It wasn’t even a challenge. The trodil was taken completely unawares and a message was floating up in front of Dominic’s eyes before it could even fight back.
[You have dealt 112 damage (Piercing+Tearing+Crushing)]
[You have killed Trodil (Basic Beast level 3)]
[You have earned 27 PP]
That was the more powerful one? Dominic thought to himself, surprised. Yes, actually the body lying on the ground did look bigger than most of its species he’d seen so far.
It was a testament, then, to how a surprise attack could be utterly overwhelming. Of course, a crushing bite to the neck would ruin anyone’s day – Dominic knew that intimately. The human-turned-lion was interested to see just how much damage that one attack had done by referencing his log, his theories about the damage qualities of his natural weaponry completely proven.
As he looked at the level 3 trodil thoughtfully, he theorised something else: why the trodil had so carefully crept towards his head. Sure, it could have just been going for a killing bite to his neck just as Dominic had done to it. But if so, why not approach Dominic from behind? Why walk straight in front of him? What if it was trying to steal back the key? Dominic wondered.
It was an interesting question, and if he was right, it meant that there was no way he should leave the key unguarded, useful to know since he had been considering leaving the key piece near the door it was supposed to open.
Sighing, he instead resigned himself to carrying it around in his mouth like the trodils had been. He’d have to put it down when in a fight though...he would have grimaced if his mouth could twist that way. Instead, he just felt his lips rise to bare his teeth. Hopefully this won’t turn into one of those fights where if I take my eye off it for a moment, something will come and steal it.
*****
Fifteen minutes later, Dominic realised that it had absolutely turned into one of those fights where he had to keep his eye on the key piece at all times. Well, perhaps that was a little bit of an exaggeration. It was more a case of needing to stay within a certain range of it, at least until all enemies were focused on him.
At the beginning of the fight, he’d spat the key piece out and gone for one of the trodils, only to realise that the other smaller one was taking advantage of his distraction to try and grab it. He’d only noticed the snatch and grab when a glint of gold had caught his eye as it went running past.
At least Quick Strike was showing its value: the ability allowing him to make lunges at a speed the trodils attacking him were not expecting. The body of the sneak-thief already lying on the floor offering proof to his combat power.
A well-aimed Quick Strike had added speed to his leap, allowing him to break its back in a single strike. Another bite had ended the unfortunate dog-like creature.
It had been then that he’d realised that the two smaller trodils attacking him were in fact level 2s: in comparison to the third trodil, they’d looked small enough to be level 1s.
After that, Dominic was careful not to let the key piece out of sight, though he had a feeling that it was safer now than before. He was engaging the second moving trodils: the third was much more static.
The larger trodil was in a similar position to Dominic: guarding a key piece. Like him, it had spat it out at the beginning of the fight, but, unlike him, it seemed unwilling to go more than a single body-length away from it. Absently Dominic wondered whether it was worried that one of its own kind would take the opportunity to steal the golden object from it in the same way they would steal it from the lion.
The smaller trodil suddenly lunged at Dominic, using its own version of the ability he’d gained from absorbing their kind’s Beast Cores.
He didn’t flinch, instead just pushing backwards to shift his weight onto his back paws and then activating Quick Strike himself to take out the smaller trodil as gravity pulled his heavier front back down to earth.
His weight was too much for the small trodil to handle, and it quickly collapsed below him, its failure to resist gravity spelling its end as his jaws bit its head half off.
[You have dealt 105 damage (Piercing+Tearing+Crushing)]
[You have killed Trodil (Basic Beast level 2)]
[You have earned 24 PP]
I wonder if I’ve earned another level up, yet? Dominic wondered in the moment between the end of that trodil and the attack of the last.
With the end of the last of its two subordinates, the final trodil, bigger by half again than the other two, seemed to go into another ‘phase’. Under Dominic’s curious gaze, it swelled, growing in size. It still wasn’t quite Dominic’s rival when it came to either height or length, but it was impressively close considering that the basic level one beast barely reached halfway up his legs.
In addition to its suddenly bulging muscles, the trodil’s gaze became maddened and it started attacking with no regard for either its personal safety or the key piece it had left abandoned on the floor.
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Dominic quickly found himself avoiding its noticeably faster lunges with only a hair’s breadth to spare where before it had been easy to dodge. He even started accumulating the first injuries of the fight as the trodil turned an apparently misjudged lunge into a slash at his side instead.
Growling, Dominic started focusing more, sensing that he needed to give his full attention to the fight rather than the distracted focus he’d been able to get away with before.
The trodil lunged. Dominic shifted sideways to avoid it, the position putting him in a position to use Quick Strike to target the trodil’s flank.
[You have dealt 21 damage (Tearing)]
The trodil spun around almost quicker than Dominic could register and a piercing pain in his back haunch revealed that it had sunk its teeth into his flesh.
[You have taken 20 damage (Piercing+Tearing)]
Dominic tore himself away from the trodil's teeth, twisting back on himself to attack its own haunches. He felt the impact of his reduction to flexibility as his body didn’t quite do what he was expecting it to do. The final movement was acceptable, however, and he quickly sank his claws into the flesh above the trodil’s hips.
[You have dealt 9 damage (Piercing+Tearing+Slicing)]
The trodil squealed, its high-pitched sound more like a pig than the dog it appeared similar to. It tried to pull away, but Dominic was still the larger and stronger creature. With the additional length to his claws, it would take a lot more effort than that to detach him. Not to mention that the trodil would cause itself a huge amount of pain and damage in the process.
From behind, with his claws essentially controlling the trodil’s lateral movement, it was easy for Dominic to avoid his prey’s snapping teeth. Treating the trodil like a zebra he had latched onto, Dominic started biting at its hindquarters, aiming to hit the spine.
[You have dealt 37 damage (Piercing+Tearing)]
[You have dealt 22 damage (Piercing)]
[You have dealt 62 damage (Piercing+Crushing)]
When its back legs went limp, he knew he’d won. With its back half useless, the madness in the trodil’s gaze cleared to reveal fear. Along with the fear came weakness as the trodil’s body lost its increased size and strength.
A bite to his enemy’s neck and a couple of minutes later, Dominic saw another message appear in front of him.
[You have dealt 52 damage (Piercing+Crushing)]
[You have killed Trodil (Basic Beast level 4)]
[You have earned 31 PP]
Excellent. Releasing the body, Dominic quickly went to make sure his prizes were within easy reach, not wanting some other trodil to sneak by and steal them away while wasn’t paying attention.
Now with two key pieces, he could see how they would be fixed together. Both were basically pieces of golden-coloured metal in a vaguely triangular shape. Given the preponderance of hexagons to the whole temple design – having by now seen all angles of the building, Dominic could say for sure that it was hexagonal – he would have thought that the keys would make a hexagon together. The only issue with that was that there were only five keys to collect, not six.
Anyway, the two pieces he had didn’t actually fit together at all, though he could see how they probably would with other pieces. After quickly consuming the bodies, Dominic settled down to look at his status screen.
Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo
Species: Lion (body) / human (mind), Two-Souled
Level: Basic Beast Level 4 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 277/121 PP level up
Hunger level: 100%
Thirst level: 100%
Quests: A Noble Endeavour; Regain what is Lost
Acquired Abilities:
Quick Strike (T0) level 1 (30% to level 2) – 3 SP for +20% speed; 6 SP for +30% speed
Powerful Kick level 1 (44%)
Crushing Bite level 1 (30%)
Defensive abilities:
- Fur level 2 (2-4 Slicing damage reduction, 1-2 Piercing damage reduction, 3-4 Crushing damage reduction)
- Skin level 2 (2-3 Slicing damage reduction, 1-2 Piercing damage reduction) Flexibility -3%
Offensive abilities:
- Claws level 2 (6-11 Slicing damage, 6-8 Tearing damage, 3-5 Piercing damage)
- Bite level 1 (32-50 Crushing damage, 27-50 Tearing damage, 25-35 Piercing damage)
General abilities:
- Muscular Body level 3 (max speed 24mps; max speed duration 10s) (45/60 SP)
- Carnivore Constitution level 1 (300 HP)
Although he’d absorbed three bodies, the amount of stamina he’d consumed between normal fighting and using Quick Strike meant that he still hadn’t returned to full on that.
On the other hand, there were some other more interesting changes to his status sheet. First of all the fact that he probably had another two level ups essentially in the bag, and now he had more practice with using Quick Strike in battle, he had a better idea of what he needed to improve.
Activating the level up, he was curious to see that there was a new entry to the list of physical elements he could improve.
[Strike – improve your speed and power when attacking]
Almost curious enough just to choose that one for pure novelty value, Dominic forcibly controlled his urge. You know what to choose. Select that one later. Still, it was interesting that he’d gained another enhancement option as well as the ability itself.
[You have chosen to enhance your Skin (more flexible). Apply changes?]
Quickly accepting the change, Dominic navigated to his status screen. The first change that attracted his attention was that he had got a few more Prey Points than needed to level up a second time. Excellent.
Progress to Evolution: 156/140 PP level up
The next change was the results of his test.
- Skin level 3 (2-3 Slicing damage reduction, 1-2 Piercing damage reduction) Flexibility +1%
Awesome, he commented to himself. Honestly, he couldn’t have been more pleased with the outcome. Not only had he gained enough flexibility to turn his value positive from its previous negative, but he hadn’t actually lost any damage reduction. I wonder if these are supposed to work together?
It was an interesting thought. Go hard on one aspect of the body and get an awesome ability with some serious weaknesses. Or take a measured approach and shore up weaknesses while increasing strength. The consequence of the second, of course, was that none of the strengths would be particularly strong.
It was with that in mind that he activated his next level up, seeing no point in saving it now he had more idea about where he wanted to take his development.