, but Felix wouldn''t leave him until he gained his fleshly body. Time slowly passed as day and night changed as Felix just meditated beside Willy and observed the changes in the energy around him. No more attempts upon Willie''s life happened while Felix was guarding him. All of the other people on the planet were either trying to escape the planet or hiding as they realized that an apex predator was with them on the planet, they didn''t want to stay one more day on it, but unfortunately for them, the planet was already locked down by the human federation. They didn''t want anything similar to happen as the incident with the two pale aliens. And they didn''t want Felix''s prey to leave either, so they locked down the planet and encircled it with 3 huge ships. Now Felix was free to continue the hunt without the worry of anything else happening as he needed to polish his body''s genes and evolve further. Time passed, and it was finally Willie''s turn to leave his cocoon. The cocoon started to slowly break down as a hand broke through the cracks that just appeared. The skin was entirely white and flawless as the cocoon broke down from the middle, and Willie''s full appearance was present directly to Felix. However, Felix didn''t get much time to look at him as the communicator in the armor flared to life, and Vangar''s face came up. He immediately went to business as he said directly: "Someone has leaked some of our intel..." Chapter 159: A little plan and the hunt continues Even though the news was important, Vangar didn''t look to be angered nor worried about their leaked intel. "It seems someone from the intelligence department had decided to give us a surprise." Vangar was almost chuckling as he said that. It seemed the leaked intel wasn''t something bad? "We have already interrogated the duo with our best torture specialists, and we found out everything." "It seems that one of our intelligence captains had leaked out some intel so these two can be captured, he threw out the bait, and these two had bitten it." "You don''t have to worry cause they will be sent back so you can chew on them. We will make them less springy for you so you can improve your regenerative abilities even more." Vangar''s connection cut off. Felix wasn''t sure why Vangar insisted on him getting higher regenerative abilities. They knew he was God''s chosen, and he had multiple lives. Of course, getting him regenerative abilities would make killing him so annoying that no one would be able to. Were the invaders so troublesome that he had to combine two annoying things and become the ultimate cockroach? Felix stopped thinking about it as Willie''s body started shining and attracted his attention as he took a good look at him for the first time. Willie had pale white skin, and he stood at an average height of 1,72 meters. He was completely naked, but from the lack of genitalia, he didn''t seem to have any gender. His pure orange hair was long, reaching his shoulders. His features were unclear. But soon after, they appeared in Felix''s eyes. He had baby blue oval eyes, thin lips, and a small nose. His chin was well defined, and his body was thin but packed with a little bit of muscle. He shook his head as he became awake and looked around before glancing at Felix and giving a soft smile that showed his sharp and pure white teeth. His teeth looked almost as if they were from a shark. "I have done it, Felix... I have finally gained a body, and it''s all thanks to you!" The former wisp was really happy as he ran towards Felix and gave him a big hug. It was obvious he was very grateful for what Felix did to him. And he also understood that he protected him during his metamorphosis. From the damaged area to the bits and pieces of blood and skin thrown around. He could infer what happened. Felix got himself out of Willie''s hug and shook his head as he said: "Well, that was my job. The contract is finally fulfilled on my part, and now you are my servant." Willie gave out a small salute as Felix asked him: "So what abilities have you gotten after you evolved?" Willie scratched his chin and thought for a little while before he put his hand forward. Creating a small ball of energy. Then he threw the ball of energy directly to Felix. Who didn''t dodge it and let it collide with him? Felix''s body was enshrouded in pure white light as he felt his stagnant breathing technique working by itself, filling his organs and advancing towards the second stage of the green aura state. Now that they all fused, he only had to feed his heart with energy as it would diffuse to his other organs by itself. It would take more energy than normal. But it would also cut the time it needed to train the techniques if the energy was gathered. Felix could feel that one little ball of energy almost got him to the second stage of the green aura state, which was extremely impressive, he wasn''t sure how Willie got so much energy in him, but it was something rather impressive. Felix asked him: "How many of those balls can you conjure?" But Willie didn''t respond to him for a short time as he gathered his breath. His white face paled even further as his circulation slowed down. "I''m not sure... maybe one a few months?" It was rather slow, but the improvement was marginal in Felix''s breathing technique, so it wasn''t a really bad trade-off. "Well, that''s good enough. Anything else you can do?" Willie shook his head: "I don''t think I can do anything else for now." Felix nodded as he contacted Vangar through the armor: "Can you teleport my pal Willie here somewhere safe back on our planet?" Vangar nodded, and Willie started to disappear into a bunch of multicolored light just as Vangar had done before. After Willie vanished as if he was never there. Felix did the same, but unlike Willie, he only entered his stealth mode, and he didn''t teleport. It was finally time for him to find the other preys and get all of the extra evolutions and abilities. Felix slowly made his way through the jungle as he expanded his senses to their fullest potential. He could sense every living being on the planet, be them locals or the prey that the federation had thrown on this planet so he could hunt them. Felix had already pinned down two weaker auras that he could hunt, they were 200 kilometers away from his current location, and he would be able to arrive there in a few tens of minutes if he rushed. Felix could feel his blood flow quicken as he made his way towards those two preys, his inner hunter had awakened, and it was ready to unleash the hidden beast in Felix''s blood. As an animal, no matter how much he evolved, he would never lose his roots unless a very long time passed away, washing down his instincts. Felix''s body agilely traveled through the foliage of the trees as he bypassed the jungle to arrive at a clear river where nothing could be seen in sight, at least in the normal one. Things changed as Felix concentrated, and his senses retracted back to his surroundings instead of being expanded on the whole planet. He knew that the prey here must have hidden as they sensed his energy disappearing for good. They knew that he was on the hunt for them. However, it didn''t help them much that they knew. They couldn''t hide from Felix''s developed senses no matter what they did or how they did it. Felix could sense their location after he concentrated his senses on a smaller area. They had dug into the ground and created a cave where they hid, scent and all. However, no matter how good they hid, their bodies were still releasing energy unconsciously as no one had perfect control over their energy unless their bodies were specifically made that way. That tiny amount of energy that they were releasing was what doomed them. Practically their existence was sealed the moment they were brought here. Felix jumped down the hidden entrance that they created, which they concealed using shrubs and leaves. He continued down a narrow tunnel as he made his way directly to the cave the duo created. But things weren''t as easy as he thought them to be. The moment he stepped into the cave, the entrance was immediately sealed up by a big boulder, and spikes attacked him from all directions. There were no signs of the duo even though their energy signatures were nearby. Felix had fallen right into a trap! Or did he? All of the spikes that were launched at him were easily deflected by his armor, they didn''t even get to pierce into it nor touch his fur, and even if they did, his hardened fur wouldn''t have let them reach his skin anyways. The attempt on his life didn''t faze him at all. It was as if he expected something like this would happen. He didn''t remain idle as he dismantled all of the traps in the cave and looked around. He smelled the air and used his ears to hear everything that was around him, even the smallest changes in the cave. Felix knew that there was no way his senses were wrong. They were here and they were hiding. He wanted to find out where. He was slowly smelling them out as his eyes darted from place to place, in a small corner. Further deep into the cave, where another hole has been created and covered with gravel, the duo was observing everything that was happening. They had covered the whole cave with their energy signatures, so Felix would have a hard time finding them and they hid in an inconspicuous corner, and they hoped that Felix would get bored of searching and leave. They would have been trembling in their boots if they didn''t fear that would attract Felix''s attention to their location. However, no matter how well they controlled their emotions... Felix could find them, and he did. He slowly slithered at the top of the cave''s ceiling as he looked from above. Slowly making his way to the corner they were hiding in. He had sensed the highest aura concentration there and decided to investigate. He slowly made his way down from the ceiling while in stealth. He didn''t find anything strange around, just a little mound of rocks and gravel, which looked eerily suspicious. Felix smiled to himself. They did a great job hiding, but in the end, they were still going into his tummy, for the greater good, of course. Chapter 160: Absorbing more and more The two were in the unknown about the fact that Felix had found out their hideout. They were still hoping that Felix would be searching around fruitlessly and get bored, then leave. The duo didn''t know each other before they had arrived on this planet, but they fought a little bit when they met and created a bond, becoming friends in the process. They were the rare example of two people that teamed up because of friendship and not because it would increase their survival chances. Unfortunately for them, due to their proximity to Felix, they would be the first ones to fall. Felix snaked his paw into the hole they made and dragged it outside, one of the hidden prey. It was a small humanoid being with big bug-like eyes and a horn on his forehead, his eyes had multiple pupils, and he wore a dark-green robe with camouflage patterns. He tried to screech to his friend to run, but before he could do that, his head was impaled by Felix''s armored paw, and a needle came out of that part and inserted itself directly into the dwarfs'' head. He became a desiccated corpse soon after, and due to the lack of fluids in the body, it slowly broke down into dust that remained there. Felix ignored the small dust pile as he inserted his paw once again into the hole and drew out another prey. This person was a little different as he was tall and thin, he stood around 1,70 meters, and no matter what he did, he couldn''t get out of Felix''s grasp, it was quite a strange sight for a regularly sized cat to be able to lift an average-sized man like that and hold him in an iron-like grip. Even though he was humanoid, he had a bug-like appearance with grey skin and tattoos all over his body, which seemed to be coming from his abilities because as he tried to struggle out of Felix''s grasp, the tattoos lit up and increased his muscular strength. However, no matter how much his muscle size increased, he wasn''t going to get out of Felix''s grasp. The needle from his armor extended once again and inserted itself into the bug-like alien''s head, extracting all of the liquids from his body and transforming him into a pile of dust. Felix started to writhe on the ground as he was ejected from the armor. This never happened up till now, and he felt his skin cracking and his fur falling off, then the armor sent a message to him: [Bisus Alienus. The insectoid that you have devoured just now has the power to massively increase his muscle strength through totem tattoos that are inherited from his bloodline. His race also has the ability to shed its skin and massively increase its defenses once its life.] [The dwarf that you have absorbed has enchanted eyesight and sensing abilities, among with a natural organ in its brain that gives it increased thinking capabilities.] Felix''s body started to crack, his skin broke down and shed itself as if he wasn''t a cat at all, the same thing happened with his fur, and on his bare skin, bloody tattoos started to appear. They didn''t resemble anything coming from the insectoid as they were all tattoos that Felix acquired from his breathing techniques, but now they were externalized instead of being only on his organs. The tattoos stopped appearing on Felix''s body as they all took the right places. Felix got up from the ground as he finished shedding his skin and fur, and then quickly another batch covered his body. He could feel the improvements as his body evolved once again. His former senses could already cover a whole planet, but now they could extend even in outer space! He could even sense the fleet that was encircling the planet! As for the improvement on his strength? He could feel his whole body being so light that it didn''t even weigh anything, but this was a misconception in his senses, his body had actually become extremely heavy once again after this evolution, but his strength had improved so much that it felt like it weighed nothing at all to him. He entered back into the armor and left the underground cave as he breathed in the air outside. Something had changed in him after this evolution. He could feel the surrounding energy was rushing at him with each breath he took even though he didn''t catalyze any breathing techniques. It seemed that he didn''t need to proactively use the breathing techniques anymore to improve as the energy would gather automatically in his body and improve by itself. The externalized tattoos were akin to new lungs that always breathed in for Felix, in the pattern of the breathing techniques without him needing to do anything. It was a phenomenal improvement! Felix started to search for more prey on the planet, these two weren''t the last ones, and from his senses, he could count at least 3 more that needed to be absorbed. But they were all scattered around instead of meeting with each other and teaming up. They were all in 3 different directions, which meant Felix would need a little bit more time to absorb all of them. However, before he could choose which direction to take, Vangar decided to call him: "Hey there, Felix! We have finished the job with that pale duo you have captured for us, and we are ready to send them back to you. And just as a reminder, while we have made them more chewable, they are still the same people, so don''t expect an easy time with them." Felix nodded, and a multicolored light appeared in front of him as two silhouettes appeared, and out of the light stumbled the faceless duo. There were some marks over their bodies, along with the fact that their skin tone had started to turn a shade of green, which showed their bodies had been tampered with. The duo looked at Felix with both wariness and fear as they tried to run away as they knew they weren''t Felix''s match after he transformed. However, before they could even take a step away from Felix, they found themselves being suffocated by something. The feeling of suffocation was intense for them as they grabbed their necks and took a few steps backward. They weren''t sure what was happening to them, but as they looked at Felix''s body they could see that his green aura was engulfing him totally and exerting immense pressure on them. But that didn''t make sense, as they had fought him beforehand, and his aura wasn''t so oppressive before. What could have changed in him after some hours in which they had been captured and tortured by the human federation? It was very strange and eerie, to say the least. They tried their best to leave Felix''s influence zone, but Felix would continue to take step after step towards them. Felix''s new tattoos were glowing under his fur, but it wasn''t really visible- as the green aura was covering everything. His body tattoos didn''t only improve his absorbing capability, but his actual battle power using his aura as well. Now that they were externalized, they were easier to use, and the boost they gave to Felix''s battle power was 3x higher than before! The pale duo, which could fight with Felix and even escape from him beforehand, couldn''t do anything to him anymore. The improvement in his battle power was huge as he didn''t even need to use his giant form anymore to suppress them. He easily slapped them around as if they were ragdolls, but their regenerative powers haven''t been suppressed. They easily recovered the scratches, cuts, and broken limbs that Felix gave them only with a little bit of time, 2-3 seconds at most. So Felix decided to get rid of them immediately as he didn''t have time to play anymore. Vangar said they would be easier to chew now, so he transformed into his giant form. It would be pretty inconvenient to eat them with his normal, small form as they were pretty tall, and it was easier to chew them whole while being gigantic. He wasn''t sure if he would be able to absorb them through the armor as he did with the other weaklings. Their regenerative powers were too great, so they might just recover the lost liquids while he was absorbing them. Felix then shook his head as he almost slapped himself, he thought that if he didn''t absorb them quickly, they would escape, but if they would be able to regenerate, he would be able to get more DNA from them and fully evolve, getting the best attributes from their race until they were useless to him, then he would get rid of them. Now that he made up his plan he reverted to his original form as he looked at the confused duo, which wondered why would he go back to his small form? When it looked like he was ready to end them both. Felix didn''t say anything as he slowly approached the immobilized aliens. He knew what to do now. Chapter 161: A qualitative change Felix''s steps weren''t fast or slow, but it looked like Felix was walking in slow motion to the tortured duo. Their beady black eyes were turning red as they became bloodshot, and their fear reached the apex as they watched helplessly how Felix raised his paw over to their heads. A small needle came out of Felix''s armor that made its way towards the forehead of one of the tortured aliens. The thing tried to back away as his ''brother'' tried to help him. However, they were both paralyzed, and no matter how much strength they used, nothing changed about that. They were like two flies in the web of a spider trying to mightily struggle out while the spider was getting closer and closer to them, his poisonous fangs ready to pierce into their heads and eat them whole! The situation was both serious and perilous for the duo, but in the end, what came to be had come. The needle from Felix''s armor pierced through both of the heads of the aliens. As it remained lodged in their skulls. It started to extract the DNA fluids from both of their brains at the same time. Then the DNA fluids raged through the tube into Felix''s body and bloodstream. Which made his body start spasming. This was a normal reaction to Felix as this happened to him multiple times, but this time it was different. The DNA that comes from these two was extremely pure and continuous. Even though the duo was shriveling at a fast pace, the luster of their skin and the fullness of their body returned as quickly as they left. Their regenerative abilities were extremely great, even though they had holes in their brains that leaked blood and other fluids into Felix''s body. It didn''t affect them much as they still lived as if nothing was happening. It was a strange sight, the duo was convulsing as their brains were picked apart and absorbed by Felix, but they returned to normal a few seconds later. This continued to happen for a few tens of minutes until Felix felt full. His body''s spasms increased so much that he looked ready to convulse to death. The duo was exhausted as they regenerated continuously from near death for almost 1 hour. And while their regenerative abilities were great, they didn''t come without a price. Of course. The price they had to pay was way lower compared to races with the same ability. They were at the forefront of regenerative races with the best ratio of cost to regeneration. It was also the sole reason they had been able to survive up till now. However, Felix didn''t leave unfinished business- before he could lose consciousness and enter the next evolutionary process, he transformed into his giant form and ate the duo. Chewing them like gum for a few minutes before swallowing the bits and pieces that remained of them into his tummy, where they quickly dissolved in his stomach acid. His stomach acid was rather special as his ability was enhancing it to digest anything that entered it, normally the duo would have regenerated into Felix''s body and maybe even come out, but unfortunately for them, that wouldn''t happen in this case. Felix felt his whole body rumbling as blood poured out of his eyes. His armor ejected him once more as he coughed out blood. His internal organs were shifting and changing as his body was transforming, adapting, and removing some of the useless aspects while improving the beneficial ones even further. This was a different evolution from before as the race of the two that Felix just ate was quite peculiar. While they looked humanoid, they were actually species based on different life frequencies, compared to the people that Felix had absorbed up till now. They were of a higher life level compared to normal and plain humans. However, they weren''t a combat-oriented race. But that weakness wouldn''t apply to Felix. Blood slowly coagulated around him in the form of a coffin while Felix''s body disappeared inside. It was an unpretty sight as the crimson coffin started to compress very slowly, painfully slow. Felix''s body inside was thrashing around as the pain of evolution struck his soul multiple times until it made him strike his head against the lid of the coffin made from his blood. Evolution was always painful, but no to this level. But that was because Felix never evolved beyond his current live level. All he did up until now were small jumps in power and evolution of the organs, muscles, skin, and other parts of his body. His life level hadn''t been touched- because he ate beings from a similar life level. But now he was changing. He wasn''t the same cat as before. With the evolution of the life level came the acclimatization to his current universe, and unlike before, where he wouldn''t have been able to have hex veins in his body, now there was a huge chance with this evolution, he would gain them! While Felix''s body was being tortured by the evolutionary process, his armor was staying near the coffin and registering everything that was happening while sending the data back to the scientist team back on the planet along with visual and audio data. Felix''s evolutionary process was something huge. So huge that it never happened before, and the armor decided to automatically register it. Back on the planet the scientist bundled around a gigantic computer that was showing the images of Felix''s evolution and started commenting: "This data doesn''t seem right. His life level is skipping several parts and is shooting upwards at immense speeds, he would soon reach the level of those higher races that used to bully our race!" "This is strange. Why would his evolutionary process create a coffin?" "Hmm... bring up the data of the last absorption that Felix had done using the armor." Two big frames with the data of the duo that was captured beforehand appeared in the face of the scientists as they looked through it and said: "These two... they are the so-called ''vampires'' of the universe." "It seems they had been captured earlier and sent to a high-security prison where all of their secrets had been unearthed by our direct superiors... and we thought they all lounge around all day and do nothing while we break our backs working for the better of the civilization." "Hey man comes on, they are our superiors for a reason, now sush, and let''s continue to observe the data. This is a monumental event for our civilization!" Felix''s evolution on the screen continued as the lid of the coffin started to slowly be broken by his assault, his pain intensified as he broke through the coffin, and steam started to appear and blurry the image that the scientists were looking at. Things were taking a strange turn as the scientists didn''t blink at all. They wanted to know what was going to come out of that coffin as normally Felix wouldn''t be a cat anymore after his life level would be elevated. A pure white hand appeared at the broken lid of the coffin through the mist. The hand supported itself on the coffin ledges as a new person got up from the coffin. Pure white skin, white hair, and purple eyes, he didn''t resemble Felix anymore at all, but he was still humanoid. Felix cracked his neck as he looked down at his body and felt something pulsing inside his belly. It was different from before as there was an empty feeling in there whenever he would use his hex techniques, seemingly as if he was lacking something that would improve them. He closed his eyes as his green aura engulfed him and the tattoos around his body lit up, blowing away the steam and destroying the blood coffin that he stood in. His full body was thus seen by the scientists, standing at around 1,87 meters, full of lean muscle with a sharp jaw and a small pretty face. His aura increased in intensity the more he stood there and he opened his purple eyes to look down at his abdomen in wonder... it felt like the energy he was absorbing from the surroundings was retained in there! Did he finally gain the ability that everyone was born with now? Felix flexed his body as the armor below him grew in size and attached itself to his body, hiding away his private parts. Felix checked the armor and felt it around his new body, it was a way different feeling than before walking on two legs was also different but unlike the first attempt with Vangar, now he could easily regain his balance and walk normally. He slowly felt overwhelmed as he could feel his body up to microscopic levels, there wasn''t anything that he didn''t know about it, and as he looked inside he saw his cells dividing at extremely fast paces that he couldn''t even count. He didn''t understand what that meant... would he age quickly now? But the armor came at him with a response: [Analysis of Felix''s body had been completed, an evolution towards Tier 3 life-form, gaining of humanoid body and increasing of regenerative abilities to a new level that isn''t found in the database, similar parameters in the strength level compared to the past evolution but further analysis needs to be done.] Felix flexed his muscles as he felt this wasn''t everything that changed about him... Chapter 162: Finishing the absorptions (1) Felix''s muscles made popping sounds as he flexed them, and he felt the energy from his stomach going directly into his muscles. A deep fire in his belly was activated as his muscles inflated and his strength reached another level. However, he quickly cut off the connection, and his strength returned to normal along with his muscular structure. This was also a new ability that he got from eating the duo. It was full control over his body tissues and organs as they all became rubber-like. Thus he would be able to inflate them without any problems, increasing his strength temporarily, and he could even increase his blood flow speed. Which would result in an overall boost in strength and speed at the same time. He would also take less to no damage from blunt attacks, but he wouldn''t be immune to lightning attacks as he wasn''t literally made of rubber, like a certain pirate captain. Felix cracked his neck and whole new body as he slowly adapted to it, then extended his senses once more, there weren''t many targets left on the planet that he needed to take care of, but he left the hardest ones for last. The strongest ones and the farthest ones from his current location. There were 3 left, and all of them were at different parts of the planet. He decided to start with the weakest one, but also the farthest. Felix''s flight speed had increased marginally after he had evolved into his human form. Combined with the thrusters from the armor, he easily got to the location of the weakest target in around half an hour. Even though the breathing techniques that the cats were able to employ didn''t work on his humanoid body anymore, that didn''t mean he didn''t know how to use and adapt them to his human form. He still knew how to use stealth, but the battle techniques weren''t useable anymore. However, it wasn''t like he needed them anymore anyways. His arrival was done in stealth, and the target was currently creating a defensive structure to defend itself from Felix''s wrath. The target was an octopus 5 meters tall that was currently creating a circular room made of hardened rock that it spit its ink on. Turning it deep black and shiny. From what Felix could observe, the defensive structure seemed pretty hard at first glance, but he didn''t come in contact with it, so he wasn''t 100% sure if he could break it or not but considering the octopus was still outside it and reinforcing it. He still had enough time to get rid of the octopus before it could enter. Felix''s stealth techniques reached an apex, and even though he wasn''t at the peak anymore due to him not having the cat form. He could still fool anyone that wasn''t extremely stronger than him. He thought that even Vangar would have a hard time identifying his location anymore. The octopus was in the unknown as Felix approached it from behind, his hand made into a strike position as he drove it through the bulbous giant head of the octopus. Blue blood immediately stained the ground below them as the octopus started to squirm and screech its lungs out. But it just ended up like others, it was the weakest one remaining, and its power wasn''t anything special. It may have survived for a bit longer if Felix didn''t catch it outside the defensive structure, but it would have still died in the end. Felix wondered what kind of special ability would he get from eating it, so he went directly to work as he dug in. Starting with the tentacles. Blue blood staining his lips as he ate until nothing was left behind. This time he didn''t use the armor''s needle anymore as he tried to eat with his new body. He wanted to see and feel if anything was different. He certainly tasted different textures compared to before, and he felt that his teeth were scraping and chewing the meat more easily than before, but he wasn''t sure why though. After he finished the octopus, he could feel something changing inside him as multiple arms grew out of his torso and his armor morphing accordingly. He didn''t see the benefit of having multiple arms as they retracted back into his body, but maybe they would be useful in the future. Felix shook his head as he looked at the hardened hideout and shot a punch towards it. He wanted to see how hard the defensive structure that the octopus had created was. The punch that went to the hardened dome-like structure was immediately deflected as if he hit a gigantic rubber ball. The ink that the octopus had spawned had created an elastic exterior to the hard rocks that were used as the foundation. Felix found the mixture of minerals and ink to be rather interesting as he increased the strength in his punches, only for them to be continuously deflected... it seemed that things would have taken a rather strange turn if he didn''t catch the octopus off guard. But it didn''t matter anymore as he stopped attacking the structure and left, flying towards another location. There were just 2 targets left, and he needed to take care of them. His speed was immense as he went towards the second to last target. He broke through the sound barrier as a small shockwave released itself while he flew. It was time he forsook stealth for the first time because he could sense that the aura of the enemy was flaring extremely high, showing that he knew he would come, and from its high intensity, he realized that this would be a deadly fight. It was a different sensation than before, and he found it strange he didn''t recognize such a strong aura while he searched around... maybe he was hiding, or maybe he was preparing to unleash his full power? It mattered not, as he wasted the best time to attack him, now that he was at his full power, all he needed to do was fight. Felix dropped to the ground in a superman pose as he created a crater below him, a voice could be heard coming from ahead that said: "It seems you are different from what I sensed before... you are something strange..." Felix''s ears perked up as he looked in front of him and saw a 3 meters tall abomination. His guts were hanging out of his body, and his rotten teeth were obviously showing as he opened his mouth to talk, bulbous eyes of different sizes were analyzing Felix''s body. He was rather bulky and fat at the same time, and there was a headless corpse behind him which radiated the strongest aura that Felix felt... however, he still felt that aura in a different direction even now. The abomination didn''t bother explaining the corpse that stood behind him as he launched himself at Felix with full power. His hanging guts started to expunge a noxious and poisonous gas that quickly converged to 50 kilometers around them, creating a deadly domain. This domain inhibited Felix''s strength, but it didn''t affect him any other way as the poison wasn''t strong enough to do anything to him. This made the abomination narrow its disproportionately sized eyes as it lunged at Felix at speeds that you wouldn''t think be possible with such a body. Felix lunged as well as their fists met in the middle, creating a sonic boom that made all of the surroundings tremble, even the planet itself moved as if an earthquake was happening. The duo''s strength had reached a level that even the generals on Felix''s planet never dreamed of, and Felix was still only at the green aura level! Felix didn''t say anything as his body was covered by lightning. His armor being enhanced as well. His skin started to turn a tinge of pink as his blood flow increased to high speeds. He didn''t want to lengthen this fight much, so he used all of his strengthening abilities at once. Felix''s body disappeared and then appeared in front of the abomination as his fist went through his opened stomach, and he grabbed his guts out, ripping them away from his stomach. Then he threw them away as he felt a sizzling sensation on his armor. While his body wouldn''t get damaged, it seemed his armor was weaker. Felix ignored the sizzling of the armor as his fists started to move at quick speeds striking the abomination''s chest multiple times, creating dents in his body and skeleton as the thing slowly broke apart. It seemed the being wasn''t at its full power, potential, it seemed rather brittle at first glance, and it could even be said to be weak. It was a disappointing fight, and the moment the thing started to break apart, it transformed into ashes and disappeared thoroughly without letting Felix absorb anything from it. The corpse that was behind the abomination also disappeared as if it was never there. And the aura that was located in a different direction started to fluctuate and even disappeared afterward! Felix didn''t know how to make head or tails about this. What did all of this even mean? He wanted to contact Vangar, but the AI of the armor didn''t respond to him anymore, and if he took a better look at it. He realized that the armor broke down and all of its functions ceased, besides being a hunk of junk that protected his body, which was actually stronger than the armor itself. Felix sighed. What was this abominations plan? Chapter 163: Finishing the absorptions (2) Felix couldn''t understand what just happened right now. What did his action of killing the abomination actually do? Did he killed them both and destroyed the links between those auras? He wasn''t really sure, but one thing he knew was that this might be another attempt at escaping from the planet. While the planet was surrounded by human ships, that didn''t mean there were 0 chances of escape for the people that had been thrown on this planet. The chances were minuscule but still existed. Felix was flabbergasted by the current situation as he became used to finding his enemies through their aura, and now that the last person''s aura disappeared, he didn''t know where to go... It seemed that becoming too reliant on energy-sensing. Made Felix a little bit rusty in the hunting department. Normally as a former cat, he should be an expert hunter. But as things progressed, Felix made less and less use of his base instincts. It was a problem that appeared in all cats, especially the heavily domesticated ones. Sometimes, they would reach such high idiocy that they wouldn''t even know the food was placed in front of them if it wasn''t in their usual bowl. Felix was in a similar situation but not to such a high degree of degeneration. All he needed to do was refresh his memory a bit. To regain those instincts that were locked within him after he got "domesticated". To do that, he needed to access his mental palace for a little while, which he did. He mostly knew what was wrong with him, and he didn''t need anyone else''s help in this situation. He was also 100% sure that the person behind the abomination was still on the planet, but he just hid very well. So well that even Felix with his stealth experience, couldn''t actually say where he was if he wasn''t in the nearest vicinity. Felix woke up into his mind''s palace and slowly observed his memories. To regain his instincts, he must closely look through the earliest memories of his life as they were the most primal ones where he acted deeply and only on instinct. Looking back on how he caught that bird in his mouth... how he fought a rat to the death below the train station. How he tracked down another bird before stalking it for tens of minutes and attacking it at the right time. He was the apex predator, one of the strongest ones in his former world... or at least that''s what he remembered. Felix looked down at his body, and he realized he wasn''t in his humanoid form anymore. He was back to being a cat! But that was only because he was in his mindscape, and even though his body had evolved towards reaching the humanoid form, his soul was still off a cat''s, no matter how advanced it became. His instincts returned slowly to him as he embraced his cat side. No matter what he became in the future, he knew that he started as a cat, and he wouldn''t ever forget that anymore. He woke up back in his humanoid body as he felt something change in his DNA once again. A trigger came from the regaining of his instincts... a trigger that made him slowly morph back into his original cat form. Felix looked down at his paws as the armor shrank with him again... then he grew up once again into his human form. He gained the ability to switch between forms just like the locals. He officially fully acclimatized to the universe, becoming a real resident. Felix shook his head as he morphed into his cat form again. The humanoid form was better for battles as it gave him more flexibility, and he could employ better techniques, but his cat form was the best for hunting down targets and fast traveling. He looked at the two piles of ashes that were left behind by the bodies of the abomination and the headless corpse of the unknown individual. He knew that if he wanted to find the last person that he needed to absorb, the best lead would be investigating these two. So he got closer to them and started sniffing the ashes and even tasted them both. He could recognize some of the flavors as they were rancid and acrid. Not really good for ingestion. His sense of smell also identified a certain smell that he hadn''t smelled before, it was unique, and he couldn''t say to have ever felt it before in his life. Which showed that it must have come from the last target, he wasn''t sure what the correlation was between the abomination''s death and the target''s sudden loss of aura, but he would find out. Felix started to fly around, smelling the surroundings and trying to find the unique smell in any other location. He flew quickly around the planet, leaving an orange trail surrounding it. He smelled every corner of the planet and the last location that he sensed the energy. In the last location, he smelled the unique smell once more and then followed a trail that leads him to a tall jagged mountain. The mountain just stood there. The rocks that made it up were entirely green and there were no signs alive for thousands of kilometers around him. Felix knew there were some locals supposed to live on this planet, but somehow he hadn''t been able to meet them up till now. Felix flew towards the top of the mountain and took a vantage point there. Where could have that last person vanished? He asked himself this question multiple times in his flying routine, but he could never find a good answer/ Even though his instincts were pointing him in the right direction, he still couldn''t find out this person. He got a little bit angry as his claws popped out of his paw and struck the hard rock below him... however, instead of making a mark in the stone, his claws directly sunk into the stone, and a gush of dark stinky blood came out. Felix felt nauseous from the blood as he swayed from the side almost falling from the top of the mountain, which showed that something very wrong was in this blood. Felix''s body had evolved and reached a higher level meaning that not many things could actually affect him anymore. But this blood was making him want to wretch his stomach out. Let''s not even mention the dizziness. Felix flew up from the top of the mountain into the yellow clouds of the planet and looked down at the mountain range that was 10 kilometers long. From the point that he sunk his claws in, he could see that if he looked from above. The mountain range actually resembled a green human! He had small antennas on his head and wore a brown jacket with a white tank top and furred boots. He had large brown eyes made from gigantic rocks, and as Felix looked at him, he could swear that he saw his eyes moving. "So that''s where he hid... he even eliminated all life signs this way... what an interesting ability." Felix''s body morphed into his human form as it got enshrouded in lightning, and his skin became a light shade of pink. His green aura came out at full power, and he started to descend at immense speeds towards the head of the mountain range. He started getting engulfed in red flames as the friction between the air and his body transformed him into a human meteor. The mountain range started to shake as it felt the deadly attack coming from Felix. It knew that Felix wasn''t playing around anymore as he went at him directly with full power! The mountain range shook as the head ripped itself out of the land creating an earthquake as dust and gravel flew into the air and struck Felix''s descending figure, only for it to be melted, and destroyed. Not even halting Felix''s descent by one bit. Felix''s continuous descent made the rock giant move his body out of the way at top speed as it tried to avoid the destructive meteor that Felix became. He shook his body as his own aura activated, and runes started to glow all over his body as he powered up. Runic energy came out of his opened mouth as it tried to shoot a gigantic beam towards Felix and push him back into the atmosphere of the planet, and hopefully outside of it. Felix''s body clashed with the pure beam of runic energy as it slowly started to get halted by the immense amount of power that the beam was using. The struggle between the two of them started as both of them entered a deadlock. The rock giant flexed his body in different positions as the runic energy increased and moved towards his mouth before enhancing the beam once again, making Felix''s descent slow to a standstill. Then the giant pushed his feet into the earth as he supported himself on the whole planet, trying to push Felix away! Felix felt his body''s assault growing weaker as he was continuously pushed a way through the clouds by the beam of runic energy. He even felt his skin sting as blood started to flow down from his pores, radiation infiltrating his body. Felix gritted his teeth. He knew that the last target would be this strong, but not to the point that he would actually be pushed back like this! Chapter 164: An relatively epic battle Felix couldn''t believe he was getting overpowered by the rock being. He just had evolved in a human form. He regained his base instincts and gained a multitude of abilities that could improve his battle power marginally. Felix was continuously pushed backward by the runic beam of energy, and his body was starting to give out on him, no matter how hard he pushed back or used the gravitational force he had gained from dropping from the sky. He still couldn''t push the beam backward. Felix glanced away from the beam and then looked at the gigantic mountain that was currently supporting itself into the planet''s ground. His feet were planted into the ground creating two holes and damaging the planet. From what Felix could observe, it was also absorbing the planet''s energy to fuel his beam''s intensity and power. Lightning-like energy was coming down from the holes that the giant inserted his feet in and ran through the runes all over his stony body before being charged directly in his mouth, where the beam slowly started to enlarge. Growing thicker and longer. Felix''s arms started to give up on him as he tried to push the beam back, his skin was getting shredded by the immense pushing force, and blood poured down from him like crazy. His eyes stung from the radiation of the beam, and he knew that he couldn''t endure anymore. So he slipped to the side and avoided the beam before it disintegrated his body into nothing. The beam flew directly into space, hitting a few spaceships of the human federation, turning them into scraps. The other ships avoided the remaining energy of the beam. And then sent a drone to scan whatever was happening on the surface of the planet. Their eyes widened as they saw Felix''s battered and bloody body almost falling from the sky. They couldn''t believe there was someone on the planet who could reduce Felix to such a state. Felix looked down at his arms as he felt his body and injuries close up at extremely quick speeds. Now that he wasn''t in the way of the beam anymore, his regeneration capabilities finally kicked in, and in a few seconds, he was back to being good as new. The radiation from the beam stopped his regeneration which was something that Felix noted down. If he would ever meet someone with annoying regeneration capabilities like his, this information would be precious. He could feel that the fire in his stomach grew a little bit weaker. Which meant the regeneration wasn''t free of charge. However, the weakening of his fire was minuscule compared to the fact that he was back to full health. Felix''s muscles inflated as he grew in size to 20 meters tall. When he was a cat, he could grow up to 2,5 meters because he was extremely short, but as a human, he went way further than that. He didn''t rival the monstrous mountain range that was almost thousands of meters tall, but it was still better than nothing. He was way too small in his normal form. So he decided to make things a little bit more equal. His techniques turned off after he got out of the way of the beam so he activated them once again. But before he could even launch his own attack, a gigantic green rock that was bigger than his whole body hit him directly and buried him into the ground. Then another fist came over and started to pummel him continuously, trying to kill him. The rock giant didn''t pull his punches as he tried to disintegrate Felix, dust and shrapnel came out of the hole that the giant''s fists created, and Felix was nowhere to be seen in this mess. There was blood in the crater, but Felix''s silhouette couldn''t be found anywhere. Felix had already activated his stealth and climbed on the giant''s hand before using his special techniques to make himself feel weightless to the rock being. The giant scratched his head as he looked around trying to find Felix. Did he destroy him thoroughly until nothing remained of him? The giant wasn''t dumb as he created that diversion with the abomination, so he didn''t let his guard down. He knew in his heart that Felix must have played a trick to disappear like that, so he unleashed his aura to try and crush him out of his hiding. His aura was blue, unlike Felix''s green, it showed that he was one level above him, but the aura was murky and transparent, showing that he didn''t break through to the blue level using all of his race''s breathing techniques, and it was also of a rather low level. He was an opponent that Felix could take on, hypothetically. Felix ignored the pressuring aura that was descending upon his body, he had already reached the shoulder of this rocky giant, and he knew what he needed to do to take it down. Any beings weakness was its head no matter what it was made from. At least, that''s what Felix''s instincts told him. Felix jumped from the being''s shoulder directly to its head as he scaled it at quick speeds using both his lightning armor and the new technique that quickened his blood flow. He made his way to the being''s antennae-like ears and jumped down the canal that lead down to the interior of the being''s head. He slid through the moss that was inside the rocky giant''s ears and easily made it to the inside of its head. The inside of the giant''s head was very big. It almost felt like he was in the open doors if the perpetual darkness and the echo of his feet hitting the ground weren''t so prominent. Fortunately for him, he still retained his night vision from his cat form so he could easily see through the cavernous darkness that surrounded him. He tried to find the being''s local brain area so he could slash it to bits. However, he wasn''t sure how he would be able to get the being''s abilities. Maybe his armor would help him with that, the AI wasn''t working anymore, but Felix knew how to operate that needle from his hands'' area. Felix jumped around in the head of the thing, as he glanced from side to side. It was just like walking in a normal cavern. However, this peaceful exploration didn''t last much as he felt the head shake. It seemed that the giant realized that Felix was in its head, and it didn''t like that one bit. It knew that if Felix found his core he would be done for. So he broke open his own head by striking it with his fists and pierced through with his fingers, trying to remove Felix. Felix acrobatically dodged the fingers. They were trying to pinch him to death and throw him outside the giant''s head. But Felix had already removed his gigantification, and he was back to his 1,87 meters self, making it extremely hard for the giant to be able to pick him. And to make things even harder, he morphed back into his primal cat form and ran away into the deeper parts of the thing''s head. Rage could be read on the giant''s half-broken head as it tried its best to shake Felix out of his interior. He didn''t want to die yet! Black tears came out of the giant''s lone eye as it wanted to make a trade with Felix, while devious, in the end, he still succumbed to his primordial instinct of survival. A booming voice was heard in Felix''s ears, which Felix didn''t understand. The AI wasn''t there to translate anymore, so he ignored it. He jumped around the crevices that remained around the giant''s head before diving headfirst into a secluded place that he identified as the core location. Felix flexed his body as he returned to his human form, lightning engulfed him as his skin turned pink. His eyes darted around looking for the main reason that the giant was able to move and think. The core of the giant finally appeared in Felix''s pupils as he looked at it directly. It was a shiny ruby the size of three moderately sized houses piled one atop the other. Standing around 8 meters tall. Felix didn''t wait for anything else as he unleashed his fists upon the ruby creating cracks and dents in it really quickly and making the giant shout in pain and anger as his offer for peace was ignored. Felix gripped the ruby tightly as his body was almost thrown around as the giant tried his best to shake his head open and pry Felix out. He didn''t care if his whole body was destroyed. The core was what kept him alive, and as long as it existed, he would be able to regenerate into a new body, the more he lived, the bigger he would become to the point he would become a living planet! All of his people''s dreams were to increase in size and become inhabitable planets. They were a peaceful but strong race. It couldn''t understand why was it taken away from his people and thrown on this planet to be massacred by someone along with other pitiful races. He gripped his head tightly as he removed it from his body and thrown it away, showing a levitating ruby where the left part of his head was previously, along with Felix clutching very hard on it and trying to break it into smithereens. Chapter 165: The last absorption Felix was hanging on the levitating ruby pillar with all of his might. His strikes were quick and precise as he aimed at the cracks that he already created, trying to expand them and destroy the ruby in one go. But it was easier said than done. Now that there was nothing that inhibited the giant from finding Felix. And he had enough space to use his arms. He could easily grab Felix and throw him away. Even though Felix was hanging on the giant''s core for his dear life, it was rather hard to destroy it in his current position. He didn''t have any momentum, and he was dangling in the air, not having any solid ground to stand on so he could increase the strength of his attacks. His body strength was still pretty huge. But he wasn''t able to use it at 100% capacity in his current situation. It was a rather awkward place, and his armor''s jets didn''t work either. So he couldn''t create any momentum to increase his striking power. Felix''s body could handle it, but the constant pestering of the giant was making things harder than they were supposed to be. The giant was currently using his fingers deftly to pry Felix off his core and crush him into bits. He knew that he couldn''t use brute force, or there was a chance he would damage his core by himself, and it was already cracked. Any more damage and there was a huge chance it would break, making him die in the process. He could already feel the cold embrace of death nearing him as the cracks on his core were being expanded by Felix''s strikes. If he wasn''t in such an awkward position, he would have broken half the core by now. Flying wouldn''t help him much in this situation, and if he didn''t stick to the crystal as he did now, the giant would throw him away and then run, most likely. Felix could feel that the giant stony fingers were moving his internal organs as they struck his back while trying to pry him off the ruby pillar, but he didn''t give up. He wasn''t being struck by the runic energy. So all the damage that was done to him was quickly healed by his new abilities. Felix could feel that his internal energy was being quickly drained, but he struck his armor one time, activating the Rubix cubes inside as they started to pour energy into him. They were already fully charged as it would take less time to gather and purify planetary energy compared to the spatial one. Felix''s aura continued to flare to life- as it was being fueled by the extra energy from the cubes. His endurance would be unlimited as long as he had enough energy. The pain didn''t matter to him as he already endured the highest pain that he could during his evolution and came out okay. His body started to glow as he activated the needle of the armor and inserted it directly into the core, creating a sound that resembled that of nails on a chalkboard. ''Scrrchhhh'' The sound was so loud that Felix''s ears started bleeding, but he continued to hang onto the pillar as bloody red crystallized energy started to enter the needle and then the armor before arriving into Felix''s body and bloodstream. Felix''s cells became active as they assimilated the crystals. They were just like mini hungry monsters as they ate through the hard crystal as if it was tofu. His body started to harden quickly in response to the absorption he was doing. A green rock layer started to grow over his body as another type of armor was unlocked. Felix''s muscles spasmed as he became a rock man with no facial features as they were now hidden behind the ''helmet'' of his new armor. All of the giant''s attempts at prying him off his core were slowly becoming weaker and weaker as Felix continued to absorb his life essence. Slowly but surely, the giant''s life was ending. The hand that was trying to pry Felix of the ruby pillar slowly stopped as it dropped to the side, and an agonized voice came from the crystal: "RAGHAHGHAAH!" It was only gibberish, even if the AI was active right now. It wouldn''t be able to translate as these were the death throes of the falling giant. Felix had already absorbed his most important ''brain liquid'' that he couldn''t live without, so he was only one step away from death. That step was finally taken as the body slowly fell to the ground of the planet, burying itself directly as it created a crater that was as long as its body. Creating a view that could be seen even from space. Felix ignored the downed body as it quickly decomposed into normal rocks that filled the crater. Without the core that kept the rocks together, the giant rock man became a normal underground mountain. Felix''s face became visible again as the rocks disappeared from his body, for doing such a high amount of work. The ability that he got from absorbing the rock man''s brain wasn''t really interesting. It was actually quite plain. A rock armor, that was all he got... Maybe if the AI was online right now, he might have been able to explain. But, unfortunately, Felix didn''t know to fix the armor. Felix dropped down from the sky as he took in a big gulp of air. He could feel his lungs expanding as he became a little bit more familiar with his new physique. His human form''s potential hadn''t been fully unearthed, but as he would become more and more familiar with it. It would become so strong that he wouldn''t have to return to his primal form ever again. He cracked his neck and fingers as he felt his surroundings shake. It was time for the teleportation. This time the teleportation didn''t take much time as he found himself back at the academy. Vangar was a few meters away from him as he smiled at Felix before nodding and saying: "You have done a great job and in record time to boot." "You have gained all of the abilities that our scientists found to be the most compatible with your physiognomy and you even evolved, gaining a humanoid form and reaching a higher life level. You are actually 1 tier ahead of the human race!" Vangar was practically glowing as he analyzed Felix from top to bottom. "You have really done great, and we are ready to improve you once more before we will let the flood gates open." Felix nodded as he looked down at his hands, he didn''t feel like himself anymore, but Felix was still Felix, right? As his morals degraded further and further, he even questioned himself. Why he would go through these things for the planet? There were a few important people on the planet, that was right, but as he thought about it... He would live for thousands or even tens of thousands of years, maybe even hundreds of thousands of years. Who knew when he would even die of old age? Siracha''s story about not being able to die from old age as God''s chosen was nice, but Felix knew that that was only a fantasy. Only the higher beings would have immortal life, but they could still be slain, Felix still remembered Manitola''s story. Why was he doing all of this for? So he could see those he cared about to wither and die before him? Or just so they could do that and not die of outside influences? What was the difference? Seeing that Felix went all quiet on him made Vangar a little bit surprised. What was Felix thinking all of a sudden? Vangar approached Felix and put his hand on his shoulder awakening him from his trance as he asked: "Are you ok? Did the evolution affect your soul as well?" Felix shook his head as he looked at Vangar. He was way older than him, maybe he could answer his questions? Felix opened his heart to Vangar as he questioned him: "I thought about it for a short while, but why are we doing all of this?" "What do you mean, Felix?" Vangar wasn''t sure what Felix was asking him, it was a bit too sudden, and as a military man, he wasn''t someone who could talk about the way of life. He would just accept orders and do as he was instructed. Of course, he wasn''t a puppet and he could do things on his own, but he wasn''t good at talking about this kind of stuff. He was a direct person with little to no hobby''s and even though he was retired, his thinking was still on how to improve his country and do the best for it. He lived in a propagandistic way since he was born, so he wouldn''t be able to answer Felix''s question with something that would soothe his wandering soul. "Why are we doing this? Well, all I can say is that we are doing it for the better of everyone because we are special, we need to protect those that are below us. Because we are strong, we need to take care of the weak. It''s our duty as people who have been born talented and it''s our duty to serve the mother planet that gave birth to us..." That''s when Vangar realized that he misspoke. This speech would have worked on a normal individual from their planet as it would stoke the fires of its heart, but Felix was from a different dimension! However, there was nothing else he could say because that was all he knew. Chapter 166: A talk about the future (1) Vangar wasn''t someone who acted on emotions, but that didn''t mean he didn''t understand them. He knew that Felix was wavering about his decision to continue this, but the human federation needed him to clean after them, they had poked the hornet''s nest, but they weren''t strong enough to drive the berserk hornets away. They needed someone with Felix''s ability to grow. They had the resources but not the talents, and him backing out now would be disastrous for the future of the planet. The humans could relocate, but the planet had a special resource on it that was vital for the human''s growth in power, that they couldn''t abandon unless they found a planet with a similar resource. The livelihood of their whole race was on the table! Vangar patted Felix''s shoulder as he thought about what he should tell him... then shook his head as he wasn''t the good person for this type of thing. He needed someone who knew how to talk, who knew how to inspire and push things for the better. "Felix... I think it''s finally time for you to meet the leader of our civilization, the president of the federation!" Felix narrowed his eyes. What did the president have to do with his questions? He wasn''t really placated by Vangar''s response, but he decided to go with him. They immediately teleported away from the outer space academy as they returned to the planet. Felix looked around, and he realized they were back in the city. However, they were at a location that he had never been before. In front of him and Vangar stood a tall tower that stood around 35 meters tall. It was painted in three colors, red, yellow, and blue. The tower was just like a big cylinder going through the sky, and it looked to be made of a special metal. Those were the colors of the flag of the federation. Which indicated this building was a governmental building. Fangar put a small smile on his face as he looked at the building and decided to introduce it to Felix: "This is the parliament of the federation where the most important people of our race pass down laws and orders along with a few other secrets that you will learn after we enter the building." Vangar took out his identification card and flashed it towards the entrance of the tower before two doors appeared and opened. At first, the tower didn''t have doors. They only appeared after Vangar flashed his authorization. "Follow me." Vangar waved his hand as he took the front and walked inside. Felix followed him from behind while he took a look around. The inside of the tower was spacious and full of people walking around or working at desks. They were all neatly dressed, but their eyes were alert and full of energy showing that they weren''t normal politicians. Vangar nodded at a few acquaintances as he took Felix higher in the tower, the lower-ranked personnel started from the bottom. And the higher they went, the more Vangar needed to nod as the people he got contacts with increased gradually. Everything around them changed gradually as guards appeared everywhere. There were no more desk workers and the rooms that were around them were either locked or heavily guarded. None of the guards made any moves as they watched Felix and Vangar going even higher into the tower, slowly reaching the top. They were almost there as they reached some double doors that Vangar knocked on then a strong voice came out of the other side as the doors slowly opened: "Vangar and our new star, Felix, what have I done to owe the pleasure of this visit?" Vangar saluted as he walked inside, and Felix moved with him. The leader''s appearance was finally revealed to Felix as he looked at him directly. The man behind the metal desk in the room was tall, he had short-cut dark hair and an eyepatch over his left eye. He wore a gaudy jaguar-themed jacket and nothing else underneath, showing his sculpted physique. He had a small nose, and he didn''t look like the type that would be a leader. The man got up showing his full height as he stood around 2,1 meters. He smiled as he invited Vangar and Felix to the guest table across the room, where there were a few cups filled with drinks and plates with different types of food. He plopped down on a comfy chair as Vangar did the same. Then the duo looked at Felix who was still up and just looking at the president. Felix also sat down after a short while and didn''t say anything. The president felt the atmosphere becoming rather awkward as he took one cup from the table and drank the liquid that was inside. "Well, why have you come to visit an old friend? Vangar explained everything that happened up till now. And then looked at Felix, who was seemingly daydreaming right now. "I see... I see." The president took another look at Felix as he coughed taking his attention: "Young man, I heard that you have doubts about your future? That you worry that the people you care about will die regardless if you save them now?" Felix nodded and asked: "What am I doing all of this for... I think that everything that I have done up till now doesn''t connect with anything, everything was robotically made by someone else, I feel that I cannot control my actions despite that I''m myself. It''s really strange and I hate it!" The president made a ''hmm'' sound while Vangar stood to the side not saying anything. It wasn''t in his expertise, so he just observed from the side. "I understand you, actually everyone goes through these things every day, but they move on anyway, sometimes you think that death is the better option as you wouldn''t have to think about anything, do anything nor feel anything, you would just be gone." "You think that everything you do has no reason. And things would move on without you anyway. You haven''t ever experienced joy nor extreme hate of something that would push you to live, you don''t have a reason to live." "All you do is because you have been told to, am I right?" Felix nodded. He had never done something because he truly wanted to. He felt like he was someone being controlled by a higher power, even though he had his own thoughts and emotions. Why did he feel that way? He felt so wrong... He didn''t understand. The president looked at Felix and said: "You have no true close people. Even those that are close to you, you don''t really look at them as true friends either, I have read your file and know everything that''s to be known about you, Felix." "You are a really strange individual Felix, and I''m not sure what can I tell you to make you feel better." Vangar''s eyes widened as he glanced at the president, even the president didn''t know what to say? Felix looked down at his reflection in the porcelain cup, it was distorted, and it was also the first time he saw his human face. His hand approached his face as he touched it. Was this truly himself? He had always been an amoral bastard, but he couldn''t be considered evil as he was just ruthless. If he was evil. He would have done way more hideous things. Why didn''t he feel anything anymore? That was the question. As an intelligent being, he had gained a lot of empathy as time passed, and he started to rely both on intelligence and emotions at the same time, combined with his instincts, he became a complete person. But now, he felt that he was lacking something once again. His previously full emotions were getting dried quickly as if they were never there. The president looked at Felix and said: "I think I realized what''s wrong with you. You have evolved too quickly." "You have eaten too much in a too short time span, and the fact that you became a higher tiered living being could be added to that as well." "Your emotions are paling... your reason remains, and that means you understand that you don''t get anything from helping us..." "Then why am I helping you?" Felix asked with a confused look on his face. Why had he done everything up till now? To protect Lindo and his son? To protect Siracha? Why had he absorbed so many people to improve his body and evolve? To fight it out with the invaders? The president shook his head as he got up from the chair and placed his hand on Felix''s shoulder. Felix felt a strong grip on his shoulder as he looked up from his seated position into the president''s lone eye. "I think you need a better example. I need to show you what you really have to fight for instead of talking with you like this." Felix got up from the chair as the president invited him to the top of the tower as they used a nearby door to ascend to the roof. Vangar remained in the room as he ate some of the food on the table- and looked towards the closing door which leads to the roof... Felix and the President looked down from the top of the tower towards the relatively bustling city below. The president pointed towards a random direction and said: "Look there and tell me what you see and understand, Felix." Chapter 167: A talk about the future (2) Felix didn''t know what the president was playing at, but he decided to look where he was pointing instead of questioning him. He looked in the pointed direction as he saw many people looking around the marketplace to buy their daily necessities. He didn''t feel this was anything interesting, so he glanced back at the president and asked: "Why did you point me to them?" The president smiled and shook his head as he looked down at the normal people of the federation running around, doing their daily chores, and living a relatively normal life. "You don''t understand them, do you?" Felix shook his head, he couldn''t understand normal people anymore as he hadn''t been normal in his life, even when he was a cat, he didn''t do these types of things. The president continues to point around as he says: "A mother and her children eat dinner without their father." "A father works at the factory for an extended Time so his family can eat what they want and when they want." "An old man dies from old age and a child is born in a nearby hospital." "Life goes on." Felix continued to look around at the things that the president was pointing at. From the top of the tower, Felix could see everything in this part of the metropolis even through the houses of the people. He could see all of them enjoying themselves, crying, playing, living. They were acting normally as they were all in the unknown about the upcoming invasion of the planet. They were all peaceful compared to the tribes that were not under the jurisdiction of the humans. They weren''t fighting and they only learned how to fight as a sport. That was unless they were found to be talented and then drafted into the military. Felix could feel the peace seeping into his bones, it was something that he had never experienced before. This was the first time he was this peaceful since he arrived on this plane of existence. Even during the ''peaceful'' times at the lion tribe, army personnel were still moving around and doing missions. There was never any peace to speak of. Everything was chaotic everywhere he looked. Fights were happening no matter how good the resources situation was. The tribes always wanted more. The same could be said about humans, but there was a difference between the two. That being the atmosphere of the civilians. They were way more peaceful as they were in the unknown about what was going to happen to them. They could die the next second, but at least they wouldn''t die while being panicked. Sometimes being the unknown was better. They could live peacefully. And in momentary bliss, as they wouldn''t know what would happen tomorrow, they could do what they want and when they want without any worries. It was something that made Felix''s expression ease up a bit as he looked around. He liked this type of peace. He had been into battles ever since he came to this plane, he had fought and fought, and he never got to enjoy himself more than a few years. He enjoyed battles, but after time they started to get troublesome. They weren''t that enjoyable anymore. He felt like they were a chore. He always asked himself why was he doing this, for who was he doing this? Because he knew that he wasn''t doing it for himself. Felix knew that he was being used to the advantage of others, but he didn''t mind at first. It was because he was thoroughly enjoying the fights that he was being given. It was because he loved what he was doing. But things changed, Felix''s soul and thinking evolved along with his body, and he realized that fighting wasn''t everything. He was missing something, but he didn''t know what. Was it a goal? Was it not having loved ones- that he would want to protect? He didn''t know what to do. Should he even help the humans anymore? Then he looked down once again, but this time the president didn''t point any place where he should look at. He just felt like he should look down at that moment. And he saw something that made him think. On an alleyway, a 9 years old girl was being pushed around by a sketchy dude in a cloak, it seemed that the man wasn''t having any good thoughts about the girl, and then Felix looked at the president who was keeping his hands inside his pockets as if he didn''t even see what was happening in front of him. It was like he was blind, and as Felix looked around, he realized that this society wasn''t only rainbows and puppies. The peace was happening only on the surface, but on the underground, things stood different. Some criminals and crooks wanted everything they could get in every situation. No matter if they were in human society or the other tribe''s societies. They lived relatively normal lives, but that wasn''t enough for them. However, the strange thing was that the government didn''t do anything against them. The president of the federation could see everything that was happening, but he didn''t dispatch any armed forces of the government. He just watched as the girl was dragged into the alleyway, where unspeakable things were most likely awaiting her. This could be all prevented, but why didn''t anyone do anything? Felix was puzzled. The humans couldn''t keep their weaker evil counterparts in check? However, he didn''t help the little girl either. Which made the president''s lone eye be filled with disappointment. He thought that he could appeal to Felix''s unborn heroic soul and trigger something in him with these visual images, something that would make him a little bit more human-like. To give him a moral compass and try to attach him more to the federation and its allies. However, he realized something the moment Felix didn''t fly down to the alleyway to confront the gangster that was kidnapping the child. Felix was in a dark place right now. He didn''t know what to do and how to do it. Even though the invasion of the enemies was really close to them. Which put them in a very dangerous position. The president wanted to quicken this process in the most peaceful way possible, so he directly sent a message to make this charade could end for now. It seemed that appealing to Felix''s new human side wasn''t going to cut it out. He had been a humanoid for a very short time, and he didn''t have many if any interactions with other humans while in his humanoid form. He didn''t know how humans worked or thought, he hadn''t been in a society that exposed him to these things. He was merciless and cold even to the young, but his file didn''t say those things, it seemed he had evolved this way during his last trip... He had monitored some of his fights during the time he was on the planet, but he never saw him acting abnormal or strange. Even after he evolved, he looked rather normal to the leader of the federation. What could have triggered such a heavy change in personality to the point that he didn''t care about anything anymore? Felix was looking down at everything that was happening below the tower and into the city. While the leader thought about Felix''s behavioral changes. The newly made humanoid didn''t know what to say as he looked down at the chaotic events around being stopped by the law enforcement... then he looked at the president who was mumbling behind him. He realized that this was just an intricated scheme to make him feel something, but he didn''t hate the man for doing it. He actually wanted to feel something as well, but it would most likely not happen in the human''s territory as he had no type of attachments here at all. Maybe he could start feeling again if he went back to the lion tribe... that was where he had the most emotional attachments, and he also had a godson there. Felix decided to visit them as maybe something would change in him if he saw his godson and friend. He looked towards the president as he opened his mouth to ask for a leave: "Mr. President... I think I have seen enough here, might I be allowed to go back to the lion tribe? I have some people there that might change my outlook on things." The president nodded, forcing Felix into this situation wasn''t something he wanted to do. He was both talented and a god''s chosen, so he couldn''t be controlled anyways. And in such a situation things needed to be handled delicately. "I will teleport you there directly, so you won''t have the hassle of going back on your own." Felix shook his head as he said: "Just teleport me back to the forest where I first entered. I don''t want to go back there like that. I still have some thinking to do before I arrive." The president nodded and said: "I understand, I hope you will come back with peace of mind and good news because we are ready to continue the plan to its full capacity. You shall ascend to the level of the ultimate warriors of our tribe, and even above to be able to fight against the invaders..." Felix''s silhouette started to slowly disappear from the top of the tower as the president shook his head and decided to go back inside and sighed while doing so: "This is so troublesome... but this is the way we live, even if we didn''t provoke them at first... they would have still come later." Chapter 168: Emotional awakening Felix found himself back in the abandoned forest as he started to travel from tree to tree. He took one glance back towards the location of the tube that could get him back to the human city, and after that, he bolted away. He ran through the forest, leaving it behind in a few seconds as a road appeared in front of him. The road was pretty long until the lion tribe capital, but it didn''t take much, if any time for Felix to arrive there, he had grown way too much in his space adventures, so as he made his way around, he realized how small the planet they were on actually was. Felix sighed as he looked at the opened gates of the lion capital and entered directly. However, before he could take another step, the guards that usually ignored his actions because they knew him stepped forward and stopped him. Felix knew that his new human form made them do that, so he immediately morphed into his cat form which made the guards take a few steps backward before bowing in apology: "We are sorry sir Felix, we have never seen your human form, so we have tried to stop you..." Felix nodded and then left them behind as he made his way through the capital, he knew that Siracha must have known that he arrived by now, but it seemed he didn''t want to meet him now. He didn''t come back to meet Siracha anyways so he made his way towards Lindo''s house. Felix took a few steps towards the house in his cat form as he reached the door, he stood there for a few seconds before knocking on it a few times, he could sense both Lindo and the child were inside. The door opened and Lindo''s eyes widened as he saw Felix, he thought that he would never see him again after he went to the humans, but here he was. Felix smiled at Lindo as he entered the house and said: "Lindo I came to visit my godson Jack, how is he doing?" Lindo gave out a small smile as he closed the door and followed Felix inside: "Why don''t you ask him yourself?" A little boy that looked to be around a few months old walked into the room from upstairs. He was wearing a small blue t-shirt that covered his whole body. He had short hair and blue eyes. The kid came a little bit closer to Felix, in his cat form, Felix could come up only to his stomach. Suddenly the kid placed a little hand on Felix''s head as he patted him which took Felix by surprise, he hadn''t got a pat on the head in a long time. It was a quite nice feeling but he didn''t let it linger for a lot of time as he morphed directly into his human form under the curious gaze of both people in the room. Lindo was surprised as he gasped and said: "Felix... you finally unlocked your human form?" Felix nodded and glanced down at the little Jack as he took him in his arms, he didn''t feel much as he kept the child in his arms which disappointed him quite a bit, he thought that if he had some interactions with someone that he had to supposedly love, his emotions would come back. He didn''t know why he didn''t feel anything, but he continued to keep Jack into his arms as he looked at Lindo and asked: "How have you been doing since.. you know." Lindo shook his head as he remembered the funeral and said: "I have gotten better, Manitola wouldn''t have wanted me to mop around our child, and now that I have him to take care of. A lot of things aren''t on my mind anymore." Felix nodded and let jack down as he watched him start to walk around the house, even though he was only around a few months old it was obvious from the glint in his eyes, and the fact that he could walk that he wasn''t any normal child. Even among lion cubs they usually started to walk around 6 months old, compared to the normal lions who lived on earth the difference was immense but the evolutionary path of these lions lead them to have a rather more fragile childhood. Felix knew that from the moment he left up till now, there haven''t been more than 4 months, but the child could already walk steadily. The gift he got from the goddess of illusions and charm must be the thing that fueled his rapid growth, or maybe it was a combination of both his natural talent and the gift. Felix suddenly felt something in his chest move as he looked at the child walking around and playing, were his emotions coming back? It was not a tang of pain, nor did he feel any discomfort from the movement in his chest. It was something warm, something that he didn''t feel before. Was it pride in someone else besides himself? He could see that the child would grow up talented, and he felt glad because of that. He felt prideful that he had such a godson. Suddenly a flood of emotions went through Felix''s heart and mind, things that have been locked up in him since he had come to this dimensional plane. He had never felt them before as his soul was never meant to experience these things. But as his body evolved and acclimatized to the surroundings, so did his soul. He became a fully intelligent being with all of the package. That being intelligence, emotions, and a human form. He had evolved into something far beyond what his original form was. He had become something more. A few tears started to seep out of Felix''s eyes, but they quickly dried while Lindo was looking after his child. "So why have you come to visit us, Felix? Everything''s alright with the humans?" Felix nodded as he didn''t tell him about the upcoming invasion. He still remembered how the president kept his citizens in the unknown and his words, so he didn''t want to make Lindo panic. The upcoming fight wasn''t going to be a place where he could interfere. It was better to not fire him up for nothing. He knew that, unlike the normal humans, Lindo would surely want to fight for the future of his child, but with his current strength, that was a laughable thing. Felix decided to play sometime with Jack, so he could become a little bit more familiar with him, he wasn''t even sure why looking at him walk around would unlock his emotions so quickly. So he wanted to see if there was anything special for this child. Seeing that Jack was on good hands made Lindo relax, so he went to the city to buy some more food as they were currently running out. Felix continued to play with Jack for a few more minutes, then Jack looked at him and asked: "Who are you, mister?" Felix''s eyes narrowed, was he supposed to be able to talk already? However, he responded casually: "Name''s Felix, your father never mentioned me?" Jack shook his head as he said: "Father never talks to me. He just takes care of me..." "Maybe it''s because he doesn''t know you can talk?" The child put his head to the side as he realized that what Felix said was the truth. If Lindo didn''t know he could talk, then why would he talk to him? It was like trying to use sound to communicate with a deaf person. Or speaking English to a native African speaker who didn''t know even 1 English word. Why would Lindo bother? He wanted to teach him how to speak, but he felt that it wasn''t the time yet. "Well, I guess you will have more talks with your father after I''m gone." Jack looked into Felix''s eyes and asked: "Where are you going?" "Well, I have joined a different tribe, and I have quite a lot of work to do there. They gave me a free day, so I could resolve some issues and visit you two." "I have resolved my issues a bit earlier before I visited you, so now, after this visit, I''m going to go back." Jack nodded as he seemingly understood what Felix was talking about, which made Felix chuckle and ruffle his short hair. He didn''t know why, but he enjoyed the sensation of being around this child, up till now, he had been around other children, but he never felt anything. Maybe it was because they were supposed, family. Ah yes, family. A few more tears started to drop from Felix''s eyes as he thought about that word, which wasn''t ignored around this time. Jack patted Felix''s hand as he asked: "Why are you crying, mister?" "I only cry when I fall and hit my toe on the furniture. Did you hit your toe on the table?" Felix shook his head as he looked at the ceiling and said: "I just remembered something about my family... and how I haven''t had the best thought about them up till now." Felix could now remember clearly... the meteor, Tsuru throwing him in the portal. He survived only because of her, and he owed her immensely... but there was no way for him to meet her anymore. These emotions had been locked deep within him, but now they burst to the surface. Chapter 169: A potential to look out for Felix knew that he was here today only because Tsuru helped him survive, so he became rather emotional as he remembered her, unlike the other times when he didn''t feel much. His newly unlocked emotions completed him before he was an emotionless being. And that bothered him quite a bit because he didn''t know why. Now that his emotions were back and he considered Tsuru''s actions, he realized why he had always been bothered. It was because he didn''t feel grateful for what she did for him. She took care of him the best she could as an old citizen who loved cats. When he was just a normal cat, and even though she didn''t come with food every time because it was impossible due to her physical condition, she still came by to feed him when the weather let her, normally never missing a day. He threw him in the portal when the world was ending, thus letting him live... if it was a selfish person there instead of her, she might have just hugged him until the meteorite hit and let them perish together. Instead, she hoped that the portal would be a way for him to survive and thus let him go. Felix now knew why he had been so trouble up till now. And even though he didn''t have emotions back then, his subconscious still shrieked at him for not having the decency of shedding a few tears for the sacrifice that the woman who had gone through to get him to live. Thus leading to his former situation where he didn''t know what to do. He wasn''t at peace with himself as two sides within him conflicted. But now, he felt a little better as he continued to play with Jack for some time. Before Lindo came back with the groceries. Lindo had a small smile on his face as he looked at Felix and Jack playing together, just as a regular family did. He sighed as he thought about Manitola... how nice would it have been if she would be here as well to witness everything that was happening? She would have surely loved this picture that was in front of him right now. His eyes moistened up a little as he thought about his late wife. He missed her dearly. His love for her hit him deeply, but now that she was gone, he had to adapt. Felix knew few games, but they were enough to entertain the little bugger in front of him. Jack was an intelligent boy, but he was still a child, so he enjoyed playing with his godfather. Felix smiled as he played with him. That was until the child started to glow as a holy aura surrounded him. He could feel a power similar to the one Aaltarox gave him, enter the child and alter him from the inside as 4 more tails grew out of his back. This showed that the fusion between the gift that the goddess gave him, and his body, finally finished. Lindo''s figure shook from rage as he felt the familiar divine power engulf his son, but there was nothing he could do about it. Felix knew about Lindo''s anger towards the Gods so he didn''t say anything as Jack was baptized by the transformation. It took little time, but the transformation finally finished as Felix waited to see his godson normally again. He looked directly at him and besides the new extra tails, there wasn''t any difference in his looks. Felix concentrated his senses as he looked at his godson and he could already feel the spark of hex energy coursing through his body. It was infinitely small compared to his and Lindo''s, but he was only a few months old child! Normally, children could unlock their hex energy around the ages of 5-7 and that was for the more talented ones. The untalented ones could take up to their eighteenth year before they would be able to unlock their hex energy. Of course, in some situations, there were different ways that a young one could unlock their energy veins, but the truly talented ones could do it on their own. Felix was surprised by this and Lindo was as well. Even though it took him a little bit more time to sense his kid''s new hex veins, he still found them, in the end. "Jack... Do you feel anything different?" Lindo asked with worry as he crouched beside Felix and Jack. He wasn''t sure if any adverse effects would happen because his child unlocked his hex veins this early in his life. He couldn''t forgive himself if anything happened to him, so the worry in his tone was rather evident. Jack shook his head a few times as he said: "I''m okay father, it''s just that I see some things in the corner of my eyes... They look like my head?" Lindo whipped his head to the side with a questioning look towards Felix. Felix smiled at Lindo''s antics and said: "That''s just the indicator for his extra lives, there is nothing to worry about, for now..." The last bit was said in Felix''s mind as he wasn''t sure how the goddess of illusions and charm would act in the future. Aaltarox was a rather tame God as he didn''t seem to have any ambitions, but it couldn''t be said the same for others as Felix didn''t know them. Felix shook his head, there was nothing he could do in this situation as Gods lived in a different dimension compared to theirs. Jack felt very energetic as he jumped from side to side like a little lamb, he smiled towards Felix and his father as he said: "Let''s play!" Felix put out a little smile at the little bugger''s request, but before he could say anything, he felt a rather hard head hit his chest. It didn''t do any damage nor did it make him move at all, but he felt very surprised at the power behind it. Jack had headbutted him mistakenly as he tripped. The power behind that headbutt would have given him a run for his money in his early days if he took it head-on, which showed that the little guy could already pack quite the punch. Felix looked at Lindo and decided to ask: "What do you think about starting to train little Jack?" Lindo wasn''t sure what to say as he glanced down at the little tyke who was currently getting his hair ruffled by Felix. After some time of thinking, he finally answered: "I''m not sure yet. Don''t you think it''s a little bit too early, Felix?" Felix shook his head as he said: "It''s obvious he isn''t a normal child, he needs special care and training. Don''t you want him to grow into a strong warrior that would make you proud?" Lindo shook his head as he answered: "I''m already proud to be his father and he can do whatever he wants when he grows up, actually, let''s just ask him now." Jack wasn''t ignorant to their conversation, but he didn''t barge into it till the end. "What is training?" Felix was the one who answered: "Well, training is quite like playing in a sense, but with training, you can also get better at certain things and grow stronger." Jack didn''t have a complete understanding of the words he knew, but he got the gist of what Felix was trying to say. "Then I want to train!" Jack thought that it would be like an interesting new game so he was rather eager to learn how to train. Lindo was a little bit worried, but Felix patted him on the shoulder and said: "This will also help him get all of that extra energy out of his system as well, so don''t worry." Lindo sighed, but as he looked at the big hopeful eyes of his kid, he couldn''t really find himself saying no. Anyways he had full control of his strength, so he guessed he could start training him... The trio went to the backyard of the house as Lindo told his son: "We will start first with a little father-son training session. What do you say, tyke?" "Father, what''s sparring?" "You will find out in a few seconds son, but first." Lindo helped his son in a fighting stance as he explained to him what he should do in the spar, and how he should react. Jack absorbed the knowledge like a sponge and shortly after, they were ready for the spar to begin. Felix sat crosslegged some distance away from them as he observed and waited for his turn. Lindo cracked his neck and knuckles as he put his hand forward and moved his fingers towards him while saying: "Come at me with all you got, son!" Jack didn''t need to be told twice as he rushed directly towards his father, trying to attack him with his little fist just as Lindo instructed. Lindo easily dodged or parried all of his son''s attacks while also instructing him at the same time: "Put your whole body behind your strikes, just like that, and faster!" Felix still watched from the side as his newly awakened emotions continued to bubble within him. Chapter 170: Going back Felix had a prideful feeling as he looked at Jack and Lindo sparring. He felt rather glad his emotions came back. He felt empty when he had his emotions sealed, but now he felt as if his life was fulfilled, at least a part of his life was. The fight between Lindo and Jack was quite ''intense'' Jack attacked with all he got as he punched. He had improved his stance while he fought, and his proficiency increased the more he tried to hit Lindo. However, no matter how much of a genius he was, he couldn''t even touch the corner of Lindo''s clothes. Felix could see that the little tyke was very talented in fighting. His body was also quite abnormal. As it had more strength than teenagers who were around 17-18 years old. Even Felix, with his special ability, wouldn''t have been his match back when he was fighting with the black bears, strength-wise speaking. Even though the boy was strong, he was very slow, and he had no technique, but those were things that experience would fix. Felix continued to watch for a few more minutes before he said: "Timeout. Jack, you should rest a bit so I can teach you a little as well, I don''t have much time left, and I have to go back where I came from." Jack tilted his head to the side as Lindo stopped as well and asked: "Where do you have to go?" Felix shook his head as he said: "You can''t know that, at least for now." Being a smart child, Jack didn''t continue to prod in. He realized that pushing the question wouldn''t get him any answers. Lindo knew about Felix''s situation, so he didn''t ask at all as he nodded at him. His grandfather had already told him the gist of it, and he knew Felix was working with the humans for the better of the planet. Felix got up from his cross-legged position and jumped directly near Jack after he finished resting. He entered his own stance as he put his left foot in front of his right one, then his left arm over his head, hooking his fingers, and after that, he put his right arm behind him as he said: "Attack me with all you got." Felix had severely handicapped himself with this stance so he wouldn''t hurt Jack by accident. Jack nodded and rushed directly at Felix with a new flurry of punches and kicks, his previous spar with his father was a rather good start for him to grasp the taste of fighting, and now that he had it, he could finally unleash some of his fighting potential. The flurry of fists was both fast and furious as they tried to reach their target, but no matter what the little guy did, he couldn''t touch Felix at all. It was a sadder attempt even when compared to his attacks on Lindo. Of course, if the little guy couldn''t touch Lindo, how could he touch Felix, who left Lindo so far in the dust that the lion couldn''t even see his back anymore? The attacks were either parried as if they weighed nothing or blocked. Felix didn''t need to dodge, and if he did, he would have surely made Jack a little bit disappointed if he didn''t get to hit anything at all. Felix could feel that Jack was improving way more while he fought with him than when he fought his father... which was quite interesting. Did that mean that his learning would increase accordingly to the strength of his opponent? That was quite the strong passive ability, maybe on the level of Felix''s own devouring one! Felix decided to see what Jack would do when he was attacked, so he slowly pushed his hand towards his little chest in slow motion, making the little boy stop his fierce assault and back away quickly. His instincts told him that strike might claim his little life! Felix nodded, he didn''t even use 1% of his power in that attack, but it seemed it was still a little bit much for him to handle... Felix didn''t realize it, but his strength growth was immense after his human evolution, and well, it was mostly because he had to fight a literal mountain after his ascension, so he didn''t really get to see how his strength fared against people of the same size as him. The slow-motion attack even gave Lindo goosebumps, but he didn''t say anything as he saw Felix stop after Jack backed away. It seemed that Felix was testing his reflexes... But that didn''t mean Lindo was really okay with it... what if his son was a beat too late and the attack landed? Felix looked down at his outstretched arm and then retracted it as he shook his head. He realized that he did something he shouldn''t have... maybe using 1% of his strength was a little too much for the kid. Jack breathed in and out as he controlled the wild energy in his body. His instincts shouted at him to dodge that attack, and he didn''t know what to think of his godfather anymore. Did he try to kill him?! Felix shook his head as he said: "I''m sorry for that. I haven''t fought against people of similar stature in this form before... I didn''t know you wouldn''t be able to handle even 1% of my strength." Lindo''s eyes bulged out. That was Felix''s 1%? He could swear that the strength on display was almost as high as Landers''s How strong had Felix become when he associated with the humans? Jack stopped his shaking body as he understood Felix''s situation, he had an honest look on his face, and it seemed he didn''t really want to hurt him, so he forgave him. Felix nodded as he took a few steps backward and said: "I think we are done here... I will have to go back for now. I will come to visit when my mission is done... Goodbye, Lindo, Jack." Felix''s silhouette disappeared as if it was never there, and it wasn''t teleportation. He just used his normal speed to go back towards the uninhabited forest. He had finished his visit, and now, he had to go back to the humans so he could go through the last phase of their plan. With the improvement their energy would give to his body, he would be able to protect the planet... at least that''s what they said. Felix arrived back at the forest in around 5 minutes as he felt the teleportation power bring him directly to the president''s room. Vangar was still there, sipping some tea as he waited for Felix to return. The president smiled as he looked at Felix and asked: "Have you come to regards with your heart, Felix?" Felix nodded as his emotions were stable and fully coursing through his heart and mind. He was ready for everything and anything. The president nodded, seeing that Felix was now emotionally stable and not so bleak anymore, made him heave a sigh in his mind. He knew that Felix must have found his reason to help them, so he was ready to initiate the last phase of their plan. "Well, since you seem ready, follow me." The president went towards the door that led to the top of the tower and motioned for Felix and Vangar to follow him. Felix and Vangar didn''t wait at all. They followed the president outside the tower towards its top. When they arrived, the president knocked his shoes on the concrete below them, making it shake as a traction beam captured all three of them and whisked them into space. Felix woke up in a location similar to the base where he met the metal-eyed general, but it was way wider, and there were tons of people walking around, either with stacks of documents in their arms or with piles of machine parts. They were all like busy bees as they didn''t even talk to each other. They just worked robotically. However, that stopped the moment the president and the duo arrived. Someone immediately came over and saluted him before taking a glance at Felix and Vangar, understanding everything before whispering to the president: "Shall we commence the God transformation plan?" The president nodded and said: "You two shall work with Basil here, for now as I will have to go back. You know as a president, I don''t really have much free time." Vangar saluted, and Felid did the same as they both looked back at Basil. He was a man that looked to be in his thirties. He had a small mustache and a ponytail he wore the usual scientist get-up, which consisted of a coat, a green shirt, and pants along with white gloves." "Gentlemen. If you would be so nice to follow me." Basil''s voice was quite rough, and he sounded bored, but his eyes were spirited as he looked at Felix up and down, then started to walk towards a corridor of the space base while waving his right hand towards the duo, indicating for them to follow him. Felix looked around for a little bit as he walked forward towards Basil... he was getting closer to achieving the strength needed to protect those he cared about. Chapter 171: Energy core infusion and sacrifices Basil continued to walk forward while Vangar and Felix followed him from behind. The walls that surrounded them were getting darker and darker, and as time passed, the temperature that surrounded them was getting colder and colder. It was obvious that the location they were going to was a very important secret in the base as there was no one else around them. At first, people were walking around from place to place. But the further they went down the corridor, the fewer people there were until there were none anymore. The place became deserted as they reached a giant metallic grey gate with a small panel near it that was of the same color. Basil walked in front of the panel and put his eyes over it as a wave of light came out of the panel and entered Basil''s eyes, scanning them. After that, he put his hand on the panel, and his hand was scanned as well. The gigantic door started to slide up as it opened, and a deep coldness started to leak out of the room ahead. The cold seeped into Felix''s bones as he started to feel lightheaded. However, he immediately concentrated his energy, and the cold was negated. As they entered the room, the gate behind them closed slowly, leaving them inside the room... Felix looked around as Basil continued to walk forward, and as he looked to the left, he saw a gigantic glowing reactor... The reactor was glowing red and green, and it gave off the feeling that it had unlimited energy inside of it. It was a rather strange sensation, and Felix continued to walk behind Basil, but there were more interesting things around that he couldn''t help but glance at them. Besides the energy reactor, there were capsules filled with iced contents that were unseeable due to the fogged glass screens. It was a rather eerie atmosphere, but Felix had been through worse, and he wasn''t affected at all. The same could be said about Vangar as well. Their surroundings kept changing as they walked further into the room. Failed experiment strewed around. Vats of acid and other similar things could be seen around. They were all glowing with an eerie color just like the reactor, which showed that all of the energy that kept this room running came from the same spot. Basil continued to walk forward without saying anything, which added to the eerily creepy situation making it even weirder. Felix could feel the temperature going down as they reached the end of the room. It was so low that frostbite started to appear on his armor. However, the cold didn''t have any effect on Felix. Basil finally stopped as he looked back at the duo that followed him up till now. He had no expression on his face as he pressed a few hidden buttons on the floor using his right foot. Behind him came out a tall ball that discharged electricity from time to time, arcs of lightning appeared around as the ball started to move slowly, but there was no reaction coming from Basil. There were no explanations up till now, but it was finally time for Basil to talk. "Felix, come near the energy core and put your hands on it." Felix did as instructed as he approached the core and put both of his hands on it. Electricity slowly started to course through his armor and body as the AI of the armor also came back to life. Suddenly out of the ceiling came Willie who dropped unceremoniously on the ground. He looked worn out and pale as he nodded at Basil and then transformed into a batch of white light that inserted itself directly into Felix. Felix felt his back arch as the energy that was formerly Willie coursed wildly through his body. He could feel his organs hungrily absorbing the energy as the electricity from the core fused with that energy and purified it. His whole body started to spasm. But that stopped soon after as he got control of his body. He could feel his muscles, organs, skin, and bones being reinforced extremely quickly as Willie and the energy from the core were mixing inside of his body and remodeling it along with the help of his special ability. He could feel that his strength was increasing continuously with no side effects! Vangar watched from the side then narrowed his eyes as he asked Basil: "Why am I needed here anyway?" Basil looked at Vangar and tilted his head to the side as he asked: "The president didn''t tell you?" Vangar eyes narrowed as he said: "No, what was he supposed to tell me?" "Oh, deary..." Basil put a hand over his face as he continued: "Well, this is quite embarrassing, you know?" He pointed towards Vangar as a dangerous glint appeared in his eyes: "You are also needed for Felix''s full evolution as he needs the experiences and power of a general of the federation, and considering you are a veteran, you are the best candidate for that." Vangar frowned as he took a few steps backward... but then he shook his head as he smiled and said: "I guess the president thought that I would run away if I heard that beforehand..." "Well, it could have happened, but considering I''m already here, what else can I do?" Vangar knew how the federation worked, and if he had doubts, and he could have even run away if he heard beforehand, but now that he was so far inside the special base of the Federation, was there even a chance to run away anymore? It was better just to accept his fate being fertilizer for Felix''s growth. Basil nodded seeing Vangar''s reaction and said: "It seems you are a rather intelligent person. So I won''t beat around the bush anymore." Vangar felt his body being destroyed on a molecular level as Basil looked at him. His body slowly transformed into a similar ray of light that rushed into Felix''s body as Basil controlled it. Felix''s back arched once again as his strength started to skyrocket the second time, his muscles inflated and deflated as they were optimized to the perfect level of strength and speed, creating a perfect muscle balance. His bones started to harden and crystallize as they reached a hardness that made them pretty much indestructible. His organs absorbed the remaining energy as they started to perform at a higher level to adapt to his other bodily changes. The runes all over his body started to glow as he forcefully broke through to the blue level of the breathing techniques before skyrocketing through the level and going into the purple level. Felix stopped at the middle levels of the purple aura level as the energy that coursed through his body was finally finished. Then the gigantic core, which he still had his hands on, started to electrocute him continuously, the electricity had literally no level on Felix''s current physique. But it was more like a massage that popped his body back into action as it got used to the sudden changes that it went through. Then the core started to shrink as it became as small as a necklace bead which then inserted itself into Felix''s wrist, somehow piercing through his defenses and entering his veins and bloodstream. Felix felt his consciousness was cloudy as he stood there with his hands in the same position. He didn''t remember where he was for a few seconds before he shook his head and then looked around. However, he unconsciously slipped a little bit of his new power as a hole was made on the metal floor he stood on. His whole body felt hot as he started to scratch his body, unknowingly plowing through the armor that surrounded his body with ease. The AI didn''t say anything as it made the armor detach itself from Felix''s body and take a distance from him. Basil was also nowhere to be found. Skin started to drop off Felix''s body as a new one grew at an alarming speed, a third eye opened up on Felix''s forehead along with green devilish horns that grew out of the sides of his head. His nails lengthened before going back to their original length. However, they now turned a deep black color. His cat tail unknowingly popped out of his butt area, and as time passed, he stopped scratching his body while no more skin fell off his body. His impressive physique didn''t change, and he retained the same skin color, his eyes were still a deep purple, and besides the addition of the third one on the forehead there wasn''t a big difference in his looks... that and his new horns. Also, beforehand his tail and cat ears weren''t present in his human form, but now only the tail made itself known. Felix looked down at his hands as he flexed them with a strange look on his face... he had both the memories of Vangar and Willie surging through his mind right now, so he wasn''t in the right state of consciousness right now. He sat on the cold caved floor underneath him as he put one leg over the other... he needed to enter his mindscape and see through all of the memories of Vangar and Willie to understand what happened. His emotions were there, but he didn''t let them control him. He needed to see for himself why they were sacrificed for his evolution before he went ahead to talk with the president. Chapter 172: Two absorbed memory cores Felix''s mindscape wasn''t as it used to be due to the absorption of the new two memory cores that came from Willie and Vangar, things became chaotic. Everything around was clustered by the new memories that came from the absorbed duo. Of course, the bulk came from Vangar as Willie didn''t have as many memories. Felix could identify which memories came from which person by taking a glance at them. So he closed his eyes and waved his hands around, creating two big spaces where he started to sort out the memories and fuse them. Normally, he wouldn''t have to do such a thing as the souls would be absorbed by his ability, not giving him access to their memories, and excess souls wouldn''t be absorbed when he had 9 lives. Felix himself didn''t know how to forcibly absorb souls as he had never got to learn the technique combined with the fact that no one could teach him, which left him with that knowledge void. The memories usually came with sparks of will from the former owners, but it seemed these two were lacking that... Felix still remembered the incident with the black bear shaman where he had to fight him in his own soul space, and he didn''t want that to happen with these two. First. He took a glance through Willie''s memories, and he found quite a lot of things that were useful to him, regarding energy manipulation and techniques. Felix wasn''t an energy master by a long shot, he just got his own personal energy a short time ago, and besides the fighting techniques and training techniques he knew, he also didn''t have any tips or supporting techniques, he had derivated some ways when he protected Willie during his evolution but they were inferior to the direct information that Willie''s memories were giving him. Willie''s memories weren''t that many, so he easily skipped through the useless ones and absorbed the useful ones. Felix sighed as he shook his head, Willie was his servant, to begin with, but he didn''t really want him to end up this way. What''s done is done. At least he died for a good cause. Now it came the bulk of memories that were Vangar''s, his memories were way many more compared to Willie''s, and there were also quite a lot of personal ones that Felix didn''t want to interfere with, so he just skipped them and went directly towards the combat ones. There he had to pause for a bit to digest everything as there were a lot of techniques, both physical and energy ones, which were so advanced that Felix needed a lot of time to understand. Vangar was a powerhouse that hadn''t been on the battlefield for 20 years, but all of his techniques were top-notch. His body might have lagged a bit behind his techniques due to his advanced age. Which according to his memories was in the thousands of years. Normally, strong humans lived around 2-3 thousand years, but Vangar was an exception as he had been experimented on in his youth, giving him the lifespan double of average. He was at half his life, so that was the reason he looked middle-aged. The techniques he accumulated in his thousands of years of service weren''t few. Felix immediately learned killing intent masking and mastered both it and killing intent detection with a glance through the basic combat memories of the man. His stealth techniques also got a huge boost as he saw how Vangar fought stealth enemies and learned what to do and not do against enemies of similar strength to Vangar. His newly advanced energy techniques got another boost as he learned the special military techniques that Vangar created throughout his life and incorporated them into his fighting style. He also gained a lot of fighting experience, reaching the peak of battle sense in one go. He continued to sort through the memories as his soul evolved. The combination of Vangar''s experiences and techniques made his soul strengthen the more he looked through his memories. His breathing techniques slowly elevated as well. His body unconsciously mimicked Vangar''s experiences, creating a vacuum of energy around him, as he absorbed everything that could be found around in the secret room. The personal memories continued to be discarded until he finished them. Leaving only a few more combat memories that he didn''t look through, at first as they were left for last. Felix''s eyes glinted as he memorized the last memories and left the mindscape... they were indicated to be combat techniques, but they also contained the last message from Vangar before his tragic forced absorption. It seemed that he had to be wary of the federation in the future... at least until after he took care of the outside enemies. He knew he needed the help of the federation, but after that, he could do what he wanted. Felix got up from the ground and looked around seeing that the room was almost destroyed. He could see the destroyed capsules that contained unknown things had been opened, leaked fluid was everywhere as frigid corpses were dropped around. They looked rather old as they were shriveled like dehydrated prunes. The corpses were human, but Felix didn''t know what kind of use they had so he ignored them, he knew the federation wasn''t really the good guys, but siding with them would be the lesser evil in this situation. Even though they were the ones who poked the hornet''s nest in the first place. Felix left the room as the grey door opened by itself without the need for an ocular and fingerprint scan. He continued down the hallway until he reached the previously inhabited spot where everyone was rushing around with technology or piles of documents. However, everything was deserted now. There was no one around, including Basil. It was like a ghost base, and Felix couldn''t sense any life signs on the base anymore... It was very strange and as Felix looked around, he felt the sensation of teleportation engulfing his body, which he did not resist. At his current level, forceful teleportation didn''t work anymore as he learned how to resist it from Vangar''s memories. Felix found himself at the top of the presidential tower and he met eye to eye with the president, he had a serious look on his face as he came closer to Felix and patted his shoulder while saying: "I guess I owe you an explanation." "No shit." Felix''s words were flat as he looked at the president with a deadpan look on his face, he really wanted to know why Vangar and Willie had to be sacrificed, but he already had some conjectures, Vangar wasn''t only a strong general. His tactical mind wasn''t anything to scoff at, even though it wasn''t his specialty. "We are sorry we didn''t tell you about Willie and Vangar at first, but we thought that with your new emotional awakening you would have second doubts about it..." "And without my emotional awakening, I wouldn''t have done it in the first place... I see." "Eheh... I guess Vangar''s memories had some great uses for your deduction abilities..." "Anyways, Willie''s special evolved body was needed to mix the energy from the electricity core along with his sacrifice an immense amount of energy was generated by his body which was highly beneficial to you, combined with the mixing force of the evolved wisp entity he was a very needed sacrifice for you to reach your current level." "As for Vangar... even though you are very experienced, you are still a child compared to the older people in the military, experience-wise, and you need all of the advantages when you will fight with the invaders, a high level of experience and special techniques would fix that. As for why we didn''t just let him teach them to you?" A sonic boom was heard above the planet, as shockwaves struck an invisible dome-like shield that protected it was activated, making it visible. "We couldn''t hold them back anymore, and they found our planet... your strength should be complete and at a level high enough that you can spearhead the operation of defense." Constant tremors shook the planet as a fleet of dark-colored ships appeared in the space above the planet. They were all different looking compared to the ships of the federation. For one, they were more compact, and they looked even more deadly. The photon energy that was at the barrels of the guns were ready to be launched towards the shield that was covering the planet but the anti-aircraft defense guns of the federation popped out at strategic places on the planet, then shoot counter fire through the shield as if it wasn''t there, disabling most of the fleets cannons. While the fleets were a little bit more technologically advanced compared to the humans. This wasn''t the main reason the human higher-ups were scared of them. Battle cries so loud that Felix could hear them from the surface of the planet came out of the ships as 3 meters tall warriors with red skin and four arms started to drop from the ships while they beat their chests like gorillas. The moment one of them struck the shield that protected the planet a large crack appeared on it that stretched towards the horizon, showing the extreme strength of the invaders and making the president frown. "They are a little bit stronger than before..." The president''s words weren''t that encouraging to Felix. Chapter 173: The war starts However, the crack in the shield quickly mended while the invader that struck it started to bang it with his four arms angrily. He alone couldn''t create another crack because the shield strengthened once it recovered, but another red-skinned buff invader dropped on the shield, making it shake. The shield shook, making the planet shake as well, but it quickly stopped as the shield got reinforced once again. It wasn''t easy to shake the foundation of the humans only with grunt troops. The president had already sent word to all of the idle troops to gather above the capital as the ones that kept them at bay were quickly returning to shift the battlefield. Felix looked at the continuously appearing invaders and then at the president as he asked: "Should I go?" The president shook his head as he looked at the invaders who tried to break through their planetary shield and said: "It''s not your time yet, they are only grunts, and the fight between experts will happen at a later date... for now, we as the higher-ups will only watch them fight out." "But won''t the casualties be immense that way?" The president shook his head as he looked into Felix''s eyes with his lone one: "Don''t underestimate the human race, Felix. The resources we invested into you were because we lack top-tiered talents like yours." "As for the middle tier talents and above, we have plenty of them, but you know that an overwhelmingly stronger person would just turn everything on its head if they interfered in these fights. This is basic knowledge in wars." Felix nodded... this was the same even when he fought the tigers back with the Lion tribe. But instead, now he would be like the generals... coming at the last second to save the day and fight the big battle after the grunts battle is done. Felix stood at the top of the tower as the president entered back into the tower. Felix remained to observe while the president went to give the orders for all the troops to assemble. And defend the planet at all costs! Felix knew that him getting left out at the start was also a way to analyze the invaders fighting techniques. So he would have an easier time when he fought with their higher-ups. The same could be said about the higher-ups of the invaders as Felix currently knew most military techniques from Vangar''s memories... but he could also improvise. His fists were clenched as he watched the human troops rushing towards the top of the barrier in droves to drive the invaders away from their shield. The human troops were impressive as they all wore the same type of armor and walked in tandem. Their auras were fully unleashed as they entered a triangle formation, fusing their aura to improve their battle power. The invader''s ship cannons were incapacitated, so they had to fight hand to hand, along with their other personal weapons. The battle just started, but it was bloody and full of deaths, corpses fell from the top of the atmosphere down into the seas below and on the inhabited continents creating either huge craters or splashes of water that attracted the attention of every living being in the surroundings. Now that the battle started, there was no way to cover it up anymore, so every living being on the planet realized what was happening more or less. Every living being with adequate eyesight and zooming capabilities started to look towards the sky to observe the fight that would decide the fate of their planet... The troops of the humans were steady and well trained, along with their undying loyalty to the federation. They were the perfected grunt troops. The red-skinned hulking invaders with four arms weren''t as good at formations, but one strike from one of their arms would reduce 2 to 3 armored humans into canned meat paste. The strength difference was huge, but the gap between the deaths of the humans and the red-skinned warriors wasn''t that high. It was mostly because the red invaders fought alone without entering formations, and even though they were rather intelligent, they didn''t back out from a fight until they were dead. They were either too prideful. Or they were controlled to fight to the death. Their strength was impressive as shockwaves continued to appear around the top atmosphere of the planet, which rebounded in the shield and sometimes hit the formation of the human troops, scattering it or killing some of the people at the periphery of the formation. Most of the deaths of those warriors came from blood loss or decapitation by intense point focusing. The human troops were like a well-oiled machine as they focused on one point on the neck and attacked with all they got until exhaustion covered their bodies. However, they ended up with one death for the enemy as well, they used around 2-5 humans for the death of one invader which wasn''t a bad trade-off considering the numbers of the invaders weren''t that high. They were strong, but with higher strength came a lower chance of having offsprings, thus lowering the population of pure-blooded species. Evolution made it this way for most species. That was why the weaker something was, the faster it could reproduce. Every death hurt the strong warriors to the point that they actually started to mimic the human''s actions which showed that they weren''t controlled but just prideful. Felix could see that the fight was getting harder and harder for humans as the red beings continued to learn at a lightning speed, which made Felix rather confused. The humans had held them back for months on end, but these beings were only learning the human''s strategies now? Did they suddenly get bright, or did the humans have a different strategy for keeping them away? Some things didn''t add up. Vangar''s remaining will from the extra memories he left behind resounded in his consciousness as he thought about what was happening: "The federation always thinks about the future of their society as a whole, putting the military and government above everything else, in the future if they would find your use for something else, just like they did to me, you would understand the true face of the federation... but I guess this warning already did that for you." He knew that the president didn''t tell him everything, and no matter how strong he became, there would always be secrets dangled behind his back by those sneaky people, and if he wanted to get them, he would have to use force... Maybe for the future... Felix continued to concentrate as he observed every detail of the red invaders fighting style and habits when they used their body''s which were deadlier than most of the weapons that the humans were currently using against them. The pace of the war wasn''t fast nor slow as both sides probed each other out without sending any top fighters. For now, it would be a ''stamina'' fight to see which side would run out of troops first. However, from how things looked, the red beings wouldn''t last long. Even though they killed more humans, the number of humans was so high that they were just like ants. And just like ants, they would be able to cover the ''elephant'' and bite him to death. The higher-ups of the invading side knew that, but they continued to send troops to their deaths which were a little bit uncharacteristic of an intelligent race, and from what Felix understood, they weren''t barbarians. Their advanced technology showed that. So why would they send so many of their own to death? It wasn''t like the deaths of the grunts would hurt the humans too much. They would be able to rebuild easily, as their reproductive capabilities were way higher compared to the red buff beings. This attracted the attention of all of the returning generals and the president himself. While Felix was observing the fight, the president wasn''t slacking at all as he used a special observing drone to see everything that was happening in the atmosphere. The president and other political higher-ups, along with some resting generals were all in a wide room. They stood at a long table, where everyone didn''t say anything as they looked at the current fight with bated breaths. Suddenly the president got up from his chair as he frowned and analyzed everything with his lone eye better, which already turned a deep red color as flames appeared in it. "Something is wrong!" The president exclaimed as he said: "Tell all of the troops to get behind the shield right now!" The president''s words and orders couldn''t be disobeyed nor commented on in war times, so the order was given immediately as the tide of human troops started to retreat at high speeds. However, the order was given a little bit too late... A gigantic flaming explosion engulfed half of the retreating troops as they turned into ashes, and a glowing pentagram could be seen appearing on the planet as the fire pillar started to disappear after the unleashed attack. It seemed that the corpses of the invaders which dropped to the planet were used as a conductor for this sudden attack... and that wasn''t the only surprise for the humans. Chapter 174: The war (1) Felix could sense that this wasn''t the last surprise these invaders would have under their sleeves. As his power increased, so did his senses. And he could feel that something in the surrounding space wasn''t right... At first. He thought that it was some kind of interference from the arrival of the invaders, but he realized it wasn''t that after a little bit of analyzing. It was someone else asides from the invaders that were approaching the space of the plane. But it was also strange because Felix couldn''t actually sense them from where he was. It was like they were traveling in a different dimension... Suddenly Felix''s head arched towards the sky, but he didn''t look at the ongoing war between the two sides. He could feel a call from beyond the current space he was in... it was Aaltarox! However, his voice was very faint and almost inaudible, something was interfering with his attempt at communicating with him, and Felix wasn''t sure what. He tried to create a connection between them, but he failed as he clutched his head as a headache appeared every time he tried to do that. What was happening right now? Felix wasn''t sure what was wrong with him, but as he thought for a short while. He looked inside his body and then at the core that was inserted in his bloodstream. He could see it pulsing with electric energy that discharged into his body then went directly to his brain, trying to block a part there that connected to his soul and his main communication ability to his god. Felix didn''t find it surprising, but he didn''t know why they would block communication between him and Aaltarox. What would they gain from doing this? Felix easily locked onto the sphere and removed it from his body as he spat it out and then threw it to the ground before crushing it with his foot. The president immediately got notified of the core''s destruction. But he ignored it as he knew that would happen. He had the core installed inside him mostly to monitor the evolution process he went through when he fully digested every memory he gained from Willie and Vangar. That was important data that he could use to create future super-soldiers... if the human federation survived this ordeal. The core interfered with the communication abilities of the Gods as technology- and divine energy didn''t really meet each other eye to eye. They didn''t reject each other, but they glitched when combined. Felix sighed as Aaltarox''s voice appeared inside his ears: "Felix... finally, I can contact you." "What''s wrong, Aaltarox? Your tone seems a little bit dispirited." "They have arrived, Felix... it seems that my conjecture was right, while we cannot go to the mortal''s world, other gods can arrive in ours!" "You mean that..." "Yes, the gods of those 4 armed red-skinned brutes have arrived, and they are fighting it out with us... and because of my relatively lower strength, I was put as a defensive unit on the battlefield, giving me plenty of time to talk with you... I want to warn you." "Ok, then don''t keep me in suspense." "Of course... the thing is that we currently cannot give you any help, and the upper echelons of the enemies are all God''s chosen of their own with at least 6 lives each, and there are around 5 of them." "These aren''t good news." "Of course they aren''t, actually, I might fall on the battlefield, and you will lose your extra lives as well if things get to the worst possible scenario, which would put you at a huge disadvantage..." "So you got any other intelligence about these things weaknesses? I have been observing them for a while, and I can''t find any..." "They don''t have any. They are highly intelligent beings with great adaptability and learning potential. The only thing that could be considered a weakness would be their pride." But they can put it down when things matter the most and make good intelligent decisions based on the severity of the situation they were in." Felix frowned as he asked: "No physical weak spots or anything like that?" "Well, besides the normal ones that every race got. They don''t have any weak spots as evolution had made them perfect war machines." "Well, thanks for the info anyways... do you think you will survive this?" Aaltarox didn''t respond for a short while. "I don''t know. Expect to have one life soon enough, Felix. See ya." The connection between them was cut off. Felix could feel that this might have been the last time he talked with Aaltarox. He sighed as he continued to observe the ongoing war between the humans and invaders... it still wasn''t the time for him to step up yet... sadly. The human troops had reorganized after the explosive event while the president also changed the properties of the barrier. Before they let the dead bodies of the enemies fall through because they wanted to analyze them when they had the time to do it, the use of the bodies was extremely important to the humans, who were usually a middle-ranked race talent-wise. They knew that if they gained the secrets of this race''s body. They would be able to do something they weren''t able to when they had captured Felix... unfortunately, Felix was an interdimensional traveller, and his ability didn''t come from this universe. However, the bodies that fell into the ocean and the land had already become dust and disappeared in the wind after the remaining energy in them was used to create the fiery pentagram. And the president didn''t want to lose any more troops that way. They couldn''t take the risk when they knew what the enemies could do with their own bodies. The troops of the red-skinned invaders parted in the middle as they broke formation. They started kneeling in mid-air as they waited for someone. Felix observed their mannerisms and realized that whoever was supposed to appear now was a high ranking member of their army. Out of the ships that surveyed the planet came a thin woman with red skin. She wore skin-tight armour that hugged her curves. She also had a red fur cape. She had horns coming out of the sides of her head and she gave off the aura of someone important... royalty even. Felix watched her take slow steps in the air as she walked through the space that the invader troops had opened up for her. She had a small smile on her charming face as she pointed one of her four arms towards Felix''s location. Her voice travelled through the whole planet, making it shake regardless of the barrier protecting it: "I sense someone interesting over there. Why don''t you come here so we can become acquaintances?" Felix wasn''t sure if he should respond to her provocation when he got a message from the president: "Stay where you are Felix, we can''t send out our ace this early." "Then what will you do against her... I''m sure no one else would be able to do anything. I think she is one of the strongest combatants." The president paused for a while before saying: "We will first make her show some of her techniques before you go in, okay?" Felix didn''t agree nor disagree as they would do it even if he disagreed. Seeing that Felix didn''t comment made the president sigh as he said: "Send out Marshikv." Out of one of the buildings in the human''s area, came the metal-eyed general that Felix fought alongside in his first mission. It seemed his name was Marshikv. He took to the air as he flew at speeds that broke the sound barrier, appearing immediately outside the planet''s barrier. And meeting eye to eye with one of the strongest generals of the invaders. The woman frowned as she looked at the metal-eyed general Marshikv and then shook her head as her vision remained on the same spot as before, easily ignoring Marshikv as if he wasn''t even there. This angered the man quite a bit, but he wasn''t rash as he kept a good distance between himself and the woman. He knew that charging her recklessly would not get him anywhere, so he kept his guard up and waited for her to do the first move. However, before he could say anything, his vision started to swim as the woman appeared in front of him and ripped out his metallic eye crushing it with one of her eight hands. Black blood spurted out of his empty eye socket as he took a few steps backwards while grimacing. "Surprised?" She licked the black blood off the hand which destroyed the eye only for her to spit it out seconds later: "Oil?" Marshikv laughed as he powered up his aura purple haze covered him directly as he launched his attack towards her. Since she took the initiative to move away from the midst of her allies, Marshikv was a little bit more confident that he could take her on. However, he was wrong... not much time later the fighting between them stopped as the woman scooped out another eye, everything became visible as this time she licked her fingers tentatively to see if it was truly blood and she said: "It''s quite annoying to identify which colour the blood of alien species is. Sometimes I end up with half cyborgs like you, and it makes my meal taste sour." The blinded Marshikv was beaten to half death as he tried to control his breathing, but he couldn''t anymore. Her long slender foot was pressed on his chest, making his attempts at gaining oxygen even harder, and suddenly a sickening crunch was heard from below as the woman applied more pressure with her leg. Chapter 175: The war (2) The sickening crunch was heard all over the battlefield due to the intensity of the pressure that the woman was applying to Marshikv''s chest. It was a loud and resounding reminder to the human troops that they were on the weaker side. While Marshikv was beaten and blinded, he wasn''t dead yet. There was still life in him as he struggled to lift the offending leg away from his chest so he could continue fighting: "Oho? What''s this? Baby is still trying to fight it out with me? Maybe I should just remove something more vital to you... Eyeballs aren''t the only enjoyable round things at a man." Marshikv could feel his legs clench together as he heard her tone of voice, it was pretty obvious to what other round things she was referring to. Felix continued to watch from at the top of the tower, but he asked once again: "Don''t you think it''s time for me to go up there?" The president sent a message back the moment he heard Felix''s voice: "Just wait a little bit more... We need more data." Felix frowned and asked: "Are you really going to sacrifice him this way?" The president didn''t answer this question anymore as the battle in the atmosphere had reached its conclusion. Marshikv was bleeding out from the mouth and eyes as blood flowed down on his whole body, nothing remained below the waist as the red-skinned woman licked her fingers and said: "Disappointing taste, to be honest." Marshikv started to laugh as he used his upper body to float, intestines were hanging down from his upper half, but he didn''t seem bothered by that. It was obvious his pain receptors weren''t working anymore as he inserted his left hand in his own chest, going through the fragmented ribcage, to reach his heart which puzzled the woman who put him in this situation greatly, was he committing suicide? But the next moment, blood started to pour out of the woman''s nose and mouth as she clutched her stomach with two of her four arms. One of the free other two was used to point at Marshikv while the last one was covering her mouth as she trembled with anger. "What... have you done?!" "Young lady, I think you should inspect the things you want to ate before putting them in your body." "Youu...." Marshikv''s body wasn''t fully cyberized, only his eye was, but inside him stood countless micro bombs that could be detonated remotely from touching his heart directly. It was a strong self-destruct ability that most generals of the federation had implanted in them when they swore their oaths, and only the retired ones had the bombs removed from their bodies. The bombs were strong. But not enough to actually kill the woman even though they exploded inside of her stomach. It was obvious that Marshikv wouldn''t finish her here... The woman stopped coughing blood as she appeared in front of Marshikv''s upper body. Two of her arms grasped his skull as she started to crush it with all of her force. His skull popped like a balloon as she looked at the wretched remains of the general, throwing them down and letting them splash onto the barrier. She spat on the same spot where she threw him as she muttered: "Damn weaklings and their tricks..." It was obvious that this situation made the woman cautious of eating any more humans. While her life wasn''t in peril after taking one dose of bombs, there was a limit to how many she could take. The president shook his head from the war room as he looked at the destroyed remains of his general and said: "Since Marshikv is down, do you think it''s time to send Felix out yet?" The other executives looked at each other and then at the president before deciding to vote: "Marshikv was one of our weaker generals... even though he was fodder in front of this woman, that doesn''t mean our stronger ones would be in the same situation. Felix is our trump card, and his strength is still untested..." "I understand... but I think Felix doesn''t want to wait anymore." The executives sighed... they couldn''t control him. Felix looked at the remains of the man that he fought with for a little bit of time, and he didn''t feel much, his emotions were back, but he didn''t have any attachments towards this person. He just felt a hollowness that he couldn''t describe when he saw someone he knew die. It was strange, he didn''t have any strong emotions, but he was still technically mourning for him. Felix shook his head as he flew into the sky at a slow speed going through the barrier and appearing amidst the human troops before making his way through them and arriving at the middle of the battlefield where the fighting had stopped. The woman was floating in mid-air and resting while waiting for him. The four-armed troops were still kneeling as they waited for an order from her. The woman gave a small smile as she looked at Felix and said: "Finally, a worthy opponent..." Felix shook his head as he looked at her and cracked his neck. "Oh come on darling. I can feel the pure power radiating from your body... And it excites me so much." Her body trembled as she became weak in the knees as she looked at Felix... it was obvious the females her race had a few distinct qualities when it came to people with great strength. "Let''s have a good time, yes?" Felix didn''t say anything as his aura engulfed him, a pure dark purple extended over the horizon and engulfed all of the human troops creating a protective barrier around them. "Oh yes... just like that, you big bad boy..." Felix ignored her antics as his power spiked once more. His movement speed was so high that he was unseeable by everyone on the battlefield besides the woman that was squirming in front of him. "LESS GOOO!" The woman clenched her 8 hands as she unleashed her full power and dashed directly towards Felix. They clashed in the middle of the battlefield as the shockwaves created by them struck everything in their surroundings. The unprotected enemies were pushed back as some of them even died while the humans were pushed back through the barrier along with Felix''s aura shield, which cut off after they were behind the protective screen. The power of the attacks was so strong that the reinforced barrier was going to crack, so Felix didn''t play around anymore. He grabbed the woman by the face roughly taking her by surprise as she threw her directly through a few of her own ships, a streak of light that resembled an arrow created holes through five ships consecutively before stopping outside the atmosphere of the planet. The hit ships started to wobble as they almost fell out of the sky, but they remained steady after they activated the secondary repairing devices installed on them. Felix flew outside the atmosphere as he arrived directly above the smaller enemy ships and met eye to eye with the woman amidst the bigger enemy ships, which should contain the other 4 God''s chosen of the enemy. "Won''t you call your friends to play as well?" Felix''s question made the woman shake her head as she gave a bloody toothy smile, showing her sharp fangs and pearly white teeth: "No, no, this is between you and me. I won''t let the other useless males go between our dance, I have been looking for a husband so I could finally have a child. I have been looking for a long enough time and you fit the criteria perfectly! I should bear a child more easily considering you are a different race..." Felix didn''t say anything as he pumped up his power and struck her directly in the face making her weak in the knees, but not because she took a lot of damage from his strike. "Oh yeah... that''s the good stuff, I remember how my first husband struck me in the face on our first date." Felix ignored her ravings as he pummeled her into multiple other ships, some of them being destroying and falling on the planet''s barrier before crashing directly into it, exploding and transforming into dust. A message came directly to Felix''s mind from the president that said: "Could you stop throwing the ships into our shield. We waste precious resources with each attack defended..." Felix didn''t respond, even though he had the upper hand against this woman, the fight wasn''t exactly easy. At first, he thought that he was fully advantaged against her, but now he realized that she was letting him hit her. He wasn''t entirely sure why, but he continued to punch her with all he got to the point that her eyes almost left their sockets from the damage she took, also he could see something dripping at the bottom of her leg, but it didn''t seem to be blood... Was she really? Turned on? Felix found the customs of this race rather strange... Chapter 176: The war (3) Felix ignored the weirdness that was radiating from the woman''s whole vibe and aura as he clenched his right fist, and covered it in hardened rocks. The fist was immediately launched towards the woman''s abdomen as he tried to weaken her even further or create an opening where he could loop her head off her body. However, unlike before, the woman used one of her arms to catch Felix''s armored fist which pushed her backward for a few tens of thousands of meters and almost away from the ship encirclement of the enemies. The arm she used to block Felix''s strike was shaking as she licked her lips and launched herself at him. At first, she wanted to feel Felix''s strength with her whole body before they would tangle together, and now that she got a good idea, she was finally ready to go on the offensive. Felix crossed his arms in an X over his body as a rain of fists struck his guard. Felix wasn''t at his full capacity yet. Up till now, he didn''t have time to optimize and control his body through combat so he wasn''t used to his new strength and couldn''t bring all of it out. However, that was slowly changing as he fought back and forth with this upper echelon of the enemies. It was obvious that Felix was still a little bit stronger than her even though he couldn''t use even half of his full battle power yet. Felix was pushed backward through space as the woman didn''t relent in her rush attack. Her strikes were fast and furious, but they didn''t even leave a decent dent in Felix''s defense which turned on the four-armed woman even further, a visible wet patch appeared around her crotch area as she intertwined her legs around Felix''s torso. Felix frowned as he felt his back being restrained by the intertwined legs around his body, but he wasn''t scared of anything as he started to try and punch her in the stomach. However, both of his arms were pinned up by hers and with the remaining two she tried to pry Felix''s armor open below his stomach area. However, before she could do that, two more sets of arms grew out of Felix''s sides and started to pummel her until her legs gave out, and she was pushed away. She vomited a few mouthfuls of blood after she regained her balance, the small internal injuries that came from the micro bombs that exploded inside of her were aggravated by Felix''s continuous assault on her stomach. Felix''s attacks were precise and they hit all of the previously injured parts, slowly adding to the injuries. He knew that fighting god''s chosen will be a slow and arduous task, considering she could revive 6 more times... It wasn''t going to be an easy endeavor, and even if he killed her, there were still 4 other enemies who might even be stronger than her! It was going to be a really annoying day... Felix flew through space as he approached her once again. Appearing in front of her and launching a knee strike directly towards her wounded area. This made her lose her concentration as she dropped to her knees, but she didn''t fell into the space around them, showing that she still had enough strength. However, this was the perfect position for Felix. He created a saber hand as he pushed it downwards towards her lean neck, cleaving it in two and leaving her with wide eyes as her head started to drop into space, her body being caught by Felix before it could float into space as well. Felix looked around before opening his mouth and taking huge bites of the body until nothing was left, surprisingly she didn''t spawn around him at all which showed that she either had a very long range on the location where she could respawn or a fixed location. Both were currently unfavorable to Felix''s situation. On the biggest ship that stood at the crown of the other ships... The naked flawless body of the woman that Felix just killed and ate appeared in a gigantic hallway that was dimly lit. She shook her body as the liquid slowly started to slid down her legs while she had an intoxicated look on her face: "That man really knows how to charm a woman..." A few snorts could be heard from the darkness as they said: "So you let your guard down and let him kill you, Marquina?" "Oho, this guy should be pretty interesting if he took your attention so badly, sister Marquina." "Hmph, let me go out and see how he will deal with me." "If he is that strong, I guess I should get a piece of him as well..." All of these snorts came from different directions indicating that the other 4 God''s chosen were inside this ship as well. Marquina shook her head as she glared at the darkness and said: "No, he is my man, and none of you can interfere until I die!" The voice of another woman came from the darkness and said: "Oh come on Marquina... you can''t hog him all for yourself... you know that I need to bear a child as well, I''m older than you, and I''m not going to be fertile for long, you are pretty young, and you don''t need to bear a child so early... why don''t you let me go and dance with him?" Marquina hissed as she glared towards the darkness and said with anger filled tone: "You think you can steal him from me, you witch?" "Oh, come on, be more reasonable, if these useless fools around us weren''t so limp-dicked, we would have been pregnant a long time ago, and we wouldn''t have even come with them on this invasion..." "Whatever, old hag, I''m going." Suddenly a slender arm grabbed Marquina by the face as she was thrown backward into a wall, making spiderweb cracks appear on it, this showed that the person which threw her either held back or the material that the ship was made from was way stronger compared to the ones that Marquina went through after Felix thrown her around. Marquina was just like a fly stuck on a windshield after she was thrown on the wall. However, she dislodged herself from the wall as she glared at the offending arm and the now visible silhouette behind it. "You goddamn bitch, Binela." Binela came out of the darkness showing her full slender body, unlike Marquina, she only had two arms, and her skin was very pale. It was almost as if she had been doused into a bucket of white paint. She wore slim full-body golden armor with black stripes which had no cape. Her white hair was done neatly in a bun atop of her head as she glanced at the downed form of Marquina who was still trying to get up: "Tut tut, you youngster need to learn on how to respect your elders, you know the saying right? Elders go first." Marquina spat in front of her as she said: "You damn old fart, you are only stronger than me because you are so old!" "Indeed, I am, so what are you gonna do about it?" "You... you..." "Boys keep her company while I''m gone. She needs some tender love so she can forget about that man outside." "Yes ma''am" Two hands grabbed Marquina by the back of her head as she was dragged in the darkness, resigned to what was going to happen. It wasn''t like she didn''t experience this before... they couldn''t even get her wet. Binela shook her head as she disappeared from the inside of the ship and appeared in space. She looked around for a brief half a second before she appeared directly in front of Felix''s face, who was still digesting the gains from eating Marquina''s body. "Hello there, darling." Felix was stumped by the appearance of this older pale woman. She didn''t look like one of the invaders, but she had the same vibe around her, which made Felix put his guard up as he tried to create space between them. Her sudden appearance made Felix realize that she was way stronger compared to the woman that he fought with before. He didn''t sense anything until she said that hello. He felt his hair stand on end as he felt a hot breath on his neck and a hand caressing his armor from behind: "Oho... I see why that little brat Marquina wanted to mate with you so bad, not a bad body, and you also smell so uniquely..." Felix used his elbow to strike behind him only to hit the space, a finger propped his face upward to look directly into the golden eyes of the pale-faced woman that now stood in front of him: "My name is Binela. Nice to meet you mate." Her hand then went directly towards Felix''s chest as she pierced through his armor as if it was tofu, easily destroying half of his ''clothes'', he didn''t have time to get anything under the armor, so he was still naked behind it. His broad chest, along with his tattoos became visible as the only thing that kept his little brother invisible was the lower half of the armor, which Binela found to be a bother as she was ready to rip it off next as well. Chapter 177: The war (4) Binela''s eyes were shining as she was ready to rip off Felix''s last ''garment'' and leave him fully exposed to the spatial environment and her. She licked her lips in anticipation as she made her left hand get closer to his last piece of armor. However, the moment her hand was centimeters away from ripping away his armor, Felix''s third eye, which was previously closed due to his inexperience with it, finally opened! Felix''s third eye was a new organ, which he didn''t get much time to use. And he wasn''t sure what abilities did it give him... When Felix''s third eye opened, Binela''s hand froze as her eyes remained targeted towards his crotch area, everything around him stopped, the sound of others breathing as did the fight below them between the humans and the invaders, which was in full swing after Marquina and Felix left them behind. Felix didn''t know what happened, so he took a few steps backward to create some space between him and Binela. And suddenly, everything returned to normal while his third eye forcefully closed by itself. Binela was puzzled as she looked at her empty hand and then at Felix, who was a few meters away from her: "Time leaping ability?" Binela''s thoughts were in a mess. She knew that Time leaping abilities only appeared in God''s or God''s potentials, so her eyes immediately narrowed. The moment she understood what happened. She was the oldest being and the second strongest of the 5 God''s chosen on the ship. She had seen galactic empires rise and fall to the universal scale while their race fought under them and preserved. They fell apart while their race survived and took their place. She had lived for tens of thousands of years, and she was basically at half of her lifespan now. She knew she didn''t have much time- to be able to make a baby anymore, so regardless of how strong Felix was or his strange origins. She decided to pin him down, regardless of the future consequences that might exist... Even though it might be a hard endeavor considering their strength, it would still be easier than having a child with males of her own race as pure-blooded beings were harder to conceive on their part. Mixed blood would be easier to conceive and give birth to while their talent would depend on both the mother''s and father''s, it was pretty much a win for females of their species to mate with different races instead of their own, but that was also only if they found the right mate. Felix was the prime mate candidate for Binela and Marquina, his bloodline was currently very pure due to his evolution, and his strength was off the charts. However, Felix''s consent was not given- in this situation. Felix glared at Binela. He really didn''t like the women of this invading race as all of them seemed to want to jump his bones! As he absorbed Vangar''s memories, he wasn''t really foreign to the concept of sex, he had skipped through his personal life ones, but he couldn''t help glancing at some of them. He understood the look on Binela''s face, and this made him feel strange. Just as if he was like a piece of meat that she wanted to devour slowly... It was a rather foreign situation to him, so he didn''t know what to do. But in this type of situation where there were no answers. The best answer was to punch something! Felix''s third eye opened once again as time was halted, and he similarly appeared in front of Binela as she did to him when she first appeared. Binela chuckled as her face went near his and said: "Boy, you might be strong but don''t get ahead of yourself just because you are talented... you haven''t seen my full strength at all, and you shouldn''t compare me with that youth Marquina!" However, Felix''s strength wasn''t fully tapped into, as well. The stronger people he fought, the more he unlocked it, and as he fought her, his strength also increased. The first time the fight went on, he got the armor on his torso ripped off without much resistance. But this time around, it was a little bit different. Both of Felix''s fists got encased in a shiny red rock as he threw one of them at the woman''s face then the other at her stomach. Binela just laughed as she caught the one going at her face rather easily, and she was ready to catch the other one as well, only for it to accelerate suddenly and nail her in the stomach, almost going through it and coming out of her back. Blue blood started to drip along Felix''s lodged fist, and arm as Binela glared at him and started to crush the red rocks off Felix''s fist. However, Felix slipped his other arm out of the gauntlet he created. And then accelerated his fist, making it go through her chest around her heart area. More blue blood dripped from her newly created wounds compared to the normal red one that Marquina had, it is shown that as the invading race aged, everything about them changed. Including their blood color. Both of Felix''s arms started to vibrate inside of her, and now that he got her into this position. He was ready to end her for good and lower her revival count. Any death on their part would help Felix greatly as he could eat their corpses and improve his power even more. After he ate Marquina, his extra two arms disappeared, and he could only summon two more. But the strength of those two increased by more than 5x, and the original strength of his normal arms increased by 10x! That was why- he was able to easily pierce through Binela''s body as if it was made of cardboard. Normally he would have had to exhaust her and find a good opportunity to strike at a weak point, but now, he could just straight punch through her. Felix''s vibrating arms made blood spill everywhere as Binela felt her organs shake along with the vibrations from his arms. She felt her hair stand on end as death quickly approached her. However, she smiled as she used her arms to grab Felix by the back and embraced him tightly, giving him a bear hug. Felix''s bones started to crack as she used immense strength that didn''t conform with her elegant look. It was almost as if a little kitten was as strong as a gorilla on steroids, strength-wise speaking. Felix broke away from her grasp as he took his hands out of her body and wiggled out of her embrace using his flexible body. He knew he couldn''t trade lives with her. Marquina had 4 more lives, the others had 5, and with Binela here, it counted to killing people as strong and even stronger than him 19 times in total. That was 10 more lives than what he had. The gaps in Binela''s stomach and chest started to slowly heal, showing that the healing factor of the race was quite strong, considering that Felix had laced his vibrating hands with his hex energy, so he could slow down the healing factor of whoever was struck by them. Felix opened his third eye once again but stopped as he felt a splitting headache appear. Blood started to slowly drip from his third eye as it forcefully closed by itself after opening for a split second. It seemed that the eye had a limited amount of times that he could open it... and it was 3 times. "Oho? You cannot use your time-altering ability anymore? Too bad darling, It seems that you haven''t advanced too far on your path to Godhood yet." Felix found this information to be quite new Gods could be made from mortals? The human federation never told him about this, nor was any information about this wherever he had been. Binela knew that Felix was surprised by her reveal, so she immediately launched herself at him with a roundhouse kick which struck him over the face and made him fly through space, creating rings at a few points of impact, showing that his speed from the kick broke through the conventional space barriers around. Felix''s face became sore after that hit, but his healing factor kicked in and made it all better in a jiffy while he stopped his cannonballing body. Felix shook his head as he started to fly back towards Binela''s direction, only for her to somehow appear behind him. But the same tactic didn''t work twice on Felix as he struck the space in front of him, striking her directly in the face and creating a similar event to her roundhouse kick as she was pushed back to the direction they both came from. They arrived back in the midst of the ships as Felix flexed his muscles, and his skin started to turn pink while steam came out of his body. The lightning armor also engulfed him as he unlocked more of his strength. He cracked his knuckles as he suddenly disappeared from Binela''s senses. This made her quickly look around her before closing her eyes and staying there limply in space. It seemed she was waiting for Felix''s attack so she could counter him and strike back a blow that could know him out. Chapter 178: The war (5) Felix knew that stance. It wasn''t a counter stance. It was the damage accumulating stance that Lindo once used against him in training! He found it strange that she knew the same technique as Lindo... But because he knew the technique, he also knew that it would be rather dumb to attack her normally as she would be able to accumulate all of the damage he did to her as energy in her body and unleash it in one destructive attack that was hard to dodge. In this situation, Felix needed to find a breakthrough point where her guard wasn''t up and break her stance. Thus making her unable to accumulate damage that she could throwback to him. But how could he break her stance? What he could see from the short distance away from her was a flawless stance with no openings. He wasn''t sure at all how to break it. All he knew was that he couldn''t attack her, and this led to another perilous situation. If he couldn''t attack her, she could concentrate her strength and regain her stamina before entering her full power mode, making the fight even harder. He knew that this wasn''t the full potential of Binela. From his own analysis of the tissue that he digested from Marquina, he realized what type of race these 4 armed invaders were. They could grow in strength accordingly to the opponents they fought as long as they survived long enough. In this regard, they were kind of similar to the current Felix but of lower quality. Felix breathed in as he turned off all of his buff techniques for a second. His whole body became invisible in the darkness of space as he melded directly with his surrounding space making himself literally invincible. With his current technique, he could meld with space and become intangible to others while also becoming invisible at the same time. It was a fusion of stealth and the new techniques he grasped from Vangar and Willie''s energy controlling abilities. Unfortunately, in this state, he couldn''t attack anyone either. However, this wasn''t a technique meant for attacking. Felix appeared in front of Binela, who still had her eyes tightly closed, and waited for Felix to attack her. It was obvious from the small frown on her face that she was puzzled about why Felix didn''t attack her. She had let down her guard and entered this stance which looked to be harmless on the surface. So she thought that she would be able to easily bait him into attacking her. Felix put his intangible hand through her chest, making her feel as if something really cold entered her. She shivered unconsciously as she opened her eyes and looked around, feeling rather strange: "What the hell is happening?" It seemed that she hadn''t fought such a technique before as she was clueless about what was happening to her now. She still thought that Felix was hiding in the darkness of space, so she wasn''t sure why she was feeling that coldness in her chest. "Come out!!" Binela felt flustered as the coldness seeped into her body, but it didn''t damage her at all. She felt very strange as she unleashed her full power, creating a supernova of energy that surrounded her, and blasted the surroundings until all of the surrounding stars exploded into space dust that drifted around. She breathed roughly as she tried to see any signs of Felix but she became dispirited as she thought: "Did he run away?" But that dispiritedness became anger really quickly as she glared down at the planet that was still visible from the distance: "If you don''t come back, I will go and destroy your planet!" Mating was a long endeavor for people of their race, and she didn''t have much fertile time left. So if she didn''t start a few days from now, she might not be able to get pregnant until she ran out of time. This made her very angry as giving birth was something that all women of their race dreamed about. The stronger women actually envied the weaker ones that could get pregnant from males of their race. "COME BACK HERE, YOU DAMN HUNK!" "I NEED YOUR SEED!" If things weren''t awkward before, they were now. At least for Felix, they were. But, it was obvious that her guard was very down right now, and her stance was also broken. Meaning that Felix could attack without problems. Felix broke away from his current invincible state as he appeared directly in front of her, stunning her because she didn''t feel the power of time altering anymore, which took her by surprise. How many of these types of techniques did he have?? Her head fell from her shoulders as she thought about that, Felix moved so quickly, and she was still rather angry, so before she could put her guard up and try to counterattack, Felix decapitated her. Back in the ship, Marquina was clothing herself in a red armor similar to Binela''s as she glared at the two silhouettes behind her then looked at the stationary one who didn''t even look at what was happening with her while the duo played with her: "Leader Seasquatch, couldn''t you have helped me a little... you are so cold." The silhouette didn''t move nor did it say anything for a few seconds before it shook for a second, and he said incredulously as he looked at the revival spot where Marquina previously came from: "Binela??" Binela got up from her kneeling position as she glared at those surrounding her. Marquina laughed as she used two of her arms to support herself while the other two were grabbing her stomach: "Hahahaha, you old witch, it seems this young station is too wild for you to tame?" Binela didn''t say anything as she snapped her fingers and another armor similar to her former one covered her now naked body. "You shut up, green bean. He just took me by surprise, that''s all, his techniques are... peculiar to say the least." The duo who ravaged Marquina asked at the same time in a unified voice: "Hmmm? Peculiar techniques?" Binela looked at them and snorted: "I guess you two would be interested in that. After all, you are both fighting freaks." "Yes, Yes we are, anyway, what kind of peculiar techniques are we talking about here?" "Well for starters, he got a time-altering ability tied to his third eye..." "And another ability that I couldn''t really identify, but it seems he almost transcends our current space and enters another one... I''m not sure about it, but that''s the one that took me by surprise." "That sounds interesting, Mam. Do you mind if we go outside to tire him out for you?" "Oh, no darlings... be my guests. I will join you after I recalibrate my strength with this new body. At least he doesn''t know where we revive, or I and Marquina would have been in trouble." The silhouette that shook beforehand and seemed to be the leader of the upper echelons asked: "Is he really that strong that he would be able to ignore me and the twins? And even get rid of the two of you?" "You will see Marshallo. You will see." "That''s not the appropriate answer, Binela." "Oh come on, you can''t go now, you know when you start fighting you don''t stop until the opponent is transformed into a meat paste, please let the twins go and fight him as they are more technically advanced than us while only being a little weaker. They should be able to fight him properly and tire him out until we can tag team him..." "If you say so... but you already praised him so much, It just gets my blood boiling!" The whole spaceship started to shake as he said that, and the surrounding space in a small area around them started to distort as Marshallo was controlling his strength to not burst too hard, or else their fleet might just disappear. "I guess we go, right?" Marshallo didn''t say anything as he leaned on a pillar. Only his silhouette was visible as he shook his head and waved his hand, indicating that they could leave. The twins nodded and disappeared from the ship as they went towards the battlefield that Binela was formerly in. They acted stealthily, unlike Marquina, and Binela as they disappeared. Their stealth was quite of a high level as Felix had just finished Binela''s corpse, and he didn''t sense them until they were only a few tens of meters away from him! He narrowed his eyes as he made himself look oblivious to their approach. He was just staying there as he seemed to be thinking about something while he looked in the direction of the ships, making it look as if he was pondering which ship was he going to attack. "Bro, does it seem like he wants to bait us in?" "Hmm... it''s 50/50 on this one, this guy is a really good actor, it does seem as if he is checking out the ships, making it look like he is looking for Binela and Marquina, which shows that he knows we have multiple lives, but he could also have sensed us and put up a trap." "So what do we do... do we attack?" "No, not yet. Let''s wait for a bit more time before we attack... or I think we will have more problems than grandma Binela had with him..." Chapter 179: The war (6) Felix''s patience was something that had been forged through multiple life and death situations, along with his tenacious training and adventures. But it seemed he had met his rival when it came to patience. He knew he was currently being stalked, but he couldn''t attack yet. He knew the general location of the enemy, but space was big, and when he would attack, there was a high chance his strike would be dodged. The first strike was the most important so he could take the tempo of the fight. So he couldn''t leave himself open in any situation. The duo was waiting patiently in the darkness while he was in the light. However, that could change with the flick of a finger... Felix''s silhouette disappeared as he activated his own stealth technique making the duo panic as they realized that Felix must have found out about their location! "Bro, do you think he had found us?" "Most unlikely, but I guess he sensed that we are nearby and decided that hiding himself would be better than staying there." "So what do we do now? It''s obvious that his stealth techniques are better than ours..." "All we can do is wait... we don''t need to lose the initiative or else we will end up like Marquina and Binela." Felix continued to wait while in stealth, and the twin duo did the same, which turned a deadly fight into a waiting game to see which one''s patience would run out. Felix frowned as he looked in the direction in which he sensed the duo. They felt a little bit weaker compared to Binela''s pure strength. But it seemed they were smarter. This made the current situation rather annoying. Felix could wait and wait, but what would happen to the planet? Would they be able to endure while he continued this hide and seek game here? The invaders had nothing to protect, and they could run away whenever they wanted, but the humans didn''t have the same ability. Felix frowned as he slowly made his way towards the location of the twins while in stealth. He couldn''t wait anymore. It wasn''t that he ran out of patience, but he was worried about what could happen to the planet while he was fighting these guys. There were still 3 other super-powered enemies in one of the ships that could easily turn the planet over. He wasn''t sure why they weren''t attacking the planet yet, but it seemed their pride might be getting in their way. It didn''t seem like they wanted to crush the weaklings unless they were the last ones to fight. Or did they want to continue fighting him? The women surely must want to. And from the looks of it, they were a warrior race that enjoyed fighting. How did the humans offend them in the first place? Felix sighed. His senses have been concentrated 5 meters around him. Suddenly he could freely sense the actual location of the duo as he sent an energy punch towards that location which left cracks in the surrounding space. The duo knew that this time they couldn''t wait anymore. They pushed each other out of the way as the stealth technique they used broke away, leaving their features to be seen by Felix. They were ugly as each of them had one eye, one arm, and one leg each. They almost looked like half of a person, and a second after they were away from each other, an attraction force appeared that put them back together. Now that they were back together, they looked a little bit more normal. The only difference between them was their eye color, one being green and the other black. They wore a special armor- that had ripped apart like a jigsaw puzzle when they disconnected, which was of green and black color painted with small stripes along the sides. They talked telepathically as Felix couldn''t understand a thing they said. But he could feel they were communicating: "It seems he finally found us, bro. I guess it''s time to fight, he took the initiative. So we have to take it back!" Felix didn''t wait for them to finish talking as he appeared in front of them and struck directly at the middle, trying to separate them, in this situation. He knew that separating them would weaken them considerably as they seemed to be an advanced form of conjoined twins. Felix''s attack went through a gap as the duo separated for a few seconds then attacked Felix from two different directions using their hands differently. And showing that each of them had different brains that could execute conflicting commands. Felix''s recovered his hand as he tried to strike the left part of the twins. It seemed that the twin''s reactions were very fast, and he couldn''t separate them unless one of them was too injured to react. Felix''s attack glided against the left side of the twin''s as if he didn''t attack directly the point, which was not possible. Felix wouldn''t make such a mistake at his level. He infused some hex energy into his eyes, so he could see why did his strike deviate from the target. The moment he did that, he realized that a revolving normally invisible shield was circulating around the twins. His strike left a ripple on it, which didn''t stop even now. Seeing Felix''s gaze made them realize that their small ace was found out. But they didn''t say anything as they continued to attack from different directions. A pale orange aura slowly started to revolve around the twins as their speed and power increased considerably. Which made Felix''s eyes narrow... he was at the peak of the purple aura level, but he didn''t break through to the orange level yet. Marquina was also at the peak of the purple aura level, and since these guys were weaker than Binela, she should be a little higher than them. However, this puzzled him a little as she never initiated her aura to this level when they fought. Felix breathed out as his aura engulfed him as well, there were small parts of it that were orange, but mostly it was a full and dark purple which showed that he reached the limits of the purple level. His aura fluctuated as he clashed against them, and he realized that as they fought, the twins were easily adapting to his fighting style and even improving. It was different compared to Binela as they were doing it way faster and more accurately, showing that they had quite the knowledge about martial arts. However, they weren''t the only ones that were improving, fighting such experienced and talented individuals made Felix''s strength unlocking speed skyrocket- as he continued to push them back, which in turn, slowly made them stronger as well. Felix put both of his hands together to the side of his body as wild energy was tamed into his hands, in the form of a small glistening red orb. Then he picked the orb into his left hand as he started to crush it compressing it in an even smaller form until it was at the size of a pistol bullet. Seeing that Felix was ready to attack them with an energy attack made the twins back away as they opened their side mouths. Wild hex energy appeared therein as they expelled a thick yellow beam of energy, not letting Felix finish his preparations. Felix looked at the incoming beam of energy and snorted inside, after he fought that mountainous giant, he thought about creating a technique that would always let him win this kind of energy struggles. He let out the small bullet-sized energy bean which immediately cut through the middle of the beam showing its superiority and going straight towards the fused body of the twins. The energy bullet was getting closer and closer to them as it easily pushed through their energy beam, making them cancel it as they separated into two parts letting the small bullet-sized bean of energy go through space and not damaging them at all. However, the ships in the distance weren''t as lucky as the compressed beam started to increase in size and hit the middle-sized ships creating a gigantic mushroom cloud that destroyed half of the fleet of the invaders and killed numerous low-level invaders creating some more breathing room for the humans who were still fighting near the planet''s atmosphere, hoping that there wouldn''t be any more reinforcements from the enemies. The shockwaves from the explosion made the lower leveled ships barrel towards the planet below them while the higher leveled ships started to rock as if they were normal ships on the ocean during a stormy night. The duo wanted to quickly rejoin- so they could continue the fight and improve their power while learning more about Felix''s fighting techniques and style. So they could improve theirs. However, this was the moment that Felix had been waiting for, he never thought that he would be able to kill them using this new technique of his, but he needed to do this so they could separate again! The moment they tried to rejoin was the moment that Felix appeared in the middle where they were supposed to meet, grabbing ahold of both of them at the same time with herculean strength! They tried to rejoin as a grimace appeared on their half faces at the same time. But Felix wouldn''t have any of that! Chapter 180: The war (7) Felix immediately tried to crush the two half bodies into nothing, only to realize they were way harder than they looked. The moment his fingers hooked into the flesh of one of the twins'' half bodies, he realized that their defenses exceeded Binela''s! Their skin toughness was off the charts. But their strength had lowered by more than 60% after they were separated. It seemed these two were something of a specialty even among their race. While together, their strength was at full power, but if they were separated their defenses would increase immensely so they could survive whatever separated them in the first place. Felix''s eyes narrowed as he tried once again to destroy the body halves. Only to find out that he couldn''t, yet. So he unleashed his full power, his aura inflated as lightning engulfed him and both of the body halves as they were currently in his grasp. The twins'' half expressions started to distort as the pain finally started to course through their bodies, making them convulse, while their meat started to get cooked. Their skin turned from the normal red color of their race into a deep dark blue. Their pulses slowed down while their breathing started to get shallower and shallower. Their hearts were slowly stopping... Their halves were being slowly roasted in Felix''s lightning armor, making them grith their teeth from the pain, but they didn''t beg for mercy, nor did they look angry at what happened. Actually, their eyes glistened as they observed how Felix used his lightning armor technique. Suddenly sparks started to slowly appear on one of the twin''s half bodies as the lightning that was cooking him was getting absorbed. His eyes were filled with energy as the lightning didn''t hurt him anymore. Felix''s eyes narrowed as he stopped using the lightning armor to kill them. However, one of the twins already grasped how to use the basics of the lightning armor and transmitted it telepathically to the other one. Making sparks appear around his now blue skin as well. The duo laughed at the same time as they finally said something to Felix: "You have interesting techniques!" Felix frowned as he kept a tight hold on their bodies. While they learned the lightning armor, they couldn''t employ it perfectly, nor did they gain any sudden strength boost because of it- as the lightning armor was mostly used to increase Felix''s speed, agility, and heightening his instincts at another level. But this technique getting leaked was certainly a bad thing. Felix howled as his skin turned pink and disappeared along with the body halves. They were moving so fast that the halves actually got sick of the wild motions that Felix was doing in space. Obviously, he was gaining momentum the more he moved, and after a short while, he threw the two body halves in two different directions at such strength that they created small stars in the distance. Felix stood in the same spot as he waited for the bodies to come back and rejoin, while he was standing in a horse stance, his arms around his body, while his hands were around his stomach. His fists were clenched while his aura was infused directly into his fists. Veins popped up on his fists as he concentrated with closed eyes, he made out the gist of the twin''s ability, and he knew that they would combine in the same location they had been separated. He could hear the space being cut as two bodies came from two different directions, and they were ready to collide with Felix in the middle. However, before that could happen, Felix trusted both of his arms to the left and right, and the speeding bodies were speared through the chest at the immense speeds they came back, creating an exploding effect that destroyed both halves of the twins, transforming them into ground beef. Felix opened his mouth. And all of the surrounding meat was absorbed into his mouth as he closed his eyes and felt his body accepting all of the transformations coming from the devoured ground beef. Felix clenched his hands as he suddenly duplicated, creating a perfect copy of himself. Felix and his copy looked at each other before they shook each other''s hands and nodded. Then the copy transformed into sludge that entered back into Felix''s body. "Interesting..." While the twins had gotten the lightning armor, Felix had gotten something way more useful. The twins'' half bodies reappeared in the dimly lit room of the ship where everyone else was. They looked down as they laughed a little before they wore another armor similar to the one their previous body used. "It seems you two got the same outcome..." Marquina said with a small smirk on her face. While she didn''t mind the rape that much before, she still held a grudge as she wasn''t in the mood to do it with weaklings like them. She wanted Felix, not these two half mutants. Binela frowned as she looked at the silhouette of Marshallo who was slowly starting to move, he didn''t lean on a pillar anymore as he looked at Binela and Marquina before saying: "I can give you two one more chance. I know how important this thing is for the two of you, and we do also require new blood." Binela''s eyes widened in surprise as she looked at Marshallo, she knew that he was a person that loved a good fight above everything else. Sometimes he would even disobey the orders of the royalty on their planet, but it wasn''t like they could do anything anyways. He was the strongest general in the army, and he had the respect of all of the able-bodied males of their race. While the royals were strong and had special blood, Marshallo was a talent that was above royal blood. However, due to the way he lived and his high talent. He had his unique quirks which were just very advanced racial personality mutations. "Thank you Marshallo... we will surely pay you back." Marquina said with a trembling voice and she was almost ready to bolt away only for Binela to grab her by the arm while she was looking at Marshallo: "What are you playing at Marshallo?" Binela knew Marshallo the best. Even though he was a battle maniac, he wasn''t dumb under his mask of a rampaging top-tier monster. He was actually quite devious when it came to battle and tactics, but he mostly found such things to be below him to use against weaker opponents. "Nothing Binela, you can go now." The moment the words you can go now left Marshallo''s mouth, Binela''s hair started to move up as if she was getting electrocuted. "I understand, Marshallo... I will go now." Binela dragged Marquina away leaving Marshallo and the twins alone: "So, big bro Marshallo wanna hear about a cool technique?" ************************* Felix had his eyes closed as his surroundings started to shake, his aura appeared involuntarily around him, cloaking itself around him as if it was a quilt. The deep purple color was slowly morphing as a new color was starting to overtake it. After Felix ate the twins'' remains, he didn''t only get the cloning ability as he gained a ton of energy to fuel himself with. He also gained energy from the former two kills, but it wasn''t enough for him to break through yet. Only after he ate the twins'' bodies, that changed. Felix''s transformation didn''t get unnoticed as his aura created waves of energy through the whole space for around 600 kilometers, even pushing some nearby ships into each other and making them break and explode, reducing the enemy''s fleet even further. At this point, there wasn''t much of a fleet to speak about anymore. However, the biggest ships were still steady and watching everything unfolding from above, creating the illusion that the invaders didn''t have any losses up til now. Marquina and Binela looked at Felix, who was currently undergoing his aura evolution, Marquina was biting her lower lip as she asked Binela: "Hey, old hag? Shouldn''t we stop him from evolving? I know that we need to get his seed. But I feel rather threatened by the current fluctuations of his aura... he didn''t even go through the evolution yet, and it feels like he could easily get rid of me." Binela didn''t say anything as she had her eyes glued on Felix''s form and said: "Do you know how stronger would a baby made from him would be if he was at the orange aura level when we mated with him?" Marquina shook her head. She herself wasn''t at the orange aura level, so how could she know? "Well, the qualitative difference would be like a serf of our planet and Marshallo." Marquina''s eyes widened in shock as she looked at Felix''s figure and asked: "But you should have realized by now that he doesn''t have any thoughts about mating with us..." "I know... this is why I have an idea." Marquina looked at Binela. She could see that her eyes seemed to not have the fire that indicated she wanted to continue fighting. What was exactly her idea? What could she do to end things peacefully? And even if she did, what about Marshallo and the twins? After all, they had been sent here to conquer the planet and its inhabitants. Chapter 181: The war (8) Binela looked at Marquina and asked her: "Do you think we should still fight for these people?" Marquina fought within her mind for a bit before coming to an answer. Obviously, it wasn''t really worth fighting for them, while they were rather exalted as the strong women of their race. Those above them could still do whatever they wanted to them. Just how the twins easily got their way with Marquina even though she didn''t really want to. "But can we really escape them, Binela?" Binela snorted as she said: "Of course we can, Marshallo wouldn''t really care, and he is the top power in our race." "Are you sure?" Marquina didn''t have much contact with Marshallo as she was the youngest prodigy of their race that reached the level of an upper echelon. She only had rumors and stories about him, but in all of them, he seemed to be a man that wouldn''t accept traitors and that he was rather a patriotic person. "Don''t think that what you have heard about him is true as he is only protective towards the weaklings of our race and for being patriotic? *Snort* The only thing he is patriotic about is our races fighting techniques." "Hmm..." "Don''t think about it too much. Even if we break away from the army, Marshallo won''t stop us. He has already fought me until he was satisfied, as for you. You are too weak to enter in his eyes." "Is he really that easy to satisfy? At his strength, I thought he would have a more complicated thought process.." "Not really. The stronger the males of our race get, the more they are absorbed by the will to fight." "...." Marquina didn''t know what to say to that information as she shook her head and asked: "Do you really think we will be left alone if we defect?" Marquina knew the strength of their teammates, so she was sure that while Binela would be able to escape. The same wouldn''t be said for her. Binela didn''t bother to respond again. She knew that Marquina was scared only because of her inadequate strength. Her eyes targeted the unmoving Felix. His purple aura was slowly transforming into golden orange, and she just couldn''t take her eyes away from the transformation. It was just so beautiful, and these types of things could rarely be viewed as most experts secluded themselves when they broke through. It was a mesmerizing view which Marshallo was enjoying as well. His silhouette appeared near an observing window in the same room that the others revived in. He obviously knew that Felix was currently making a breakthrough, but he didn''t stop him at all. Not because he couldn''t do it but because he didn''t want to. His blood was boiling in his veins as he looked at Felix''s transformation, he would have been a worthy opponent before, but now he could become an opponent that could push him to his full power! He could feel the heart in his chest. Beating quicker than before while his blood boiled in his veins. He almost couldn''t control his power anymore. He also obviously knew about what Binela and Marquina were plotting from the side as he could sense that they weren''t attacking Felix while he was making his breakthrough. However, that was also something that he wanted, so he didn''t really care about what they wanted with him, as long as he got to fight him afterward. The only ones who had a problem with the current situation were the twins. They didn''t stay idle even though Marshallo gave the women duo the second chance to fight Felix. While they taught the lightning armor technique to Marshallo, they had also put a special tracker on Marquina, unknown to her. So they could observe the fight between the duo and Felix with front row seats. But they came to hear about the duo''s defection idea, and this made them rather angry. Unlike Marshallo, Binela, and Marquina, who actually came from humble roots. The twins were of the royal blood of the highest degree and also military consultants. They were loyalists to the empire the royal bloodline had created, and they enjoyed high-level benefits. Especially if they were the ones that spearheaded the invasions against lower leveled civilizations. It was obvious they were ready to rat out the duo''s plans, but they didn''t seem to have the courage to report that, while Marshallo was seemingly enjoying himself watching the space through the window. But they heaved a sigh in unison as they gathered courage and slowly came closer to Marshallo, dropping to one knee in respect and saying slowly: "High general Marshallo, I have got some information that you should be privy to. It might affect the outcome of this invasion if you don''t look at it and give the appropriate order." Marshallo made a ''hmm'' sound as he took one step away from the window and looked at the kneeling twins. "What type of information is it?" Marshallo asked with a dull tone. His eyes flickered as he looked at the twin''s half bodies as he thought about something. "It''s information of the highest order of betrayal, high general, please look at this!" The twins took out a small sphere of energy, which they threw to the side, where it expanded into a small mirror-like device. On the mirror were the faces of Binela and Marquina, and the audio was working perfectly. It seemed they were still contemplating if they should defect or not. At least Marquina was. "Do you see high general? They are both traitorous whores that should be executed for their actions! They want to elope with the target and defect the army!" "This is a crime worthy of the highest punishments, sir. You should know about it the best." Marshallo''s eyes started to flicker with a high level of energy after he heard the words ''You should know about it the best.'' It seemed his past wasn''t anything easy to swallow, and the twins somehow brought it up. The twins immediately realized that they made a mistake as the two halves scrambled to different sides, trying to dodge whatever was going to come. The duo realized they misspoke as they saw Marshallo''s gaze. But they were puzzled as there was actually no physical reaction besides his gaze changing a little bit. Was Marshallo refraining from attacking them because of their position in the royal family? No, that was not it... Sweat dripped down from the brows of the half bodies as they scurried to different parts of the room, trying to make themselves as small as possible. They felt almost as if they were antelopes in the face of hungry lions. There was nothing they could do as they were boxed in a small corner where the lions would pounce on them and transform them into their lunch. It was the fear created by the difference in power level, the difference in the structural life level of individuals. Technically speaking, Marshallo was just built differently. Marshallo shook his head as he looked at the sorry mess that the twins became after he leaked some of his aura as it was impossible to fully control himself- while Felix was out there getting stronger. "I don''t want to hear about this ever again, do you two understand?" The half nodded so quickly that the room they were in started to shake before they rejoined into one person and left the room, not trying to get on Marshallo''s bad side ever again. Marshallo sighed as he went back to the window and looked at the ever-increasing aura tower. ************************ Felix stood under the aura tower that was automatically increasing as he breathed in and out. His energy levels spiked so far that if someone tried to detect them with a specially made technological device, it would explode into smithereens. Felix was sitting cross-legged in space while he was seemingly unaware of everything that was happening around him. But his spirit was always looking around, trying to identify any attempts on his life. Of course, he had identified Binela and Marquina standing quite far away from him as his senses had improved once more while he was breaking through. However, he became puzzled why they were just observing, and not attacking him now while he was at his weakest... Since they didn''t do it, Felix continued his breakthrough as the tower of orange energy slowly morphed into a pillar that exploded in space, creating a beautiful image that spread to all of the surveillance cameras of the surviving ships. The blossoming image was so huge that even those on the nearby planet could see it. ******* The president''s lone eye opened wide as he looked at the after-effect of Felix''s breakthrough. His lip was twitching as he realized that Felix had grown farther than they could control him. But he wasn''t sad nor angry because of that, he saw hope, the hope of surviving, and maybe even mounting a perfect counterattack! He tried to contact Felix by the connection he had with Vangar''s absorbed soul. Only to realize that it was impossible now. Not because Felix was declining the connection. But because he wasn''t able to connect with him anymore due to the different strength wavelength. The president sighed as he looked around at the hopeful eyes of the people around him, and he didn''t say anything as he looked at the tall monitor that was still fully orange due to the color explosion from Felix''s breakthrough. He only hoped for the best to happen now. Chapter 182: The war (9) Felix''s ongoing transformation was only beginning. His purple aura. Which was slowly becoming golden under the explosive pillar of energy that he created was expanding at a crazy rate after he initiated the breakthrough. The power radiating from Felix increased more and more to the point that the enemy ships couldn''t ignore it anymore, even though there were no orders from above. They decided to attack him anyway. Not every person of the 4 armed race was a battle maniac, and they had their orders that they needed to follow. While Marshallo was the strongest army high general, that didn''t mean there weren''t any royal loyalists in the army. Most of the people that were loyal to Marshallo wouldn''t make a move without his direct command. But the royal loyalists, on the other part, were more proactive. Felix could feel that some of the medium-sized ships that survived and moved away from the battlefield were currently pointing their weapons towards him, while one of the biggest ships was also doing the same thing. However, he ignored them as he concentrated on breaking through. The royal loyalists who were currently fiddling with the controls of the newly repaired photonic cannons were looking towards Felix''s locations through the radar and aimed directly at him. The photonic cannons unleashed a long beam of blue psionic energy that traveled through space at a speed invisible to the lower-level warriors'' eyes as it shot directly towards Felix. Clashing with the pillar of his aura, trying to break through it and reach his main body. However, the moment the beam of energy struck the pillar of energy. It started to meld with Felix''s aura as it enhanced the speed of its transformation to the orange level. His power was inflating at a higher speed due to the loyalist''s attempts at stopping him. The people in the bigger ship, who shot first already realized that things weren''t right, so they tried to stop the beam. However, the medium-sized ship shot the same type of beam a few seconds later, inflating Felix''s aura even further. This made the loyalists'' side start to throw insults at each other before trying to turn off both beams as they realized they couldn''t do anything to Felix while he was breaking through. However, once you got on the horse, it was hard to go down. The beams that would have usually stopped after those on the ships turned them off didn''t do so in this situation. Felix''s eyes were full of energy as he looked towards the directions of the ships that shot at him. These beams of energy were helpful to his breakthrough, and he wouldn''t let them take them back. Felix made a motion with his hands as the energy beams continued to be drained out of the ship''s cannons until they slowly started to overheat. And while the technology they were using was rather advanced, and the materials were all very energy conductive. There was still a limit to how much time it could shoot such a highly concentrated psionic energy beam. One of the main people that had activated the energy beam was currently panicking as the captain which was in Marshallo''s camp glared at him and said: "I thought that this might have affected the enemy''s breakthrough, just like you convinced me to, but it seems that you are actually helping him further his breakthrough!" The same thing was happening on the other ship. But in their situation, their cannon had already given out, and no more energy was seeping from the ship. Felix''s body started to float as he got up from his cross-legged position in space. His eyes were opened wide as energy poured out of them, his aura was 60% orange now, and his transformation was speeding up even further. It wouldn''t be much time before he reached 100% and finished his breakthrough! Binela and Marquina observed what was happening with different expressions. Binela was excited for Felix''s close breakthrough, while Marquina had a strange expression on her face. It was obvious that Felix''s breakthrough was going to be a success, but Marquina still seemed unconvinced about what was happening. She was really insecure. Binela patted her shoulder as she looked at Felix''s silhouette, who was currently floating and creating a domain with his aura: "You should observe this better. It will help your future breakthrough in the orange aura level..." Marquina shook her head as she looked up at Felix and decided to believe in him. Felix''s body started to buff up a little under the continuous energy rampage that went through him, as his aura evolved his hex energy started to upgrade, and in this situation, it changed his overall body structure as well. It wasn''t as big as his usual evolutions when he ate the bodies of different races, but it wasn''t that small either. It was something of an in-between upgrade. Felix''s floating body suddenly stopped as the rest of the 40% purple aura slowly started to wither and disappear as an orange glow overtook it. It was just like the sun coming up in the morning and lighting up the dark world, unleashing the power of the day. Felix breathed in as all of his new aura domain entered his body and he floated down to a different place. He now stood in the perfect spot for an ambush, seemingly as if he didn''t even know about that fact. Binela and Marquina approached him slowly from their hiding spot, Felix looked at them and then suddenly appeared between them, his open hands at each of his enemy''s chests. Ready to blast them into smithereens. However, Felix didn''t take the shot as he looked into the eyes of the scared Binela and Marquina. Even the current Binela, who previously could fight one on one with Felix, and maybe even win, in certain situations couldn''t do anything besides surrendering to him after his breakthrough. She knew that if Felix unleashed his new energy, her body would become a scorching pile of dust in no time, unlike before, where she could have tanked the attack and even retaliated. Felix opened his mouth as his strong voice was finally heard, his chest muscles slowly moving up and down as he still found control of the new energy in his body: "Why did you only watch and not attack me? Did you know that your attacks would have fueled my breakthrough, and you thought that you could ambush me afterward? Or do you want to give up?" Felix wasn''t an unreasonable person. As long as they swore on their ancestors that they would become allies of the humans, he could let them go so they could fight together. Binela took a step forward as Felix''s open hand found itself into her two bouncy orbs, which would have flustered Felix if they weren''t in a life and death confrontational battlefield. After all, he never had many thoughts about the fairer sex because he was a cat, and even though there were cat people on the planet that could morph into a cat form. He found it rather strange having a relationship with them, as he didn''t have a human form of his own. "What are you thinking of doing?" Felix narrowed his eyes. The grip on the orbs strengthened to the point that a combination of pain and arousal appeared on Binela''s face. "I''m giving myself to you, and I have no other requirements besides impregnating me. I will be your warrior in life and death!" Binela was extremely direct as she winked at Felix. Felix found her actions to be rather sudden, but since she wanted to give up, he wasn''t someone that would kill her if she knew she was outclassed. "I can let you go. But you need to swear an oath on your ancestors to never betray me." Binela smiled as she immediately said in a high pitched tone of voice which indicated she was currently exhausting some type of energy inside of her: "I, Binela Carmona the second of the Carmona family hereby swear on my dearest ancestors that I will serve the man in front of me till my death. And if I shall break this oath, may my ancestors smite me from their resting place, breaking my bones, popping my eyes, and destroying my internal organs before letting me decay alive for ten thousand days." Purple energy engulfed Binela''s pale body and bound her to Felix''s soul as Felix felt the connection between them. Marquina felt that everything Binela did was too quick, but when she saw that Felix was now glancing at her, she knew what to do. Marquina opened her mouth as she intoned the same vicious oath just as Binela did, copying word for word, the only difference being the family name which was Silhto. Felix nodded as he let down his hands, not threatening the life of the duo anymore. He looked towards the biggest ship where Marshallo was as he narrowed his eyes. He could feel a wild aura that made his hair stand on end, slowly accumulating there. A gigantic laughing and screaming skull that was half orange- half yellow appeared behind the ship as an explosion engulfed it, destroying it thoroughly until nothing remained inside. Only the twin''s newly revived naked half bodies appeared as they looked at Marshallo with a gaze that showed how much they feared him. Marshallo laughed boisterously as he started to take slow steps through space towards Felix. His face was a mask of madness as his appearance slowly came through to Felix. Chapter 183: The war (10) Marshallo looked like a manly man with big muscles that looked as if he hit the gym regularly. But not big enough for him to be called a bodybuilder. His lower armor was bloody red, and he was topless. Showing a bunch of scars all over his chest that varied in size. Some of them covered his whole chest horizontally. Showing that they mostly came from blades. While other scars were just small dots or bite marks. His flowing black hair reached his back, and there were two stumps where his other two lower arms were supposed to be, showing that his two extra arms hadn''t disappeared naturally like Binela''s. It seemed that his life wasn''t as easy as hers, even though they both came from similar situations. Marshallo maddened eyes slowly turned normal as he took a glance towards Marquina and Binela. Then waved his hand, indicating for them to leave. As it wasn''t a battlefield that the duo should be on. Binela grabbed Marquina by the arm and dragged her away. She knew that the current fight was going to be something that they couldn''t witness from a close space. Felix looked towards Marshallo as he felt the immense strength converging on his body, it was obvious that the image of a skull came from his aura, which was both an image and domain. Showing that he was at a higher level than him in his aura proficiency. Felix''s and Marshallo''s gazes collided in mid-air as literal sparks blew around them. The twin''s half bodies had already disappeared far away, while the few surviving ships, regardless if they were the big or the medium ones, decided to take a healthy distance away from the duo. "It''s finally nice to meet you face to face... I don''t think you have ever said your name while you fought with any of us. Would you mind if you told me your name before we fought?" Marshallo seemed like someone who was both prideful. But also respectful of his opponents, or else he wouldn''t have asked for Felix''s name like that. Felix thought that they would go straight to fighting, but considering that he didn''t feel any killing intent from Marshallo showed that he was serious with his inquiry: "Name''s Felix." "Felix? What an interesting name, My name is Marshallo, and I hope the two of us can have a great fight together!" "Wait, before we fight, can you answer me one question?" "Which one is that?" "Why have you invaded us?" Marshallo seemed like he was ready to burst laughing at the question as he looked up towards the emptiness of space, but then he shook his head as he said: "It''s more of a few reasons, actually. I will indulge you before the fight as a show of respect for a fellow person who reached such a level of strength." "Let''s start with the beginning, right? Well, I have heard from our rulers that your people had trespassed on our territory, and considering our races'' policy against invading outsiders, you should know what that led to." "Anyways, this was the first reason. The second one being that the gods of our planet wanted to invade yours after they gained knowledge about it through their connection from us." "And the third and last reason... was that I wanted a good fight, so I didn''t oppose the invasion!" Marshallo''s muscles twitched as the skull appeared behind him in a pillar of energy. And this indicated that the talking time was over! Felix was glad that he could atleast glean this amount of information from Marshallo. Felix''s aura engulfed him as it became the second layer of orange armor around him. Felix''s aura layer looked quite rigid, unlike Marshallo''s, which was easily flowing around him. Compared to each other, Marshallo had way more experience in the orange level. "Here I go, Felix!" Marshallo''s movement triggered spatial cracks everywhere around them as space was half broken, only from him moving at Felix with his full strength. Felix could feel his senses going haywire, but he kept his ground as he stood in a horse stance. He was slowly accumulating power for a counter-attack as he waited for Marshallo to hit him. And that happened soon after! The attack was sent directly towards Felix''s face. Felix absorbed the attack making his body start shaking due to the immense amount of energy that was coursing through it. And then redirected the attack directly towards Marshallo''s stomach! However, when the attack hit Marshallo in the stomach, nothing happened. Marshallo almost laughed afterward as he said: "That tickled!" Felix''s eyes widened. This was a counterattack coming from his own strength, which was combined with the insane strength that he absorbed from the first attack landed by Marshallo. But it did no damage whatsoever! "My turn now." Marshallo shot his fist directly through Felix''s stomach at a speed that Felix couldn''t comprehend. Blood was splattered down into the coldness of space as it hardened and floated around. Felix could feel his strengthened organs shaking but the gaping wound in his stomach closed the moment that Marshallo retrieved his fist, a small smile was on his face as he licked the remaining blood off his fist and said: "It''s good you can regenerate. I don''t want a quick and dull fight, but you should step it up if you don''t want to get trashed badly. I like a target that can strike back." Felix strengthened his conviction that was a little bit broken- after he saw how easily the man shrugged off his counterattack. "Good, a weak conviction will lead to a quick fight, which isn''t something I like at all!" Felix clenched his fists as he concentrated his power. The lightning armor engulfed his whole body while his skin started to turn pink. A sudden strike hit Marshallo in the face making his head lean back, but then his head popped right back up as he cracked his neck and said: "Good beginning strike, let''s get serious now." Marshallo tried to strike Felix back only to find out that he struck an after image. Then he looked behind him only to find out that the moment he shifted his body to look behind, Felix had already gone back to his original spot and struck him thirty times in quick succession directly in his spine. Cracking sounds came from his spine, only for them to disappear quickly after. Cracking sounds also came from Felix''s fingers and knuckles as he easily endured the pain from having them broken. While his spine was damaged from Felix''s attacks. The damage was negligible, and it was just like someone normally cracking their knuckles and fingers. "Oh yeah, that''s the spot." This time Felix found a fist bearing directly towards his head which he quickly dodged again, only to find another lightning source appear around Marshallo''s body, increasing his speed to the point that he could now keep up with him. Felix already had trouble dodging Marshallo''s wild and precise attacks, but now they were almost undodgeable! The strike hit him directly in the head, making his vision swim before pushing him a few kilometers backward, creating a sonic boom and making space break everywhere around them. A grey lifeless area surrounded them as the broken space was slowly mending itself, but as they continued to fight, the broken area continued to enlarge. They were in a different dimension compared to the observing people, even Binela and Marquina couldn''t currently say what was happening in the grey area. Felix put his arms over himself in an X as he took another strike making his guard falter and drop, thus leading to an ongoing combo as he was pummeled continuously into the broken space also leading to his body being lacerated and further injured by the spatial shards that surrounded them. "Come on, fight back!" Felix''s head was still swimming from the strike back then, and he couldn''t even hear Marshallo properly. His body wasn''t reacting to the commands that he gave it, and his heart was beating very quickly for some reason. The tattoos all over his skin started to light up as his blood started boiling in his body. His locked potential wasn''t fully activated up till now. But it was slowly starting to unleash itself through the barrage of fists that Marshallo was unleashing on Felix. The more beatings he took, the more his body and soul reacted to the perilous situation he was in, although he knew that he would be able to revive due to his connection with Aaltarox. His body and soul now acted instinctively to protect his life as they reached a higher level of power! Marshallo smiled under his cold and crazed mask as he looked at Felix''s orange armor, which was slowly starting to morph under his assault. "I knew I sensed your potential right... this fight better be worth it!" Marshallo howled as he put both of his fists forward, a conglomeration of energy appearing at the ends of them that quickly converged into a big ball of purple energy that had lightning bolts arching across it, which was launched at the currently unguarded Felix. Felix could sense the impending doom of the energy ball that was quickly getting towards his immobilized body, and then he heard something in his body break... it was a cracking sound as if some type of glass had shattered. His immobilized body was engulfed by the purple energy ball as Marshallo''s eyes widened in surprise: "Have I misjudged his potential?" Chapter 184: The war (11) The purple energy ball that engulfed Felix created an explosion that spread the broken space even further than it currently was. Cracks appeared tens of kilometers away as the explosion influenced the surroundings and made the viewers back away. To not get caught in the aftershock waves. Marshallo frowned as he looked at the charred space in front of him. There was nothing around, seemingly, as if Felix had truly been vaporized by his attack. This left him with a sour aftertaste as he tried to sense Felix''s existence. He didn''t even get to fight to his heart''s content. Actually, he didn''t even get heated up properly in this joke of a fight! His anger was getting the better of him as he looked towards the outside of the broken space. If he couldn''t get the fight he waited for, he could atleast do the job that he was supposed to... This would lessen the tension between his faction and the royal one for some time. He sighed as his anger started to cool down. He wasn''t a man that would let his emotions get the better of him. He had grown up in an adverse environment, where showing one''s emotions and acting upon them would lead to an early death. "Such a disappointment..." Felix''s glowing body appeared in the same position that it disappeared beforehand. His eyes were wide open as he looked towards Marshallo, who narrowed his eyes and shook his head, he knew that Felix was a god''s chosen and he could revive, but he got beaten by him so easily while wasting one life below 30 minutes. He wasn''t worth a serious fight even though he was supposed to be at a similar level with him, his talent seemed to be at the right level, but something was holding him back. Marshallo tried to push him to break through the thing that was holding him back and give him an epic fight, but he didn''t do it. He let the energy ball eat him and take away one of his lives. "You can try to defend your planet now, Felix. You have thoroughly disappointed me." Marshallo''s eyes were cold as he looked at Felix. It was obvious his disappointment was immeasurable, and his day was ruined. "Don''t go yet... I haven''t unleashed my full power yet!" Marshallo''s eyes were still cold as he looked at Felix: "I have seen what you are capable of. You do have great talent, but are you able to exhibit it fully? What''s even holding you back, Felix?" What was holding him back? Felix didn''t think about anything... but he did feel that something was blocking his full power from erupting from his body. It was like a lock that he didn''t have the key for. What was locking his power away? Felix didn''t question himself much as he looked at Marshallo, who was ready to leave and put the army to advance directly towards the planet. He seemed rather serious now as he wanted to finish his assignment and go home. Felix got out of the broken space and appeared directly near him as he put his hand on his shoulder trying to drag him back. Only to feel as if he was an ant trying to drag away an ancient mountain "I have tried to be nice to you because I still want to fight you in the future when you would have found the answer and unlocked all your power." "But it seems you seem to treasure something on that planet below. Maybe If I put it in peril, would you powerfully awaken?" Marshallo could easily piece the puzzle of Felix''s actions. There was no reason for a being like him, who was currently so strong, to give away his life for a planet that had nothing dear to him on it. He had fought multiple opponents, and some of them did burst with a higher amount of strength when he tried to kill those they held dear to them. "What do you say, Felix?" Felix''s eyes were shadowed by his hair as his third eye opened, and time stopped, his full power was unleashed as his pink-skinned tone appeared and intensified. His lightning armor engulfed him. And a crown of lightning appeared on his head as the lightning armor evolved under his fine control. His hand was ready to skewer through Marshallo''s chest when he suddenly found it in the grasp of the man in question. "Tsk... you had grown somewhat after you died once, but it''s still not enough to satisfy my battle lust!" Felix was backhanded back into the broken space where Marhsallo followed him inside. His cold battle lust was now boiling again after Felix''s attempt on his life. "Show me what you got, Felix. Show me that death made you stronger than you were before!" Marshallo''s savage side appeared once more as he struck Felix in the face pushing him further into the destroyed space and making the observers realize that the fight wasn''t actually over yet. Felix shook his head to clear his mind and then finally caught a strike from Marshallo, which was supposed to hit him in the head once more. Marshallo''s eyes widened for half a second in surprise, then he laughed as he ripped his hand out of Felix''s grasp then tried to roundhouse kick him away, only for his attack to be blocked by Felix''s forearm. Marshallo became happier and happier as Felix blocked his attacks without backing away at all. It seemed that Felix''s strength had truly improved after he threatened his planet! Felix''s defense was almost autonomous as he blocked or parried all of Marshallo''s attacks. Unknowingly to Marshallo, their surroundings started to get more and more damage, but it wasn''t mostly because of their clashes. Small shockwaves always appeared under Felix''s feet when he parried attacks or blocked them as he redirected the whole attacks'' strength to the broken space below them. Unlike before, where he used his body to redirect it, he now just let the surroundings take the damage instead as the power passed through his body like a conduit. He knew that absorbing damage to redirect it to Marshallo didn''t work, so he decided to tire him out! He didn''t have the Rubix cubes anymore, but his regenerative capabilities were immense, and after his death, he had regained full hex energy into his belly area. His body was certainly feeling a little bit weaker compared to before, and that was because he reached a level where Aaltarox was struggling to revive him with his current body. But that didn''t affect his combat ability. He had learned how to fight against Marshallo and use his strength against him! Marshallo''s attacks were very wide and easy to predict. But they came with such speed and impact that they were hard to dodge due to the body''s instinctual flight and fight response that delayed Felix''s response time. Thus, Felix curbed his instincts for the first time in a long time and let his mind run the fight for him. Just cold hard reasoning vs brute force and instinct. However, as the fight continued, Felix couldn''t truly keep up with only reasoning planning and predicting. He couldn''t perfectly fuse instinct and reasoning until now, as they were two parts of him that were always in conflict due to his erogenous evolutionary nature. He had evolved many times and every time he did so, his instincts and reasoning did as well. He didn''t have time to fully fuse them and balance them. Either one was above the other, or both butted heads at inappropriate times. His use of combat techniques that he absorbed from Vangar''s memories was perfect, but they were lacking the savagery and strength that Vangar had when he used them, and that was mostly because he couldn''t fully control his instincts yet. But now he would need to fuse those two and achieve his ultimate power, his bodily strength was pretty much equal to Marshallo''s beforehand, but his body didn''t act properly, making Marshallo''s attack do more damage than they were supposed to, and that paralysis combined with the energy ball ended one of Felix''s lives. But now he could control his body properly and no issues were popping up. However, if he was going to continue without his instincts, he was surely going to lose. Felix closed his eyes as his head started to move from side to side, evading all the flurry of punches that Marshallo was throwing at him, he was slowly starting to combine his instincts and combat knowledge into one part during death and life combat! Marshallo eyes were gleaming as he looked at Felix''s closed eyes. He realized that something huge was about to pop as a surprise from Felix, and he couldn''t be any happier! He had waited so much time for an equal fight, a fight that would let him feel everything around him without any interruptions, a fight that would open his eyes to the world around him and elevate his ecstasy even further. A fight of a lifetime, a fight that would either end his life into a glorious explosion of colors or give him a better reason to live than fighting, a fight that would finally end this obsession of his for good, once and for all! Chapter 185: A fight that would decide the war (1) The clashing titans were unobservable even to Binela. Who was currently the strongest combatant that viewed the battle. Felix''s attacks were precise, and his defense was airtight while he tried to recover the bodily strength he lost for dying once. He and Marshallo were currently in a pretty equal fight, but he would be able to push the odds in his favor if he recovered to full strength. Now that he was slowly incorporating instinct into strategy, creating a perfect blend of battle sense, he was able to direct all of Marshallo''s attacks into the surroundings, basically taking no more damage from him. The damage that Felix redirected to his surroundings was creating more and more spaces where the spatial laws were broken and fragmented. Felix was basically held between a rock and a hard place as he fought Marshallo, considering that the broken space wasn''t safe at all. Spatial lacerations would appear from time to time which the duo had to dodge if they didn''t want to get bisected. While their bodies were tough, and at first, the spatial lacerations didn''t do much to them, their continued fight stirred the broken space even further until it reached a level that it could implode at any time, creating an explosion of spatial lacerations which would turn the fighting duo into cut ribbons. The situation they were in wasn''t favorable for either of them. But caught in their fight, they ignored the surroundings and only dodged the attacks that got too close to them before continuing. Actually, Felix understood that this place wasn''t a good one to continue the fight, but Marshallo was pressuring him too hard. Making him unable to escape from his continuous attacks easily. Felix frowned as he felt their surroundings getting increasingly unstable and the fact that the spatial lacerations were getting closer and closer to them, and they also appeared way more often than before. Even Marshallo realized what was happening after some time, then he stopped attacking Felix and said: "This isn''t a good place for our duel. With our strengths, the normal universe wouldn''t be able to handle the clashes from our strengths. Come with me." Felix sighed as he followed Marshallo out of the broken space, which made them visible to Binela, Marquina, and the other observers. Binela was puzzled why would Marshallo stop the fight this early. Both fighters looked like they could on for a long time. And knowing him, he wouldn''t stop unless there was something that was going to interfere with their fight, but then she shook her head as she looked at the collapsing space some meters away from them. She wasn''t sure where they were going to continue fighting. So he grabbed Marquina by the arm and dragged her to follow them from behind. Marshallo knew they were being followed by the duo, but he didn''t care. He made his way towards the empty spot in front of him before he took out a small pocket-sized arena that looked to be made from white marble. He threw the arena down, and it started to grow as big as a football field length-wise, stopping when it reached its full length and the height of around 200 meters. "Now, this is a good place to fight. We won''t be troubled to unleash our full power in here." Marshallo jumped into the inside of the arena as he waited for Felix to jump in as well. He cracked his neck and fingers as he waited for round two to begin. Binela and Marquina looked at everything that was happening from the side as Binela''s eyes widened when she saw the white marble-like arena: "This is..." Marquina didn''t know much about the arena itself, but she didn''t ask Binela about it as her eyes were glued to the upcoming fight resume. Felix stretched his body as he jumped into the arena and took in a deep breath before entering an offensive stance, he put his right arm behind him while keeping the left one in front of his body. His stance kept his body a little bit lower as he moved his fingers towards himself in a gesture to tell Marshallo to come at him. Marshallo smiled, showing his full set of white pearly sharp teeth, which looked no different from a shark''s. He licked his lips as he ran towards Felix with a wide punch which looked very easy to avoid. However, when Felix tried to move his body and dodge the attack, he realized that strong pressure was making his body unable to move. The same laughing and screaming skull that appeared behind when he first made himself known, appeared once again behind him, as it imposed a strong restriction upon Felix''s body and made him unable to dodge the wide swing that Marshallo was currently taking at him. The more he charged, the stronger the swing became, to the point that Felix felt his hair stand on end as the strength of the incoming punch would break a hole in him if it landed on his body, or just evaporate his head if it landed on it. Felix reinforced his body with all of his boost techniques as he held his ground and gritted his teeth as his eyes became serious. He would stop this charge attack and retaliate by throwing the same amount of force back to him, maybe even doubled! Felix kept one hand above the other as the attack struck inside the gap that he made, making Felix easily catch ahold of the hand that was ready to hit him in the skull, the whole power coming from the charging attack was released in Felix''s body making cracks appear on his skin and blood to flow freely from it. The strength didn''t dispel from Felix''s body as he simply contained it therein. Then as he captured Marshallo''s hand in his grip, he sent all of the strength surging in his body towards his right leg, along with a combination of strength coming from his body which made his right leg shot directly towards the currently immobilized Marshallo head like a missile. Felix''s leg exploded into a shower of blood as the strength combination was too much for his body to handle, but an indent appeared in Marshallo''s skull as it broke, and blood started to flow quickly from the back of his head. A new leg appeared as Felix regenerated it quite easily, but it wasn''t the same for Marshallo, he clutched his head as his vision swam, and blood still flowed from the back of his head where he was struck by Felix''s leg counterattack. He could feel that his brain was leaking from there as it became mush after Felix''s attack. He laughed wildly as he slapped the back of his head with a fiery palm making the opened wound cauterize so he wouldn''t bleed anymore, as for his jelly brain? He didn''t care about that as he could still control his body and fight! Continuing like this would surely further his brain injury and kill himself, but it didn''t seem Marshallo cared as he launched himself at Felix while shouting gibberish in an excited tone. Felix ignored his gibberish as the aura that made his body unable to move was removed. He jumped from an ax kick that was ready to hit him in the head before he regained his balance, lowered his body, and struck a heavy body blow towards Marshallo''s kidneys. Blood started to drip from Marshallo''s mouth, but he ignored the damage as he put his hands together and hammered Felix on the back, making him fall to his stomach and create cracks on the marble arena floor. Felix felt that his inner organs were crying after that attack, he didn''t protect himself properly as he was in an unadvantageous position, so his body had to absorb the impact, making him unable to redirect it elsewhere in time. He thought that he could push Marshallo back and continue his assault, but the man didn''t even flinch after that body blow which surely crushed his kidneys into mush. Marshallo shook his head as he felt lightheaded, the injuries started to get to him, but he continued to smile as he continued his attack on Felix, he grabbed him by the neck, then he picked him up from the floor and started to hit him in the face multiple times. However, the more he hit Felix, the slower the attacks became as the strength seeped out of his body, it wasn''t that he was losing energy, but the injuries that Felix did to him were getting to him. Felix''s attacks were vicious and struck towards vital areas, the counterattack that he gave using the kick and the gathered force from Marshallo''s charge was something that injured him heavily. However, he still didn''t die from that, showing that his body was extremely sturdy. If it was anyone else in the same situation, their head would have been blown to smithereens. But no matter how battle-hungry Marshallo was, he couldn''t ignore his injuries to fight even further, could he? Marshallo''s eyes started to lose light as they turned into complete whites showing that his consciousness wasn''t there anymore. However, life was still inside his body. His heart was beating, and his breathing, while irregular, was still there. Felix wanted to finish him so he could get rid of one of his lives, but the moment he liberated himself from Marshallo''s grasp that was around his neck, he found a sudden punch in his gut! He took a few steps backward as he clutched his crying stomach and looked at Marshallo. Thinking that he woke up, only to find that his consciousness wasn''t present, the white of his eyes was still present, and there was no expression on his face... Chapter 186: A fight that would decide the war (2) Felix would lie if he said he wasn''t surprised about Marshallo''s tenacity. His body was so highly used to battle that it would respond to outside threats even when his consciousness wasn''t present inside it. This cemented the fact that Marshallo had been through an uncountable amount of battles. His scars were one thing, but the experience that was printed so thoroughly in him was the genuine example of a person that had defied death countless times. Felix dodged another sudden attack as he backflipped away from Marshallo and narrowed his eyes. It was almost like he was fighting a tree! He couldn''t sense anything coming from Marshallo''s body, so he couldn''t predict his moves. He had only been able to dodge these two sudden strikes because of his body''s instincts. He had mastered both killing intent masking and detection through Vangar''s memories, but now his killing intent detection skill became useless! While he could still dodge his attacks, it was way harder than before as he used everything that was at his disposal, to basically look in Marshallo''s future and predict what he would do next. Making dodging and countering his attacks easy. Now, he couldn''t do that anymore. It was as if Marshallo had gone one-tier ahead of killing intent masking and made himself feel like an inanimate object right now. He was also near death, so that also made things harder for Felix, as he couldn''t hear his breathing as well as before. All of Felix''s ways of countering Marshallo were pretty much unusable now, and if he left him alone, all of the damage he did to him would be healed. This would lead to all of his work up till now being wasted for nothing! Of course, Felix would also recover to full power while Marshallo did the same. But Felix didn''t want to fight him for an indefinite amount of time, he wasn''t like Marshallo as he didn''t enjoy battles to such a high level that it could be called an obsession. While Marshallo would be happy with fighting him for a long time, he wouldn''t be. Felix was a person that enjoyed relaxing, sunbathing, and other cat things. Even though he had evolved to a human, he still enjoyed the same things as before when he was a cat. Fighting was basically like playing to the current him if his actions would be compared to a normal house cat. There was a limit to how much playing he would want to have before he went ahead to relax. He didn''t reach that limit yet, but he was still annoyed. Since he couldn''t fight him normally in a melee battle, he would eradicate his unconscious body with an energy attack. Felix cupped his hands together as he put them in front of his body and started to charge yellow energy in them/ His orange aura fully engulfed him as he used his full power, making sparks fly off from his cupped hands. When the sparks fell on the marble-like rock of the arena, its white color started to turn black before small holes that closed slowly after they appeared. Felix''s current energy was highly concentrated, and even the marble arena that could withstand the shockwaves from his fight with Marshallo had trouble withstanding it directly. The energy was so potent and strong that Marshallo''s unconscious body had to take a few steps back. It naturally knew that if the energy attack would hit it with its current injuries. Marshallo would die without a shadow of a doubt! Just like Felix''s body, Marshallo''s would act on its own to protect it from outside dangers and keep itself alive, even though Marshallo had multiple lives being God''s chosen. The body tried to escape from the arena and run away from the energy charging Felix, but the moment that happened, Marshallo''s body- which was taking one step towards the exit, froze. Some reason returned to his expression as the white of his eyes disappeared, and pupils appeared within them. Marshallo was so angry he regained consciousness. He was angry at his own body because it would make him look like someone who would abandon the battle midway, a coward! He clutched his head as his voice shouted in his own subconsciousness: "I''M NOT A COWARD!" He started beating his chest as he looked at Felix, who was still charging his energy beam: "SHOOT ME, I''M NOT A COWARD!" It seemed that while he became conscious, he wasn''t in full mental capacity. Or maybe he just didn''t care about losing one life? Felix didn''t have to be told twice as he finished charging his attack and launched it directly towards Marshallo! Marshallo crossed his arms in front of him in an X as he was ready to take the attack head-on! "SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT, FELIX!" The immense beam of yellow energy engulfed Marshallo, who just took it without any complaints. His body was slowly disintegrating under Felix''s energy beam as the life faded away from his drying husk. He was being slowly baked under the constant assault of Felix''s energy attack, but he didn''t try to step away from the beam as he only endured it with his physical body! Maybe this was his way to tell his own body that he wouldn''t run away from anything, regardless if it would kill him or not. Felix started to breathe roughly as his arms dropped to the sides of his body. His body shook for a second before he took in a deep breath and restored his stamina. The energy attack used most of his energy as he put everything he had into it to evaporate Marshallo''s tough body. He took a few steps forward as he observed the blackened road in front of him. Instead of the white marble-like rock, there was only a scorched dark patch in front of him. A standing skeleton which had its arms crossed in an x, stood there unmoving as its gaze was pointed directly towards Felix, seemingly saying he was ready for another baptizing. Felix took a few steps forward, almost falling to his knees due to hex energy exhaustion. However, he still got up and approached the white skeleton, he wasn''t sure where Marshallo would revive, so he needed something to restore his power as soon as possible. He opened his mouth wide as he started to crunch on the hard shiny white bones that Marshallo left behind. Felix''s energy was immediately restored as he continued to crunch on Marshallo''s skeleton, from the arms to the leg bones, until the chest ones were done leaving only the skull behind. Felix''s insides were bloated with energy as he started to use the breathing techniques absorption ability, immediately redirecting the energy that was bloating his insides towards his organs, skin, and muscles... His strength increasing by another tier, but not making a breakthrough in his aura level. And after his death, his aura level had reached the 3rd level and remained there. Because he had eaten Marshallo''s skeleton, he went halfway to the 3rd level, and he might have even reached the 4th level if he ate his whole body, showing how much energy Marshallo''s body contained. "This is good enough for now... I will win." Felix clenched his fist as he waited in the arena for Marshallo to return. Back in the midst of the invader ships Marshallo''s naked body appeared, he clenched his head for a few seconds before shaking his head as he glared at nothing for a few seconds then shouted towards a nearby ship: "GET ME SOME ARMOR!" The lower half of the armor he previously wore was thrown directly towards him as he grabbed it and put it on before he intended to immediately go back to where he deployed the arena and continue the duel with Felix. He might have lost the second round, but there were still 4 rounds left inside him. But before he could take a step forward, the twins appeared in front of him, kneeling. Marshallo narrowed his eyes as he was ready to slap the twins across the face and throw them away from his face. He didn''t want to deal with them right now, and he still wanted to fight Felix as he wasn''t fully satisfied. "High general Marshallo, there is a message from their highnesses back on the home planet... they..." But Marshallo couldn''t give less of a damn whatever those uppity royals had to tell him. He was ready to slap the twins away, only for him to feel a weakness appearing in his body. He swayed on his feet as he looked at the twin''s mouths, which curved upward, showing a sinister smile on their half faces. "Do you think that you are the same after your death? While our gods are strong, there is a limit to how much your bodily strength will recover after your death. You don''t have enough time to fully recover!" Marshallo frowned as he looked at his hand, which was slowly turning purple. The twins had used poison on him? "This is the message from their highnesses: ''We don''t need you anymore, the high general position was transferred to the Marx twins.'' What do you think about it you little shit? You aren''t so hot anymore. Defying the royal family, are you?" Marshallo laughed as he cut off his poisoned hand and let the black blood flow out of his body until only red blood remained, and then another hand slowly grew out of his stump. Unlike Felix''s attacks which could stop his regenerative abilities. The twins didn''t have such strength, even though he was currently weakened by quite a bit. "You two really think that you can take care of me, huh? It seems I have been too easy on you during your early training..." A scary aura appeared behind Marshallo, which was no different from the one he first unleashed when he introduced himself to Felix... but unlike before, this one was way more refined and less wild. There was a tinge of control in it which showed that something changed within him after his death. Chapter 187: A fight that would decide the war (3) The twin''s facial expressions turned from maddened glee to fear really quickly under the new assault of Marshallo''s refined aura. Unlike before, when his aura had that wild attribute to it that made everyone kneel to him. Now his aura had the quality of a seasoned veteran coming back from war instead of a jungle''s beast that could rip you to shreds for the smallest movements. His death had catalyzed something in him that had been dormant since he had been chosen by one of the gods... after all, this was his first-ever death. The twins realized they made a mistake after Marshallo got rid of the poison very easily, but those actions weakened him a little bit further as he lost quite a bit of blood. His defenses weren''t as strong as before due to his weakened body. And now, he was further weakened, making the half and half duo think that they had a chance against him, regardless of the improved quality of his aura. The twin''s aura flared to life as they decided to fight it out with Marshallo and get rid of him! They were on equal grounds as they both already died once, so they thought that they were at an advantage compared to the current Marshallo. Considering they had some time to recover compared to the current him. The time he had fought Felix had been counted, and they had gone at it for around 72 hours. 72 hours was a lot of time for the twins to recover to their full capacity with all of the resources they have scavenged from the surviving ships. Because they were invading, they brought quite a lot of healing nutrients and injections for the upper echelons, so they would be able to go back to fighting if there was a chance they would fall in battle. Marshallo''s power wasn''t as overwhelming as before, so he didn''t decide to fight the twins head-on, who now had a small advantage over him. This went against his code, but the twins didn''t really want to have an honorable fight with him in the first place. So he would pay fire with fire. Marshallo''s form disappeared from the battlefield as the twin''s eyes narrowed. They knew how Marshallo usually acted in battles, so they were very surprised about his current actions. This was a very strange behavior coming from one of their planet''s greatest and most prideful warriors. They frowned. If he wasn''t going to fight them head-on this would complicate things by quite a lot, and they might even lose. They might have ambushed him, but they were still quite weaker compared to him on the overall strength level. They knew that fighting him head-on was the best situation for them, and if they could kill him again, they could stalk the location of his revival and end his life once and for all! Marshallo stood between the folds of space 20 meters away from the twins as he glared at their fused half bodies. He knew quite a lot about them as he trained them when they were rookies. He also knew about their ambitious side, so he predicted this would happen sooner or later. He was just really annoyed that it would happen when he found a true warrior that he could fight against to his heart''s content. He had to get rid of them quickly and change his respawn point to a different place. Maybe in the arena. So he would be able to fight Felix as soon as he came back. He had made a plan. And now all he had to do was put it in motion. Marshallo breathed out for a few seconds as he checked his internal situation, then appeared directly in front of the twins striking them in the head from both sides. Keeping their halves together as his fists started to push together, trying to mash their half heads into mush. The twins knew that they would die if this kept up, so they started striking him in the chest at speeds so quickly that shockwaves came from Marshallo''s back and also making blood slowly drip from the side of his mouth. However, Marshallo ignored the damage that was being done to his body as he tried continuing to crush their half heads. However, the twins moved their hands from pummeling his chest directly to his eyes as they tried to gouge them out. Marshallo closed his eyes as he opened his fists and grasped their halves into his hands. And instead of pushing, he started to crush! The duo''s eyeballs slowly started to pop out of their sockets due to their heads being slowly crushed under Marshallo''s strength until they started to knee him in the gut continuously to try and get out of his grasp. However, no matter what they tried, they couldn''t do anything to him as he endured whatever they threw at him. His closed eyelids left them with no other option as an energy blade grew out of their leg, which they shot directly towards Marshallo''s crotch! Marshallo took one step back out of surprise, which made him lose his grasp on one of the twin''s half-crushed head parts. The loosehead immediately disappeared as it removed itself from the one that was still in Marshallo''s grasp, making that part gain a sudden hardness that made Marshallo''s attempts at crushing it like a tomato harder than before since his bodily strength wasn''t as high as before. This annoyed Marshallo greatly, so he put both hands over the leftover twin''s head as the twin''s eye finally left its socket and his head was crushed into little bits under Marshallo''s angered grasp. While it took him more time to do it. He still had been able to in the end. Obviously, the other twin wouldn''t come back as they would rendezvous at their revival spot, which they most likely changed and combine their bodies there. Marshallo wasn''t sure if they were going to try and assassinate him again, but he would keep an eye open and his guard up, in any case, they would try that again. Now that he was free once again. He started to fly quickly towards the place where he threw the arena so he could continue the fight with Felix. .... Felix had just finished absorbing the energy from Marshallo''s skeleton- and integrated it into his system when he felt that the man in question was quickly coming back to the arena. Which also regenerated to its former white-marble-like state. Marshallo made a pew sound as he looked at Felix and said: "I thought you would have left by now, sorry that I had made you wait so much, so should we get back to what we have been doing?" Felix nodded... he was only entertaining Marshallo because of his former attitude of trying to destroy or enslave the planet if he didn''t get a good fight, or else he would have truly left. He also gave some instructions telepathically to Binela and Marquina to protect the planet while he was fighting Marshallo. The twins were still at large, and they were rather interesting individuals as they were able to mimic his lightning armor. He wasn''t sure if they were like Marshallo, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Felix entered a new military fighting stance as he had learned from the former fights with Marshallo how to counter his wild style. However, Felix became surprised as Marshallo didn''t launch himself directly at him after he came back as he took a small distance from Felix and then entered a stance of his own instead of charging recklessly towards Felix. "It seems he is also a genius..." Felix could see that he wasn''t the only one that learned from their fights. This gave him a rather happy feeling inside of him. A small part of him that was currently empty was being filled by Marshallo. Was this the real feeling of having a rival? That was a feeling that he didn''t experience for a long time since he left Lindo in the dust... A Rival that could grow alongside you, someone that you could compare your growth to, and have friendly spars with. If they met each other in different circumstances, Felix thought that they might have become good friends. Just like he did with Lindo and the lion tribe. Felix decided to make the first step in this situation. He flickered from side to side as he approached Marshallo''s unmoving figure and launched a fist directly towards him. Which in turn, made Marshallo react as their fists collided at the perfect timing. A strong shockwave engulfed the two of them as their hair started to flutter due to the wind their clash had created. The shockwave was absorbed by the arena as they both redirected the damage towards it, making it shake for a few seconds. Felix narrowed his eyes as he took a few steps backward. Marshallo used the same technique as him! Marshallo smiled as he looked at Felix''s surprised expression and beckoned with his hand. Indicating that he was ready for another round, and unlike his former savage smile, this one had a little bit more control under it along with a hint of mischievousness. Both fighters were growing at insane speeds, and they both realized that as they learned from each other. Chapter 188: The fights conclusion (1) Felix got better and better as he fought back and forth with Marshallo. His techniques were improving along with his physical condition. But the same thing could be said about Marshallo as well. They were both improving massively as they fought. It was as if they were blacksmiths that found the perfect metal which they could temper and smelt into a sword of ultimate quality, the metal being each other. They were tempering each other, sharpening each other with every strike and energy blast they used, dodged, or countered. Marshallo continued to be on the defensive as he waited to recover his former bodily strength. While Felix did his best to pierce his defenses and kill him. Their rivalry was a deadly one because of their factions. But as they continued to fight, they realized they had a bit in common, battle-wise. Felix could somehow understand Marshallo better after he fought him for such a long time. The blows they traded spoke by themselves. Felix appeared under Marshallo''s guard as he struck his chin from below, making his head shoot up and breaking his balance. Marshallo ended up taking one step backward as Felix pushed into his body and pinned him to the ground as he started to pummel him in the face. Marshallo was taken by surprise- from that attack as he seemed to be out of it for one second. Felix had used a soul technique to stealthily shake his soul space, making him blank out for half a second, giving Felix enough time to attack him, and considering he didn''t attack with his killing intent flaring, Marshallo''s body couldn''t react in time thus making him end in this current situation where he was pinned to the marble floor and getting his head caved in by Felix. However, this position didn''t last for a long time as Felix was pushed away from Marshallo''s body as Marshallo used his legs to spear Felix in the stomach with such strength that Felix couldn''t withstand it, and his body went flying. Felix regained his balance midair as his aura inflated, and he dropped back to the arena like a meteor. Using the inertia he created from dropping to increase his speed and strength. A hole appeared in the arena as Felix superman landed. However, he didn''t touch Marshallo as he took a few steps backward at the right time to dodge Felix''s charge. Marshallo''s body made popping sounds as his strength slowly returned to its peak. Time passed quickly while they fought, and a few days passed in the blink of the eye since Marshallo returned from his encounter with the twins. His full power had come back, and unfortunately, Felix hadn''t been able to kill him up till now. However, the damage that was done to his body wasn''t small. Blood was leaking from one of Marshallo''s shut eyes as he reared his head back to spit out bloody phlegm then said: "It''s finally to get some more fun going on before I wasn''t able to use these because of my situation, but after death, I''m once again the man that I was at my peak!" 2 arms grew out of his stumps, putting him back to the original appearance of the invader race. He cracked the knuckles of the newly grown hands as he said: "It''s been a while since I had four arms. Please do tell if I can''t control my strength properly." Marshallo rushed towards Felix as he put his four arms together in a double X defending himself from Felix''s energy attacks which Felix had started to throw around to stop Marshallo''s charge. The energy hit Marshallo''s defenses, singing his skin and making him frown from the intense burning pain that Felix had induced on him. Felix was using a higher concentration of energy according to the techniques he learned from Vangar to increase the receptibility of the pain sensors of those he hit with his energy blasts. This was a great technique to disturb the mental state of the enemies and make them do mistakes. In which Felix could swoop in and end them. However, the technique didn''t have a great effect on Marshallo as he charged towards Felix like a train on steroids. Felix let his body low as he slipped under Marshallo''s guard once again, however, Marshallo was prepared now as he put one of his lower four arms under his chin, ready to capture Felix''s upcoming attack. But Felix didn''t try to strike his chin again. He put his arm close to Marshallo''s chest as he unleashed a yellow sword of energy that skewered him directly and came out of his back, then he retracted the blade as he jumped backward while charging a beam of energy between his hands. Felix was looking directly into the immobilized Marshallo''s eyes as he was ready to unleash the destructive red beam of energy from his hands. He had hit his spine with the energy blade, severing it and making him disabled for a little bit of time. "You have 3 more lives..." The red beam left Felix''s hands as it consumed Marshallo''s body until nothing remained of him. Not even his skeleton. Unfortunately, Felix had used a little bit too much energy, and everything was destroyed in the process. Felix sighed as he was ready to rest for a bit, only to see a hand coming out of his chest, he moved his head to look back, only to see Marshallo with a pale face and sunken eyes. He had been weakened even further after this death, and he would need a higher amount of time to rest back to full capacity. Felix could have sworn all of his senses were at a heightened level even after he had finished Marshallo. He wasn''t someone who would let his guard down even after he won a massive battle so how did Marshallo evade his senses? He guessed that he might have changed his revival spot to the arena, so Felix filled it with all of his aura. Nothing could change without him detecting it, but he had still been taken by surprise... Marshallo removed his bloodied arm from Felix''s body, he was now buck naked as his armor was vaporized by Felix''s attack. And considering he didn''t have any other backup, he would have to fight like this from now on. Felix grasped at the hole in his chest as he looked at a missing spot there. His heart had been removed. Marshallo glanced down at the beating heart in his hand as he opened his mouth wide, and threw the heart up into the air. However, before he could clamp on the heart, Felix punched him in the head, making him shut his mouth and bite his tongue as he grabbed his own heart and stuffed it into his chest, where it connected immediately with his arteries and continued to pump. The hole in his chest slowly closed up as some of his energy was burned for regenerating. Marshallo dislocated jaw was put back in place as a ''crack'' sound was heard. He was pretty surprised Felix could live without his heart, but since he tried to get it back, it seemed that he wouldn''t have lived for much time without it. Felix knew that they were still enemies, and no matter how ''friendly'' they had become through trading blows. This was still a life-and-death battle. He didn''t bother asking Marshallo how he got the drop on him, while the man in question looked dumb on the surface. Felix knew that there was no chance he would disclose his combat secret. Marshallo grasped towards the air as a spatial crack appeared near him. Out of it, he dragged out a tall war hammer made from a bronze-like metal, he let the hammer down on the arena, which immediately created cracks that almost transformed into a hole in the arena. He grasped the hammer with both hands as the spatial crack near him healed, and he put the hammer on his shoulder. Felix frowned as he glanced at the hammer. The bottom of the hammer was covered in black leather with brown spots, while the shaft and the hammer itself looked to be made out of bronze, but Felix got a dangerous feeling as he looked at it. With a might heave, Marshallo swung the hammer towards Felix creating a gigantic shockwave tornado with one swing. Spatial cracks appeared everywhere as they fused with the tornado, making it gain a sharpness that would ignore any type of defense. Felix knew that this type of attack was most likely the ultimate technique that Marshallo could employ with his current weakened power. And if Felix guessed correctly, Marshallo wanted him to deal with the tornado while he took some time to save his breath and recover. Felix breathed in and out as he stood his ground while the tornado was slowly making his way towards him. He knew that this was a dangerous situation for both himself and the planet. If he let the tornado pass by him and get away from their location, it would surely collide with the remaining fleet of the invaders before moving towards the planet and hitting it head-on. The best solution in this situation was either to destroy the tornado or return it where it came from! Felix''s expression was serious as he decided in a split second. One way or the other, he had to protect the planet. Chapter 189: The fights conclusion (2) The tornado full of spatial shrapnel was coming closer and closer to Felix. While Marshallo watched from the sidelines, he was an honorable fellow. So even though he could take this situation, to try and mess with Felix and his tornado attack could land, he didn''t do anything of the sort. Felix would have his hands full, trying to stop the tornado, and while Marshallo was certainly weakened and out of energy, any actions from him would make Felix have to split his attention. Splitting his attention in this situation would put him in a perilous situation. If the tornado swallowed him and he died. That wouldn''t stop the tornado from destroying the planet. The tornado''s strength was currently increasing at the highest speed. While it was also absorbing the broken spatial shards that it was continuously creating by itself. It was obvious that the tornado would get stronger and stronger as it went on until it collided with something of enough size and weight to stop it. Destroying both the tornado and its target. Unfortunately for Felix, the target was the planet that he had sworn to protect. The tornado''s moving speed wasn''t very fast, but its suction force was very strong. Felix could barely keep himself on the arena floor as he glared at the tornado that Marshallo unleashed. If he wanted to destroy it, he needed to find the eye of the storm and breakthrough it. Felix''s eyes were filled with energy as they gained a red hue. With this augmentation, he was able to see through the structure of the tornado and localize its core. The eye of the storm was located in the middle of the tornado, which was currently being filled with intensely sharp spatial shards that were revolving around the tornado and its insides just like a gang of angry mosquitos out for blood. The tornado''s centrifugal force created blades of death for anyone that dared approach it. Marshallo kept himself to the arena floor as he rested with his eyes closed. He wanted to fight Felix while both of them were at full power since he would find any other type of fight boring. He didn''t mind playing ''dirty'' to get the fights he wanted, but he would get angry if they were interrupted. While he looked normal on the surface, on the inside, he was seething as he had to rely on such tricks to get enough time for recovery. However, he also knew that Felix himself would never let him rest in this situation, and if he wanted to continue enjoying himself with Felix, he had to do what he had to do. The end justified the means. Felix''s energy armor was cracking the closer he got to the tornado showing that it was also interfering with the normal hex energy existing in the universe. The suction force from the tornado was working on everything! Felix frowned. If he decided to blast the tornado, it would surely absorb the energy and maybe even send it back at him a few times stronger than before. So how could he reach the eye of the storm and break the tornado from there without fatally injuring himself? He had identified the location of the eye, but it was currently being surrounded by incalculable amounts of spatial shards, which were constantly getting stronger due to the absorption of the amalgams of energy in space. Thus also adding a toxic quality to the tornado and its rotating spatial chainsaw. This was a combination that Felix wasn''t sure how to get around... his body was immune to the toxins but not the chainsaw part. Even Marshallo at full power, with his superior physique, would become a well-cut steak if he ventured into the current tornado. Felix gritted his teeth as he bit his thumb in frustration. The only thing that he had now was a little bit of time due to the slow advancement of the tornado. What could he do to destroy the tornado? What? Think, Felix, Think! Felix frowned as he made up his mind and coated his whole body in a triple layer of armor, combining his orange aura therein before activating his evolved lightning armor and increasing his bodily speed even further as his skin turned pink due to the increased blood flow in his body. He increased both his speed and defensive capabilities to the maximum as he decided to charge directly through the tornado while dodging all the attacks to the best of his ability, leaving those that he couldn''t slash at his triple armor layer + the one that he was currently using to cover his modesty, in total having 4 layers which were also enhanced by his orange aura. "I can do this... I can do it!" Felix stopped giving himself a pep talk as he launched himself into the tornado leaving a yellow streak in space which was absorbed by the tornado at the same time as Felix''s body was. Felix found himself directly at the edges of the tornado as he dodged one spatial shard which came too close for comfort. The further into the tornado, the more spatial shards flew around into an exhibit of the beautiful dance of ''swords''. There were many spatial shards and they flew randomly at first glance, but as Felix looked through the trajectory of the shards. He realized that there might be a chance to truly get to where he was supposed to, without losing much. Felix started to calculate the path of the flying shards as he put his speed and defensive power in the equation before making sure there weren''t any sudden changes in the paths of the flying spatial shards. From what he could see, the flow of power from the tornado was pretty constant, so he closed his eyes for a brief second before reopening them and dashing through the calculated openings left from the flying spatial shards, who went on their way, according to the data he calculated. Felix found a few scars on his first armor layer as he went through the first strata of the tornado. Even though he had dodged everything, he slowly realized that the inside of the tornado was very sharp as well, not as sharp as the spatial shards, but the longer he stood inside the tornado, the more his shields would be damaged. He was getting passively damaged from solely existing in the tornado. Fortunately for Felix, his defenses were very solid, and they would be able to withstand even a direct hit from the spatial shards that were currently flying around at a high velocity. So he would be able to live inside the tornado for quite a long time if he needed to. Felix continued according to the route he planned, but midway to the eye of the tornado, he realized that he didn''t take into the calculation, that the further he went in, the faster the tornado would spin, and he was almost thrown outside the tornado by a spatial shard that impaled his shields, almost taking him outside the tornado. However, what was gone also had to go back, so Felix was sent back into the tornado, and close to the central area, there he dropped directly into the eye of the storm, where it was the safest. The eye of the storm was the center of the tornado and nothing was currently going there. As Felix looked around, he saw how the center was being surrounded by the spatial shards, which were thrown through the tornado before being expelled and sucked back in. Now that he was in the center of the tornado, he could stop this attack. His aura inflated as his energy reached a blowing point. If he attacked the tornado from outside, the energy he would have currently unleashed would have been absorbed and thrown back. But now that he was unleashing this energy from the inside, the tornado was collapsing by itself! The spatial shards started to drop as the currents that kept the tornado going were exploded by Felix''s unleashed energy, which severed them, breaking the tornado''s power until it disappeared thoroughly. Felix''s body appeared in Marshallo''s gaze as he felt his expression twist. He had been only able to rest for around 8 days before Felix had destroyed the tornado, he was only around 70% of his full power, but he didn''t know if it was still enough for the fight with Felix. He was sure he had somehow grown stronger after he got rid of the tornado, he had experienced Felix''s talent headfirst and knew that in perilous situations, his body would burst with new energy and strength. That would lead him to have small breakthroughs in his life level. He was similarly talented, but as he continued to fight Felix. He also realized that the man who was currently floating some tens of meters away from him had something that he didn''t have. He wasn''t sure what he was lacking, but he was sure that Felix had it. Marshallo got up from being seated on the arena floor as he put his hammer on his shoulder and breathed in for a few seconds. Space shook as he breathed out, and he pointed his hammer towards Felix from the distance before saying: "Bring it on. I still have 3 lives left!" Felix floated down back onto the arena as he glanced at Marshallo... from his experiences in the tornado, he learned a few things, and he knew that this fight was going to end soon enough. Chapter 190: The end of the fight (1) Marshallo kept his composure as his and Felix''s gazes met in the middle of the arena. Sparks appeared between them as the arena started to combust due to the clash of their auras. Immense power was unleashed- as the duo was ready to fight once again. Felix knew that in this situation. After he killed Marshallo once more, things would be done. Since Marshallo chose to revive in the arena, Felix could catch him at his weakest, and now that he had gained a good grasp of the tornado attack that Marshallo could unleash, he could destroy it way faster to the point that Marshallo wouldn''t be able to rest to half of the level he was now at. If Felix knew this, there was no reason for Marshallo not to. He had calculated the risks and took them only because he would rather die in Felix''s hands than in the twins, who must be still hunting for him out there. He never liked his race''s royal family as someone who had been brought up from poverty to his current level with his ideology of who''s stronger should rule abhorred the fact that only those with royal blood had a saying in their society. He had grown up to his level due to hard work and talent. And he thought that he would have a great position in their empire. He was the strongest man to ever grace the four-armed race, but all he realized after he got his current position was that politics were something he hated with a passion of incalculable amount. The other royals teamed upon him when he entered their circle due to his low birth. And even though he beat the shit out of them, he couldn''t kill them. While he was the strongest on the planet, the other three royals who were below him weren''t that weak. If they teamed upon him, they would be able to capture him and lock him away. The king, queen, and crown prince were the snobbiest people that he had ever met and disdained him with passion. They were also the strongest below him, who put restrictions on him due to his standing, making him almost a pet in their eyes. This led him to his current enhanced mentality of loving battle. The torture that was first put on his body when his other two arms had been cut off. The things he had to say, and do because the other three had a numerical advantage over him... That broke him until he went insane on the surface. Marshallo breathed in and out as he closed his eyes and forfeited the stare battle between him and Felix. Those things came to his mind whenever he looked at Felix, and he wondered, how was Felix treated by his own people? Was he in a similar situation to his? Or was he blessed with good indiscriminating people? Marshallo started to fill his hammer with energy as his thunderous aura started to become tame. If it was just like a hurricane before, now it was like a small running river in intensity. His aura stuck to his skin as it transformed into a half orange half yellow armor- that covered his naked body. With a few glances at Felix, he had learned how to mimic his armor creation technique. He really needed it as fighting naked was a little bit awkward for him as well. Considering he was used to fighting clothed so he was rather glad Felix knew such an easy technique that he could copy. Felix knew that letting Marshallo charge up his energy wasn''t a good idea, but on the other hand, Marshallo''s power was lower than his at the moment, so he could also charge his energy and clash directly with him. Considering he had more power than him at the moment, the clash would be his win and he would be able to break his guard and maybe kill him in one shot. One more death was enough for Felix to win this duel, and he wanted to finish things already. From what he could sense, things were mostly done with the other part of the war, as Binela and Marquina must have taken care of the grunts. He wasn''t sure what happened to the twins though. But considering their strength, Felix didn''t think that they would be troublesome to deal with after he took care of Marshallo. If they still decided to linger around. Marshallo''s aura was evolving as a small layer remained stuck to his skin. Creating a type of new technique that Felix got inspired from at one glance. Creating armor was something, and fusing the aura with the outer skin was something else. This was basically creating a double-layered defense, and combined with the aura armor, it could be considered a triple layer. Felix mimicked Marshallo''s actions as his aura ran across his skin applying another defense layer as Marshallo frowned, he felt the changes in Felix''s aura, but he understood such simple tricks would be easily learnable from each other with their level of talent. However, that didn''t mean he liked it. But the fight wouldn''t be enjoyable if it was easy, right? Marshallo threw the hammer directly towards Felix, taking him by surprise as he reflexively caught it, making his knees tremble due to the immense and sudden weight that he found bearing upon his arms and body. He wasn''t sure what kind of weight the hammer had, but he understood that keeping it to himself wasn''t the right step, so he threw it behind him, creating a giant hole in the arena from the impact and making it float downwards in space at a slow speed. But that''s what Marshallo wanted. The moment that the hammer fell to the arena floor, the arena itself shook intensely, so hard that Felix''s steady balance was broken for half a breath. Which gave Marshallo enough time for him to appear behind Felix and apply a full nelson. Felix frowned as he tried to get out of Marshallo''s strong grip, but it was very hard to escape, so he started to shoot elbows into Marshallo''s kidneys at high speed, leaving shockwaves escaping from Marshallo''s back. Blood started to flow out of Marshallo''s mouth as he coughed a part of his kidneys, but he didn''t let go of Felix. The hammer which was slowly floating into space- flew back through the slowly closing gap in the arena and came ''face to face'' with Felix''s body. The hammer floated in front of him as it suddenly shot towards his ribs, hitting him there directly, and creating a sickening crunch. Some of the strength traveled through Felix''s body into Marshallo''s, making him cough even more blood, as Felix didn''t stop with his elbow shots. Marshallo continued to apply the full nelson as the hammer hit Felix''s body all over. Cracking his bones, and lowering his regenerative abilities as Marshallo was injecting a toxic stream of energy into Felix''s nape while keeping him in the full nelson. Felix could feel his eyelids getting heavier, not because he was too injured. But the toxic energy that was currently flowing through his body was slowing his metabolism and blood flow. Felix shouted as he stopped hitting Marshallo with his elbow shots, but an immense aura engulfed both of them from the middle as an explosion engulfed both of their bodies and expanded through the whole arena. Felix decided to use a self-harming technique to get out of Marshallo''s full nelson. The hammer was pushed away for tens of meters as it became scraped metal after being directly hit by Felix''s explosion, while Marshallo took a few steps backward. His arms were singed and half-broken as they hanged from the elbow down. Blood wasn''t dripping from the wound as it had been cauterized by the explosion. Felix''s body was swaying from side to side as he looked like his whole body had been roasting in a house fire for 20 to 30 minutes. 4th-degree burns were all over his skin, and he didn''t look human anymore at all. His breath was shallow, and he almost fell to his knees as his half-closed eyes looked at Marshallo''s unmoving body. He stood in a hunched position as his eyes were shadowed by his hair. Was he dead? Felix tried to take one step forward, but he fell to his knees, then on his stomach as he ran out of energy to sustain his body, the explosion coming from his body hurt him. But it also drained the whole hex energy and stamina from his body. Marshallo took one step forward to the downed Felix, his eyes were still shadowed, but the moment he took that one step, he also fell to his knees, his body was trembling as tears started to slid down his cheeks, a happy laugh came from his mouth as it opened up. Showing his sharp teeth and a feral smile. "Such a great fight, such a great fight, I can die happily fighting you Felix, we are almost at the last round. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did." Marshallo''s body dropped from his kneeling position as life broke away from the shell and another similarly, naked body dropped to his knees a few tens of meters away. Breathing roughly and looking very exhausted as Marshallo started to drag his naked body towards Felix''s paralyzed one, and his former husk. Felix wasn''t sure what Marshallo wanted to do with his new weakened body. But he was sure that it wasn''t going to be anything beneficial to him as he glanced at the exhausted expression on his face. But he understood the look on his face and in his eyes, he had that look a lot of times when he had been succumbing to his primal instincts in his cat form. Felix understood what Marshallo wanted to do. Chapter 191: The end of the fight (2) Marshallo''s crawling made him look like a hungry zombie that had his legs blasted, still trying to eat the brains of the living beings around him or feast on a nearby corpse, mindlessly crawling forward driven by an instinct for either survival or to sate his hunger of something. He was still conscious, but at the same time, he wasn''t himself as well, his body had been weakened too much by the consecutive deaths, and his god couldn''t keep reviving him at a normal level of power. It was to such a level that Felix didn''t know what to say anymore... he was just stunned by his resolve for fighting. Did he really love fighting that much? Or was there something behind his motives to fight? Felix sighed as his trembling arms tried to prop him up from the arena floor. However, no matter how much he tried to get up, it was all futile. He was fully out of juice on both bodily-wise and hex energy-wise. He was a fighting machine, a war god, someone with a higher status than others. But all he enjoyed was fighting. While he could have lived an easy life on his planet and got whatever he wanted with his current power, he still decided to come and spearhead the invasion, even though he was against the policies of the royals who ordered the invasion in the first place. Felix didn''t know many things about Marshallo, but he respected him wholeheartedly as an opponent. He was a prideful man with a streak for fighting. But he was also honorable and a great opponent, and even though he did use some ''underhanded'' methods to make Felix''s full potential explode, Felix didn''t hate him too much. Every person had his own obsessions, dreams, and hopes, and there was no reason to judge them if you didn''t put yourself in their shoes to see how they would technically live their life to be who they were. This was empathy. This was what Felix had developed from the moment he gained intelligence up till now. It was an emotional state that he didn''t grasp until he fully regained his emotions when he played with Jack. He never thought that he could actually get attached to something as his emotions were on a different plane most of the time. Felix''s emotional levels currently gave him the ability to link with the weakened Marshallo. And grasp what he wanted to do next. As well as sap him of some leftover energy from his body. This wasn''t any type of technique that was registered in the memories of Vangar nor Willie. This was something that Felix learned by himself just now! Even though Marshallo was at his weakest right now, he still had some energy left, or else he wouldn''t have been able to crawl towards his former husk and Felix''s location. But now that Felix was sapping his energy through their emotional connection, he slowly started to stop as his maddened face started to relax. While Felix was sapping his energy, he also sent him positive vibes through the emotional connection he created with him and calmed him down. Marshallo breathing became normal as his chest rose up and down. He was a few meters away from Felix, but he looked as peaceful as a sleeping baby. However, he wasn''t unconscious. His eyes were still open as he moved his head towards Felix, who was currently getting up from his downed position. The energy that he gained from Marshallo''s body jumpstarted his healing abilities. Making him recover around 10-20% of his original power. He tried to get up to see Felix eye to eye, but all he could do was look at Felix from his downed position as he came above him and looked down at him. Marshallo chuckled slowly as he raised a trembling hand over his face and said: "This ability of yours... why haven''t you used it from the start of the fight? Was this your trump card for this situation?" Felix shook his head as he crouched near Marshallo and responded: "No. Actually, I have just learned how to use it right now after seeing your conviction and obsession. It actually made me wonder what happened to make you like this. Both Binela and Marquina don''t seem to have such a high level of obsession like you. Well, they are both obsessed with a certain thing. But not as much as you are with fighting." "I see, I see. If we met in other circumstances... I would have loved to have a friend like you, my planet, and my people aren''t like you. And I guess you must be an exception among your people as well." Felix put his hand near Marshallo''s face as he was ready to release another beam of energy to wipe him away. After this one, he would have one life left, and he wouldn''t be able to move at all then. Meaning that the next time he died, he would die for good. Felix looked at Marshallo''s face, which didn''t have any regrets as he closed his eyes and waited for Felix to blast him into oblivion. He was content with the fight he had gotten. And there was nothing he missed back on his planet. "I had a great run. I have fought to my heart''s content until I have reached an opponent I couldn''t beat. The best way for someone of my race to die. Please honor me with the release of death!" Felix pulled his hand up as he looked at Marshallo, he didn''t release any more energy while he dropped near him and asked: "Would you like to live for some more time?" Marshallo''s eyes widened as his head whipped to the side, where Felix was currently sitting down and resting. He would lie if he said he wanted to die. Every living being wanted to continue living unless there was nothing to keep them going anymore, and Marshallo wasn''t hopeless, he wanted to continue fighting as well as change his planet''s regime. If he regained his full power, he would be above the current royals, and it wouldn''t matter even if they teamed upon him. He wanted to move his neck and nod to Felix, but he was too sapped of energy to do that. However, Felix understood from his eye movements alone that he wanted to live more. Felix smiled as he decided to give him the same option as he did to Marquina and Binela. "Such an easy thing to do, and I can live and fight more?" Marshallo didn''t really care if he had to work with Felix or his planet if he got to fight more people and get rid of those snobby nobles on his planet. He didn''t have beef with anyone. He was just the one executing the orders. "Well, since it''s this simple. I guess I can just swear upon my ancestors..." However, before he could start the ritual, a giddy double laugh was heard coming from the nearby space, which Felix and Marshallo identified coming from the twins. It was laughter that got onto one''s nerves the more you heard it, and it was just like nails on a chalkboard. "Tsk, Tsk. Marshallo, becoming useless to their majesties is one thing, but betraying the empire and joining up with the enemies? This is a new low even for low-born scum like you!" Marshallo didn''t like when people brought up his social status with such a condescending tone, especially the twins who were formerly his students. They were the people that made him thought that nobles had a shred of good in them until they showed their true intentions. The twins appeared inside of the arena as they glanced at Felix''s and Marshallo''s downed forms, both of them were exhausted, and they were the perfect prey for the stalking duo. "Kekek, why don''t you get away from Marshallo outsider? This is the business of our Fulhorn empire. We can forget that you had already bewitched two of our strongest females to your side as long as you let us get rid of Marshallo over there. He is a pain in our royal Majesties'' sides, and it would be a great thing for our whole empire if we got rid of him. I can also promise you that we will never attack you or your planet ever again." Felix got up from his position on the floor as he cracked his neck and put his hand over Marshallo''s body, the twin''s eyes narrowed as they thought that Felix wanted to end Marshallo himself, which was also okay with them. However, gentle yellow energy left Felix''s outstretched arm as it entered Marshallo''s body, rejuvenating him and making him able to get to his feet as he glared at the twins. "Are you really okay with this? I haven''t said my oath yet. Don''t you think that I will betray you?" Felix shook his head as he took a glance at Marshallo: "I didn''t feel that you are that type of person when I sapped your energy just now. Now let''s take care of these two, and after that, you can swear the oath." Marshallo laughed roaringly as he rotated his stiff arms to wake them up and then looked into each of the twin''s eyes before saying: "I taught you everything I knew, and now, it''s time for you to spit everything back out and with the interest rates. I will have to take you two''s lives as well, permanently!" Chapter 192: Marshallo and Felix vs twins Even though Marshallo had given the twins the ultimatum, both he and Felix weren''t even at half their usual power while the twins were currently at full power, putting both Felix and Marshallo in an awkward situation, especially if Marshallo got killed once more. If he died again, there was a high chance Felix wouldn''t be able to help him before the twins got to him and ended his life. Marshallo''s body started to glow as spatial energy seeped from the surroundings and went back into his body, making Felix raise his eyebrows. What did he just do? The twins frowned asymmetrically as they realized what Marshallo was doing, and they glared at him while saying: "You broke away from your revival spot?" "Stop asking the obvious, you freaks." The twins gritted their teeth as they glared at Marshallo: "Who made us this way? You have the gall to call us, royal blood, freaks, after what you have done?" It seemed there was more of a history between the duo than Felix learned at first glance. But now was not the time to learn about any of that. Felix made a move. Disappearing from his current position near Marshallo and appearing to the right of the twins. His eyes were cold as he nodded towards Marshallo''s direction, making him appear on the left of the twins. Both of them knew the twin''s special ability and battle power, so they wanted to make sure they wouldn''t split up. Felix put his arms over his right side while Marshallo did the same on his left side. The twins frowned as they felt their arms being kept immobilized. Their power was waving back and forth as they activated their orange aura and a blue-colored shield started to cover them along with Marshallo and Felix. Felix frowned as he let go of the right twin''s arm and jumped away while Marshallo did the same thing. They could both feel that the shield would have trapped them alongside the twins in a domain where they would be put at a disadvantage against the merged duo. Their senses told them clearly that getting near him in their current situation wasn''t going to cut it. They were a little bit too weakened to fight him head-on, even 2v1. They needed to evade him until they regained a little bit more strength, or else one of them would fall in battle! And from what it looked like, Felix wasn''t going to be the one who did. Marshallo was half a step slower than Felix, so he could only barely get out of the twin''s barrier. But that didn''t mean he had escaped for good. The twins took one step forward, lightning engulfing them as they activated the lightning armor they learned from Felix. However, a similar image happened with Marshallo as lightning engulfed him as well. They both had learned the lightning armor, but considering how well-rested the twins were, they immediately appeared above Marshallo as they cupped their hands together above his head. Trying to disintegrate him with a beam of energy. Marshallo smiled as he saw the proximity he was in with the twins even though he knew about his barrier-domain ability. The twins realized something wasn''t right the moment Marshallo smiled, and they immediately found a hand going through their chest. However, the hand didn''t affect them at all as they had already instinctively separated. While also canceling the energy attack that they wanted to use against Marshallo. But the moment they separated, they realized that they fell directly for Felix''s and Marshallo''s trap. The barrier domain could only be called upon when they were merged! But it was impossible for them to knew that, which made the twins realize that they must have gambled on that. "You two!!!" But Marshallo and Felix didn''t care about the twin''s words as they grabbed them by their left and right sides. Since they were separated, they were both weaker and unable to activate the thing that could scare Felix and Marshallo away. However, while they were separated, their defenses were strengthened by a lot. Putting the quartet in a passive situation, but that situation was the best one for Felix and Marshallo, as they would be able to rest and regain their power. And when they were back to their peak, they would be able to kill the twins, even if they were separated. The twins knew that they had made a fatal mistake coming back for Marshallo, but they thought they would be able to be the fisherman who reaped all of the benefits only to end up being the cicada that was unaware of the oriole behind. They overestimated themselves, thinking that they would be able to do anything to these two peak powerhouses even when they were this weakened. "Let us go! The Royals won''t take kindly if something happened to any of their relatives on our planet outsider! Marshallo, you should ever think of going back if we lose all of our lives!" Marshallo shook his head as he looked in the sole eye of the twin that he captured then he spit him in his half-face as he said: "Not only will I go back to our planet. But I will also get rid of your relatives!" "You... who do you think you are? You are all alone, and even if you team up with this outsider. I doubt that he would follow you to our home planet! You knew each other only for a few days through fighting. He might even forbid you from going back to the planet after you swear the oath to become his servant, think Marshallo!" "All I can think about right now is that the two of you talk too much!" Marshallo slapped the twin he held over his half mouth, sealing his ability to talk, and Felix did the same thing. Both twins were trying to create discord among them by making them doubt each other. However, Felix and Marshallo just got annoyed by their antics and decided to shut them up. The twin halves started to struggle under the energy bindings that Marshallo and Felix put them in. They wanted to fuse again and run away. They realized they weren''t a match for the duo''s ingenuity and battle tactics even though they were weakened, if the twins didn''t have this fatal weakness of theirs that could be exploited, they might have stood their ground and continued to fight. But in this situation, they knew that they were doomed if they didn''t escape! While their voices were sealed, they could still talk telepathically to each other due to their link: "Brother, what shall we do? This situation is deadly. We need to escape!" "Stop saying the obvious you fool. I know you are at a lower intelligence level when we are not fused, but you should have learned something by now." "I see. I see. So we will do that brother?" "Indeed. It''s our best bet against them, we shall be crowned as heroes when we get back to the home planet as well. We might lose our individuality, but our fused personality won''t be that different from now." "Let''s do it then." "Have been waiting for you to say that." The twins'' parts. Which were currently quieted under the bindings, started to become active once again, which gathered the attention of Felix and Marshallo who were both currently resting. "What are they doing, Marshallo?" Marshallo frowned as he put a finger under his chin: "Within their current state, they shouldn''t be able to do anything unless..." Marshallo immediately appeared at the side of the twin he captured as he realized what they were going to do. "Felix, attack them, we can''t let them fuse!" Felix appeared to the other side as he charged hex energy in his fist and unleashed it in the bound twins'' side, trying to break whatever he was trying to do. However, gigantic red sanguineous light exploded from both of the twins at the same time. The light resembled blood cells and the DNA helix as it floated above the arena, the helix was halved into two parts as they combined at the middle, ignoring Felix''s and Marshallo''s attempts at stopping the twin''s doing. Marshallo frowned as he backflipped until he was ten meters away from his previous place, Felix appearing near him instantaneously as he glanced at the sanguineous aura that exploded in the middle of the arena and hid the twin''s new body from their view. Felix could sense that the sanguineous aura didn''t come from their energy as he glanced at Marshallo and asked: "What is this?" Marshallo shook his head as he glared at the silhouette which was slowly becoming visible as the sanguineous aura transformed into threads that entered the silhouette''s body quickly: "This is a technique that the royal family can use with people of similar bloodline... I''m not sure of the technicalities because they would never let someone like me take a look at it, but I had seen it once when I was little in action. I think things will become a little hard for us from now on, and keep your guard up no matter what!" Suddenly blood flew out of Marshallo''s mouth as he looked down and found an embedded fist into his chest. The attack created a shockwave that pushed him out of the arena and broke his energy armor, leaving him naked once again. Felix felt his hair stand on end as he moved his head slowly to look directly at the person who attacked Marshallo. Chapter 193: Fused menace (1) The silhouette of the twins became fully visible as their new appearance was reflected into Felix''s eyes. Unlike before. When it was obvious they were two parts put two together, there was no difference between their parts now, the hair color and eye color were the same as the hair became white, and the eyes became purple. Both parts of them looked like teenagers before, so there wasn''t any difference in their looks. Besides the change in hair and eye color- along with the fact that they were now one being. The other thing that changed was the constant flaming sanguineous aura that was currently engulfing them. They had a toothy smile on their face as they showed their sharp fangs, making them look intimidating at first glance. Felix could feel that his knees were getting weak due to the sanguineous aura pressure, but the moment the aura tried to infiltrate his body, a roar came from Felix''s body which pushed the nearby fused twins as a puzzled expression appeared on their face: "Hmm?" Felix grasped his left side of the face as his left eye started to glow with the same sanguineous energy that was coming from the twin''s body, his strength wasn''t regenerating, but his power was increasing, and Felix''s energy levels were at the same level as before, but his strength was surging upwards slowly. Felix''s face showed that he wasn''t in the right state of mind, but the fused twins had a worse expression on their face as they clutched their chest. Feeling something wasn''t right there. "What are you??" The twins asked in a double-layered voice as they tried to regain their breath. Somehow their energy was stolen by Felix even though he hadn''t created an empathetic link with them. Crunching sounds came from the inside of Felix''s body as he continued to grasp at his left side of the face then shouted: "RARGHHHHHHH!" Felix''s eyes turned fully white as he lost control of his body and started rampaging around, making the fused twins take a few steps backward, creating space between them and Felix before glancing towards Marshallo with a smile on their lips. "It seems that your backoff has somehow gone insane." The twins didn''t know what was currently happening to Felix, but they were happy he was taken out of the picture for the moment. Taking care of Marshallo was their main priority, and they would be rewarded heavily for taking the head of the ''''revolutionary leader''''. The royals knew about Marshallo''s ambitions but considering they would also end up losing quite a lot if they engaged him, they only did things that didn''t go below his endurance point. Creating a situation where they could coexist. Of course, if either side became weaker, the other one would do their utmost to kill. However, before the twins could launch their attack on Marshallo, Felix''s berserk body appeared in front of them as it started to engage them in close melee combat. The twins frowned as Felix''s fist grazed their face leaving a bleeding line there. "His speed and strength increased... but his aura is the same?" The twins weren''t sure what was going with Felix, but it seemed his body was still keen on protecting Marshallo even though his consciousness wasn''t in it. "You are certainly annoying. I will give you that. But you shouldn''t think that you can fight me in my current form!" Before the twins could continue their monologue, another fist shot directly towards their faces. Which they actually caught as they sneered, then blasted Felix point-blank with a purple blast of energy, throwing him away. But not doing any damage to him, which made the twins rise their eyebrows. Felix''s body skidded across the arena floor before stopping by itself as it grasped an arena tile to stop himself at the edge. Marshallo tried to approach him but decided against it. Considering his current state may not be able to distinguish friend from foe. Felix''s body spun as he became a torpedo that launched itself directly towards the twins which weren''t able to dodge in time. However, they stood still as Felix''s fist hit them in the face, not even making them flinch. Suddenly they uppercut Felix in the jaw, throwing him into the air and launching a cutting wave of air towards which hit him directly in the chest, making blood flow freely from there as his organs became visible, his heart beating in his chest along with the lungs and ribcage. Felix''s body twitched as the hole that was opened in his chest closed in a few seconds and he appeared directly near the twins. However, the twins immediately lowered their hands near their waist as they unleashed a purple-red energy aura that pushed Felix back, making him skid on the arena floor again, but this time around, the twins decided to follow as they dashed towards Felix''s flying body, hitting it in the head, and embedding it onto the arena floor, creating a Felix shaped crater in it. Then the twins floated into the air as they put their hands together to create a giant ball of red energy above their head. In a few seconds, the ball consolidated, and they were ready to throw it onto Felix, making sure it would engulf the arena as well so they would fish Marshallo out of his hiding. However, a small yellow energy blast entered the giant star of death that was above the twin''s head, destabilizing it and making it explode prematurely. catching the twins off guard and making them injure themselves. The twins shook their fused body as they glared at their surroundings, but they couldn''t find Felix nor Marshallo anywhere as the arena below them exploded into a gigantic firework show that engulfed them. "Where could they have run to?" The twins didn''t want to play hide and seek with them. They would be at a disadvantage if the duo regained their strength. Felix''s body was on Marshallo''s back as he hid between spaces while observing what the twins were up to. He made sure Felix stood well on his back as he didn''t want to lose him in the spatial crevice they were hiding in. Inside Felix''s consciousness, his soul body was floating in a sea of red as countless voices tried to wake him up from his unconscious state, they weren''t voices he knew nor heard before, but from their tones of voice, they seemed well-intentioned. Felix''s soul eyes started to twitch as he opened them slowly. He found himself floating in the red sea which puzzled him, he was fighting the fused twins, where did he land to? But his confusion didn''t last long as he realized he was in his mental space, he was pretty familiar with it, but he didn''t remember him having a red sea in it. "What is this thing?" Felix put his hands a little bit deeper into the sea and realized his soul body was currently absorbing this red energy. If he remembered correctly this was the royal bloodline of Marshallo''s race. But he wasn''t sure why he acquired it after some of the twin''s aura entered his body. His ability worked by eating bodies. Unless his ability had evolved, and it now had new criteria for him to acquire abilities? However, he didn''t need to be inside here at this point as he needed to take care of Marshallo, he knew that his regained energy was only around 30%, and the twins new fused body might be able to deal with him even if he was around 90%, they were now rather strong. But if they teamed up against them, they would be the ones to win. But as he tried to leave the mental space, he realized that he was unable to. Red tentacles grasped on his soul from the sea as he tried to leave his unconsciousness, which annoyed Felix greatly. What the hell was this red thing thinking it was doing? Felix unleashed his soul power, trying to absorb the red energy quickly into his soul. But he literally felt that he was trying to drink water from the sea with a straw in his attempts to quickly get rid of his bindings. This wasn''t a good thing as this type of absorption needed time, and it couldn''t be rushed, making Marshallo have to fight on his own until he absorbed enough of this energy. Marshallo glanced towards Felix''s now unconscious body as he frowned. He couldn''t move from his current position as the twins would be able to find him, he wasn''t really proficient in stealth and the spatial waves he would unleash when he left the space crevice would alert the twins immediately. In the end, he would still have to fight the twins as they would scan the area until they found his location, but for now, he would do his best to restore his energy to his peak state and wait until Felix recovered his consciousness. At this point, Marshallo hoped he would be lucky and they wouldn''t find him that quickly, atleast he needed to recover his full power, and as for Felix, he would be able to protect him until he woke up. Chapter 194: Fused Menace (2) Things were becoming increasingly pressing for Marshallo as he held onto Felix''s unconscious body. The area that the fused twins were searching was getting increasingly closer to his actual location, and no matter how hard he tried, he knew that the moment they got close enough, he would be found out. Marshallo was sweating inwardly as he did his best to recover his energy. But considering he was hiding, it was harder than normal. If he decided to quicken his recovery, he would surely attract the attention of the twins. And doom both himself and Felix to death. Marshallo took deep breaths as he entered a zen meditative stance to increase his internal recovery rate. Without using external means that could attract the attention of the twins. The twins were outside the spatial crevice, a few hundred kilometers away from the ships, still searching around the place where the arena previously exploded. They were getting increasingly farther away from the area as their eyes were filled with red energy, which let them scan the area for any signs of Marshallo and Felix''s whereabouts. Things were very annoying for the twins as they were rather worried about the outcome of these two regaining their full power. The twins were doing their best to search, but Marshallo had picked a good spot where he would be hard to find at first glance. Plus, he was also doing his best to keep himself hidden. While the twins'' strength had skyrocketed after their fusion, they were confident in taking care of the weakened duo. Their senses weren''t extremely enhanced compared to before. "How should I find these two hiding rats..." "Things need to be faster... I need to go faster, or else I will fail!" The twin''s eyes reddened as they unleashed their full power. As they looked around, energy overflowed from their eyes, trying to identify which direction Marshallo took when he fleed from them with Felix in tow. They strained their eyes to the limit as blood started to flow down their cheeks Suddenly in the corner of their eyes. They saw a shadow that was moving slowly towards a faraway place. From what they could see with their newly enhanced eyesight, that shadow fully resembled Marshallo! They decided to follow the shadow slowly from behind, but as they analyzed it. They realized that what they were seeing was akin to a recording. It didn''t actually matter if they were near the shadow or not, so they picked up their speed, and so did the shadow. However, the shadow didn''t disappear from their view as it remained neatly at the corner of their eyes. They realized that after they injected so much energy into their eyes, they unlocked a new ability that was helping them with tracking the escaped duo. They weren''t sure how they unlocked the ability. They only did what they did due to desperation, as they knew that if Felix and Marshallo recovered, they would be doomed and even if they went back to the planet. Things were rather complicated between them and the royal family. They wanted to use Marshallo''s head to make things good again between each other. The shadow suddenly disappeared in one particular place as the twins stopped and looked around. They had followed the shadow for around 20 hours before they stopped, even though they had increased their speed. If they increased it over a certain threshold, the shadow would become blurry and disappear. So, they couldn''t go at their full speed. "I can smell them..." "They must be around here... hopefully, this new ability isn''t a phony one." The twins continued to look around, but to their disappointment, their eyes couldn''t actually sense where Marshallo was, even though they could feel that he and Felix were supposed to be around here somewhere. "This is strange..." While the twins were looking around, Marshallo was sweating really hard as the twins were basically near him. The only thing that kept them away from each other was the fact that Marshallo was basically in a different dimension compared to them. While Marshallo had taught them a lot of techniques. He still had some of his trump cards for survival. He rarely employed them, as he didn''t need to, but that was also an advantageous thing now, as the twins didn''t know where he was nor about his technique, so they couldn''t infer about his location even though they did sense that he and Felix were hiding somewhere around in the area. Marshallo continued in his zen state as he quickly recovered his energy, he was back to around 70%, and the further he recovered, the faster he did. Felix''s body was still immobile on his back, and it didn''t even twitch once during his recovery period. He could still feel that Felix was breathing and alive, but he seemed to be in a coma of some sort. Suddenly he felt his muscles twitch as an opening appeared near the spatial crevice where he was situated. The twins finally realized where he was hiding after an intense concentration and the use of their new ability. "Here''s Marley!" The twins shouted in a demonic screech as they broke through the dimensional barrier and entered the spatial crevice, ready to decapitate Marshallo, who was quickly getting up from his recovery state and powering up his aura. Marshallo''s half-yellow aura engulfed him and Felix as they broke away from the secondary dimension they were in. Such spatial crevices were rather unstable for fighting, and if it collapsed on them, they would be lost into that space until they found another breakthrough point. It would also create a destructive spatial tornado which could also kill all three of them. "You are no fun Marshallo, trying to run away from us, even though you owe us so much. And that friend of yours deserves to die, he is the sole person that can protect the planet that our race has its eyes on, hand him over right now, and I might just put a good word for you to their highnesses so you won''t be tortured too much before your execution." Marshallo laughed as he threw Felix away, making the twins rise their eyebrows in question. They pointed their fingers towards the rapidly moving Felix, ready to shoot him down, but before they could do that, Marshallo appeared in front of them and grasped them by the wrist. A cracking sound appearing quickly as the twins felt the iron-like grip on their wrist intensifying every second that it remained there. "Let go you..." However, the grip remained no matter how they tried to remove themselves from Marshallo''s grasp. Felix''s body had already disappeared, making the current fight between the twins and Marshallo a one-on-one fight. "Don''t you think that you have got us!" The twins ripped their arm away, leaving Marshallo with one hand in his grasp. Another hand quickly grew from the twins'' bleeding stump then they launched themselves at Marshallo. An energy sword grew out of their left hand as they started a deadly dance with Marshallo. Marshallo waved through the energy stabs and slashes as he suddenly felt something wasn''t right, and he was kicked in the head before the twins started to shoot energy blasts towards his downed form, which didn''t land as he regained his balance and started to dodge them from side to side. But his feelings told him things weren''t as good as they seemed on the surface, and he was right as soon as his instincts told him that, the twins appeared in front of him and grabbed him by the neck with their right hand before blasting him into oblivion! However, Marshallo had defended himself from the point-blank attack with the armor and energy skin methods. There was a hole in his neck that was quickly closing. But his head was still on his shoulders, so he didn''t die. The twins frowned as they put their fingers together to create a supernova of crimson energy that they threw directly at Marshallo, not letting him disturb it again just like he did when he escaped beforehand. Marshallo didn''t have enough time to dodge the supernova, so he roared as his aura engulfed him, and he put his hands forward, stopping the supernova in front of him before uppercutting it away into space, where it exploded into a fiery firework show. Felix''s immobile body was quite far away from the fight as it slowly started to twitch. Things were changing in his unconsciousness as his soul body had absorbed enough of that crimson energy. So he could break through the sea''s restrictive tentacles and return to his body. He needed to help Marshallo and get rid of the twins. To finally stop the war between the invaders and his planet. His left hand''s fingers started to move as his closed eyes twitched and opened suddenly, the same amount of crimson energy was running from them just as the first time he interacted with them. But now, sanity and control were visible in his eyes. He controlled his body as he looked around to see that he was floating in space. And there was no one around. However, he could sense the shockwaves from the fight between Marshallo and the twins, so he knew in which direction he needed to go. Chapter 195: Fused menace (3) The location where the battle was ongoing was around 1000 kilometers away from Felix''s current location. He could sense that Marshallo was holding the fused twins back pretty well, so he wondered how much time passed while he was unconscious. However, he could also sense that Marshallo was at a disadvantage through their clashes and that he needed his help ASAP. While his body was unconscious, it also recovered to around 80% of his full strength and combined with his new crimson aura. He was sure that he would be able to take care of the twins by himself. His strength had skyrocketed after the fusion that underwent in his unconsciousness, and as he clenched his fist, mini shockwaves rolled around in his surroundings, and spatial tempests appeared around him. Then, he controlled his strength to make all of the after-effects surrounding him disappear. "This should be enough..." Felix wasn''t sure what level he reached with his current strength, but he knew that the twins wouldn''t be able to do much to him, or if anything, at all. He could feel that his body was fully energized from the inside, even though it wasn''t at full capacity. The quality of his energy had undergone another evolution after he woke up. He could feel that his energy ran faster through his body''s vessels and that his blood flow was pure and full of the same energy. It was running like quicksilver in his blood and invigorated him with every breath he took. He felt like a new person as he started to skip through space, quickly arriving towards the battlefield. Felix was creating no ripples in space as he skipped through it, making the fighting duo unaware of his arrival. Felix''s stealth technique was activated- while he observed the fight between Marshallo and Marley. Marshallo''s face was red as he overexerted himself to uppercut the supernova that Marley threw at him. His breathing wasn''t shallow as he was quickly recovering the energy he had used. But Marley wasn''t going to let him finish that. "Out of breath?" Marley mocked as he tried to approach Marshallo and continue their bout. "Come on- this isn''t the end yet. Your head will be severed and used as a gift for my triumphant return. You might have saved your little friend, for now, but I will be able to track him down, and even if he recovered, I can always run away and come back with their royal Majesties for the invasion!" Marshallo was annoyed but the continuous flap of lips that Marley was showing him. But he was also grateful because his talking was giving him a few precious seconds that he could use to regain his breath. Maybe it was a good thing he was hated so badly by him. As his hatred made him more talkative, he wanted to see Marshallo grovel below him. And beg for his mercy. Marshallo stopped breathing quickly as his face regained its original color, and he smiled at Marley while not saying anything. Marshallo''s silhouette disappeared from Marley''s eyes, but he felt his arm getting caught by Marley two seconds later as Marley tsked: "Think you can do the same thing twice? Please." Marley ran his fist through Marshallo''s chest, making him cough blood, as his defenses were penetrated, and life slowly started to leave his body. Blood was dripping onto Marley''s arm as energy coursed through his arm and into Marshallo''s body, he was trying to destroy his internal organs and absorb his energy at the same time. Things weren''t looking well for Marshallo at all. He was trying to remove Marley''s arm from his chest. But he could feel his strength being quickly sapped away from him. He didn''t think that Marley would have burst with such a level of strength, and that took him by surprise. He could feel his life flickering in front of his eyes, but he gritted his teeth as he glared at the fused twins and said with conviction: "If I go down, I''m taking you down with me!" He was ready to sacrifice his last life but suddenly he could hear a voice going directly into his mind that said: "You don''t have to do that." Felix appeared behind Marley, which made him widen his eyes. He didn''t sense that Felix was coming, whatsoever! He felt the same treatment that he gave Marshallo happening to him as he looked down at his chest to see an arm sticking out of it. But unlike him, who he wanted to torture until he lived his last, Felix wasn''t so delaying. The moment Felix inserted his arm into Marley''s chest. Marley''s heart was grasped tightly in his hand. Marley was shaking as he felt his lifeline being grasped directly by Felix. He was scared, he was extremely scared, as he slowly moved his head back to see Felix''s face, which was smiling at him. But the moment he did that, Felix clenched his hand that grasped Marley''s heart, making him cough a lot of blood as he felt his life force growing extremely weak and start flickering. His eyes were growing heavier as blood dripped down from his mouth. He wasn''t even coughing anymore as blood was involuntarily coming out of his mouth. "UGH!" Marshallo felt his heart being grasped at the same time as Felix was crushing Marley''s. Marley''s spasming body stopped for a few seconds as laughter left his mouth along with a copious amount of blood: "You did say that we should go down together, right? Then, we go down together!" There was a maddened expression on his face. After the fused body''s death, the twins would defuse, and also weaken to the point that the current Felix would immediately eliminate them. They hadn''t changed their revival spot as Marshallo did, but it was advantageous to them in this situation, they could escape if they revived far away. That also meant letting Marshallo live as he was currently on his last life, killing him would weaken him immensely. But he would resurrect once again. However, in this situation, there was nothing he could do anymore besides accepting this. He tried to squeeze the remaining life out of Marshallo heart, but he realized that there wasn''t enough strength in his arms to do that anymore. He couldn''t control his body anymore as his eyelids got very heavy, Marshallo removed Marley''s arm from his chest as the hole in it slowly closed. Reflecting his beating heart in Marley''s closing eyes, which had a moderately sized hole in it. "Just... one more... step..." The twins muttered so lowly that both Marshallo and Felix couldn''t hear what they said even though they were near them. Marshallo glared at Marley then he put his hand in front of his face, Marley chuckled as he thought that Marshallo wanted to finish the job himself, but suddenly he felt life force pumping back into his body as the pierced heart slowly recovered. Blood started to pump from it towards his whole body. Marley was puzzled as to why this was happening, but then he felt his hands being put behind his back and tied tightly along with the newly circulating energy in his body. Marley glanced at Marshallo and asked with a weak voice: "What do you want to do with me?" Marshallo looked at Felix, who finished binding Marley''s hands, and then went to tie his legs together, then said as he looked into Marley''s eyes: "Even though you tried to kill me multiple times and almost succeeded, I still have a weak spot for you in my heart, being my former student." Marley''s eyes widened as he felt his frozen heart-melting, was Marshallo really so good that he would forgive him after all he did? Then Marley''s eyes became half-moons as he closed them and laughed until he coughed up a little bit more clotted blood: "You are really foolish, aren''t you, Marshallo?" "Am I really?" Marshallo picked Marley up as he started to fly towards the place where the biggest ship formerly was. Felix followed him from behind without saying anything as he looked at Marley, who was slowly starting to understand what was going to happen to him. "You lied to me... you aren''t planning to forgive me, are you?" Marshallo snorted as he hit Marley over the head and said: "Of course not, you dumbass." Marshallo knew about the exact spot where Marley installed his revival spot, so killing the twins while they were away from that spot would give the twins a chance to make a run for it. Marshallo arrived at the exact spot- he memorized that the duo had inserted their revival spatial coordinates and closed his eyes for a few seconds before looking at the tied-up Marley. Marshallo smiled as he looked at the twins twitching face then said: "You two are really slick, aren''t you?" "Thinking that you would be able to fool me, right?" Marley started to sweat intensely as their plot was seen through. Marshallo propped Marley''s chin up as he asked with a big smile on his face, which didn''t look threatening at all: "Where have you relocated your revival spot? Hmm? Marley?" Chapter 196: The war is finished Marley''s expression was bitter as he gritted his teeth and glared at Marshallo. He thought that Marshallo might not found out and think that he would resurrect in the same place, as he hinted that a few times during his monologues as a backup plan if things got to this part. However, it seemed that his hints were ignored as Marshallo immediately realized that he had changed his revival location... He was so angry that he could have chewed through the bindings that were currently keeping him in place- if he wasn''t so weak. His face was morphing again and again under his intense emotions. Then he glanced back at Felix. Who was looking to be uninterested in what was currently going on? Marley opted to talk it out with Felix instead of Marshallo as he didn''t want to end up in his hands. He knew that while he had invaded Felix''s home. He was way easier to talk to compared to Marshallo. He realized that after he saw Binela and Marquina being accepted when they recited their oaths. Marley tried to move his head towards Felix as he called: "Hey, hey! I have a proposition for you." Felix moved his head towards Marley and cocked it to the side. He knew that he would most likely try to trade something with him for his freedom, but Felix wasn''t really interested in what he had to say. "Come on, man. I can swear on oath just like Marquina and Binela did. Don''t you want to have another high-level expert to protect your planet?" "Please, don''t let Marshallo have his way with me. It would be better to have me as an ally than killing me. You won''t get anything from my death!" Felix looked at Marshallo, who had raised his eyebrows as he looked at Marley. From what Marshallo knew about him, he would never think that Marley would go down to this level for survival. He was a proud and slightly crazy individual like most royals were. So he never thought that Marley would bow down to another in such an unsightly way, well unsightly from his and the royals'' point of view. Felix crouched near Marley and looked in his eyes, trying to see through his soul. Felix knew that Marley could be lying right now, and the oath that Marquina and Binela took while restrictive- was done without any ulterior motives that could harm Felix and his close ones. If Marley had any ulterior motives before he swore his oath, he could slip some backdoor in his oath and break it with fewer repercussions. Marley tried his best to show everything that he had in his heart through his eyes. He knew that if Felix saw anything wrong with him, his fate would be sealed. Felix looked through his intent and saw some hostilities here and there, but he was surprised that he didn''t hide them at all and showed everything in his emotional state to him, even though he didn''t use empathy sharing technique yet. Felix would have seen if he hid anything, and he could have dragged it out using that technique, but since he decided to put everything directly in his face made Felix realize that Marley was serious about giving up and swearing an oath, it was impossible to clear his animosity of him so soon. But that didn''t mean Felix would forgive him. Felix got up from his crouching position near Marley. Then looked at Marshallo and said: "It''s your turn. Would you like to forgive him and have him as a companion in the future, or would you like to end him now and for all?" "There is no difference for me. If he dies or lives, it''s your shot, you know him for the most, and you should understand if he will be useful for us or not after he swears his oath. You will also have to look out for whatever he would do in the future- if you agree to let him live." Marshallo looked down at Marley, who was currently trying his best to give him an injured puppy look. Marshallo remembered how he usually trained with the twins when they were whole two parts and not just two halves stuck together. They had both good and bad times together. They have gone through a lot before invading Felix''s planet, but some things could not be forgiven. The fact that Marley tried so many times to kill Marshallo, just so he can go back to those snobs who threw him out of their circle in the first place, was something that Marshallo couldn''t accept as a person. He had worked with him during his hard years and made him what he was today, only for him to betray him at the first moment that he had shown weakness, trying to go back to those that belittled him and threw him out of his ancestral home. Marshallo looked down at Marley''s face and asked with an inquiring tone which had a sad tinge in it: "Why do you want to go back to those that hurt you so deeply?" Marley kept his head down as his hair shadowed his face: "I can''t tell you about it." "Really, you can''t? And why is that you can''t? Haven''t we fought on the same battlefields so many times? Haven''t we eaten from the same tray? We have slept near each other in the trenches when we were only small soldiers in the army." "ALL THERE OF US WERE BROTHERS FROM A DIFFERENT MOTHER, AND YOU TWO BROKE THAT BOND." The bound Marley started laughing as his shoulders rose up and down: "We broke that bond?" "We were the ones that have forgotten about our promise?" "Were we the ones that started to ignore you after we have gained an immense amount of strength?" "Think a little more about who wronged who. Think a little bit more about yourself after you have reached your current level." "Remember why we were scared of you? Do you remember?" Marshallo eyes widened as he took one step backward. He had been so engrossed in his need for a fight that he ignored everyone else''s emotions. Marquina and Binela were used to such behavior as they haven''t been really treasured as they were supposed to be. But the twins were former royals that were pampered from birth. He wasn''t used to being in such a situation, where one of his former comrades that he had entrusted his back to would become power-hungry and start ignoring him. Marshallo''s strength increased so much that Marley started to quickly become terrified of him, especially if he was going to throw a temper tantrum. Marley had been there. Sometimes when he had unleashed his anger on some subordinates. To say the least, it wasn''t pretty at all. He didn''t want to end up like them. So he started to create counter plans for whenever Marshallo would fall out of power, and since Marshallo had beef with the royal family and he was a former royal clansman that fell out of power. Things had evolved just as they were supposed to. Marshallo looked at Marley as he clenched his hands. Veins popped up on them as Marshallo looked down. He wasn''t sure what to say anymore as he felt really awkward. He had only woke up from his battle-thirsty persona after his first death, and he returned to his normal self only after he was fully beaten by Felix. He knew that he acted like a dick towards everyone else- who was beneath him because he felt that they wouldn''t give him good fights. But now that he had recovered his wits, he knew that what he was doing was wrong. He was kind of in a similar situation to Felix, and his lack of emotions, but in his case, one emotion was too strong compared to the others, and it controlled his mind. Marshallo breathed a little bit to recover, then looked at Marley before saying: "I can say that we have been both in the wrong here, so we should both take a step back and make a compromise." Marley looked into Marshallo''s eyes as he asked: "So you are gonna let me go?" Marshallo laughed as he shook his head: "No, but now I can say that you can swear the oath for Felix. I''m gonna make sure you won''t find any way to break it as from now on we will be just like back then, back to back!" Marshallo lifted Marley then put him near Felix as he gave him a push: "Say the oath at the same time with me." Felix stood there and waited for them to begin. Marshallo coughed a bit to clear his voice, then started the oath. Marley didn''t wait as he did the same thing, the duo said in unison: "We swear upon our ancestors that we shall work for Felix and his planet for however much time he wants, and we shall only be able to do what we want or need only if Felix let us or those that he appoints, from now on we will be his servants if we shall break this oath may our ancestors strip us of our flesh and claim our souls, regardless of the powers we have gotten from our respective gods!" And with this oath done... the war between the invaders and the humans had ended with the resounding victory of the humans! Well more like Felix''s victory. But the humans did some things as well, right? Chapter 197: Felixs position in the current civilization After the two finished their oaths, they kneeled towards Felix as they said in unison: "What''s our first mission, master?" Both of them had been defeated by Felix and accepted to become his subordinates. Thus they acted accordingly no matter how strong they were, even though they didn''t really have to. However, they both respected Felix greatly. "Your first mission? Get up, and let''s see how Marquina and Binela did before we can talk about that." Felix had given them the orders to stop the fighting between their people and the humans. And he got a few notifications during the previous events that told him that Binela and Marquina had done their jobs pretty well. Now, all he had to do was check upon them to make sure nothing else happened. Felix started flying towards the former battlefield''s location, and as he moved along with Marshallo and Marley. He could see the remains of the invader''s battleships, but there we no corpses left as they all had been vaporized by the aftereffects of Marshallo''s and Felix''s fight. However, he could see that humans were going around, cleaning the battlefield. They were all foot soldiers from the federation, as Felix could see from their armor. And they were currently scavenging the remains of the ships that could still be analyzed by the scientists. Felix ignored them as he got closer to the surface of the planet. And there, he saw Marquina and Binela waiting for him. They both smiled sweetly the moment he appeared, but their eyes opened in amazement as they saw that Marshallo and Marley were following behind Felix, like two subordinates. "Dear... you..." Even Binela, who was so old and experienced, couldn''t help but stutter as she saw how the almighty Marshallo had decided to follow Felix. Binela hoped Felix would win against Marshallo. And she thought that with his potential to grow, he would most likely succeed. But she didn''t think that the prideful Marshallo would decide to become a subordinate instead of dying in battle, and as for the twins, they were rather strong and had a good martial discipline, but as all royals were. They were afraid of death. And most likely decided to give up after they were trashed by Felix one more time. Marshallo waved at Marquina and Binela, which made the female duo raise their eyebrows. When did Marshallo become so sociable? What did Felix actually do to him? They shook their head as they got closer to Felix and gave him a double hug which made things a little bit awkward as Marley and Marshallo looked at each other with a knowing look. Felix coughed and then asked: "Can you elaborate on what happened while I was fighting these two behind me?" Binela smiled as she pushed Marquina away and started to recite everything that happened after they were sent to stop the war: "After you went to fight Marshallo, we have interfered in the surface battle of the humans and our people breaking them away from each other while telling our people to retreat and give up, since we are pretty much the direct superiors they had to accept whatever orders we gave them, so in the end, the battle turned into a peaceful spar with only a few casualties." "That''s all?" Binela nodded. Marquina wanted to interfere to say her own two-bit, but Binela didn''t let her as she punched her shoulder. "Ok, since this is all I can finally give you all the next mission you have to do." Marshallo and Marley waited quietly for their orders but Marquina and Binela decided to ask something first: "Uh... Felix, why don''t you help us two a little bit before you send us away? You know, we are pretty itchy." Felix frowned as he heard Binela''s words. He knew what she meant by that, but he was in a pretty difficult situation regarding that... but he could try. Even though he skimmed or not viewed Vangar''s personal life, he did get a few glimpses of it, and he seemed to be enjoying himself during that act. Up till now, Felix didn''t need to mate at all, nor did he get to experience the emotion of love, but maybe he could try it with these two alien babes... Felix nodded. Showing that he would do something about their ''itch'' and then told Marshallo and Marley: "You two should just patrol the planet and make sure nothing bad happens around. I will summon you with our soul link if anything happens that needs your help. Take this as a vacation." Marshallo and Morley nodded then dived towards the planet, which elicited a sharp warning inside the president''s cabinet. The president lone eye trained upon a monitor, which showed, Marshallo and Marley- who were currently going to a random destination on the planet for patrol. However, the president and the others didn''t know about them yet, which gave them the idea that they were invaders who somehow beat Felix and bypassed the now traitorous subordinates that Felix had acquired. "It seems that Felix had failed in the end. Gentlemen, it seems we will have to get to fighting ourselves..." However, when the president said those words, all of the people around the long table started to squirm as they looked back and forth between each other. One of them raised their hand and asked: "If Felix, our strongest combatant, couldn''t do anything to them, how could we?" The president struck the table making it shake and almost pulverizing it with one shot as he shouted with anger: "You have cold feet now? We are the higher-ups, and if everything else fails. We are the responsible ones to protect the planet and its citizens from outside interferences!" "Why did you enjoy the resources to grow stronger as members of the presidential cabinet? To laze around all day and let the military do everything for us? We have the military as the first layer of insurance, but we are the second layer of combatants!" "We shouldn''t be twiddling our thumbs right now. We should be out there, intercepting these two who slipped out of Felix''s grasp. Don''t you think he is dead yet, I believe that he is still alive!" The president took in a deep breath to calm himself as he glared at those that stood near the table, which was currently crumbling into dust under his anger. "Now that I made myself understood, who wants to come with me to protect our planet?" The others looked at one another and started to get up, trying to make themselves look better as they all volunteered to go with the president. "All of you? Good, then we can go right now!" This turned the situation very awkward as they didn''t think that the president would take all of them to fight. After all, who would control the federation while they were away? Suddenly, the building started to shake as Felix landed on the roof, the president and the others were so concerned about the two invaders that they didn''t see on the monitor that Felix slowly made his way through the atmosphere to reach the federations'' location. The president became stiff but then he laughed boisterously as he said: "It''s ok. We have Felix, and we shall win if we support him. Let''s go with him!" Felix slowly made his way through the building to reach the president''s room only for the president to quickly approach him and say: "You came back. Let''s go and intercept those two that escaped from you before they do too much damage!" Felix widened his eyes as he looked at the president. It seemed that he didn''t know that they were his subordinates now just like Marquina and Binela, Felix put a hand on the president''s shoulder and said: "It''s ok, Mr. President, I have subdued those two, and now they are working in the favor of the planet and its residents. You don''t have to worry about anything. We have truly won the war with these invaders." The president slumped in his chair as he cleaned his sweat, he thought about the worst when the duo came to the surface of the planet, but it seemed his worries were for nothing. The president laughed as he patted his own head for a few seconds then said: "We have to celebrate. We have won such a huge war without many casualties... we also have to pay respects to the fallen ones afterward, Felix, you should be the honored guest at the party. You are a war hero and a future pillar of the federation!" Felix didn''t know what to say as he decided to tell him directly: "I''m not sure about that. If the planet will ever be in peril again, I will act. But I will not join your federation or anything like that. I just want to live a quiet life from now on." The president froze for a few seconds as he looked at Felix''s figure then he shook his head as he said: "It''s your decision, but I do hope that you would be able to attend our party and funeral so you can say a few words at both events, if you may." Felix thought for a few seconds before nodding. It wouldn''t hurt to go to a party and pay respect to those that have fallen in the war, right? Chapter 198: Back to the lion tribe Felix decided to attend those two events that the president had mentioned since he didn''t have anything else to do for now. After doing those two things, he would be able to relax. Felix sighed as he looked at the president''s expression. It was obvious the man really wanted Felix, the savior of the planet. To attend those two important events. The president knew that he needed to appease the population after everything that happened. He also needed to give remuneration to the family members of the dead soldiers along with gifts. Those were boring things but very needed to continue the recruitment of talents from the population. The federation wasn''t an authoritarian entity, and it needed to keep its citizens happy. It was like a symbiotic relationship that didn''t need to be broken. "Thank you for understanding, Felix. You won''t have to do much at those events. All you gotta do is give out a heartfelt speech as the hero who singles handily took care of the strongest enemy invaders." Felix nodded and asked: "When shall I have to arrive for those events?" The president scratched his chin for a few seconds then said with certainty: "5 days from now. You can go and do whatever you want for those 5 days but be sure to make it back in time." Felix nodded and was ready to leave, Marquina and Binela were quite nearby, and he had to go pick them up as he didn''t want the president to get any wrong impressions about him. After all, the duo was quite open with their interactions with him. Even before they became his subordinates. It was quite an awkward situation, and he would rather not have them act like that with other people present. Felix sighed as he left the presidential room and went to the roof before flying away from the federation''s city. He wanted to go back to the lion tribe so he could relax there. That was his most familiar location, and he felt the most relaxed there. Marquina and Binela were waiting for him mid-air as they chatted with each other: "Do you think he will act?" Marquina asked with a cute look on her face which looked quite uncharacteristic on her. "Hmmm, hard to say, he is quite different from the men of our race who would want to take us any time they wanted... it seems he is not really familiar with the reproductive activity." "So I guess we have to teach him?" Binela nodded and then looked towards the horizon, sensing Felix''s approach: "I guess so. But with the two of us, he shall become an expert in no time." Binela smiled as she hit Marquina with her elbow. Felix had just appeared, and he was looking at them with a puzzled look on his face. He had heard what the duo had said about him, and he didn''t really know what they meant by that until he actually saw Marquina''s expression. He sighed as he took them with him to the lion capital by flight. The people living in the capital were rather startled as they saw Felix''s human form fly over them with two unknown women at his sides. Siracha had already given the notice about Felix''s human form. So it wasn''t something new to them. However, the two women at his side were strangers, which didn''t look to be coming from any tribes the general populace knew. Siracha ran out of his house as he looked at the sky with his eyes widened. Felix''s strength had reached such a high level that Siracha could swear that if he breathed too roughly in his direction with ill intent, he would fall down and not get up again. This was an immense difference compared to when he left to the human''s side, eager to protect the planet. He also seemed to be wearing interesting brightly colored armor... "He must have gone through a lot of things." Siracha waved his hands towards Felix and his ''friends'' as he shouted: "Felix over here! Come here!" Felix slowly descended near Siracha along with Marquina and Binela as he smiled at Siracha. "How are you doing, Siracha?" Siracha laughed as he shook his head: "Same old same old, actually I wanted to ask you that question first." Felix laughed as he patted Siracha''s shoulder and responded: "Things have gone well for me. In the end, the war was won, and I was able to come back. I guess you want to know what happened?" Siracha nodded as he took a glance towards the two women who just casually near Felix, seemingly waiting for his orders: "For starters, who are these two lovely ladies?" Felix introduced them directly: "They were invaders that I have made my subordinates by swearing oaths." Siracha''s eyes widened as he took another glance at the female duo, then shook his head as he said: "So you went ahead and made them your subordinates, huh? That''s really like you..." Felix looked at Siracha and decided to tell him: "Yeah, I have got 2 more subordinates which I put to patrol the planet. Since they decided to give up, it wouldn''t be bad to let them work for us. It''s just like you told me." Siracha laughed as he patted Felix''s shoulder: "It seems you have put my teachings to good use." "Yeah, I guess so. Now our planet has 4 experts that could be considered to be top experts in the universe..." Siracha decided against commenting on these words. He didn''t know much about the universe besides the very little information that he had gained from trading with the humans. But, he could sense that the strength of these two women was way above his. "Well, it was nice to talk with you again... I guess there haven''t been any changes to the inn that I used to stay, right?" Siracha nodded and said: "Yeah, I made sure to keep the woman that runs the inn well off. So she can continue working there." "But why don''t you go to meet up with Lindo first? His son grew up quite a bit, and now he is a handful as he started to get stronger and stronger from their daily sparring sessions." Felix scratched his chin before shaking his head: "How much time have I been gone?" Siracha knew that time must have moved rather quickly for Felix as he fought back and forth on a gigantic battlefield: "Well, since you left to prepare for war... I think it''s been almost 2 years and a half." Felix narrowed his eyes inside. Time really passed fast when he had to fight for his life against those superpowered beings in space. "I will see him tomorrow. For now, I just want to relax a bit." Siracha nodded as he understood. Felix was ready to take his step towards the inn before thinking about something... His spatial bag was absorbed by the armor and inserted towards a pocket dimension. He thought he couldn''t access it anymore after his armor was destroyed. But as he grew stronger. He felt some coordinates in space that were familiar so he realized that those items weren''t destroyed. He put his hand near him as he broke through space casually. Then took out a shiny red pearl that he threw towards Siracha. The pearl was easily caught by Siracha, as he recognized it. Felix waved his hand at him, and a few bags full of variations of bones dropped near Siracha as Felix told him: "I have no use for these things anymore, and I hope they will be used for the future of the lion''s tribe youth." Siracha nodded as he looked at Felix''s receding silhouette and muttered to himself: "He had changed so much..." Felix arrived at the inn as he took in a deep breath of the familiar air and opened the door, which leads him to the inside of the inn. The innkeeper was the same woman that usually worked there before. She hadn''t changed much as she looked the same as when Felix first saw her. The innkeeper looked up from her book and said: "The rooms are 50 bronze bones per night... food is additional 10 bronze bones per tray." Felix morphed into his cat form which made the woman widen her eyes as she said: "Felix... it is really you!?" She was extremely surprised, as Siracha told her Felix was having really important business outside the tribe. And he didn''t know when he would come back. So she was quite surprised to see a stranger morph into him. Felix''s cat form gave out a small smile as he said: "Yeah, I have been gone for quite a while. My room is in the same condition?" The woman nodded and looked at Binela and Marquina before averting her gaze and inviting the trio directly to Felix''s moderately sized room. Felix entered the familiar room in which he meditated and slept and then plopped his cat form directly on the fluffy bed. Marquina and Binela didn''t really know what to say as they stood there awkwardly near Felix''s bed. They were both rather experienced in the carnal ways, but they never had to teach a person who had never encountered any sexual situations before. It was obvious that Felix wasn''t looking at the duo with any intentions. Even though- he did say that he would help them with their ''itch''. It was quite awkward for them to start a conversation which they never really had to have, as they went directly to the action. How could they start? Especially seeing that Felix had no intentions at all. Chapter 199: 5 days of relaxation and normal living Marquina and Binela squirmed against each other as they looked at Felix, who was ignoring the both of them, practically going against his word when he said that he would help them. Binela couldn''t help it anymore as she bit her lip and took one step forward before saying: "Felix... you know you promised something to us, right?" Felix opened one eye in his feline form as he glanced towards Marquina from his position in the bed and responded to her question: "We have enough time for that... right now, I want to rest for some time. All those fights had taken a toll on me." Binela continued to bit her lip as she looked down. She knew that asking Felix for that at this time when he was tired from all of the fights that he went through was selfish of her. so she took a step backward as she glanced at Marquina, who almost couldn''t control herself anymore, looking at Felix''s prone body. Binela grabbed her by the arm, and shook her to get her out of her trance then said: "We will get our time. For now, let him rest. At his level, he won''t need to rest for a long time." Marquina nodded as she stood there watching Felix rest along with Binela. Felix''s sleep was quick and quiet. He had no dreams, nor did he enter his mental space during his sleep. It was a genuine moment where he would put down every worry he had and embrace unconsciousness. Sleep was something he enjoyed greatly, but with his current body. He didn''t need to sleep for much time. He also had things to do, so his sleep only lasted for around 5 hours. Felix woke up to the hungry eyes of Marquina and Binela, who were currently eyeing him while squirming in their spots. He morphed into his human form as he looked at the duo and decided to indulge them in what they wanted... The duo''s eyes turned into hearts as they saw Felix accept them, then threw themselves into his embrace and onto the bed. In the inn at the entrance stood the innkeeper. She frowned as she looked at the ceiling and realized that dust started to drop down from it. The whole building was actually starting to shake! She wasn''t sure what was happening, but when she heard the moans that started appearing, she realized what was going on and decided to leave the inn for Felix and his ''friends'' while they were occupied. Time slowly passed, and 15 hours went by. Felix ruffled his hair as he looked down at the two women who were content near him in his bed. They were looking at him lovingly as they patted their bellies, hoping that the current session would bear some fruit. Felix got up from the bed as he created a colorful suit from his energy that donned itself automatically on his body. Felix then told the duo: "You can go around and patrol like the other two while I''m relaxing at the tribe and enjoying some time with friends." Marquina and Binela looked at each other, nodded, put their clothes back on, and left the inn along with him. Felix went towards Lindo''s house while the duo got to the skies and flew away. It had been quite a lot of time since he last visited Lindo, and he also wanted to see how his godson Jack was doing. Felix''s speed could get him to Lindo''s house in an instant. But he decided to take a moderate pace as he walked towards his house at a civilian''s speed, only arriving at it after 10 minutes of walking around and sightseeing. Felix knocked at the door and surprisingly Jack opened it as he looked up at Felix''s face and said with a laugh: "Father! Godfather has come to visit!" He ran into the house to grab Lindo, who quickly came to Felix and gave him a big hug. Lindo laughed as he looked Felix up and down, then his eyes widened as he felt Felix''s disposition and power. Even though Felix could hide his power. There were still some waves of energy that would leak from his body from time to time. Those were signs that his hex energy was growing stronger once again, and he needed some time to gain complete control over it. As he was now, the hex energy in the surroundings was slowly getting siphoned into him and purified- at the same time. He didn''t need to train anymore as it would be done automatically. Felix patted Jack''s head as he entered Lindo''s house at his invitation. Lindo went to the kitchen to bring something to drink and eat while Jack and Felix were left in the living room: "Hey godfather, have you won the war?" Felix didn''t bat an eyebrow at how nonchalant Jack was about the planetary war that he had gone through. Lindo must have told him. After all, the little tyke was very smart, and he would have understood what the stakes were. Felix decided to humor him with a little more kiddy version of the war. Excluding the gore and the more extremely violent parts that wouldn''t be really beneficial for the child''s current growth, those were things that he would have to experience on his own in the future. But with how things were going. There was also a chance the planet would go into deep, peaceful times unless the royals of the invading race would decide to throw more troops at them. Jack was absorbed by Felix''s story as he suddenly asked: "You really made this badass guy your subordinate?" It was obvious Jack was talking about Marshallo, after all, the man was indeed quite badass. Felix chuckled and ruffled Jack''s hair, then said: "Of course, if you want to, I can call him over right now." Jack nodded as he said: "Call him over, call him over!" Lindo came over with a tray of cooked meat and a few glasses filled with water as he asked: "Call who over?" Felix explained to him about his ''heroics''. Which made Lindo''s jaw almost drop to the floor, Felix had gone through a huge planetary war while he had become a stay-at-home dad who didn''t even have to work because of his family connections. That didn''t mean he didn''t train anymore, but his experiences were rather mundane, to say the least. Jack was entranced even the second time when Felix had told him about his experiences as his eyes shone while he said: "Call over Marshallo, call him over! I want to see this guy!" The fight between Marshallo and Felix was quite epic, to say the least, so of course, the curious child would want to see the other party. Felix chuckled as he closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then, the sound of breaking air was heard outside. Jack ran outside while Felix and Lindo followed him from behind. Marshallo landed in a superman pose as he glanced at Jack and gave him a warm smile, just as Felix instructed him in his mental message. Felix introduced them to each other while Jack analyzed Marshallo with a critical eye then he said: "I see why my godfather beat you!" Felix wasn''t sure if little Jack was trying to offend Marshallo or not with that comment. But Marshallo just laughed as he shrugged it off even though Felix didn''t tell him to do it then he said: "Well, little guy, your godfather is quite the awesome man, and I think he deserved to beat me." "Anyways, anything, in particular, you wanted to ask me?" Jack started to put his fingers against each other as he decided to ask directly: "Would you mind if you made me your disciple?" This time both Felix and Lindo were surprised by his actions. Something didn''t seem right here, and Marshallo suddenly looked towards the sky as he pointed a finger there. A soundless scream was heard in Felix''s ears, while Lindo just looked puzzled at Marshallo''s actions. What was he pointing at? Jack shook his head as he felt something wasn''t really right with him beforehand, but he still looked at Marshallo with respect as he asked again: "What do you say Mr. Marshallo?" Marshallo shook his head as he looked towards Felix with a questioning gaze. Felix did understand that Jack must have been manipulated a little by the goddess of charm and illusion for him to ask Marshallo to become his disciple instead of Felix. But Marshallo was indeed free most of the time, and he could teach Jack quite a lot of things, while Felix was just lazy. It was a good idea to let Marshallo teach Jack. However, he wasn''t sure why the goddess needed to give Jack a ''bump'' for that to happen. Also, he wasn''t sure how the invasion of the God realm was going on as Aaltarox hadn''t contacted him anymore. Was the god still alright? While Marshallo got the affirmative message, Felix was still thinking about the situation of the realm above theirs. While Aaltarox wasn''t really a friend of his. The ability that he gave him was very useful, and it had led him to his current life. He still saw the lives in the corner of his eye, so that meant Aaltarox was alive, but his current situation was certainly unknown, which made Felix feel a little bad about him. After all. The God did help him greatly by blessing him with this ability when he needed it the most. Even with his mutated evolution ability he would have surely died in the first few minutes of being transported to this world... Felix decided that he would try his best to contact Aaltarox after he finished his talk with Lindo. Chapter 200: Relaxation cut midway, and the situation in the upper realm Felix looked towards Lindo, who was observing Marshallo and Jack''s interactions with great interest. It seemed he was also interested in training under Marshallo. Felix was rather surprised. He knew that Lindo was a rather prideful person who wanted to grow strong by himself. But as Felix looked at Lindo, he saw something in his eyes that seemed to be a rekindled fire. It was something that he hadn''t seen in Lindo since they were almost equal in strength. After he had outgrown him so much, the fire of competition disappeared from his eyes, along with becoming content with what he had. Felix coughed to attract Lindo''s attention while leaving Marshallo to train Jack in the back courtyard. Lindo''s eyes wandered back to Felix as he asked: "Felix, do you think that Marshallo might want to train me too?" Felix knew that Lindo was going to ask that, so he responded directly: "If you want to. He won''t say no. Anyways, I wanted to talk with you a little before I left." Lindo turned serious as he heard Felix''s words and asked: "What''s so important that you would have to notify me before you left?" Felix looked into Lindo''s eyes as he decided to tell him his conjectures: "I think the war isn''t over." Lindo''s eyes widened for a few seconds before asking: "What makes you say that? Haven''t you killed or captured their best men?" Felix nodded, he did do that, but that didn''t mean he had done that to the whole civilization itself. Plus, there was still the matter with the gods that attacked their own gods. Who knew what would happen when the native gods would be replaced by those of the invaders? Something good, surely not. "You see, we were not the only ones invaded." Felix proceeded to explain everything that he knew about the situation in the Gods'' realm. Lindo became a little concerned as he heard everything, then he asked: "Have you told this to anyone else?" Felix shook his head then he told him before leaving: "Make sure to share this information with Siracha so he can pass it on to the humans as I''m not sure if I might be able to get to their events in time." Lindo nodded as he understood, then Felix''s body disappeared as he left the premises of the lion tribe''s capital. He needed a good place that he could use to connect with Aaltarox. Normally, Aaltarox would be able to talk with him whenever he wanted, but now that he was in the war, Felix wasn''t sure he would be able to even ask for help. He also wasn''t sure if he could help at all. But Felix still wanted to check on him. He decided to find a location- that was filled with an abundance of hex energy. From Willie''s memories. He learned that the more hex energy existed in the surroundings, the closer that place was that to god''s will. Meaning, that communication with that certain God would be possible depending on the strength of the person who initiated the contact. Felix knew of no such places, but Vangar as a high executive officer of the human army had a map of all those places that existed on their planet. Felix even learned which place was Aaltarox''s from his memories, so he knew the certain direction to go. Felix''s body flickered through the space on the planet, moving so quickly through the continents that even the human apparatuses. Which were meant to observe the surroundings couldn''t catch a hint of his shadow. Felix appeared in a flower garden that was wilting at a quick speed. He was in an unknown place on the Balton continent. This was Aaltarox''s place. The place where his will could be called upon by his champions with the utmost ease due to the hex energy in the air, which was filled with bits and pieces of Aaltarox''s severed senses. Felix decided to sit in front of the obvious altar that was depicting Aaltarox''s human form. A short man who was well dressed wore spectacles and had short hair covered by a fishing hat. This appearance was slightly different from what Felix remembered, but Gods could take whatever appearances they wanted. Felix closed his eyes and tried to go into his mental palace, so he could create a better connection with the scattered senses of Aaltarox. And after that, he could ask him what was happening in the realm above. Felix woke up immediately in his mental palace as he tried to create the connection between himself and Aaltarox, and surprisingly it went very smoothly as Aaltarox''s voice was heard in Felix''s head: "Felix? How did you... You are at my altar on the Balton continent?" "Why did you even..." Aaltarox was puzzled. Why would Felix come to his altar when the war was still ongoing? Did he think that he might be able to do something as a God? Aaltarox wanted to dismiss Felix but his eyes widened the moment he heard Felix''s message: "The war on our part is done. What''s happening on yours?" Aaltarox almost didn''t believe that Felix''s side had won the war against the invaders. The gods that were currently rampaging across the battlefield where he was showed that the people that were under them should be as fierce as they were. He was still barricaded while giving out buffs and throwing out ''tricks'' to help the fighting gods, and that was the sole reason that he was able to pick up the call that Felix initiated. "Our side isn''t doing well Felix, I think we might lose sooner or later, our frontliners had been injured and even though we do have healing gods, they can''t keep up with the injuries that are currently being enforced on them, I''m doing my best to confuse the enemies and reinforce our allies, but things are very somber... I''m actually quite surprised your side won. It must have been a bittersweet victory, right?" Felix gave out a negative response, the fight was rather hard, but the losses weren''t anything special. It couldn''t be considered an easy victory. However, it wasn''t bittersweet either. "I see. It seems you have grown certainly, a lot stronger. I didn''t have time to analyze that before due to the current situation of the battlefield, but you may be actually stronger than me." Felix was quite puzzled by his comment, he was already stronger than a god? That didn''t make sense. "I understand your confusion. As a god, my battle strength is really low, but I have been born of a higher life level than you. Technically and practically you are physically and mentally stronger than me. But I''m of a higher life level compared to you that doesn''t mean much besides that I''m supposed to have a higher talent cap than you. But with your interdimensional crossing ability, that doesn''t mean much." "Ok, I explained enough. You want to help us, right?" Felix nodded. He wanted to help them a bit if he could. "Since you are connected to me due to the ability that I can have, you can send me a part of your battle power which I can transform into mine and increase our chances of survival and pushing the enemies back, I''m sure we can''t actually win, but we have a chance to push them back and reinforce our realm to make them unable to come back in again." "So, what do I need to do?" "Very simple, concentrate the energy in your body and send it to our current connection." Felix nodded as the energy in his body exploded like a volcano. His aura appeared all over his body, as it became just like a mesh armor that was absorbed into the connection he had with Aaltarox. Aaltarox''s voice suddenly became quiet. On a bloody battlefield in a different dimension, a short man who was wearing a battle armor and a fishing hat suddenly got up from the barricaded trenches in which he was hiding. An orange aura that was starting to turn a small tinge of yellow exploded from his body, just like a volcano would as he glared at the invading gods. There wasn''t a big difference between the appearances of the invading gods and the invaders of the realm below. They were red-skinned with four arms, but they had a different, more unique aura compared to the barbarians that fought Felix below. Intelligence shined in their eyes as they saw Aaltarox taking a step out of his hiding place and understood everything that was happening. They entered a formation as they stood back to back, creating perfect defensive squares as the invaders amounted to around 30 people and the defenders to around 26. There were more people on Aaltarox''s side, but they were either injured or not battle-ready gods. The invaders started to charge their aura together to create a domain that enveloped all of the defenders together, but Aaltarox suddenly shouted as he struck his fist forward, breaking the newly rising domain. Strength rose in his body, while Felix, who was currently sitting near the altar was getting weaker and weaker until all of his aura disappeared, his face was pale as he coughed up some blood. But his situation was alleviated seconds later, as color returned to his face. He got up from his sitting position as he looked towards the sky from the garden who was still wilting and muttered: "I have done my best helping you... I hope you can push them back." Felix decided to return to the lion tribe as he wasted around 1 day, giving Aaltarox some of his power, and now, he had 3 more days to relax. Chapter 201: Aaltarox pushing back the invasion Felix looked up at the sky for one last time before his silhouette slowly started to disappear from the Balton continent- he was returning to the lion tribe to get some more shut-eye in. "I have done the best I could, Aaltarox. Everything relies on you now..." Felix felt quite bad that he couldn''t actually go and help them. Considering that he was stronger than Aaltarox, a god, he thought that he could certainly push those invaders back. Unfortunately, there was no way for him to arrive at those upper realms that the gods habituated. It wasn''t like when he left the planet and went to space, nor when he broke through space and entered pocket dimensions. He could feel that the spatial difference between himself and Aaltarox was immense through their communication connection. There was no way he would be able to pinpoint the location. And breakthrough space with his current strength. So he couldn''t help them. Felix was currently flying above the lion tribe as he slowly descended to the inn. He decided to sleep a bit more, and after that, he would be doing some of his favorite activities. ..... Back in the upper realm, Aaltarox had powered up to his full power as he integrated the energy that Felix gave him into his body. Resulting in the creation of a pseudo-Felix clone. By the use of his divine skills, which he wore like a suit. This gave him even more of Felix''s abilities and increased his compatibility with the energy that Felix sent him. His comrades were looking at him with envy as they understood that his chosen had shared his energy with him, unlike Aaaltarox, even if the chosen of those respective gods decided to share their energy with them, it wouldn''t do much as the chosen''s energy was way inferior to the gods''. Aaltarox looked at the invaders with a fiery gaze as he told his comrades: "Marboro, Shinko, Madra, Dabo enter formation as well!" The names he uttered came from one of the strongest gods, which he would never even get to see in normal situations. However, now that his strength increased so much, he was almost equal to them, atleast for a temporary time, that was. The gods entered in a similar formation to the invaders as pink light started to engulf them. Buffs from the gods that were hiding in the trenches landed on their formation along with the hidden gods that were making use of stealth to harass the invaders and try to break their formation. Aaltarox spearheaded the attack as he launched himself directly at the forefront of the battle. He was ready to use one of Felix''s techniques as lightning started to surround him. The lightning armor flared to life as he started to blitz around the invader''s formation, trying to find a weak spot. However, unfamiliar with Felix''s technique, he pulled a muscle as he crashed into one of the invaders, funnily breaking their formation. That one second was all the other gods needed as they unleashed all of their power onto the broken formation of the invaders. The buffers even started to throw out debuffs on the confused invaders making them take more damage and weakening their overall power. Aaltarox''s power was increasing every second he learned how to control Felix''s power. Things were slowly turning towards Aaltarox''s side. He used the best techniques he learned from Felix''s energy to push the invaders away from their territory. He then employed his own ''trickster'' techniques to weaken the enemies even further. Aaltarox was surprised that they were doing so well considering his former thoughts about barely pushing them back, but now, they were doing very great, and the enemies looked to be almost defeated. But things weren''t that easy as they seemed to be. The moment the formation broke and Aaltarox''s allies almost pushed them out of their territory, the invaders erupted with hidden strength, as they almost decapitated one of the attacking gods while also trying to injure Aaltarox fatally. Aaltarox had a baseball-sized hole in his chest as golden blood dripped down from there continuously. The attack injured him to the point that he had to back away to get some help from the healers. However, halfway to the healers, he realized that the hole in his chest was slowly closing by itself. He didn''t know about all of Felix''s techniques and perks as he had to fight in the war. Not having time to look at what Felix was doing. Now that he knew that he had some type of healing factor, he rushed back into battle and started to go crazy regardless of the mounting injuries on his body because they were all slowly closing within a short time. The injuries continued to increase while Aaltarox fought crazily. Also defending the injured gods until they recovered to fighting capability. He was practically a war machine at this point as he fought for his land and people, regardless if those people looked down on him before or just ignored him. Aaltarox was getting pretty juiced on the power that he had to the point that he didn''t realize that his practically limitless divine energy was slowly getting exhausted by the continuous regeneration that he was undergoing to continue the fight. His face was paling as his lips lost color. His blood was slowly starting to dry while he continued to fight the invaders, who weren''t looking any better than him at this point. But surprisingly, they still didn''t back away. Maybe it was mostly because the gods that were on Aaltarox''s side were very close to collapsing while they weren''t. They were certainly very injured, but they could still fight properly. However, Aaltarox didn''t give up even though his body was slowly starting to fail him. He powered up to the maximum as he unleashed a gigantic wave of energy that engulfed himself and the enemies until nothing remained surrounding him, some of the gods on his side also got stuck into the explosion, basically dying. Out of the 30 invaders, only 10 remained as they clutched their burned bodies. Aaltarox was nowhere to be seen as the only thing that remained from him was his fishing hat. The remaining weakened gods started to push away the surviving invaders until they were out of their territory, a gigantic barrier encased the god''s territory making the invader unable to enter again as the surviving battle gods collapsed. Out of the trench, a woman with purple hair done in a ponytail who wore revealing clothes popped her head out to look around. She had small eyes and her eyelids were painted red, she had both the quality of being cute and beautiful at the same time, but there was also had an air around her that suggested that she wasn''t to be trusted. "That fool Aaltarox died? But that outburst of strength was really something... I should help the others." She was the person that Lindo hated the most in his life. The Goddess of charm and illusion, Sindora. She sighed as she looked at the dying gods and started to unleash her energy to rouse the healing gods up. Her illusionary powers had some control abilities that she could use to influence people even if they were unconscious or out of power. She needed the weakened healers to use their last remaining power on the dying gods to stabilize their situation. "Well, this is the best I can do for now... but there is also something else that I need to do." Her eyes started to glow with a strange green light as she looked down from her position in the divine realm towards the realm below. She had a smile as she looked down as her face morphed, which showed the other side of her, a power-hungry maniac. ... Felix was currently relaxing in the inn while eating some food prepared for him by the innkeeper, but suddenly his head started to hurt as all of the heads in the corner of his eye started to disappear, the connection between him and Aaltarox was forcefully broken as he almost choked on the bone of a chicken drumstick. He swallowed the drumstick as he sighed then looked towards the ceiling of his room: "It seems that it wasn''t enough..." Aaltarox''s passing made Felix quite sad, but he knew there wasn''t much he could do about it since he had already done his best. He finished his food and he was ready to leave his room when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head once again, but this time it was different. Instead of a connection being severed, one was being made right now! Felix decided to accept the connection for the time being and he heard the sultry voice of a female in his head, surprisingly he didn''t even need to go into his mental place to hear it: "Is this Felix?" Felix gave an affirmative response which made the voice chuckle for a second before turning somber: "I have some bad news for you. I''m Sindora, a goddess from the divine realm, and I have to inform you of the death of your contracted god, Aaltarox." "I know about that already..." Felix responded with a normal tone then he heard Sindora''s voice in his head again: "I see, I have a proposition for you, Felix. You are the strongest person on the planet that is connected to our divine realm, and I hope we could work together." Felix frowned as he heard her words... he didn''t know the name of the illusion and charm goddess as Manitola never mentioned it, nor did Aaltarox so he didn''t know it was her. But he still didn''t feel things were right when he conversed with her. Chapter 202: An offer that you cant refuse "I have an offer for you, Felix." Felix knew she was going to try to bait him in with something, and he was ready to hear her: "Don''t you feel vulnerable now?" Felix frowned as he heard those words. Was this woman dumb? Why would he feel vulnerable? A chuckle could be heard echoing in Felix''s mind that said: "I think you realized that all your extra lives are gone, yes?" Felix knew about that. He wasn''t dumb, and he knew that if he died now, he would die forever, but somehow he didn''t feel vulnerable nor weak. He actually felt as if a heavy rock was lifted from his shoulders... he felt free in his senses. While he lost something, he also gained something. Seeing that Felix wasn''t responding to her question emboldened the woman as she tried her magic: "I can create a contract with you, just like you have done with Aaltarox. I can give you as many lives as he did!" "All you have to do is help me just a little bit." Felix wasn''t sure what she was pointing at with this conversation. But he knew from her tone that it wasn''t anything good for sure. "I''m not really interested in your offer, to be honest with you." Sindora frowned as she glanced down from the upper realm towards Felix''s location. He was lying, wasn''t he? All mortal creatures feared death and would jump up at the offer of having multiple lives. She had never encountered someone who would refuse such temptation. Delaying death was something that everyone wanted, something that everyone dreamed about, atleast for those in this universe. "Are you sure about that? I''m sure that while we have pushed back the invading gods, I''m not sure if you would be able to do the same with the next invaders." Felix frowned. Was she trying to blackmail him? He was sure that he would not die in the next fights, as he had reached another level in his power, so he didn''t need the extra lives anymore. He also had very strong regenerative capabilities, but he was still rather annoyed about the fact that this goddess was threatening him like that. From what he could sense through their temporary link. She didn''t feel much different from Aaltarox, so she was weaker than him. Felix didn''t have major respect for the gods, as his relationship with Aaltarox was beneficial to both parties. He wasn''t sure if making a contract with this woman would benefit him as much as it would benefit her. He also felt rather disgusted with her. It was just his intuition speaking as he had never met her before, but it told him that she wasn''t someone to be trusted nor someone that he should make a deal with. "As I said before, I''m not really interested in your offer." Sindora frowned as she glared at Felix''s position, but she couldn''t do anything to him. He was way too strong, and she could only force contracts on being weaker than her. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered something then she sent Felix another message: "You are Jacks'' godfather, aren''t you?" Felix frowned as he heard Jack being mentioned, and that meant only one thing! She was the goddess of charm and illusion! As any other god wouldn''t know much about him or his personal life. She was the only other goddess that he had indirect interactions with due to Manitola''s contract. "Very bold of you to say this after what you have done to Manitola and Lindo... now you want to threaten me with Jack''s wellbeing?" A sharp laugh was heard in Felix''s head as Sindora''s true face was shown to him: "Yeah. I can. And I will. What will you do about it?" Felix gritted his teeth as cracking sounds were heard from his mouth. The thing he hated the most was being threatened with something that he had no control over! Felix''s nostrils flared, but he didn''t say anything for a few seconds before saying: "What do you want from me?" "Oh. So now you can cooperate?" "Don''t test my patience, you piece of..." "No vulgar language, please. I''m a lady, and I don''t need to hear it." Felix muttered under his breath hearing her talk so sweetly- but being so poisonous underneath. "Now that we got things over, I will need you to help me the same way you helped Aaltarox... share some of your power with me after we created the contract." Felix frowned heavily upon hearing this. He could easily infer that Sindora was going to use his powers for less than savory purposes. "So, do you need me to act first?" Sindora continued to push Felix, which made him extremely angry. Felix could feel his anger almost exploding out of him at being blackmailed so shamelessly, but all he could do was swallow it. He wouldn''t have done so, but he did care quite a bit about Jack, and he couldn''t bear to see Lindo''s expression if something happened to the last thing that Manitola was related to directly. "Where do I need to go?" Felix asked reluctantly. He could swear that he felt her smirk the moment he asked that. "Go to the Sparron continent. My altar is situated near Fox''s former den underground by 60 kilometers." Vangar''s memories contained most of the god''s altar''s location, but there were some that he didn''t know about, simply because they were either too weak or too obscure. Felix disappeared from his inn room as he appeared on the Sparron continent, in around a few seconds before he started drilling underground. He immediately made his way down 60 kilometers, then started to search quickly for the location of the altar. The location of the altar was found in 2 minutes, due to its insignificant size and low hex energy concentration rate. Compared to Aaltarox''s garden, it was way shabbier, and this made Felix question how she was a little above him in ranking. Felix''s connection with Sindora increased monumentally the moment he reached the location. The altar was around 50 centimeters in size, and it depicted Sindora''s sensual body, but without a head or arms. There were a few offerings here and there, but they were mostly expired or they were filled with mold or broken. It was obvious there hasn''t been any activity at this altar for quite a while. Tens of years, maybe. Felix concentrated on the newly strengthened connection with Sindora and heard her voice again: "Very good, you are certainly very fast..." Sindora got a little bit spooked at Felix''s speed. She didn''t think that he would arrive at her altar in around 5 minutes. Actually, if she calculated, she realized that it wasn''t even 5 minutes! Her main body made a swallowing sound in the divine realm while the healers had finished stabilizing the dying battle gods'' bodies. "He is certainly very special... damn Aaltarox didn''t let me steal him back then, and now he is wary of me." Sindora didn''t want to make an enemy out of Felix, but this was the only way that she could get what she wanted in the current situation. This was the best opportunity for her, and she had to take it! "Send me your strength right now!" Felix didn''t send her his energy the next moment she said that her connection with Felix was rather steady. And she was getting annoyed as Felix dragged things out, but suddenly she felt a deep pain in her head as she clutched it. Something wasn''t right with her as she felt her connection with Jack being severed at that moment. Her eyes widened as she observed Marshallo teaching Jack down in Lindo''s backyard. Jack had put his hand on his heart as he chanted a contract-breaking chant that Marshallo had taught him. "This... THIS!" Sindora coughed a mouthful of blood both from anger and the contract being forcefully terminated by the other party, she was the one who forced Jack into the contract in the first place, but she never thought that there was someone on this planet that knew a contract-breaking chant. They were extremely rare, and mostly only gods knew them. Atleast, to her knowledge. She had lost the trump card against Felix, and Felix could also sense that as the connection between him and Sindora was rather tight at the moment. He had a big smile on his face as he gave Marshallo a thumbs up for his work, then he concentrated on the connection between himself and Sindora. Attacking her soul directly with his superior one! Sindora felt blood coming out of her nose, eyes, and ears as she took a few steps backward. As a god, she was supposed to be stronger than every mortal on the planet, but Felix was an exception. His power was above most weak gods, and he rivaled the middle and the high gods in strength as not even them had reached the yellow aura breakthrough strength. Of course, if the middle and high gods teamed upon him, he would have a hard time defeating them, and even escaping would be very hard. But that was impossible. He was below the divine realm, and there were no chances gods could descend as he couldn''t ascend. Sindora could feel her divine soul being punctured as it started to deflate like a balloon. She screeched as her countenance started to quickly age, her nails grew until they reached the ground below her and her body slowly started to transform into dust. Felix wasn''t messing around. Felix''s eyes opened as he got up from the altar which was slowly crumbling near him: "No one messes with me, friends and family like that and gets to live the tale... God or not." Chapter 203: A red funeral (1) Felix dusted his hands as he disappeared from the underground location where Sindora''s altar previously was. He felt as if a boulder had been taken off his shoulders, now that the connection between Jack and her was severed, along with her death. He also knew that Lindo will be very happy to hear about her demise. Felix decided to go back to the tribe immediately to inform Lindo, so he could finally be at peace with Manitola''s death. Felix''s silhouette started to flicker through space as he arrived above Lindo''s house and dropped down near his door. He could hear from the backyard that Lindo had joined Marshallo''s training along with Jack, so he just detoured around the house to get to the backyard. Seeing that Felix had come to visit made Marshallo stop his training as the father-son duo arced their heads towards him. Felix waved towards them as he got closer and said with a big smile on his face: "I have some great news, everybody." Lindo was cleaning his sweat with a towel and asked: "What kind of great news?" Felix got a little bit closer to him as he looked into his eyes and put a hand on his shoulder, making Lindo cock his head to the side. What was so serious that Felix had to act like this? "The goddess of charm and illusion, Sindora, I had killed her!" Lindo''s eyes widened as much as they could as he almost dropped to the ground and started clutching his chest around his heart. Tears slowly started to drip from his eyes, which made both Jack and Marshallo puzzled. Jack came a bit closer to his father and hugged him while asking: "Why are you crying, dad?" Lindo''s trembling body reciprocated the gesture as he told his son: "Son, you see... your mother had died out of natural causes, but that death could have been prevented. You remember the connection that Marshallo had you cut off?" Jack nodded, he had that connection to him since he had been born, but Marshallo found out that it was a one-way forced contract after he analyzed his soul and made him break it. "You see... the person that was connected to you was formerly connected to your mother..." He started to explain to Jack his past. He hadn''t done it up till now due to the sensitivity of the subject and the fact that he would get extremely angry and irrational if he remembered the events clearly. But after Lindo heard about the death of the traitorous goddess, his mind mellowed out along with his anger and regret. He thought that Manitola could finally rest easy now. "You see, son, that''s how you came to be and how Manitola, your mother, had died." Jack couldn''t stifle his crying as tears started to drop down his face, Marshallo looked at everything that was happening with disinterest. He thought that such emotions were rather useless as he heard the story as well, and he thought that Manitola''s death wasn''t in vain. They shouldn''t be crying for her, but be happy that she lead a good and fulfilling life until her last moments. Felix let them empty their sadness batteries after they finished crying their eyes out, Lindo got up and looked at Felix before asking: "Can you tell me how she died?" Felix nodded and told him what he sensed through their faltering connection when he was dying. Lindo almost laughed as he heard about the event and he suddenly hugged Felix as he said: "Thank you... brother." Felix reciprocated the gesture as he gave Lindo another smile then looked at Marshallo: "You train them well, understood?" Marshallo saluted and gave an affirmative response: "I shall do my best to make them both worthy warriors, master Felix!" Felix nodded and decided to leave them to their own devices. He had used one more day to kill Sindora, so now he had 2 more days until he had to go to the events hosted by the human federation. .... Felix was sunbathing at the top of the inn, like he usually was, after a while, he finally got up and stretched as he looked towards the direction of the human federation: "I guess it''s time to attend those..." Felix''s body spun for a second as he now wore a dark suit which was more appropriate for the occasion. The president had told him what to wear when he would come to the events. He needed something formal for both the party and the funeral services. So he created his own suit according to the description that the president gave him. Felix checked if the suit was looking good on him before disappearing. Felix''s silhouette appeared above the presidential tower as he dropped down on it and entered using the roof''s door. The president was just finishing his preparations as he looked back and saw Felix entering. He smiled at Felix, then he adjusted his tie before saying: "Glad you could come. These are two very important events for our society as a whole. We need to pacify the civilians showing that our sacrifices weren''t in vain and that we will grow stronger in the future." Felix nodded as he didn''t really care much about the events. He only did it because the humans did help him to achieve his current strength, so he felt that he owed them a bit. Vangar''s sacrifice was also the thing that made him accept participating in these two events. He was also quite wary of the humans as he remembered Vangar''s warning, but with his current strength, he knew there was no chance they would be able to do anything to him even if they decided to betray him. Felix sighed as he followed the president, they were now going to the party. They left the president''s office as they went down the tower until they reached the bottom of it and left through the main doors. The party was going to be hosted in front of the tower, and even civilians were allowed to participate depending on who came first as they had limited space to work with. Felix and the president stood at the furthermost chairs at the top of the very long table as the party started. In the beginning, the president got up from his chair and tapped a spoon on his drinking glass. "Friends and coworkers, the invasion of the space four-armed race had been very taxing on our army and the wellbeing of our civilians. Thus I have decided to host this party so I can say a few things." "First and foremost, we will host a funeral service after this party, and I want to say that my sympathies go to all of the families that are here with us today who lost a husband, a mother a friend, a sibling." "Secondly, all I can say that we will compensate all of those that have been affected by this crisis and that we hope that in the future you will get better and put this crisis behind us." "Lastly, I and a few others will give rewards to the survivors who had contributed the most so we can have the current peace." Then the president sat back in his chair as everyone started to eat, drink, and chat. Felix stood there as he occasionally ate some of the food at the table and looked around. Most people looked at him with admiration as they knew that he was the one who did the most work to push back the invasion. Felix continued to eat until the party was over, and after that, they all got up from the table. The president said in a solid voice that traveled through the whole city: "We shall go to the newly raised hero''s monument now!" The president took the lead as they walked through the city to the cemetery which was slightly behind it. They were basically a funeral parade, as everyone walked slowly with their heads down, wearing mostly black or grey. They reached the monument after 10 minutes of walking straight through the city. The hero''s monument was a gigantic metallic pillar that had inscribed countless names of the people that had died in battle. It was stretching in the sky for around 100 meters, and it was 20 meters wide. Showing that the losses they had weren''t small at all. The president already had a podium prepared as he walked up to it and tapped the microphone on it once. Making sure it was turned on before saying: "We have all gathered here today to honor the fallen heroes that did everything they could to protect us, to protect our freedom!" A small tear slipped out of the president''s lone eye as he used a handkerchief to clear it away before continuing his speech: "Our heroes, our people, the ones that we had watched growing in what they currently were are no longer with us, but they are in a better place now. Their lives had been fulfilling until the last moment as they fought for their friends, family, and planet!" "There are countless things that I want to say, but there are other people that are more deserving to talk about these people, the number one warrior and survivor of the war. Everyone, please welcome Felix from the cat tribe!" Thunderous applause was heard as the president left the podium and walked near Felix patting him on his shoulder before saying: "They are all yours now. Just say what you think from the heart to pacify their worries." Chapter 204: A red funeral (2) Felix slowly made his way to the podium as he overlooked the mass of people that were now below him. They were all looking at him with admiration and were waiting for Felix''s speech with bated breath. The relatives of the dead people wanted to know what he thought about the people he fought with on the battlefield. Their expressions were full of eagerness, but also sadness, as they looked at Felix. They were both mourning for their lost ones and happy they were still alive. Felix cleared his throat as he decided to speak as formally as possible: "I think it''s very hard- for those that lost family members and close ones. My condolences go to every person that lost someone in this war. And I can say that I had fought with some mighty allies that I could entrust my back to." "They were all hardened warriors that fought bravely in the war to protect the things they cared about, people that I can call my friends. And I''m really pained because those friends passed away..." Suddenly a voice from the crowd was heard posing a question to Felix: "If you are really so pained, why didn''t you try to save them??" It was obvious the question came from someone who lost their closed one and became irrational due to the pain. How could Felix save someone when he was being pushed around to fight the upper echelons of the enemy? Felix identified the owner of the voice rather quickly. It was a short woman with wavy blue curly hair that had a dark dress and a funerary cap on her head, she was clutching the hand of her young son as she was glaring at him from the midst of the crowd. She was thinking that Felix couldn''t identify her through the whole crowd. Felix waved his hand, making her levitate towards him, along with her son. She immediately panicked as she screamed: "HELP!!" Felix shook his head as she dropped on the podium near him. Her whole body was shaking as she hugged her son, and tried to put him behind her. She glared at Felix and said: "Are you going to kill me? Because you weren''t capable to save my husband?" "Don''t you have any shame? Hero?" Felix shook his head as he gave her another look before looking back towards the crowd and saying: "I have done my best, and I know the higher authorities had told you what had happened during the invasion I could barely fight to the end myself, it''s not that I didn''t want to save those warriors, but that I couldn''t, and I''m actually quite ashamed of that." Felix wasn''t actually ashamed of that at all. He was only paying lip service for the president, and he couldn''t have cared less about all of the fodder that died in the war. But Felix became a rather good actor with time so he could fake quite a lot of emotions: "I''m really sorry for what happened to your husband." He turned back to the woman, who was still holding her son near her. Felix gave her a small bow and then looked towards the president. The president coughed. And two bodyguards went to the podium to escort the woman down to the president. The woman''s eyes widened as she was so near the president, and her figure almost dropped due to emotion. The president was the perfect man in many women''s and even men''s eyes. He was both charismatic and powerful along with having a great sense of humor. His public persona was practically the macho man that everyone dreamed about, that one guy who would swoop you off your feet and take you to dinner before making you his dinner. Felix ignored the shenanigans that were now going below the podium. Felix looked towards the president because he wanted him to give her compensation so she could leave. Some people wouldn''t understand things even if explained countless times, and they were a pain in the butt to deal with. So it was better just to give them something, and let them be on their merry way. "Now that this is finished, I would like to continue." "The men and women that I fought on the battlefield were people of great moral stature, people that I admired until their last moments, and I can hopefully say that they will rest easy to know that the crisis had been averted. I hope that you will all pray for their souls and wellbeing in the afterlife, as so will I." Felix bowed once again to the crowd as he was ready to get down the podium, only for his body to freeze for half a second. He looked towards a nearby building as a red dot appeared on his forehead, and a supersonic bullet was launched from a sniper''s rifle, ready to pierce through his forehead and kill him. Felix frowned as the bullet didn''t even scrape his forehead''s skin before he appeared at the top of the building, clutching the head of a faceless man who was trying to escape from Felix''s grasp, only to realize that he couldn''t and explode! A shower of blood started to rain from the top of the building on the gathered crowd below, making them panic and try to run away. However, the president immediately stabilized the situation as he created a good route of escape, and told them to go through there. The president''s lone eye narrowed as he looked around then at the top of the nearby building. Seeing Felix''s annoyed look on his face as he flicked his palm away to clear himself of the blood mist. Felix dropped from the building and appeared near the president as he threw him a rifle before saying: "The person self-destructed after I caught him. I wonder who''s so dumb to think that such weaponry would work on me." The president frowned as he caught the weapon and analyzed it for a few seconds= before he threw it to one of his bodyguards. "I... I don''t actually know. This is one of the most common rifles in production, and it could be sold by any of the weapon manufacturers we have in the federation... the shooter had already suicided, so we don''t actually have any leads..." Felix didn''t really care about any leads. Even if the humans had him in their crosshairs, there wasn''t much they could do. If he wanted to, he could straight up destroy their civilization with his current strength and subordinates. He was rather annoyed that he got targeted, right now. But he was sure it didn''t come from the ruling party, so there was no reason to cut ties with the humans yet. Felix had finished what he wanted to say, and the events were done, so he was ready to go back to the lion tribe. He wanted to take one step forward and disappear, but suddenly his body faltered as he fell to his knees, the president tried to support him up, but the moment he touched Felix''s body, he flinched as he looked at his burned hand. Felix''s body was burning brightly as flames started to grow out of him. On his forehead, where the bullet touched him, a fire lotus emblem appeared as Felix clutched his head in pain. The bullet didn''t contain any energy, nor did it feel dangerous at all to Felix. So why was this happening? Suddenly, memories started to come back to Felix... when he had short-circuited Sindora''s brain through his soul attacks, something happened... He wasn''t entirely sure what happened even when he went through those memories. But he was sure that the fire lotus tattoo on his forehead had to do something with her death. He tried to erase it forcefully through his superior hex energy techniques, but he failed... it was like a brand that he couldn''t get rid of. A brand... a brand... Felix suddenly got up and ignored the worried president as he disappeared, he was still in pain, but he was already accustomed to it. He didn''t go to the lion tribe as he went towards, arguably, the most intelligent race on the planet besides the humans. They were also experts on souls. The raven tribe. The Haron continent was in the middle of the planet and the easiest to find, combined with Vangar''s memories, Felix had easily found the location of the raven tribe. The moment he arrived at the raven tribe. The people thought that a calamity arrived as a flaming meteor struck the place in front of their village. However, when they took a better look, they realized that it was a stranger that was engulfed in flames, with a vivid fire lotus tattoo on his forehead. The shaman of the raven tribe. The old man that had taken Manitola''s superior as a slave appeared at the top of the tree which was the home of the raven''s tribe village. The tree was fairly tall, standing at around 5 kilometers in length and 1 kilometer in length. People with raven attributes were flying around before Felix''s fiery figure appeared. However, everything became deserted as the shaman appeared and questioned Felix: "Outsider, who are you, and what are you doing near our village?" Felix didn''t beat around the bush as he transformed into his cat form, making the old man''s eyes narrow as he realized who he was. He wasn''t disconnected from the human tribe by much, so even though he didn''t know Felix''s human form, he did know that Felix had saved the planet. Felix morphed back into his human form as he pointed towards his forehead and asked: "Do you know anything about this tattoo?" The old man squinted as he took a better glance at the lotus in question, then his eyes widened, and he stuttered: "Go... Go... GOD-SLAYER?" The last part of the stutter turned into a shout as the old man almost dropped down from the tree branch he was on. The old man used his wings to regain his balance mid-air and took a bigger distance from Felix as if he was the plague. Felix frowned as he looked at the scared old man. He needed answers, not a shivering grandpa! Chapter 205: The mark of a god slayer Felix was very annoyed as he looked at the trembling shaman. Even though he could endure the fiery flames that were licking his body, that didn''t mean he enjoyed the sensation of being baked alive. The fire lotus tattoo on his forehead was glowing with a strong fiery light the more he endured. His forehead was scrunching up in pain as he glared at the shivering old man and shouted at him: "Tell me what the hell is with this tattoo!" The old man was scared of the tattoo. But he was more scared of the pressure that Felix was currently exuding on him, so he regained his wits and decided to explain to him as best as he could: "The tattoo that you currently possess comes from the fact that you have slain a God. The other gods usually mark people like you so they would be able to team up on you and kill you when your soul leaves your body after you die." "They have done this, so they wouldn''t be overthrown when the souls of the stronger warriors on the main plane arrived in the divine realm." Felix frowned as the fire continued to flicker on his body and he asked: "Wait, wait... I haven''t heard about this up till now, so when we die, we actually reach the realm of the gods?" The shaman looked down at Felix, but he didn''t comment on his lack of knowledge, Felix frowned. Vangar''s memories didn''t contain anything about the realm of gods or anything like that. Also, the human federation seemed to be rather disconnected from the gods. He wasn''t sure why, but he didn''t care much either. All he wanted to know was how to get rid of this tattoo. While he would be able to easily survive the pain and constant burning- he wouldn''t be able to meet or touch anyone else. Unless they were as strong as he was. Felix didn''t want that to happen. He still wanted to interact with people daily. He didn''t want to end up alone. The fear of social creatures was loneliness. And even though Felix''s life form had evolved multiple times. At the base, he was still a cat. Which was a rather social creature that could get depressed if left alone for long periods of time. He wanted to scratch away the tattoo on his forehead but all he did was practically scratch an itch. Seeing his current situation made the old shaman from the raven tribe apprehensive of him. What if he went berserk and started destroying things? He had explained to him whatever that needed to be explained so the old man gathered his courage and told him: "I have said what needed to be said... you should leave right now, or you might burn our base to the ground and even injure our people.. Please!" Felix looked at the old man''s figure before shaking his head. He got what he needed from him, so there was no reason to continue staying here... He wanted to return to the lion tribe, but he also didn''t want to injure any of the people there, even the top brass of the tribe wouldn''t be able to withstand the fierce flames that were surrounding him, let''s not even talk about the weak civilians or public workers. Felix disappeared from the old raven''s eyes as he sighed while looking at the place where the cat previously stood. There was a burnt area there that looked rather strange. But the shaman didn''t want to investigate it. He would rather not have any interactions with Felix. Now that he had been marked as a god slayer. Felix''s silhouette appeared above the ocean as he dropped directly into it. The ocean slowly started to sizzle and pop as steam raised from it, but the flames weren''t so strong to the point that they would be able to dry an ocean. The further Felix went into the ocean, the more pressure appeared, and the colder the water got to the point that the fiery tattoo on his forehead started to slowly dim until it stopped glowing. However, Felix knew that this was just a temporary thing. The moment he left the ocean, the tattoo would light up once again, and he would become a walking torch that wouldn''t be able to interact with anyone. Felix sighed as he looked around. The bottom of the ocean was rather populated by a high amount of unintelligent beings. They were rather massive, but they knew from the aura that Felix was exuding that he wasn''t to be messed with, so he was left alone. As he looked around. He remembered about the fish people and the person that he had teamed up with once during the intercontinental battle. What was his name again? Altraeimo? Yeah, if he remembered correctly, that was his name. Maybe he could help Felix with his problem. Felix closed his eyes as he sensed the biggest cluster of life force that he could on the planet in his current environment. With his superior senses, it didn''t take him more than a fraction of a second as he disappeared and appeared a little bit farther than where the life force was situated. The city of the fishmen... the place where Altraeimo came from and hopefully. The place that Felix would get this lotus tattoo off his forehead. He arrived at the entrance of the underwater city and Felix was certainly impressed by its size. Some lights were coming from the moss that surrounded the city, and there were also tall walls to prevent predators from approaching the place. When Felix first appeared in the view of the guards, they couldn''t believe their eyes. Felix''s features were all coming from land walking folk, and up till now, since the fishmen had evolved, there had never been an instance where the land walking people had arrived at the bottom of the ocean to meet with the fishmen. Felix''s appearance triggered a commotion at the top of the walls as the captain of the guards appeared at the entrance of the city and questioned Felix: "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Of course, it wasn''t in a language that Felix understood. After all, Felix''s fishmen language knowledge was rather null and void. The fishmen race was leading a rather hermit lifestyle, so even the humans didn''t know much about them. And that was mostly because they didn''t care about them. When Felix looked at the guard captain with an expression that told the man that he didn''t understand jack, the man then looked at his subordinates and asked: "Who knows about the language of the land walkers?" Most people remained as silent as a fish. How could they, fishmen, even try to learn the language of those outsiders that they would most likely never meet? However, this became a problem right now. However, the problem didn''t last long as Felix used his empathy technique to learn their language very quickly. Then he said: "I''m coming with a request for help, for his highness Altraeimo. Tell him that his old buddy Felix from the intercontinental battle has come for a talk." The guard captain narrowed his eyes but didn''t say anything else. He knew that whoever was able to withstand the water pressure and the lack of air without being a Fishman was someone that had reached the apex of strength. He could even sense Felix''s strength, and he knew that it was unfathomable to his little self. The man started to swim rapidly through the water arriving at an ancient yellow palace decorated with starfishes. The guard at the entrance of the palace stopped him and asked: "Why have you come to the palace, Minturn?" Minturn started to explain what he saw at the entrance of the city, which made the palace guard widen his eyes as he let him enter and go directly to the room of the royal family. Altraeimo was playing the flute for his father when the guards entered and explained what happened. The crown prince still remembered Felix, and he felt rather puzzled about his request. What could they do to help him? The fishmen weren''t a very strong race, even though they were rather spiritual. But a guest from afar was someone that must be invited, so the prince decided to follow the guards out and welcome Felix into the city and the palace. Felix waited for a little bit of time as he morphed back into his cat form before he saw Altraeimo approaching, along with the guard that previously asked him who he was. Altraeimo recognized Felix at the first glance, and he was rather surprised that the guard was actually right, and not just imagining things due to boredom. Altraeimo waved his hand, indicating to Felix that he could approach the walls. Only for his eyes to widen as he saw Felix appear in front of him without him being able to even understand what happened. "He had certainly grown way stronger than before..." Felix morphed into his human form, which surprised Altraeimo once again, but he didn''t comment about it as he asked: "What could I help you with, Felix?" However, his eyes widened as he took a better glance at Felix''s forehead and recognized the symbol there... "You have become a god slayer?" Altraeimo''s question contained both doubtfulness and some eagerness hidden in it, which Felix detected. Why was Altraeimo eager? Chapter 206: The power of the underwater tribe Felix wasn''t sure why Altraeimo was eager... what was so good about being a god slayer? Seeing Felix looking at him with a questioning look made Altraeimo cough and say: "We should have our conversation in a more private environment. Come with me." Altraeimo started swimming towards the palace, and Felix easily followed him from behind. They reached the palace rather quickly before entering one of its adjacent buildings. There Altraeimo did some hand seals to activate a silent hex formation before sitting on a moss pillow. Altraeimo waved his hand, indicating to Felix that he could sit as well, but Felix wasn''t in the mood for that as he went directly to ask what he needed to know: "Do you know anything about this mark? And why were you so eager to see it?" Altraeimo took in a deep breath as he glanced into Felix''s eyes before looking down and saying: "We know quite a bit about the god slaying mark... actually our people used to roam on the land before as well." Felix realized that it was time for a story... so he decided to sit down. He had already informed Marshallo about his condition, so he knew what to say to Lindo, Jack, and the others if they were getting worried about him. "You see, we were once land-dwellers, quite strong ones. In fact, we were equal or stronger than the current humans." "Our people were strong, so strong that we started to revolt against the Gods and their ways. Even though the gods gave out benefits that worked for both parties, our people were greedy." "They wanted more and more. Until they started to create connections with the gods- only to mentally attack them." "This leads to the god''s hatred onto us, but while we could create connections with them if we found their altars or highly hex energy concentrated areas, they couldn''t do much to us." "This fact made them really angry, so they started to research a way to punish us besides waiting for our natural deaths." "That way, they created the god slayer mark which you are branded with right now..." Then Altraeimo parted his golden locks showing a very faint fire lotus on his own forehead as well! Felix''s eyes widened as Altraeimo continued to explain: "The descendants that will have your bloodline will also get the god slaying mark, regardless of what they will do in life. However, with time the bloodline will thin, and so will the mark... We have been getting this mark on our foreheads for tens of thousands of years, and only in my and my father''s generation, the fire symptoms stopped. That was also the reason we had left the water to see how the land was doing." Felix nodded as he understood what he meant, but waiting wouldn''t be very helpful for him: "I understand your concerns, Felix. My ancestors didn''t stay idle while the fire tormented them, while they dropped to the bottom of the ocean to seal the effects of the mark. They also tried their best in researching a way to remove the mark." Felix looked into Altraeimo''s eyes as he asked: "So what did they find out?" Altraeimo sighed as he said: "Besides the information that I just told you now? Well, the mark itself would dissipate if you would make the god who planted it on you lift it. The other way would be if the god died." Felix frowned as he asked: "Isn''t there any other way?" Altraeimo shook his head as he said: "I''m sorry, but there isn''t any other way. If some other ways existed, our people wouldn''t have had to dwell on the bottom of the ocean up till now." Felix felt his head swelling from anger as he was ready to leave but Altraeimo stopped him as he said: "While there isn''t any way to remove the mark, there are ways to suppress it besides living in the ocean." "There are? Then, why did your ancestors remain in the ocean?" Altraeimo shrugged as he said: "It''s mostly because they are temporary methods, and they can run out rather quickly. My ancestors wanted to research without interruptions, so that''s why they moved to the bottom of the ocean permanently." Felix didn''t need the methods. He didn''t want to go back to the lion tribe. In one minute he would be okay, then the other explode into a bunch of flames that could hurt anyone that was near him. This wasn''t a way of living that Felix wanted. "From your expression, I can tell you don''t want those methods... *sigh* well, I guess I could help you some other way." Altraeimo took out a flute from his clothes that he started to slowly play, creating high notes which soothed Felix''s raging mind. Felix enjoyed the music for a few seconds, but the more he listened to it, the more he realized that something wasn''t right with the song. Felix''s soul was slowly being forced out of his body, just like when he used that pearl to train his soul with Lindo. His body slowly fell to the ground below as his soul slipped out, and Felix glanced at Altraeimo asking: "Why have you done this?" Altraeimo looked at Felix''s body before shaking his head: "There is just one more way- to quickly get rid of the tattoo and also live." "But my ancestors hadn''t been able to use it due to their lack of strength." Altraeimo closed his eyes for a few seconds before he said: "My ancestors realized how to open the portal to the divine realm where gods reside... unfortunately for mortals access that place we would need to shed our bodies and enter only with our souls which would put us in a huge disadvantage compared to the gods." Felix understood as he clenched his soul form''s fists: "Do you think my soul can withstand the divine realm environment and fight the gods?" Altraeimo looked at Felix''s soul, but he was almost blinded by the power he could sense directly from his soul. Even though Felix''s body was his main strength. A strong soul resided in a strong body, and as long as his body got stronger, so did his soul. His body almost reached the ultimate level, so his soul wasn''t that far behind. It was indeed a little bit weaker than his body, but not by much. Altraeimo turned off his analyzing technique as he looked at Felix''s soul normally before saying: "Your soul is extremely strong, so strong that I don''t think any of our ancestors reached this level, but I''m not sure if you would be able to kill the god that marked you and come back safely as there aren''t many records of the godly powers that the gods possess, while their strength is numbered in ranks. Who knows what type of special abilities they possess?" Felix looked down at his body before shaking his head as he dropped back into it. Even though he was confident to defeat the gods if he had his body. He wasn''t sure about it if the only thing he was allowed to use was his soul. His soul was pretty strong, but it was also getting a boost in power if it was connected to his body. Almost reaching his body''s strength. If it left its body''s vicinity, it would lose 20% of its strength. This was a huge loss of strength which made Felix uncertain, while he did easily take care of Sindora. It was mostly because she was pathetically weak for a god. He wasn''t sure if he would be able to go toe to toe with the battle gods only with his soul. It would be nice if he could, but he was realistic. Felix sighed while he cracked his neck, as his soul fitted back into his body, then he asked Altraeimo: "Do you have any ways to quickly train the soul?" Altraeimo shook his head as he lifted his shoulders, showing that he had no such way. "You came to the wrong people. Have you tried talking with the raven tribe?" Felix sighed, was he supposed to go back to the raven tribe now? Well, he already visited them one, and he had a way to go to the divine realm when he was strong enough. So he decided to give them another visit. Felix nodded towards Altraeimo and told him: "I will come back sooner or later. Wait for me." Altraeimo nodded with a smile on his face as he said: "I will be waiting for you. If you invade the divine realm, this should be a good thing for our tribesmen as a whole." Felix''s silhouette disappeared, leaving Altraeimo alone as he sighed, then put his flute back into his clothes and left the building. Felix''s reappearance near the raven''s tree didn''t go unnoticed as he had only been gone for around 4 hours, he appeared in the same spot as the raven shaman came back. He was sweating as he looked at Felix''s flaming aura and asked: "Could I politely ask?... Why have you come back?" Felix waved his hand and said: "I actually came back for something that your raven tribe is known for." The raven shaman frowned as his eyes were still glued on the fiery lotus tattoo on Felix''s forehead as he asked: "You need help with strengthening your soul?" Felix clapped twice and said: "Good, it seems you aren''t entirely useless because of your fear." The raven shaman didn''t get insulted by Felix''s words as he started to rummage through his cloak. Felix waited at the bottom of the tree as he looked at the old raven with sharp eyes. Felix wondered what he would give him. Chapter 207: The methods of the raven tribe A small white scroll appeared in the old shaman''s hand as he looked at Felix and asked: "How do you want me to give you this?" Felix''s fiery aura would burn the scroll to cinders if the shaman just threw at him. Felix shook his head as he said: "Don''t be ridiculous, just open it for me to see, or can''t you just transfer the contents of the scroll directly to me?" The shaman shook his head as he said: "I didn''t learn this technique, so I can''t teach it to you. While we ravens have quite the collection of soul training techniques, that doesn''t mean we trained in all of them." Felix frowned as he asked: "Then why do you think that technique would be good for me?" The shaman shrugged as he said: "You said you wanted a quick training technique, so I got you the best that we have. However, it does come with side effects." Felix cocked his head to the side as he narrowed his eyes and asked: "What type of side effects are we talking about?" "Hmm... well, they aren''t anything harmful to you. Those side effects would only work on those that don''t have a good soul base. But in your situation, your soul is already very sturdy, and it should be able to handle the power of the technique with no side effects... besides a lot of pain." Felix looked at the white scroll. He didn''t care much about the pain, as the fire lotus was already continuously torturing him. He could get used to it. The old shaman opened the white scroll letting Felix scan his contents with his eyes. Felix''s eyes started to shine the more he read, and he contemplated the technique for a few seconds before nodding and disappearing. He had understood the technique perfectly, and he was ready to leave to a good place where he could train in it. The shaman shook his head as he saw Felix''s disappearance and left back to the city. He hoped he wouldn''t meet Felix again, but he was ready for another possible visit. Felix''s body appeared back into the ocean as the flames were suppressed. His eyes were closed as he floated in the water while sitting cross-legged. The technique that the old raven had given him was quite special. It was akin to a whirlpool that could strengthen the soul. He could use his soul to create a centrifugal rotation force in his mental place where the soul would have to fight back against the suction force of the centrifugal force. It was akin to gravity training but for the soul. Felix was currently creating the centrifugal force in his mental place... Felix''s translucent soul was floating in the void. His mental palace was emptied as he was standing cross-legged in the middle of the darkness. Suddenly, his body started to move as a small whirlwind appeared in the darkness, releasing a small centrifugal force. Which was continuously increasing in strength, height, and width, the power of the whirlwind increased the more Felix concentrated upon it, to the point that his sturdy soul was actually getting moved from his place. The movement of the whirlwind didn''t affect Felix very much. But considering that the technique could actually move Felix''s soul at all. It showed that it was a genuine technique, that the stronger it got, the more beneficial it would be for the user. Felix continued to increase the centrifugal force until his soul was being thrown around- as if it was a kite in a storm. However, Felix''s soul, while moved, it wasn''t injured at all, which showed that the power of the whirlwind wasn''t strong enough yet. So he concentrated further, using his soul''s powers to increase the centrifugal force even more, to the point that it was resembling the power of the spatial shards that he encountered in his fight with Marshallo. Felix''s soul eyes started to glow with an intense red light as gashes started to appear on his soul body, which quickly replenished themselves. In the surroundings of his body, all of the hex energy was being rapidly absorbed by his body and soul, his strength rapidly soaring. However, that soar was kept only for a few seconds before it stopped, and his soul only continued to get battered by the whirlwind. Immense pain starting to creep into Felix''s senses, almost overwhelming him to the point that he almost blacked out! That old shaman had said that he would experience immense pain upon using this technique. But he never thought that it would be this intense! It was almost as if he was being skinned alive while getting salt and vinegar poured into his wounds every second of the skinning. Felix''s pain endurance was something that he found to be rather high, but even he was wavering due to the intense pain that was he was currently experiencing. It was a bit too much even for him! The pain was traveling everywhere into his soul body, as gashes continued to appear on it, but this time, he didn''t get stronger anymore. The soar from before happened only once, and as Felix continued to mull upon the technique, he realized why no one in the raven tribe trained in it. The technique had 5 levels in total, and after one completed one level. They would get a moderate soar into their soul strength. However, after the completion of the level, one had to endure 3x times the pain of their current soul strength''s endurance for 5 days before they could go to the next level. Also, if they failed to endure the pain, they would revert to the first level and do everything again. Felix frowned as the pain continued to transform. He felt jittery all over his body. Seemingly as if thousands of bugs were crawling all over under his skin and pinching his blood vessels. His head started to move up and down as blue blood started to drop out of his soul forms'' nose and mouth. However, Felix endured everything as he used his arm to clear the blood from his mouth and nose. He gritted his teeth as he continued to endure. Time passed very slowly under the torture of the technique to the point that he almost didn''t know what day it was anymore. Was it a night, was it a day? What was happening to his body? These were questions that arrived at him as he woke up with a numb soul. His eyes were red as he clutched his chest. But, fortunately, the pain that was racking his whole body had stopped for the time being. That meant he had passed the tribulation of the first level of the technique, and he had permanently increased his soul strength by quite a few percentages. Now, if he used his soul to leave his body, he would be 10% stronger than the last time that happened. Even though he felt like shit right now due to the soreness that invaded his soul, he also felt a sense of completion as he sensed the increased power that was now dwelling in his soul permanently. It was quite a self-destructive training technique, but it did the work if the one that practiced it would be able to endure the aftermath. After all, he did get strong quite fast as 5 days wasn''t much at all for someone like him who had a lifespan that could be counted in the tens of thousands of years. Felix''s breathing started to stabilize as the pain receded, and so did the soreness. Even though his soul didn''t have the overpowered ability to recover as his body, it still healed quite fast. He breathed in and out to make sure that everything was ok with his soul and that his strength increases fully stabilized before he created another whirlwind that he started to power up. He still had 4 levels left to do! A similar event happened once again with Felix. But this time, his body was cut, and his soul''s blood dropped into his mental space, trickling down into the darkness to be never seen again. And now, the whirlwind was pushing him around even worse than before. Level 2 of the technique was way more brutal than level 1, so much that Felix couldn''t actually withstand it! As blood trickled down his soul body, Felix''s consciousness was starting to fade. However, at the last second, Felix used all of his power to stop the whirlwind from massacring his body. The attempt was a failure, his eyes were red as he closed them and fell into the void that was his Mindscape. The blue blood that he shed landed at the bottom of the mindscape creating a small pool that Felix''s unconscious soul body dropped into slowly after. His consciousness remained muddled as a splash was heard reverberating in his mind, but he was too injured and too exhausted to care anymore... he needed to rest if he wanted to continue with the levels of the technique. Chapter 208: A technique that puts your endurance to test Felix''s unconscious soul body was resting in the pool of his own blood. It wasn''t stirring at all as it stood there unmoving. The failure of enduring the second level midway seemed to have sapped him greatly of his strength. Felix''s unmoving body stood in that position for around 30 days before it started stirring. Felix clutched his head, which felt like it was going to explode soon, before shaking his head to wake himself up. He could feel that his body was extremely heavy as he looked into his surroundings and saw how he was surrounded by a blue pool of energy. The energy was very viscous, and it was clinging to Felix''s open injuries. And as Felix woke up better. The energy that surrounded him started to enter his body, making Felix realize that the energy was actually his shed blood. The blood he had shed during his intense training course was returning to his soul body and strengthening it beyond what it previously was. Making him break through his shackles once again. Felix''s weakened soul body was recovering at a quick speed before breaking through the limit that the first level of the raven training technique had put him at. If he sensed correctly, he was as strong as he would be if he finished the second level of the technique, which was rather strange, considering he had failed it. Felix wasn''t sure why this happened, but he was happy that his failure turned into a beneficial thing. He felt really bad when he was falling into the darkness of his mindscape because of his failure, but he felt a little better now. Felix sighed as he started to fly up. The pool of blood that remained at the bottom of his mindscape had already been dried up as he absorbed it back into his soul body. He felt ready for another training session, and this time he wouldn''t fail. The whirlwind was created as it surrounded him, starting to cut into his soul body at quick speeds while also throwing him around like a ragdoll, but this time around, the second level didn''t do as much damage to him as before. It was obvious from Felix''s fiery gaze and powerful gait as he strode against the whirlwind that he had got used to the power of the whirlwind from his previous experience, combined with the fact that his soul body got stronger after he absorbed the shed blood, made this situation way easier than before, he didn''t even felt as much pain as he used to. He was actually feeling rather content with this level now. It was almost as if his power was getting further elevated the more he was injured. Felix''s body was slowly making the whirlwind ineffective. He was reaching the breakthrough point! His soul body was slowly starting to glow under the continuous assault of the whirlwind, which was slowly being overcome by Felix''s increasingly strong body. The pain which was affecting him didn''t continue anymore as he reached his breakthrough point... His body glowed for a few more seconds as his strength soared a few seconds, breaking through once again. But the moment he broke through. He started to brace himself for the pain that would come after. And he did the right thing, he could feel his insides burning out as he coughed blood, the pain was traveling through his whole soul body, but his insides felt the worst. It was almost as if a deadly predator was rummaging through his chest with his sharp claws that were filled with a deadly poison that could paralyze him while enhancing his pain receptors ability. It was a sensation that he almost blacked out from once again. However, he gritted his teeth as blood dripped freely from his gums. He wouldn''t blackout once again, not now, and certainly not in the future! He had enough of his momentary weakness, and he didn''t want to feel that ever again! After reaching his level, he couldn''t believe that he could become vulnerable like that again. He didn''t like that sensation at all! Felix''s eyes were burning with immense willpower as he endured the pain that was ravaging his soul''s insides like a monster. His power was slowly stabilizing under the assault of the pain, and he endured... 1 day... 2 days.... 3 days... 5 days. Felix''s withered soul body started to recover as the pain he endured finally left it. A powerful breath from Felix''s soul restored it to its original appearance as he coughed up a globule of blue blood that he spat down into the darkness. A sigh escaped Felix''s lips as he felt that something within his soul had unlocked. He had reached a new level with his soul that he hadn''t even dreamed about before! He was inching closer and closer to the day that he would leave his soul behind to reach the divine realm. His soul was burning due to the small hatred that he accumulated against the god that had imprinted him with that fire lotus tattoo. He could feel that his connection with that God was strengthening the more his soul strength increased, regardless of his location or the fact that the god didn''t want to link his soul with Felix''s. This made Felix realize that he was getting closer and closer to the level of the gods without the need for his body. As Felix steeled his willpower, his training efficiency had increased by multiple times. He broke through the 3rd level in 10 days, the 4th level in 15 days, and the 5th level in 35 days. The pain he endured almost broke his psyche, but his endurance increased immensely because he preserved through the harsh training. This type of training was the hardest Felix went through all of his life, the pain was so immense that he had wanted to quit multiple times between levels 3-4 and 5. However, he never stopped. He preserved and in the end. He had trained the technique to its finish. Felix''s soul strength had increased so much that it was now stronger than his body''s strength, even if it left the vicinity of it. Now it was finally time to go back to Altraeimo and request his help. Felix''s body woke up as his soul returned from his mindscape, he looked down at his body and realized that it was covered by moss and other algae as he had immobile in the water for quite a long time. Around 2 months or so. He shook his body to get rid of everything that was covering it and then disappeared as he arrived at the city gate of Altraeimo''s city. The guard captain there immediately went to call Altraeimo, who arrived quickly after to escort Felix towards a secret place underground in one of the palaces. Altraeimo analyzed Felix up and down, and when he tried to scan his soul, he clutched his eyes and fell to his knees as he almost wanted to shout in pain from his burned eyeballs. Felix helped him up as he gave him some energy to heal him then said: "I''m sorry I didn''t warn you, but you acted too quickly..." Altraeimo waved his hand as he had a giant smile on his face. It didn''t matter that he got his eyeballs burned just now, as he looked at Felix up and down, and asked in wonderment: "How could you have gotten so strong in such little time?" "I paid a visit to the raven tribe and got a technique from them, anyways are you ready to help me now?" Altraeimo nodded as he said: "You are certainly strong enough to do whatever you want in the divine realm... atleast, that''s how I envision it your soul is way stronger than before, and your state from before was the strongest soul I had seen in my life even compared to the ancient records of our ancestors. If your previous soul had a chance to thrive in the divine realm, your current one should easily be able to what you need to in there." Felix nodded and looked at Altraeimo, waiting for him to begin. Altraeimo coughed awkwardly seeing Felix''s eager gaze before looking down and saying: "I didn''t think you would come back so quickly, so I didn''t prepare for the opening of the divine realm yet... could you wait for a few more days?" Felix didn''t really mind waiting more so he asked: "Where should I wait until you prepare?" Altraeimo scratched the back of his head as he said: "You are an important guest, so you can stay in the palace above while I will prepare everything here down below. You will also know very quickly when I''m done with the preparations." Felix nodded and used the hidden door to appear in the palace above and sat cross-legged on the floor near the entrance meditating and waiting for Altraeimo''s signal. One day passed, two days passed, three days passed... 60 days passed while Felix was meditating. Suddenly the underground started shaking as Felix opened his eyes and dropped down directly through the hidden door to arrive at a spectacular scene. Chapter 209: The divine realm is invaded by one person (1) The scene that Felix arrived to see was quite chaotic. A gigantic gate of light was being opened near the ceiling of the underground area. Altraeimo''s shivering form was dancing in front of the gate. He was blowing his flute to continue the opening and stabilization of it. Felix''s appearance didn''t surprise Altraeimo in the slightest as he continued his dance while sending Felix a telepathic message: "As you can see, you came a little bit too early, but I can''t blame you. The commotion that happens when opening the gate is quite immense." Felix could sense that. The earthquake that he felt when Altraeimo started even moved him a bit. This showed that the opening between dimensions could injure Altraeimo if he didn''t do it properly, so Felix wanted to make sure nothing happened to him. If something happened to Altraeimo, his only chance of getting rid of this damn Lotus on his forehead would disappear until he died of old age. Felix sighed as he watched the gate widen up further under Altraeimo''s ritual. He could feel his blood flowing quicker as he breathed in the energy that was slowly escaping from the opened gate. The shiny gate was opened enough for Felix''s body to enter it. But, he could sense that the space between the destination and the opening wasn''t stable enough for him to enter it. Altraeimo continued his efforts to stabilize the gate- while it was slowly widening by itself under his continuous dance, sweat started to drip from his forehead as the flute in his hands was cracking from his grip''s strength. The way he blew into the flute created a strange melody that Felix couldn''t decipher at all, he had no music experience, but he could still feel that the tone was off and that the notes were strange. Suddenly a bolt of red lightning left the gate and was ready to strike Altraeimo directly in the head, only for Felix to appear in front of him and absorb the red lightning into his body, leaving Altraeimo unharmed but scared. Felix gave Altraeimo a nod and then returned to his previous place, giving Altraeimo enough space to continue his dance. "Heup, Heup." Altraeimo continued his dance as the flute in his grasp started to break down under his strange song. Suddenly the gate stabilized as its light became completely golden, and nothing else seemed to come out of it. Altraeimo breathed roughly as he fell on his butt. The flute had broken down completely, leaving it into bits and pieces on the ground below him. He looked towards Felix and waved his hand to him. Indicating that he should get closer, Felix immediately appeared near him and supported him up. Altraeimo coughed a bit, some blood spilling from his mouth through his fingers, but he ignored his injuries as he started to tell Felix: "You will be teleported to the equivalent of our planet in the divine realm. I don''t know much about the universe, nor did my ancestors, but they realized one thing with all of their research, if the divine realm is below the water, we are above it, and if we were to compare our universe to an ocean, we the mortals are above the water while the gods stay underwater where the pressure in higher, I''m not sure if you know the saying, but enough pressure can make diamonds from coal." Felix nodded. This information was quite helpful but also useless at the same time to him. "Also, one more thing... because I helped you, I hope that you will do us a favor and bring back some specimens from the god realm when you return..." Felix nodded and then asked: "About returning... how can I even do that when the Gods can''t?" Altraeimo''s shaking hand went into his shirt before pulling out a green cylinder that he passed onto Felix: "Break this cylinder and feed it your hex energy when you want to come back. I sealed the song that I used to open the gate in it." Felix nodded and inquired: "What about the dance moves?" Altraeimo coughed a little bit more and responded: "You won''t need those. As I said before, our worlds are compared to the ocean, it is easier to float to the surface- compared to diving to the bottom. To open a gate that leads you back to us would only need you to use the song." Felix had one more question before his soul would leave his body and enter the gate: "Where am I supposed to keep it?" "Keep it in your soul space. The cylinder is made from a special material... also, you should hurry up and go." Felix nodded as his body went limp and his transparent soul left through his forehead, he glanced back at his downed body which was still holding onto Altraeimo and he said: "Take good care of my body. I will be able to make a new one when I return, but it would be better to not waste my time doing so." Altraeimo nodded and waved at him. Felix''s soul darted into the gate, leaving Altraeimo behind. Altraeimo glanced at Felix''s immobile body and sighed before saying: "Where should I even store this?" Then he shook his head as the gate above him slowly started to close until a small dart of energy let it and entered Altraeimo''s body which got invigorated as he picked up Felix''s physical body and threw it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. .... Felix was quickly moving through a rainbow-colored spatial tunnel, he had the leisure to observe his surroundings, but all he could see at the edges of the tunnel were more of those red lightning bolts that almost ended Altraeimo. At first, it looked to be leisure traveling, but the further Felix moved through the tunnel, the more he realized that he was being pushed back as if the destination was rejecting him. Felix realized that it wasn''t so easy to reach the God realm as Altraeimo had said. It seemed soul strength wasn''t the only thing one needed to reach the destination... Felix''s soul started to morph from his normal humanoid form into his cat form, trying to see if the resistance from the tunnel would decrease if he did so. Somehow the resistance did decrease a bit, but it didn''t by much. But any reduction was welcomed. Felix compared the resistance strength with the whirlwind that trashed him around in his mindscape at level 5, and if he was correct, the resistance was one level higher. However, with his current strength, he could push through. Especially- now that his cat form lowered the resistance somewhat. Felix started to push through the resistance as he moved through the tunnel further and further. But the more he moved, the narrower the tunnel became, and the closer the red lightning started to get him. The one-bolt he absorbed using his body didn''t mean much, but his soul didn''t have the resistance to lightning as his body. Also, as he glanced towards his sides, Felix could swear that the lightning was getting golden instead of red, and it looked to be limitless! But he could see a shiny light at the end of the tunnel... he was getting closer and closer to the end of the tunnel and entering the divine realm! Suddenly his soul body was slowly starting to get engulfed by the nearby red lightning as the tunnel became so narrow that only his cat form could barely move through it. However, he was only a few meters away from the glowing light that would lead him to the divine realm. One more step, two more steps. His soul body started to combust due to the lightning that was continuously going through it. However, his soul was also healing at the same time. While the lightning could injure him, it wasn''t to the point that it would become troublesome. Felix''s paw touched the light as the other parts of his body were getting consumed by the red lighting, but at the last second, his body was sucked into the light, leaving the tunnel to collapse onto itself and explode. .... Felix woke up groggily, and as he looked around, he could only see yellow nimbus clouds surrounding him. On some nimbuses, there were long trees with blue bushes at the crowns. Which had green fruits that resembled pears with yellow and black dots on them. Felix''s stomach suddenly rumbled. Which made him truly wake up as he looked at the fruits at the top of the tree, normally he wouldn''t get hungry, especially with his soul body. But now, he felt quite hungry as he eyed the top of the tree and moved his paw, making a fruit fall onto it. Felix morphed back into his human form and munched onto the fruit, it was rather bittersweet, but it filled him with energy and satiated his hunger. Felix cracked his neck as he finished one fruit, and more fruits started to appear around him, which he finished just as quickly. Now that he had filled his belly with some food, he continued to look around and realized that there was land below him. It seemed the divine realm had special locations where the clouds were solid, and the trees on the bore this fruit. Felix decided to drop towards the land and ask some locals where the so-called gods dwelled, he could sense clusters of life below him, but none of them were strong. Felix dived down from the yellow nimbus clouds and started to fly towards the green land below him, where he felt the strongest life force. Felix knew that to find the important people, you would need to find the strongest person below them and ask. Chapter 210: The divine realm is invaded by one person (2) Felix was really conspicuous as he dived through the well-lit blue sky above the green continent that he was going to. He could be seen by anybody. But somehow, he hadn''t been attacked by any gods up till now, even though the lotus on his forehead should have triggered a signal that notified the gods that he had arrived in the divine realm. This was something strange. But Felix attributed it to enter through a backdoor with Altraeimo''s help instead of arriving at the divine realm using the normal mean. So he could take them by surprise with his sudden arrival... Felix smiled as he dropped to the continent below and arrived above a highly populated village that had already identified Felix and created a defensive barrier in their air space, hoping to keep Felix away from them. However, Felix easily walked through the barrier as if it wasn''t even there and looked around for a few seconds before arriving at a small house at the border of the city in an instant. There he delivered a swift strike to the doorknob of the average-sized house and entered it before saying: "Come out." However, nothing happened after he said those words. Felix narrowed his eyes as he sighed, then lifted his arm forward before dragging something out of the air. A muffled thud was heard as Felix dropped a dwarf with a red beard and a black cap on the floor of the house. The dwarf coughed as he was previously held by his neck, and he couldn''t breathe properly anymore. His coughs disappeared after a short while as he glared at Felix from below and asked with anger in his tone: "Who are you? What are you doing here? Do you know who I am?" Felix ignored all of his questions as he grabbed him by the face and asked him a question of his own before revealing the fiery lotus tattoo on his forehead: "Do you know anyone that could have gave me this tattoo?" The red dwarf glanced at the lotus tattoo and frowned as he shook his head and said: "How the heck could I know that? Are you crazy man?" The puzzled look that the dwarf was giving Felix was genuine, which showed that he had no clue about Felix''s tattoo. This made Felix drop the dwarf on the floor again as he frowned and asked himself: "How doesn''t he know?" Felix thought that the stronger civilians should atleast have the bare knowledge of punishments of the gods or something like that. Since he couldn''t go to a certain God, he needed to know where they were situated in general: Felix picked him up once again and asked: "Where are those God''s headquarters?" The red-bearded dwarf narrowed his eyes as he used his hands to put his black cap over his eyes as he started to sing: "I don''t know what you are talking about. I don''t know what you are talking about..." Felix started shaking him until the cap dropped off his head, also making him gag as he almost vomited on Felix. From what Felix could see, he was trying to vomit on him on purpose. Felix hit him over the head, which made the dwarf glared at him once again as he said: "I guess you are a newly ascended spirit?" Felix didn''t say anything which made the dwarf nod as he said: "I don''t know what type of relationship you had with the gods when you were alive, but I think you should drop all hostilities to them if you want to live in the divine realm." "They are the rulers of this place. And goddamn, can you let me down? I won''t run away, okay, I understand you are strong..." Felix dropped him to the floor once again as the dwarf got up to his feet and massaged his sore butt before walking towards the wine cabinet in his house, taking out a big bottle of wine that he uncorked before taking a huge swig out of it. "Anyways, I advise you to..." Felix stopped him there as he glared at him to intimidate him and then said: "I don''t need your advice. All I want to know is where is the location of God''s headquarters." The dwarf combed his red beard as he sighed then said: "Well, I would get in trouble for doing this, but what else can I do?" Felix nodded as he saw how the dwarf gave in: "Every continent that''s in the divine realm has a God protecting it, but due to the previous war, some Gods had fallen, and some of the continents are lacking protectors now." "This is one of the continents that is missing a protector. The late Goddess Sindora used to watch over this place." Felix frowned as he heard Sindora''s name. Was it a coincidence he had arrived in the place of the person that he had killed? Seeing Felix frown made the dwarf take another swig of the wine bottle as he said: "You had beef with her? Well, she is dead now, so I guess you can enjoy your new life." Felix shook his head as he didn''t want to share his story with the dwarf before asking: "Is there a place where God''s gather in a bunch?" The red dwarf shook his head as he said: "I don''t know." Felix disappeared from the dwarf''s house leaving him sweating as he finished the wine bottle and threw it on the floor, breaking the bottle into pieces and saying: "Goddamit, I almost peed myself. Who the hell is that guy? And what beef does he have with gods?" ..... Felix was flying above the continents as he kept his eyes closed while expanding his senses to find a God by himself. He thought that interrogating a native would give him some information, but it didn''t really seem so... If Felix guessed correctly. While the Gods did make public appearances, the civilians didn''t know where they dwelled. Felix could also identify civilizations and Empires in the divine world with experts that had strength that rivaled the generals of the human tribe, but there weren''t people with strength above that. And considering the weakest gods were still stronger than the normal generals of the humans, it showed that the Gods were the dominant faction in this world. Felix frowned as he couldn''t sense the location of any strong individual besides the ''civilians'' of the bigger empires. Where were the gods hiding? From what Felix could sense, they were either in a special location where their coordinates couldn''t be identified, or they were hiding by sealing their auras perfectly. Felix could either wait for a God to pop out by himself or attract their attention. If he did do the second option, he would be swarmed by multiple Gods, and he wasn''t sure if he would be able to fight more than 5 Gods at once as he didn''t have a clear knowledge about their techniques and powers. By waiting and ambushing a god, he would have a better chance to take the others by surprise and easily get rid of the lotus tattoo that was plaguing him. Fighting them head-on wasn''t the smart thing to do, in this situation, and even though Felix had become a very good head-on fighter. He did start as an assassin. Felix''s silhouette started to flicker as it disappeared into the blue sky of the divine realm. His appearance melded into transparency as he closed his eyes and floated midair waiting for a God to reveal himself. Felix''s state lasted for 4 months before he could sense a small movement in the northern sites of the realm, his eyes opened wide as he practically teleported to where he sensed the movement, but he kept his traveling muffled as to not scare the target away or make the target wary. Felix''s invisibility was of a high level, and his aura hiding had improved to perfection under his soul''s continuous improvement. Under his watchful gaze, he saw a girl wearing a hooded white priest robe that kept her features covered move around stealthily as she tried to disappear into nothingness by moving into a spatial portal that just opened. However, before she could do so, Felix appeared in front of the spatial portal soundlessly while keeping his stealth up. Then he grabbed her by the wrist with his left hand, while throwing a hex blast into the portal with the right hand, disturbing it and making it close prematurely. The girl was scared as she tried to remove Felix''s grip from her wrist, making her hood fall and revealing her features to Felix. She had pearly blue eyes, pink hair, a small nose, and elongated ears. She also had two small pearl earrings inserted at the top of her long ears. She cried out in pain as Felix increased the strength of his grip and appeared in front of her, making her eyes widen as she saw the lotus tattoo on his forehead, and she cried out in both surprise and fear: "Sindora''s killer?!" Felix smiled as he finally found someone who knew about him. Things would certainly be easier from now on. Chapter 211: Wounded Gods The girl in the white priest robe was terrified by Felix. She couldn''t stop her eyes from looking directly at his forehead, where the tattoo was located, her eyes were trembling as she tried to take a few steps away from him, but her wrist was in his grip, and she couldn''t do anything about that: "You... you murderer!" She gathered all of her courage to say that. She was quite close to Sindora during the war as they both support gods, so they became friends on the battlefield even though they usually didn''t talk to each other. Her eyes were full of fire, but her body was shaking, showing that while she was scared of Felix, she was still ready to fight him to the death. Felix coughed as he increased his grip strength and said: "Who put this tattoo on me?" The girl zipped her lips as she glared at him and afterward said through gritted teeth as Felix continuously increased the pressure he was applying to her wrist: "I will never sell my fellow Gods. They only marked you because you have murdered Sindora for no reason!" Felix snorted as he looked into her eyes and said: "No reason, eh?" The goddess frowned as she looked into Felix''s eyes involuntarily. She realized that his eyes were filled with pity for her and the other gods the moment she did so. But why would a mortal pity them? Did he really think that he was so strong that he could fight against a bunch of gods by himself? She started to get angry at him. She had the pride of a goddess down to her bones. Even though she was a support god, which wasn''t strong in combat. She tried to remove his grip on her wrist by force as she unleashed her hex energy around her, creating a barrier that would try to cut Felix''s arm off. However, the barrier just bounced off Felix''s body as if it was a harmless beach ball. Not a deadly attack that was conjured by a goddess with the strength to destroy planets. She paled as the energy in her body was sapped by her returning fear. That was her strongest attack which could combine defense and offense into one. "I... I...." While she was angry at Felix, she was also very scared at the same time. She also didn''t want to give out the details of the other gods to Felix because they were still wounded from the war, and Felix might be able to assassinate them! From what strength he exuded, the girl realized that the weakened gods could fall prey to his claws. "I won''t ever sell them to you!" She said with conviction as she closed her eyes and waited for Felix to deal her the death blow. As she waited, sweat dripped down from her forehead, tears started to slide from her eyes to her face... she wasn''t ready to die yet. But as she waited, she realized that Felix had let go of her wrist. She opened her eyes to see Felix looking at her and shaking his head as he said: "I didn''t come here to kill you all. That''s only the worst scenario that can happen. Why don''t you listen to what I have to say first?" Seeing Felix''s attitude towards her made the girl both warry and puzzled. She wasn''t someone who could trust mortals but Felix''s words, and the way he said them, made her lower her guard. She wasn''t sure if this was Felix''s plan to coerce her as he realized that lording his strength over her wouldn''t work, so she still kept mum. "Come on, girlie. I just want this tattoo off my forehead. It brought me a bit of trouble down there." She frowned at Felix''s way of addressing her as she glanced in his direction and said: "My name is Biuga, not girlie!" Felix scratched the back of his head as he laughed awkwardly and said: "Ok, ok, Biuga, I''m sorry." Seeing Felix being so casual with her made Biuga let her tightened guard down a bit as she sighed and said: "I guess I can listen to you. Please do tell me why did you kill poor Sindora?" Felix looked into her eyes as he said: "I believe that Sindora hadn''t really shown her true colors to you guys, so even If I tell you the truth, would you believe it?" At this point, Biuga frowned. Was Sindora really the bad woman that Felix made her be? Indeed, they didn''t know her much, if at all, but in the end, she did use her energy to wake her up to heal the wounded God warriors so they wouldn''t die, so she seemed to be a good person in her view, and she didn''t really want to hear any slander from Felix... but she also said that she would listen to what he had to say, so she couldn''t dismiss what he said immediately as lies. "I will listen to you... tell me, why have you killed her?" Felix''s eyes hardened as they gazed directly into Biuga''s, and he said: "She had threatened my close family with death if I didn''t give her my power just like I did to Aaltarox." Her eyes widened as her gaze changed when she looked at him: "You are the one who gave Aaltarox the energy?!" Aaltarox wouldn''t have been able to push back the invasion if he didn''t get the energy from Felix, so Felix was also the big variable that won them the war... if the others knew, she was sure that they would forgive him for killing Sindora, after all, Sindora''s contribution was almost inexistent compared to Felix''s, as they would have all died if Aaltarox didn''t step up with Felix''s help. She approached Felix and gave him a small bow as she said: "I thank you for the timely help... and I''m sorry about Aaltarox''s death." Felix waved his hand indicating that it was okay as he said: "I''m also sorry about Aaltarox, but he wanted to give his all to protect this place, so I''m sure he is content wherever he is now." Biuga sighed as she remembered Aaltarox then she said: "I guess I can help you to the place. I was going back just now before you rudely interrupted me." Felix nodded and waited for her to open the spatial door, which happened in around 10 seconds, and the duo entered the gate together. As Felix looked at his changed surroundings, he could see golden trees going straight up into the blue skies. And in front of him stood a giant bronze temple with beds that contained the wounded Gods who were resting in different positions. The moment they saw Biuga returning, they wanted to wave at her in greeting, but when they saw Felix who had the fire lotus tattoo on his forehead, they jumped up from their beds as they entered fighting stances and took out their weapons from their spatial pockets. However, Biuga jumped in front of Felix as she said: "Guys! It was a misunderstanding in the middle! Put your weapons down!" A tall god with an eyepatch who had nothing on his upper body and a blue iron skirt on his lower body glared at Felix with his lone eye and then looked at Biuga and said: "I think he might have brainwashed you, little Biuga, get away from him! Minzuro would never mark a person that didn''t deserve it!" Biuga shook her head as she said: "This guy is the person that gave Aaltarox the energy. He is the reason we won the war!" All of the wounded God''s eyes widened in surprise as they looked at Felix once again. The man with the eyepatch increased his visual acuity in one eye as he looked through Felix''s body. Felix let him as he flared a bit of his aura, which the man caught and he said to the others: "It''s true, I recognize the aura, it was this one that Aaltarox was pumped with during the war." The others let their weapons return to their spatial pocket as they glanced at Felix and one of them asked: "But why had he killed Sindora?" The others nodded at each other as they glanced at Felix, while his contribution could cancel his crime, the Gods still wanted to know why Sindora had to die. After all, the fall of a god was a very big thing. Felix sighed as he told them the truth. If they were to believe him or not was up to them. "Hmm? You really said that Sindora wanted to use this opportunity when we were wounded to become the ultimate Goddess?" The others frowned: "Then why would she even wake the healers up with her energy. She could have just killed us then and there and became the ultimate goddess that way." Felix laughed as he looked at them and said: "Even if she became the ultimate goddess. She was a very vain person, so what she would do without any servants?" The eyepatched buff god looked at Felix up and down and said: "I can''t say much about Sindora, but yeah, she was a very vain person. Maybe he isn''t lying to us guys." The others started to whisper among themselves, but suddenly the sky started to crack as a person started to slowly float, gentle light and the song of angels followed down below with him as his billowing white garments were reaching the ground. His baby blue eyes were peaceful as he was caressing his brown beard while looking at Felix''s fire lotus tattoo, he nodded and the tattoo disappeared as he said: "I''m sorry for the troubles I have given you, friend Felix." Felix touched his forehead as he looked at the strongest God, Minzuro. He thought that he would have to fight to the death to get rid of his tattoo, but it was this easy in the end. Chapter 212: The one true god is bored of being omnipotent (Finale) Minzuro took out a feather fan from his billowing clothes and started to cool himself as he looked into Felix''s eyes while giving out a fox-like smile. His eyes were boring into Felix''s as he said: "I''m sorry for troubling you like this, Felix. It''s just that I had some orders from a higher-up that I needed to complete." Felix cocked his head to the side. Wasn''t he the strongest god there was in this area? What mission did he have to complete? Felix thought these people were autonomous as they fought the invaders back with their own forces instead of relying on their backing. Seeing Felix''s gaze made the man chuckle as he waved his fan and said: "You will understand soon enough. Follow me." Felix didn''t know what to say as he looked at the other gods, who were as puzzled as he was. Most of them didn''t say anything, but Biuga decided to ask on his behalf: "Great Minzuro... why do you need Felix''s presence?" Minzuro glanced towards Biuga and gave her a small smile as he said: "Biuga, you shouldn''t ask things that aren''t for your ears to hear." Biuga''s face paled as she took a few steps backward and a trickle of blood dripped from her mouth down to the ground, making a shallow sound. The other gods didn''t say anything as they backed away. They knew better than to interfere in Minzuro''s work. Biuga used her arm to clear the blood dripping from her mouth, staining her white priest robe red as she took a few steps backward, and then kneeled on both legs to Minzuro while crying out: "I''m sorry for asking, your highness!" Felix frowned as he tried to help Biuga up. But no matter what he did. She would stay like that, kneeling there while her body was shaking from fear. It was a different type of fear compared to the one she felt against Felix. Minzuro continued to wave with the fan, cooling himself off while glancing at Felix''s expression and saying: "Ignore her, Felix. You have won something very great for all of your work up till now. Follow me!" Felix wasn''t really a friend with her, but he did feel quite bad seeing her like this. But he also didn''t have a good reason to follow Minzuro either, so he glanced at him before asking: "What type of reward are we talking about here? Why didn''t you just tell me directly instead of acting like this?" Minzuro shook his head as he sighed and said: "I can''t talk to you about it here. This is confidential information, and my higher-up told me that only you and I can know about it. The others cannot know." Felix sighed as he left Biuga behind and decided to follow Minzuro. He wondered who was the one who asked Minzuro to trick him into this situation. He could sense Minzuro''s strength, and even if he decided to backstab him, he wouldn''t be able to kill him. One-step and another. Felix ascended with Minzuro through the golden clouds as they left the confused gods there. Pondering on what could Felix and Minzuro talk about. Biuga finally got up from her kneeling position as she was still shaking, the half-naked god with the eyepatch came towards her and hugged her to comfort her before saying: "It''s going to be ok." Biuga stopped shaking as she looked towards the receding golden clouds which were disappearing into the blue sky and she wondered aloud: "Why did Minzuro act like that..." The others looked at each other before shaking their heads. Minzuro always acted good with all of them, but he was injured during the war, and something changed in him, as he became more serious and also paranoid. He thought that another invasion was ready to come for them anytime. So he became a little harsher on them. Felix appeared in a gigantic golden palace as Minzuro walked with him to the guest''s hall, there they sat at a tea table and Minzuro served tea to Felix as he sighed then took one sip from the tea before saying: "We are ready to talk now. Ask away." "First. Tell me the reason why you have made me come here, to the divine realm." Minzuro took another sip from the teacup and said: "The one true God had been observing your actions since you had come to this universe." Felix felt an explosion going his head. He had heard from Manitola about the one true God. He was the one who put the Gods here in place when they were doing what they weren''t supposed to. "You know. I''m actually quite envious of you, Felix." "I always tried my best to get the attention of the one true God. I always did my best to become a perfect god, someone that the one true god would accept..." "But you came along and quickly overcame my achievements with your insane growth speed. You grew so fast that the one true God couldn''t help but target you instead of me in this part of the universe." Suddenly the grip of his hand increased as the teacup in his hand broke and spilled tea all over the tea table: "Actually, envy is not the right word... I''m jealous of you Felix, I''m extremely jealous of your powers to grow!" He put both of his hands on the tea table as he looked into Felix''s eyes, who was currently enjoying the tea that Minzuro had prepared. Seemingly not seeing that Minzuro had a breakdown in front of him. "So what does this one true god want with me?" Minzuro sighed as he saw not even one twitch in Felix''s expression. He was just as cool as a cucumber in front of Minzuro''s acting. "I see why the one true god admires you... you are truly something." Felix didn''t say anything as he was praised by the person who previously looked like he was ready to loop off his head from his shoulders. He just looked at him and waited for that one true God to appear Seeing how Felix didn''t want to talk with him anymore made Minzuro feel a little bit insulted But considering his previous actions, he didn''t find it surprising, so he decided to not talk either. Time passed while the duo remained there awkwardly, waiting for the one true god to appear... A golden gate appeared at the top of the palace, and as it opened a dainty white hand appeared through it. Soon the whole body walked through the gate, and Felix could see the one true god. A small petite face, blonde curly hair, and a white dress that covered her, blue baby eyes, and a small waist that looked like it could break if it was taken in an embrace. She was slowly drifting towards the duo as her bare foot touched the marble floor of the palace. The one true God looked less intimidating than Felix thought. She gave Felix and Minzuro a small smile as she said in a high pitched voice that accentuated her cuteness: "You two didn''t have a spat because of me. Right?" Minzuro looked down as he acted like a kid which had been caught with the hand in the cookie jar, while Felix tilted his head to the side as he asked: "Why did you want to meet me?" The goddess smiled as she approached him and took his left hand into hers. Suddenly Felix''s eyes widened as an immense amount of information traveled through his brain, making him hyperactive as he said: "You... you..." "Yes... I have done this because I truly admire you, an interdimensional traveler from the earth, just like me." "I always knew that when normal beings travel through dimensions the radioactive portal energy would give them mutations, either beneficial or deadly, and just like you, I have gained an ability that made me grow to what I am today." "But that doesn''t explain why you wanted to see me..." She giggled as she put her right hand near her mouth and said: "I have already given you some of the more important memories that explained how I became what I am. You should understand." Felix frowned as his bottom lip trembled while he asked: "You want to give up on your power?" Minzuro''s eyes widened as he looked at the one true God and said: "Why would you want to do that?" Suddenly Minzuro disappeared from the palace altogether as the only ones left were her and Felix. "Now that the noisy guy is gone, I want you to know that I''m just bored of this." "Immortality might be a nice feature, but at the point when you became omnipotent and omnipresent everything you would want is a bit of rest without all of this power on your shoulders." "Things became dull and boring, and there is a limit to my patience on how much I can look at mortals fool among themselves, even the little gods that I left to exist in the divine realm where souls go when they die became boring and stale after some million of years." "I need someone else to take upon this job, but I didn''t want someone who would half-ass do it. After all, the universe is in the hand of the one true God." "I need someone smart, someone, who could understand me, someone with a high potential." "I needed you, Felix." Felix''s voice came out: "Me? But I''m not sure if I want that." Felix was someone who wanted to live his life quietly, someone who enjoyed relaxing and eating. He didn''t want to become an omnipotent god who had to protect the universe. "Come on, Felix, everyone has a bit of power craze in them. Don''t you think it would be a little sweet deal to become omnipotent and omnipresent as long as you stood in this universe?" Felix wasn''t really interested in that if he was honest with himself. He was content with what he had. Seeing Felix''s eyes made her perk down as she looked at the marble floor below and sighed: "Please, Felix, why don''t you do this to me as a favor?" Felix shook his head as he looked at her and asked: "Do I even know you? Am I your friend or relative? Why should I do this?" These questions made her sigh. She knew that Felix didn''t want to replace her as the one true god... was she cursed to remain the one true god until the universe would wither way or be invaded by a force stronger than what she could withstand? Her eyes hardened as she grabbed Felix by the hand and said: "I know that you don''t want to become the one true god, but I decided that you will accept my legacy today, regardless if you want to or not!" Felix snapped his hand out of her grasp as he said angrily: "Do you think that if you force me, the universe will prosper under me? Don''t you think that I might just throw the power to whoever jumped for it first?" "I know that, didn''t I tell you that I''m omnipresent and omnipotent? I can do whatever I want, but sometimes I like to talk it out with you inferior beings." Suddenly Felix felt his body expand as an immense amount of energy was transferred into it, knowledge of the whole universe, of everything that existed was being fused into his memory cores, and the beautiful blonde woman in front of him was slowly withering away into dust. Felix tried to reverse the transformation that was going to him, but he was very inexperienced when it came to Godly energy, and one of such high levels and power wasn''t something that he could learn to control immediately. A big smile appeared on the one true god''s visage as she slowly transformed into motes of dust that were absorbed by an astral wind which was summoned by her, her voice traveled through Felix''s continuously strengthening soul as she said: "I''m too bored of this universe, I might as well reincarnate in another one, leaving you with all of the work, goodbye!" Felix gritted his teeth as there was nothing he could do to her, he was going to be cursed with the unlimited power that everyone was dreaming of while all he wanted was to live a quiet life! Felix tried to remove the power from himself and realized that he couldn''t, since he gained omnipotence he also realized that the power would only be removable only after a few hundred billions of years, and only if another interdimensional traveler of high talent would come to this universe. This made Felix fume, but what could he do? The former one true god wasn''t in the jurisdiction of this universe anymore, so he couldn''t do anything to her. In the end, Felix decided to live his life on the planet with his close ones until they died... Time passed and Felix returned to the planet in his normal body, Altraeimo was surprised seeing Felix returning so quickly, but seeing the lack of fire lotus tattoo on his forehead made him laugh as he patted Felix''s shoulder and asked: "Have you gotten what I asked you to?" Felix nodded and opened a gate where thousands of materials from the god realm dropped to the floor, then he disappeared. He was back at the lion tribe as he called his subordinates back, telling them to enjoy the planet and freeing them from their oaths. This puzzled them so Marshallo decided to leave after he finished teaching Jack, while the two women wanted to continue their life with Felix. ************** Felix looked down at his descendants from the top of the divine realm, on his one true God throne, he had lived the perfect quiet life for thousands of years until everyone he knew died then he returned to the top of the divine realm where he made his usual work to observe the descendants that came from his culmination with those two... He sighed as hundreds of billions of years had already passed since he had ascended to the top divine throne, watching over the universe, waiting for someone to travel from another universe or dimension so he could con them into accepting this position... but all he could do for now was watch his descendants conquer the mortal universe with an iron fist... they were fierce little buggers. Felix sighed as he once again looked up towards the exit of the universe, he had done so many times in his current reign that he didn''t bother to count them anymore, it would be really nice if someone walked through that gate to give him some action... (FIN)