Depthless Hunger

As the manticore bore down on them, Kai actually swayed on his feet. He'd grown so used to Behemoth's Heart taking care of small aches and pains that he was off balance at first. It swiped with one massive paw, only to be met by Omilaena hurling needles into the pad of its foot. The manticore pulled back with another roar, but the needles looked tiny compared to its bulk.

"I don't think poison is going to bring it down," Omilaena said. "You okay?"

"I'll manage." Kai regained his balance and, when the manticore lashed out with its tail, he was able to strike it aside.

Given time, Behemoth's Heart could neutralize the manticore's poison, but until then he couldn't count on it to regenerate any wounds. At least half a dozen quills had pierced his body, and combined the ache was starting to get to him. He could definitely fight, but for how long? This wasn't the time to play around and try for a challenge.

When the manticore raised its tail again, he saw that the quills seemed to have regenerated. Before it could attack, Kai created the strongest Tyrant's Claw he could and swung his hand, aiming to decapitate the beast in the first strike.

He might have a decisive power advantage, but he wasn't quite fast enough: the manticore managed to twist aside and his claw only tore through its mane. That slowed it down enough that he and Omilaena had time to leap away before it unleashed the next wave of quills.

When they landed in the forest, a decent distance away, he heard Omilaena grunt. There was a quill through the flesh of her calf and she stumbled a step. As soon as she saw his look, she shook her head.

"The poison can't kill me, but this isn't going to be good."

"Quick kill?" Kai asked. "Or retreat?"

Before he could answer, the manticore pursued them. It didn't charge into the clearing where they stood, wary of his power, instead prowling through the shadows around them. The beast moved far more sinuously through the trees than anything that large should have been able to, and he could see the quills on its tail regrowing. Powerful as it was, the beast was fundamentally an ambush predator, so they couldn't give it the advantage by waiting.

But the manticore should have attacked more aggressively, because it was too late now. Kai breathed Baleful Breath toward it, forcing it to flee, and felt Omilaena releasing poison behind him. They spun around, back to back, and created a full circle of deadly smoke around them.

As soon as the adult manticore was completely lost in the clouds, they plunged into the poison at max speed and Omilaena grabbed the small manticore corpse. For a time they simply ran, Omilaena pushing herself hard to keep up with Thunderbird's Wings. It ended a considerable distance away when she collapsed to the forest floor, clutching her leg.

Yet when she looked up at him, she grinned. "That thing was a challenge after all, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess I underestimated it." Kai's smile became a grimace as he pulled one of the quills out of his back. "We could probably have won, buying time until I recovered, but maybe it's better to take it on without the ambush."

"I could use more of its venom, anyway. Can't get venom from a dead monster."

"Except it's not a monster. Did you suspect the first one might be a young manticore?"

"I have no frame of reference for the species, but I figured if they're sacred beasts, they must breed, which means-" Another manticore emerged from of the trees, silent as death.

Kai saw it with brutal clarity as it raised its tail toward Omilaena's back. This manticore was sleeker, with no mane and darker-colored quills on its tail. It was nearly as large as the first adult, though, and he had no doubt the quills would be just as deadly.

He had no time to try to intercept its attack. Instead Kai leapt to the opposite side of Omilaena, Thunderbird's Wings exploding from his back, and turned to wrap them around her. Quills struck his back and wings, some of them piercing, but none of them got through to her.

It should have been over, but this manticore wasn't done, unleashing another burst of quills. Kai grimaced and tried to achieve a defensive half-phase, making the quills break against his skin, but it couldn't last. The wings were thin and never meant to be used as a shield, yet if they broke and Omilaena was hit by the full attack...

He reached deeper into the Savage Heart, willing it to thicken his wings, create armor, anything that could endure the attack. As he went deeper into his soul, the ground seemed to give out from under him and he fell and fell and fell...

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Omilaena had been completely unaware of the first attack, so Kai's defense had been all that saved her. After that she forced herself back to her feet, ignoring the pain in her leg, and intended to grab him and pull him away from the ongoing quill assault.

Then suddenly Kai's eyes darkened, becoming abysses that contained hints of something worse. She had seen him partially transform before, but this was different: the monstrous flesh of his claws was running up his arms, the leathery skin of his wings spread across his back, and his mouth began to twist into something inhuman.

He dropped onto all fours and then sprang at the female manticore with a terrible roar. It tried to unleash more quills, but they splintered off the new armor growing over his body. Kai hit the beast as a pure monster, slamming it into a nearby tree. They rolled together, tearing at one another, and he came out on the other side of the beast.

Immediately his claws grabbed the tail and he pulled, first swinging the manticore to smash into the ground, then hacking at the base of the tail. As Omilaena watched in shock, he tore off the tail and spun it around, first savagely bludgeoning the beast and then thrusting the tail through its chest.

Kai at his full strength might have been able to kill a manticore that fast, but he never would have done it that way. This was something different, something savage... as he turned from the corpse toward her, his soul flickered in her vision.

Monster: ???

Threat: ???

>

No, that wasn't right. This was still Kai, even if he was staring at her with monstrous hunger. She forced herself to look harder, to remember that this was the Savage Heart being fueled by his chakra. When she did, Omilaena managed to see his familiar soul, but something new leaped out at her.

Savage Form (+50)

>

Her eyes widened as she saw a Savage Form granting him additional strength. The Savage Heart users on Rosemount had been able to transform, revealing strength that was otherwise left hidden. She had presumed that because Kai's power was purely monstrous, it was active at all times instead of being hidden, but apparently that theory was incorrect.

"That's pretty impressive," Omilaena started to say, but then Kai lunged for her.

Given her injuries, she had no chance of getting out of the way. Kai had her gripped in his claws a second later, pushed up against a tree. A naive part of her felt a flutter of excitement, as she wouldn't have minded a wild Kai ravishing her, but the cynical part saw that his eyes held only death.

His jaws opened wide and she barely ducked underneath the bite. She formed and hurled needles directly at his face even as she twisted out of his grip. It almost wasn't possible, but the needles ringing off his armored head distracted him enough for her to use her leverage and escape.

She only got a few steps away before Kai was staring at her again, growling. Instead of trying to run, Omilaena raised her hands to either side. "Kai, it's me. You've gone too deep into the Savage Heart, you need to come back."

No reaction whatsoever. Omilaena felt a flicker of real fear and started to take a step back, but at that moment she heard another roar.

The sound of the other manticore made Kai's head swivel sharply, then twist. When he looked back, she saw that something human had returned to his gaze. He still looked like a monster, but when those burning pits fixed on her, there was a hint of recognition.

"Omi... laena...?" Suddenly Kai's monstrous armor began to dissolve and he collapsed.

Despite what she'd just seen, Omilaena leapt forward to catch him before he could fall. He felt reassuringly heavy and human against her, but there was no time for that. She managed to pull his body far enough for her to grab the female manticore corpse, then she fled.

Eventually she found a crevice between hills, too narrow for the male manticore to enter, and made camp there. For a time she heard the roars of pain and rage as it paced around the forest, but it didn't seem able to sniff them out. Omilaena could understand its pain, in a distant way, but she cared far more about her own mate than some beast's.

As she prepared the Prana Jewels to treat Kai, Omilaena realized yet again that all her fears earlier had been for nothing. When she was on her own, the doubts seeped through her like venom, but as soon as she was with them again, she knew what she wanted.

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Kai remembered none of it. He had felt the pain, and the desperation trying to increase his defenses, then he had woken up. Everything in between was just an explanation he struggled to believe.

When he first jerked awake he'd been intensely afraid for Omilaena, so much that he thrashed upright until she soothed him back down. She removed the last quills from his body, absorbed the poison as best she could, and let him recover. Her own leg had been bandaged and she treated it very gingerly.

"I can't believe I almost killed you," he said again. He'd said it at least twice since she'd explained.

"Almost, but you didn't. You just need to gain control." Omilaena touched his shoulder surprisingly gently as she cleaned off another wound.

"Can I? The Savage Heart always preached about giving in to your wild impulses. If mine are monstrous, there might be nothing human inside them."

"You've always told me that you're a true mixture of the two. The fact that you can fall into that hunger for a while doesn't mean it will always be in control." Omilaena drew back slightly and examined his soul for the trait that he'd never personally seen. "My best guess is that the strength you normally use is what you can tap into while under full control, but if you push a step further you gain a transformation."

"I never felt anything like that before."

"You never tried to use it that way, or the Savage Heart wasn't strong enough, or maybe it has something to do with finishing the Body Refinement stage. Whatever the reason, this is something you'll have to figure out."

"Right." Kai rubbed his forehead for a while, then other thoughts began to push through the shock. "So what do we do now?"

"Well, I have the bodies of the two manticores we killed." Omilaena pulled the smallest manticore head out of her sack to show him. "We could go back and declare the hunt a success."

For a moment the silence stretched between them, as if what had happened had damaged something important... then he saw the slight twitch at the corner of her lips. Despite everything, Omilaena still trusted him and still wanted to do this.

"Obviously not," Kai said. "Let's get ready for a rematch."

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