Hesitating, Akiel repetitively remodels his green metallic hair. Finally settling on a medium length but curly and swept back hairstyle, he covers it with his cloak. Flexing his fingers, he grabs some extra cloth and makes some gloves. Looking himself over, he sighs and looks around for something to make shoes from. Digging through the miscellaneous pile of materials he had gathered, Akiel shakes his head. Remodeling his feet into segmented shoes instead of feet, he covers the top with some stone. Remodeling the last bits of leather in his collection into a backpack, he stuffs the smoke runes on cloth in as well as a small supply of dark green metal. Smiling at the neatly arranged ingots of metal, he seals the pack.
Satisfied, he steps out of the base. Making sure to properly seal the entrance, he casually walks around the village. Making his way to Josephine’s house, he sighs. “Probably the easiest babysitting I’ve ever done,” he mutters. Skirting around the edges, he directly avoids the large monument of rock and heads deeper into the sparse forest. Pulling out his map, he confirms his heading before putting it away. Remodeling his feet into ones that resemble the corpse he found in the desert, he starts to fly across the ground. With his feet elongated, the stone covering barely served to dampen the shiny green color.
Carefully watching his step, he dodges through trees and boulders. Easily hopping over a fallen log, he chuckles, “At least it beats running. Normally my expenditure would be around five percent an hour not including my natural regeneration. Now, the expenditure is down to three percent.” Compensating for a particularly thick root snagging his foot, he jumps forward hard. Landing, he looks back to see his take-off point several meters behind him. Cocking his head sideways, he bends down and tries to hop with both of his feet. Flying through the air, he thrusts his feet out immediately as he lands, launching himself even further than before.
Smiling, he applies a slightly larger amount of mana and concentrates on controlling how he lands and his trajectory. Continuing for a few minutes, he abruptly stops halfway through a tree. Groaning as he shoves the top portion of the tree away, he remodels his clothes back into pristine form and sighs. “Sure is fun, but they will take a bit of getting used to before I can efficiently use them,” he mutters to himself. Taping his feet on the ground, he starts bouncing in place before bursting forward.
*****
Staring nostalgically up at the cliff, he starts to climb up. Leveraging his now normal feet into crevices and outcroppings, he claws his way up by remodeling his fingers into hook-like claws. Heaving himself up the slope, he glances around. Vigilantly watching the tree line, he scales the cliff as quickly as possible. Scrambling to the top, he heaves himself over the ledge and rolls away. Quickly pulling his gloves out and remodeling his fingers back to normal, he hesitates. Nervously looking around the treetops, he roughly returns the gloves to his backpack.
Swiftly moving through the jungle, he remodels his feet back into elongated paws. Lightly treading through the undergrowth, he closely watches his surroundings. Passing a particularly large tree, he stops to trace the scratch marks gorged into the trunk. Sighing, he says, “Looks like theirs yet another king in the troop.” Continuing on with depression written on his face, he starts moving faster.
Stepping over a large fallen tree, he suddenly jumps. Grabbing onto the hanging apes head, he pulls himself up while holding the ape's mouth shut. Reaching for the branch, he misses and watches as it grows smaller and farther away. Realizing the ape let go, he grapples with it and uses it as a cushion. Frowning, he stomps it's head open and reaches inside. Digging around while watching the surroundings, he stops when he finds nothing. Cocking his head sideways, he peers inside the head and finds a partially decomposed brain sludge. Shaking his head in disbelief, he stabs his hands into its chest, he first tears a vertical line in its skin. Reaching in, he leverages his mass and pry’s the ribcage apart with a wet splintering sound.
Staring at the insides, he takes in a deep breath before chuckling, “Sometimes, it really is difficult to forget to breathe. Either way, it looks like the new boss isn’t an ordinary ape. The best outcome, it’s not an ape and I don’t deal with it. The worst outcome, it’s an undead ape king with an undying army.” Pushing some of the rotting organs around, he grimaces at the sight. Turning his mana sight on, he finds a dark-colored chaotic mana flow swirling around its body. Grabbing one of its ribs, he lightly moves it around until he could clearly see how flexible it is. Shaking his head, he looks around the treetops to find several similar apes just hanging from the trees.
Walking underneath the closest one, he looks up to see it motionlessly hanging without any expression. Pulling it down, he finds it also lacking a beast core. Once again checking his surroundings, he finds no mana at all. Even the trees seemed to be devoid of any mana. Finding the complete darkness unnerving, he presses on. No longer carelessly smiling, Akiel cuts almost all supply of mana from his limbs and slowly moves away. Hoping to avoid calamity, he keeps his mana-sight on while trying to find the edge of the mana void. Moving slowly, he does his best to avoid making excessive noises. Cutting left along the cliff edge, he continues to find more apes. All of which hollowly stare out into the abyss.
Looking over the cliff, he could see the mana perfectly well, but the moment he turned around, his sight lost almost all meaning. Shaking his head, he presses on. Going down a slope, he pauses when he spots movement. Checking again, he finds a dark mass moving parallel to him, just beyond normal eyesight. Pausing with him, the creature slowly moves farther away. Shaking his head at his new stalker, Akiel pretends to keep searching. Shrugging his shoulders, he walks faster than before. Watching the thing stalking him, he struggles to find an explanation for the lack of mana. Not only is it a complete dead zone for mana, but even the existing mana particles also flowed away from it.
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Breaking into a job, Akiel coldly watches his stalker easily keep up. Trying to determine it's shape, he quickly gives up as the mana near it only stays long enough to give him a very rudimentary characteristic. Its height should easily be twice his while it’s length is completely unknown. Judging from its movement pattern, it uses four limbs alternatingly. Growing increasingly anxious, Akiel supplies much more mana than normal and accelerates away at groundbreaking speeds. Checking to his left, he finds the beast loping after him. Watching a moment longer, he finds it catching up. Leaning forward, he supplies even more mana to his feet. At this rate, a quarter of his mana would burn up in just an hour.
Reaching the bank of a river, he leaps across, frantically trying to accelerate faster than his new friend. Taking his backpack off his back, he awkwardly wears it forwards while continuing to run. Checking the jungle, he widens his eyes. He had already exited the mana void, but the thing is still following him! Looking at it harder, he makes out what looks like a leopard. Rummaging through his backpack, he pulls out one of the smoke runes and brings one of his timed electric discharge runes out. Wrapping the fabric around the timed electric discharge rune, he nervously shifts the backpack onto his back. Seeing the beast still catching up, he stops.
Coming to a stop with him, it just watches him silently. Remodeling the extra metal in his backpack into a thin spear and packing the rune away, he slowly walks back into the jungle. Mimicking him, the beast also starts to leisurely make it’s way to him. Breathing out deeply, he empties the air inside his body only to breathe an equal amount back in. Rolling his shoulders, Akiel positions his spear in front of him. Seeing it is just meters away, he turns his mana sight off and waits. Catching a glimpse of something moving around the trees, he waits patiently. Moving his feet to match the creature's direction, he silently remodels his feet back to normal.
Finally seeing a paw emerge from behind a tree, he watches as a glossy and moist-skinned creature comes out. With four thick limbs, each with potentially three claws retracted within, and a horrific head, it let out a low and quiet growl. Finding himself comparing it to a muscle car, Akiel shakes his head. The creature also imitating him shakes his head. Examining the four tulip-like ears structures as well as the awkward jawline. Not only did the jaw not seem to be directly attached to the skull, but it also seemed to be a separate body part. The skin retracted underneath its snout and seemed to go pretty deep before it came back to cover the mouth.
Backing up a bit, Akiel searches his memories for something similar. He’s sure that he saw this structure somewhere, but can’t quite remember. Shrugging, he slowly bends his knees and picks up a small stone. Mimicking him, the beast also crouches lower, but as it did, it also moved forward. Flicking his wrist slightly, he chucks the stone at the beasts face. Carefully observing its reaction, he groans when it ignores the stone. Deciding to see if it will let him go, he steps backward. Instead of following suit, the beast steps towards him. Tilting his head sideways, Akiel watches as the beast no longer copies him. Sighing, he observes it one last time. The possibility of claws is still present, but what seems unusual is the teeth. Large, hooked backward, and very few of them. It definitely doesn’t chew or tear its food. They seem more suited to holding in place.
Making up his mind, he tries to circle around, trying to get at a better angle. The thing not only beats him in speed, but it also has a nasty looking maw. The only way to beat it is to get close and attack it far from its mouth or to directly throw his timed electric discharge rune in its mouth. Complying, the monster also circles him, but it gets closer with each step. Just a few meters away now, its ear organs bloom like a peacock and it lets out a hissing noise from its snout. Ignoring the visual display, Akiel focuses on the monster’s limbs. Waiting for the small dip before it jumps, he continues to let it get closer. Just two meters away, Akiel starts to panic, muttering, “Is it really just circling around with me?”
Just when is attention is about to shift, he sees it. The beast dips slightly before lunging forward. Rolling forward, he jumps to his feet just in time to see its jaw distend away from its skull and clamp shut around the area where his head had been. Huffing, he jabs the beast's neck before diverting a paw swipe with the spear. Trying to roll under another swipe, Akiel finds himself looking at a barbed tail. Gritting his teeth, he hugs the tail as it slams into him, Swinging around on its tail, he smashes into the ground. Desperately holding on, the creature whips him at a tree, breaking both the tree and his grip. Tumbling quite a distance away, Akiel gets up and dusts his clothes off. Looking around, he finds the spear gone. Sighing, he glares at the monstrosity. Remodeling his fingers into claws, he dashes at the beast. Infusing mana into his legs, he accelerates to the beast.
In response, the beast smacks it’s tail into the ground and whips it around like before. Grunting, Akiel slides at the last moment and remodels his feet into spikes. Digging into the ground, he infuses his arms with massive amounts of mana and grabs ahold of its tail. Taking a step away, he yanks on the tail and lifts the beast into the air, smacking it down hard. Scrambling towards the best, Akiel lunges at it only to be swatted away by a paw. Getting back up, he madly dashes to the beast's body. Punching a paw aside, he jumps onto its sleek back and digs his hand in. Mounting it’s back, he clamps his thighs around it and digs in his backpack. Grabbing the rune, he stuffs the smoke rune fabric back and throws the backpack away. Snapping at him, the beast distends it’s jaw in rapid succession trying to grab onto him.
Waiting for the best opportunity, he sticks his hand out. Immediately clamping onto his hand, the creature drags him off it’s back and thrashes him around. Activating the rune, he lets go of it inside of its mouth. Smiling, he latches onto it with his other hand and holds the mouth shut with his body. Curling around the lower jaw, he waits as the thing gets increasingly angry. All of a sudden, the beast stops thrashing. Lowering Akiel to the ground, massive amounts of mana build up in its jaw. Desperate, Akiel tries to remove his hand from its mouth, but the teeth were clamping down so hard that his metal arms had grooves etched into them. Throwing him up, the calamity releases a burst of dark mana sweeping him away. Sighing, his vision swims as he falls back down. Just as the beast is about to jump, lighting erupts from inside of it. Convulsing on the ground, it weakly moans.
Capitalizing on the opportunity, Akiel tries to remodel his hands together into a large stake but finds his mana levels abysmally low. Frowning, he settles for modifying them into shovel like claws and his teeth into jaws meant for tearing. Free Falling back on top of the beast, he wastes no time. Wrestling with the convulsing beast, he latches onto the area just below its jaw. Clawing into the muscular jaw, Akiel bites in and tears the muscles used for extending the jaw out. Spiting the chunk of flesh out he jabs his fist against the inner mouth. Clawing through the flesh and bone, he starts smashing his fist against the equivalent of a hard palate. Abruptly getting up, the creature screeches and holds Akiel down with a paw. Ripping his hand out of its mouth, it staggers away.
Hobbling a few meters away, it turns around to glare at him. Tiredly examining the loosely hanging jaw, he stares back. Splitting its head open, the creature gives one last guttural hiss before hobbling out of sight. Turning over onto his back, Akiel sighs, “Great, the stupid head is just a mass of tentacles.” Lamenting over the wasted time, he slowly lets his mana recover, “Now would be a great time to have a portable battery.”