The drop was only a few metres, but it seemed to last a lifetime. It felt like he was skydiving, even though he wasn't even two storeys up. The bearcat reacted, its ears swivelling to the new source of noise and body twisting around to confront it -- too slowly to foil Symon's plan.
Symon impacted blade first, ramming the centipede mandible into the monster's spine with the full force of his body's weight. The lack of a handle or even a safe spot to hold it by meant that he slashed his own hand deeply, his palm sliding down the sharp side of the blade as he wedged it in as deep as he could. The beast roared in agony and confusion as it increased its efforts to scramble through the gap.
Symon knew that if it got out without any further damage, it would have little trouble killing him in straight combat now that his ambush had been sprung. He tried to push the blade even deeper, but it snapped off after half of its length was forced into the creature's body. Still, it was dangerously close to its spine, although only time would tell exactly how badly the beast was affected.
He held onto the bearcat's back for dear life, his legs wrapping around its body like he was riding a horse, squeezing with all his might despite the lingering injuries. With a vicious snarl that would have sounded more at home coming from the monster, Symon gripped the monster's thick fur with one hand and raised the other into the air, the ethereal grey thread dangling behind it like spider silk caught in a breeze. Finally, he brought his hand down into a slap, gripping onto the monster in a bear hug.
When Symon was a boy, before his illness, his father had taken him fishing. He'd had a bright blue Transformers-themed rod and had a great time with it out on the water. He remembered holding it as fish took little nibbles on his bait, sending vibrations all the way through the line and into his arms. Eventually, a fish had bitten through the hook and drawn the line taut, almost tugging him overboard with the suddenness of it. He felt something similar now, and he focused in on it.
He felt a subtle connection between him and the beast, tracing a path -- from inside it, through his thread, through his arm, and settling in his chest just across from his heart. It was weak, barely noticeable, like a tiny line on a misty morning. All of a sudden, as if reacting to his attention, a burning explosion raced through this pathway and into Symon. His heart pounded in his chest and he gasped for breath as the monster shuddered underneath him, roaring in pain and finally freeing itself from the collapsed entrance.
Symon maintained his white-knuckled grip as molten lava thundered through his veins. It felt unbelievably, indescribably, good. He felt like an addict getting his first dose after a week of withdrawals, like he'd just torn his muscles lifting a car off a trapped child. It felt so, so intensely wonderful and yet his body was screaming at him that something unnatural was happening.
He felt the heat pulse out in waves, coalescing around his injuries. He stared in awe as his damaged arm, the one the centipede had wrapped itself around and dug its legs into, scabbed over in real-time. This moment of distraction was all the bearcat needed, shaking its entire body like a wet dog and flinging Symon off to the side.
He flew through the air for the second time this fight, landing heavily and rolling in the sand. He didn't fight it, allowing his momentum to take him further away from the giant maw of the creature. He might not have been able to stop himself even if he wanted to, his brain feeling like it was rebooting after the intense feeling of consciously using Seize. He staggered to his feet, carefully taking a step back before speeding up once he found the pain in his leg was mostly gone. It still ached, but he was back to running condition. His opponent was still thrashing wildly in pain and probably more than a little confusion, so he spared a glance at the tattoo representing his vessel. It was about half full but dropping by the second, and it was clear why; he was feeling better and better.
It felt like something was stuck to his arm, and when he brushed at it a mess of scabs fell off, revealing fresh pink skin underneath. It was a little gross, but far from the worst thing his body had been through, even before arriving in this desert.
The bearcat was still thrashing about -- apparently trying to dislodge the embedded mandible blade -- so Symon continued jogging backwards away from the monster, keeping his eyes on it while trying not to draw any further attention to himself. Eventually, it stopped thrashing, although not voluntarily -- it must have damaged its spine further as its back legs were awkwardly unresponsive. That didn't stop it from rounding towards Symon and dragging itself further with just its front legs. Even ignoring its injury, the stolen Vitality had noticeably slowed it down, and when both were taken together it had made the creature much less threatening.
Symon easily maintained his distance from the bearcat as its efforts became weaker and weaker. He led it in a wide circle, ending up back near the tower when it finally collapsed. It almost felt too easy, but he decided to take it as a lesson in remaining vigilant. If it was a massive panther -- with jaws wide and strong enough to crush his skull -- that had ambushed him instead of just a centipede, he would have been done for.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It must have been the king of the area, considering it lived in the prime real estate of the collapsed tower, and yet he'd taken it out easily through foreknowledge and planning.
It was still alive, although not for long. He needed every last drop of vitality to survive his journey. Approaching it allowed Symon to hear its wheezing breaths and see the bloodied spittle dripping out of its mouth. It stared at him with an unfocused angry look, as if it wasn't sure exactly where he was standing. He moved around to its limp back legs and cautiously summoned the grey thread representing Seize. It had grown in length, extending out from the tip of his finger by a full hand's length. He smiled, imagining the day he'd be able to defend himself without needing to get so up close and personal.
A while away at this rate, but still...
The thread connected to the beast on its own once he brought his hand close enough, as if it was magnetically attracted to the life inside the creature. As before, the same feeling of icy hot, burning cold heat flowed up his hand and settled in his chest. It was euphoric and nearly overwhelming, but he was expecting it this time and managed to stay aware of his target, just in case it made one final effort to kill him. It didn't.
He glanced down at his chalice tattoo. By the time the beast had collapsed, it had stabilised at a quarter full, and was now ticking slowly but steadily upward. Without any injuries to spend its stored vitality on, nothing was preventing it from filling up. He considered experimenting with using it to heal the bearcat just a little -- the ability description implied he could heal other beings with manual effort -- but decided not to risk it. It would only take a moment for it to twist around and clamp its jaws down on his head.
Besides, it seems cruel to prolong its suffering. It would have eaten me if it got the chance, but it's just trying to survive. Same as me.
It took 5 nerve-wracking minutes for his vessel to fill up, tense and ready to pull back if the bearcat started moving. He was surprised to see that filling his vessel hadn't stopped the continued flow of vitality. Without any injuries, he no longer felt the vitality pulsing out through his body. Instead, it continued to gather in the right side of his chest, mirroring his heart. It churned and swirled in on itself uncomfortably, but without any pain -- the freezing burning sensation had subsided a little. Eventually, the bearcat let out its final breath, the flow of vitality stopping a few seconds later.
The simple, unadorned chalice tattoo -- more of a cup on a stick, really -- was still full. It was hard to see, but even though he hadn't seen it change he felt like the stem was a little thicker, the base flared out just a little more than previously.
"Sand, do your thing please." His voice came out as a croak, dry and unused recently bar some shouting and screaming.
[ Status:
Name: Symon
Class: Cursed Healer
Strength: 0.67 {+0.02}
Constitution: 0.92 {+0.01}
Acuity: 0.72 {+0.02}
Intelligence: 0.73 {+0.01}
Will: 0.97 {+0.01}
Vessel (Vitality): 8/8 {+1}
Abilities:
Idealise (2) {+1}: Consumes Vitality to return a living target to its peak state. This ability automatically applies to the wielder and cannot be disabled.
Seize (3) {+2}: Absorbs Vitality from a target and stores it in the wielder's Vessel. This ability automatically applies to valid targets and cannot be disabled. ]
Symon pumped his fist in the air, "Hell yeah, Intelligence gain! Probably because of my genius plan." Or maybe the sand just thinks so little of me that the fact I didn't just charge blindly into a dark tower with an unknown threat impressed it...
All at once, the ridiculousness of the situation struck him. He was celebrating a magical reward he barely understood after killing a living creature. It would have tried to eat him, probably, but he didn't know that. For all he knew, these bearcats were like the dolphins of the desert, leading lost souls back to safety. He didn't seriously believe that, but there was no need to be disrespectful to it.
He'd never killed anything bigger than a fly before -- excluding that centipede -- and yet he didn't feel as bad as he'd expected to feel. It wasn't in his nature to want to hurt things -- he'd trained all his adult life to try and save lives and didn't plan on giving up on that just because he was in another world. So why was it so easy on his conscience? He supposed it was hard to feel bad about something that just felt so damn good.
Regardless of how he felt on the matter, its death had been necessary to give him a chance of making it to the still far-off trees, but the least he could do was show a little respect for the creature's sacrifice -- which had helped him massively. Not only were all his wounds healed from the stolen vitality, but he'd received further improvements too.
His Seize had gone up a whopping two levels after that single fight, probably because of how much time he'd been able to spend draining the bearcat's vitality. The increase in his vessel size was interesting, although he wasn't sure exactly what caused that. Maybe just a side effect of improving Seize so much? Experimentally, he manifested the spell. The grey thread appeared near instantly as usual, and while it was still razor thin, it seemed a little thicker. More noticeably, it now extended up to a hand and a half from his body before losing cohesion and fading away. He'd still need to get much closer to danger than he was comfortable with to reach any future monsters, but he'd take any improvement he could get.
He was so caught up in the feeling of the magic that he'd barely paid attention to the results. The bearcat's body was... not good. It was so shrunken and shrivelled up on itself that if not for the blade in its back and bloody foam still ringing its mouth, a passerby would have thought it had died of thirst a week ago. When he brushed a hand through its fur, the strands either snapped at the lightest touch or fell out in clumps.
He stood up and backed away from the corpse, it was a bit unnerving to be around.
He began making his way towards the entrance of the collapsed tower, summoning and dismissing the thread as he idly wondered what it was originally for.