Depthless Hunger

Chapter 404: Tales of Tails

For Kai, the fight must have been savagery, bloodshed, and hunger. Omilaena watched from the outside, coolly examining their latest experiment.

Now that he was fully prepared, Kai flickered around the clearing, evading the manticore's bursts of quills. When they had been spent, he went on the offensive and the manticore reeled onto its back legs to fight him. Even though the manticore was many times his size, the two of them clashed like equals and spun through the center. Massive claws only battered at Kai's armored skin, while his claw skill tore great wounds in the beast's side.

As they fought, his body transformed subtly but steadily. The most obvious was the dark skin, like plates of armor growing over his body. His hands had transformed into claws from the first strike, but they were actually still growing. He was half a head taller than he had been at the beginning, and much heavier thanks to all the monstrous tissue.

Would all of this produce a Physique breakthrough? Kai had been stuck at D-9 for a long time, past Omilaena's ability to boost him further. Truthfully, high level Physique was still an unknown to her, and her experiences in the Coiled Empire hadn't particularly impressed. There was something missing on a fundamental level, she just had no idea what.

Zae Zin Nim would be the test case. She had a unique body that was heavily entangled with her cultivation, not to mention her culture and her own thoughts. That was going to be a nightmare to figure out, but hopefully also bring them to solutions that could work for all three. She had been collecting Physique manuals from every sect she encountered, so hopefully they would add up to some real insight.

Omilaena realized that her mind was wandering while she watched her lover fight a vicious beast. But as the fight proceeded, Kai stopped flinching at the claw swipes, and his own claws dug deeper every time. He wasn't even really fighting the manticore, he was fighting himself.

Despite her thoughts, she was keeping an eye on his soul, waiting for the slightest flicker of a deeper transformation. But Kai showed no signs of losing control or falling into any technique, Savage Heart or monstrous. He had absolute mastery of himself... there was just something darker beyond if he gave up that mastery.

It would have to be a mystery for another day, because just as the manticore raised its tail for another burst, Kai leapt at its neck. His unnatural maw bit deep into its flesh, and though the manticore struck at him with both paws and tried to smash him into the ground, it was rapidly losing blood. Eventually it collapsed, twitched one final time, and then lay still.

As Kai stood atop the corpse, not roaring but practically radiating victorious energy, Omilaena examined his soul one more time.

Name: Kai Clanless

Total Power: 749

Monstrous Hunger - XIII (nu)

Cultivation: Nascent Foundation 3% (251)

Savage Heart: 16 (162)

Manticore Tattoo (null)

Physique Level: D-9 (245)

Beggar King's Robes: +2 (10)

Soul Level: 9 (81)

>

"Yes, but it seems less efficient. Besides, since we went to all this trouble, I want to get something unique out of it."

"Could you take the tail or the quills? That seems like its most powerful characteristic... but would you grow a tail?"

"Probably wouldn't grow a tail," Kai said with a smile. "I actually ate something called a Lizarkyl, all the way back in Krysal. It had a tail technique that used my energy to project a tail-like strike, but I never really found a use for it."

"Wait, really? How does that work?" Omilaena stared at him until he cooperated.

After rooting around in his soul for a while, Kai stood up and walked to one of the nearest trees that hadn't been overturned by the battle. He focused and power seemed to flow out behind him, as if he'd formed chakra into a thick, powerful length. Then he sort of... threw his hips to the side, and the power whipped into the tree, cracking it in half.

Omilaena burst out laughing, so hard she had to hold her stomach before she was done.

"You see?" Kai rolled his eyes as if irritated, but he couldn't quite hide his smile. "It looks too stupid to use, and it's just inconvenient. So I don't think I'll be getting a tail."

"No, no, you need to use it," Omilaena insisted. "Tell Zin Nim you have a new technique, then show her. She won't be able to stop staring, believe me."

"Alright, alright. You've had your fun."

"But really, wouldn't a manticore tail be more useful? It could curl up behind you, and having an extra limb in a melee can be incredibly useful."

"Probably, but is there any point doing poison? Because of, you know..." Kai gestured in her general direction. "If we need someone poisoned, you're the woman for the job. Seems redundant to waste the essence on that."

"That wasn't what I was thinking at all." Omilaena pulled out one of the quills to demonstrate. "The poison was dangerous, yes, but what made it a threat was that the manticores had such effective projectiles. That's something you don't really have."

"Tyrant's Claw and Baleful Breath can already strike at range."

"Which is fine when you want to destroy, oh, everything in the area. But we won't always be in fights where you can cause such indiscriminate destruction, especially if we get involved in more complex conflicts. You need more options for a precision strike."

Kai listened thoughtfully, then slowly nodded. "You have a good point. I'll have to think about how to make that work, but it's better than anything I was thinking of."

"Great." Omilaena shot upright and returned to the corpse. "Now, let's get everything we need and go confirm the Manticore tribe isn't as dead as their namesake."

"I'm surprised you're so eager to get back."

"Not at all. Once we've checked on them, we have something far more important to do."