Maxine growled angrily as five peak silver stage four-horned kanzils charged straight at her and ignored everyone else in their path. She was pissed since no one else got such treatment, not even Cassandra, and it didn't help her mood that she was feeling hungry as well due to the small breakfast she ate. The only thing she could think of to encourage this behavior was that her fighting prowess was known to them. Well, this is what I get for showing off, but then again it's not like they are much of a threat. Now if there were twenty of them attacking me at a distance, I would have a hard time.
She charged at them before they could reach her and beheaded the closest one with a swift slash. She followed up by stabbing at the second closest. He was able to bring up all of his swords to block her stab, but her blade pierced through his weapons and his heart without loosing speed. While she pulled back her blade, one of them tried to sneak attack her from above, but she lashed out with her tail. She felt his neck break when she struck his throat.
The last two attacked her from below and she kicked at both of them. They quickly dodged to the side and slashed their weapons at her. Maxine dropped down and used her weight to hack through their weapons towards the top of their heads. Both of them were split down the middle and each of their half left a trail of blood and organs behind them as they fell.
She quickly looked around for her next opponent and saw several draconic warriors were gradually being pushed back. However even though they were gradually loosing, each draconic warrior was fighting against a pair of equal strength four-horned kanzils by unleashing their pent up wrath. She felt respect for these men and women.
She started attacking the four-horned kanzils viciously from behind to help these valiant warriors. She killed twenty of them before fifty of them caught on and blasted their opponents away wtih energy attacks before charging at her. Now, that's more like it.
Maxine charged at them with a roar and struck down several energy attacks thrown at her. She didn't even slow down when she cut the lead one down and she moved fluidly to attack the next one. He dodged back and lead her into a trap. Two more appeared to either side of her and the three of them attacked her together. She unleashed a rapid flurry to defend against the twelve attacks with such speed that it left an afterimage that made her appear as if she had twelve arms.
As the three four-horned kanzils recoiled from her assault, she gazed at the afterimage that she had caused for a moment and thought that those attacks resembled the form of a striking snake. An idea for a fighting style that suited her battle form popped into her head and she quickly started using the Yin Yang Blades technique. She coupled this technique with the understanding of the speed of a striking snake and began were lashing out with her arms creating in a greyish blurr at the fourty eight that were now surrounding her. Her attacks were still not fast enough. So, she quickly visualized the striking speed and power of a serpent and infused that mental image into each of her strikes to maximize her speed. Slowly her strikes began to resemble a serpent strikes and the weapons of her opponents seemed to have what looked like very shallow snake bite marks on them when they blocked or parried. My technique is powerful, but it's still missing something. What is it?
Four-horned kanzils were dropping out of the sky all around Maxine as she continued her vicious assault, but no matter what approach she took to finish her technique, it didn't feel like it was right. I guess I need to watch snakes in the wild or better yet a hydra in the wild to see how it moves and attacks to finish this technique.
There were only twelve four-horned kanzils left when she felt a spiritual sense flow over her like a wave. Immediately her attackers, along with the other four-horned kanzils, started to flee enmasse. She was confused as to why they were fleeing, but that didn't stop her from unleashing some harrying attacks at them once their backs were turned to her. She sent out her spiritual sense infront of her to see where they were fleeing to and it wasn't towards the place they attacked from. However she stopped dead in her tracks once she felt something very faint on the ground not too far away. It was a child that was barely clinging to life.
She ignored the fleeing four-horned kanzils and flew over towards that child. Her face lit up with hope when she realized it was where the four-horned kanzils fed on the children before the battle.
She quickly landed on the ground very close to the kid. Her eyes locked onto a small ten year old boy. His arms and legs have been chewed off. He had no signs of life in him, but she saw a determined look forever plastered on his face. She walked over to him and returned her blades back inside of her dimensional ring in the same way that she removed them and she flipped the dead boy over to reveal the boy's still-living three year old brother. The small boy was unconscious and had a sizeable chunk of flesh missing in the shape of a bite mark from his left shoulder. He was extremely weak from bloodloss, but he was alive.
Maxine knelt down beside the boy and retrieved a nutritional potion from her dimensional ring. She very carefully poured ten drops of it into his mouth before he swallowed reflexively. Normally a full potion could sustain her for a day. Ten drops should be more than enough to restore his strength enough for her to heal him. She drank the rest herself to replenish the reserves she spent earlier, but oddly, she was still hungry. I definitely didn't get enough to eat this morning.
She channeled the healing half of her essence into the boy as a faint silver glow eminated off of her flesh. She didn't dare allow her healing to draw strength from his already weakened body. It would kill him in his weakened state even with a nutritional potion in him. Instead, she used only her power to heal him. It was extremely draining to heal someone in this way, but it was the safest way for the patient. The wound on his shoulder closed very quickly and his missing flesh started to regrow in place.
Once his wound completely closed, she started to feel extremly hungry to the point it was concerning. The scent of blood and gore, combined with her hunger, caused her to salivate without her realizing it. What the fuck is wrong with me?! I'm acting like an ... animal. I need to get out of her and get something to eat. I have a feeling that if I don't something bad will happen.
"Why the hell did you come all the way out here instead of ..." Cassandra's angry rant died on her lips as she descended from the skies and she quickly landed beside Maxine, "By the heavens, a survivor!" She quickly scooped up the boy and embraced him protectively.
"Four arms bit his shoulder. Piece of it was missing. I heal him and make him whole," Maxine explained and suddenly realized something was very wrong with this situation. She hadn't thought about it earlier due to her concern over the little boy. Now that I think about it, the four-horned kanzils could've sensed this boy was alive just as easily as I could. So why did they let him live? Was he... bait? But who was their intended prey? Me, Cassandra or worse yet, both?
"I...," Cassandra said weakly without releasing the boy before she gave Maxine a look of respect, "Thank you. We need to get back ot the city. I need to get this little guy behind ..." Cassandra's face paled as she looked into the sky behind Maxine. Damn it. I hate being right.
Maxine turned around and stared at not one, but a dozen gold stage four-horned kanzils. The strongest of them had a cultivation equal to Cassandra's and he was showing a very confident smile. However his gaze wasn't on Cassandra, like Maxine would have expected. He was looking at Maxine instead. And that answers who the bait was for.
"You need to run. Right now," Maxine said without taking her eyes off of the four-horned kanzils and when Cassandra didn't move, she roared, "Didn't you hear me?! I said RUN! They only want me!" Maxine didn't look at Cassandra. Instead she did locked her spiritual senst onto Cassandra. She saw the surprise on Cassandra's face a moment before she flew off at top speed while shielding the boy. A couple of the four-horned kanzils looked reluctant about letting her leave. Otherwise they made no move to stop Cassandra from leaving.
The gold rank seven four-horned kanzil gaze never left Maxine. It was as if Cassandra didn't even matter to him. He slowly descended to the ground and walked towards Maxine before stopping ten paces away from her. "My name is Sitan," the powerful four-horned kanzil said in the local's language, "I apologize for the previous demonstration. I can see, based on your anger, that you must have a child of your own. We meant no offense to you. We were only trying to incite our enemies into attacking us. But I have to ask, do they have your child? Is that why you fight for them?" It sounded like he was genuinely concerned, but she saw his earlier smile. He only wanted her for her unusual bloodline. I still need to play along to buy Cassandra some time to get away. I hope my acting skills are up to it. Ugh, I wish I wasn't getting so damn hungry. It's making it hard to think straight. On the upside, whatever bad happens, will happen to these four-horned assholes.
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Instead of answering him, Maxine gave him a glare colder than ice and withdrew her Twilight Iron Blades from her dimensional ring. "I'm sorry. As I said before, I didn't mean to offend or upset you," Sitan said as he backed off a couple steps while holding up his open palms defensively, "I could think of no other reason for a noble creature such as you to fight for them. I simply wish to help reunite you with your child."
"Why?" Maxine asked in a frigid tone as she felt her stomach rumble ever so softly as her hunger began increasing in intensity.
"It's painful to watch a hydra, especially one that has taken a humaniod form, to be force to work for those weaklings without even being fed properly simply because they took her child while she was away hunting," Sitan explained.
"Lies," Maxine growled and she instantly got into a fighting stance, "You only want to mate with me so that your child will have my bloodline." God, I can't put up with this hunger for much longer. It's so strong that this asshole infront of me is starting to look like a big juicy steak. I just need to last for a few more seconds until Cassandra is safely back in the city.
"I do admit that was on my mind, but only if you are willing," Sitan said as he backed off a few more steps, "If not, we will part ways after your child is safely back in your care."
"I think not. Even if they had my daughter, all agreeing to your help would change is who has my daughter. But thankfully, they don't have her. She is safe with her future husband on another world," Maxine said with a grin as Cassandra finally reached inside of the city, "I'm only associating with them for access to a certain resource and to find out how it's grown." Why did I just tell him that? I'm so fucking hungry I can barely think straight. God, all I can see when I look at them is a big pile of meat.
"You...," Sitan said in surprise and he quickly became angry, "You played me. Well done. Now we do it the fun way." Damn it. I can't take it anymore!
"I must FEED!" Maxine roared as couldn't hold back her maddening hunger any longer and she charged at the weakest of the gold stage four-horned kanzils. Two of them were close enough to intercept Maxine, but she lashed out at them twelve times to knock them out of her way.
Just as she got infront of her opponent, she attacked his weapons four weapons to break them and once they broke, she hacked off his hands at the wrist. She sent her Twilight Iron Blades back into her dimensional ring and grabbed a hold of the four-horned kanzil's shoulder before she bit down onto his meaty neck muscles. The taste of his flesh could only be described as a high class meat. An expression of bliss covered her face as she tore his flesh free with her teeth and chewed it only a couple times before swallowing it down. For the breifest moment, a dim part of her mind was horrified, but that feeling was squashed in moments by a maddening hunger that overwhelmed her mind.
She bit several pieces off of the screaming four-horned kanzil in the span of a second before two of his companions could tackle her away from him, but it was too late to stop her now. Her body began to rapidly expand and the scales on her skin started to get larger and more numberous. Her clothes were torn to shreds almost instantly.
Her neck rapidly lengthened as her head changed shape into that of a large snake. She felt eleven new necks and heads rapidly formed from around her collar bone and upper back. Her shoulders widened and her limbs grew longer as thick muscle began forming on them. Her tail grew even longer and thicker than before as the rest of her body rapidly changed.
Once her transformation was complete, her body was the size of a greyhound bus and each of her twelve serpentine heads were a two and a half feet long and a foot wide with a quill-like white mane extending out of the base of their skulls. Her four legs were laden muscle and her tail was nearly twice as long as her body.
The two that had tackled her earlier were retreating backwards quickly with terror written all over their faces just to her right. However she wasn't going to get very far. She was too hungry for that.
Her two rightmost heads stretched out ten feet to grab them and pulled them in to the rest of her heads. In a matter of seconds, those two were stripped of flesh in a blurr of chomping teeth. She couldn't get enough of their delicious flesh and barely noticed when she ate their cores along with their hearts. She tossed the almost skeletal remains away and looked at the other ten prey.
One of them was badly wounded since it was missing it's hands and the other nine were preparing to fight her. She instantly targeted the wounded one as the others unleashed their attacks at her. These prey were hurting her, but the wounds were so shallow that they healed almost as fast as they could inflict them on her. Thus she ignored them as she snatched up the wounded one. She stripped the flesh from his bones and devoured his core and felt her strength surging at her latest meal. More! I MUST HAVE MORE!
Just as she finished her meal, one of her heads was blasted apart. She howled in pain as her heads flailed wildly in the air. As her destroyed head rapidly regenerated, her twelve heads locked their gaze onto the culprit that caused her such pain. He wasn't the weakest, nor strongest. However that creature incited her wrath and she charged at him. He foolishly tried to escape, but he flew far too slowly to escape from her. She snatched him up like the others and started to slowly strip the flesh from arms and legs to punish him for destroying one of her heads. His screams were like music to her, but he didn't last long before her hunger overwrote her desire for revenge. She quickly finished him off by devouring his core.
She turned her heads to look at the other prey before her and flicked her tongues in the air. She scented their fear, but noticed that there were only two left. She was confused since she thought there was more of them and saw six rapidly shrinking dots in the distance. This momentary pause in her assault allowed the human part of her mind to take over for few moments and caused her to freeze in place. Oh, my god. What have I done?! I can't stop myself! You idiots have to run away! No one deserves to be eaten alive, not even child murdering bastards like you. Don't just stand there. RUN!!
Unfortunately, her mental cries were not heard as the forever hungry beast within her took over once more and she rushed the two gold stage four-horned kanzils that were buying their comerades time to flee. They flew in different directions and she chased after the slower of the two. She caught up to him, but unlike the others, he chose to self-destruct rather than be eaten alive.
The explosion burnt the scales covering her faces off and damaged most her eyes rendering her blind. However it only took a handful of seconds for the damage to repair itself. She looked around with each of her heads to look for the closest source of fresh meat to satisfy her hunger. There were two large sources. One was a rapidly fleeing group of the same delicious prey that she just feasted on and another group of that was further away but wasn't moving. However she didn't know what they tasted like.
She couldn't decide which one to go after and that was all the opportunity that her human side needed to take control once more. This time she was able to maintain control and with every ounce of will th at Maxine possessed, she forced herself to fly away from both groups at top speed. She didn't want to become a mindless forever hungry beast again. She knew that so long as there wasn't any living creatures in close proximity to her she could control herself.
She closed all of her eyes and mouths to avoid seeing or scenting any sources of meat as she forced herself to revert to her battle form, but she felt extreme resistance to this change. Her intense hunger was inhibiting her attempts to revert. It took longer to change than she wanted, but after ten minutes of flying, she managed to revert back regardless of the resistance. Unfortunately as a side effect, she was exhausted.
She dashed into a jungle and retrieved a dozen nutritional potions and food stuffs from her dimensional ring before consuming them like someone that hadn't eaten for weeks. She needed to get this abnormal hunger satisfied before it took control of her again. Once her hunger was down to a more manageable level, she retrieved a set of hide clothing from her dimensional ring before getting dressed. Afterwards when it finally set in what she had done, she her stomach lurched, but nothing came up. All of the potions and food she consumed had been digested as quickly as she ate it. I ate them! And what's worse, I enjoyed it! NO! Don't think about it.
She kept dry heaving for several minutes, but eventually, the urge to vomit disappeared. She still felt sick to her stomach, but it wasn't as bad as it was before. However she felt the blood run out of her face when her hunger started to build up once more. No, I will not be ruled by my hydra bloodline's instincts to feed! She closed her eyes and took a deep breath while she steadied her mind.
"This is my body. I will not be ruled by my hydra bloodline," Maxine said to herself to solidify her mental defenses, "My hunger is only in my mind. I don't actually need to eat. I'm a human with a hydra bloodline, not an actual hydra." The hunger slowly receded as she directed her will to fight it. However she knew it was a temporary measure. She could still feel her hydra bloodline demanding that she dine on the flesh of her enemies. She needed to loosen the hold that her hydra bloodline had on her and to do that, she needed to spend some a few days out of her battle form at a minimum. Well, this poses a problem. I don't want to change into a hydra again if I can't control it, but I also don't want to be caught out of my battle form. It just takes too long to transform into it. Even with my wolves guarding my lair, it would take me too long to get to full combat readiness if a gold stage four-horned kanzil attacked. My wolves just wouldn't be able to last that long. And hiding somewhere on this planet until my issue is resolve isn't an option either. The four-horned kanzils have planetary scanners that would track me down fairly easily. That just leaves staying in one of the cities. I'm not a big fan of that idea. They already don't like the idea of me being intelligent. Although after my recent transformation, they might prefer that I'm intelligent. An intelligent being would realize that transforming into a hungry hydra would be very bad for those around them. But now that I think about it, I may have revealed my intelligence to Cassandra when I yelled at her to run away. Still, there's the problem that I need to be out of my battle form. How do I explain it to them when they see me in my base or shadow queen form? At least, I have some time to come up with an explaination while I run back.