As he sailed backwards through the air as a result of Father Sandra’s attack, Felix had little time to curse himself for his stupidity.
His cat-like righting reflex kicked in, and he was able to arch his back, pull his feet under his body and draw his paws up to protect his face, even as he crashed on all fours against the thick trunk of a tall cyprus, then spilled to the ground feeling dazed.
I can’t believe that oily bastard didn’t die! I freaking had him!
“KYAAAAAH” Muzio’s wordless shout resonated through the forest. The sound of his cage rattling as he thrashed inside his confines, and the echoes of his curses helped the cambion find his center.
He physically shook his head to shake off the sense of overpowering frustration.
As his eyes sharpened and found their focus, he drew himself into a crouch and quickly assessed his surroundings.
Alright, Muzio… you want SA? I’ll give you SA!
Over the past two weeks, Felix hadn’t succeeded in unlocking the skill Muzio possessed called battle sense, and he hadn’t been expected to. According to Muzio, the ability was only acquired after diligent practice in the heat of battle. When activated, the official battle sense skill enabled the veteran fighter to instantly absorb all the information his senses could produce at their maximum potential. It allowed one to bypass the brain’s unconscious habit of filtering information whereby it only fed the conscious mind with a fraction of the available data, based on what was usually relevant.
One of the exercises Felix had been forced to repeat over and over was the much slower, analog version of the battle sense skill. It essentially boiled down to the equivalent of using a skill without having a skill in order to gain the skill. It sounded like gibberish at first, but the more the cambion thought about it, the more he realized that in his previous life, things had always been this way. When you didn’t know something, you learned it, practiced it, and then you knew it.
In this world, the difference between ordinary and magical skill was the possession of crystalized intent. With skills, one could access a magically enhanced version of what was otherwise mundane.
In its ultimate manifestation, battle sense had the potential to give one a preternatural awareness of one’s surroundings, as well as a reaction time bordering on precognition. At least, that’s what Muzio seemed to believe.
Felix thought of all of this and then none of this.
As with much of the techniques Muzio taught him, this practice incorporated both a unique manner of breathing, and a visualization.
The cambion sucked in air sharply through his nose. He filled his lungs and relaxed his diaphragm, creating an instant of stillness like an empty room with an open door in his mind. In the emptiness where his thoughts had been, he allowed all the information from his sharpened senses to rush into the ensuing vacuum.
Ten meters ahead, the horses, wagon, and the two-meter-tall hooded minions escorting Father Sandra stopped, momentarily frozen in time.
Muzio looked to have been screaming obscenities while vehemently rocking back and forth in his cage. The force with which he did so had broken a plank wall on the side of the wagon that served to keep the cage within the wagon bed. It was in the process of tipping over the side of the wagon, where it was scheduled to fall on one of Father Sandra’s minions.
Meanwhile, the priest’s wand was raised, pointed at the space where Felix had been moments before. His head was still turned in the direction the cambion had landed, though his eyes were averted, his attention momentarily drawn toward the sight of the falling cage.
There was more light than before. The will-o-the-wisp lantern blazed now, projecting bright light in a perfect dome. The miniature yellowish-purple sun cast harsh shadows behind any object in its path, in this case trees. The light dome extended to just shy of a meter from where the cambion stood. The dome of magically illogical light abruptly ended without tapering, such that the cambion was left in a perfect patch of darkness.
Thoughts crept into his void, and the moment of perfect perception which had stopped time began to crumble.
I’m in the dark. The priest won’t be able to see me. I think I can get away.
Above and all around in his periphery of darkness were sights, sounds, and smells slowly inching forward, in time with the scene of Muzio’s toppling cage.
Felix could smell the earthy forest, slightly smoky and resinous, along with another scent. It was sweet and musky, with an electric undercurrent of predatory rage. He recognized it as the scent of the creatures that had stalked the wagon through the forest but had never attacked despite Father Sandra’s inane prattling.
From above, Felix heard the swoosh and creak of branches suddenly swaying by virtue of having been abruptly relieved of bearing heavy weight. His ears twitched and he sensed movement from above.
Felix leaped to his right just in time for time and sensory information to crash into the frantic speeds of survival and the now.
Three dark masses of limbs struck the ground in the space the cambion previously occupied with a series of heavy thuds.
The creatures shrieked in discordant harmony, perhaps in disappointment of missing their prey. Then the three of them stood on a pair of slender, muscular legs at odds with their wide frame.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Yeah, you’re all fugly as hell…” Felix cursed under his breath, readying himself for another sudden burst of movement.
They were shorter than the cambion and looked heavy, but something told him not to underestimate their speed.
Prickly, black fur covered them entirely. They had bulbous bodies from which grew eight shapely limbs and a long greasy tail. Their heads were vaguely humanoid, except covered in beady red eyes of various shapes and sizes. Perhaps their most distinctive feature were their long, thick arachnid mandibles, which clicked ominously while dripping a viscous clear fluid.
Tktktktktk… Tktktktktktk…
Two of them pressed forward, rushing him while the third used its claws and limbs to scale up the trunk of the cyprus.
“Should I call you spider monkeys or monkey spiders?” Felix asked aloud. “What about spiderkeys or monkeyders?”
The first creature crouched, then launched itself forward the cambion with all eight limbs. The cambion was expecting it and rolled to the side. He then jumped over the second who tried the same trick as the first. The cambion felt a satisfying rush when his claws raked over the monkey spider’s back as he sailed over it, drawing fresh blood.
“No, that’s too obvious. How about spidermanks? That’s not so bad. Definitely not so bad as spi-mankey-ders? Don’t worry, we’ll figure out something to call you eventually.”
A long prehensile tail whipped itself around the cambion’s neck midair and squeezed his windpipe. Then it yanked him upward, lifting him dozens of meters in the air. Felix dug his claws into the tail. Gouts of black blood spilled over his hands, wrists and arms as he felt the world tilt and turn, seemingly always drifting upwards.
Air rushed by him as he was carried deeper into the forest. His perspective kept shifting and tilting with each swing. It was hard to breathe, and yet he wanted to laugh at the hilarious impossibility above him. The tail that was both strangling him and holding him aloft was attached to a long line of spider manks. They made a daisy chain of interlocked limbs as they swung from tree to tree.
No way, I refuse to be killed by a barrel full of fugly monkeys!
Felix dug his claws deeper into the tail around his neck. During the next swing, he pulled hard, creating enough distance between his skin and the tail to bring his chin down and open his mouth wide.
The cambion felt a familiar stirring inside his stomach and spirit and he smiled internally. He felt his jaw stretch beyond its limits. Then he bit savagely down on the tail, his teeth cutting deep into muscles thicker than his biceps.
The creature who owned the tail shrieked. It pulled him upward mid swing, then bit him in the shoulder with its arachnid mandibles, injecting him with its poison.
The cambion laughed to himself as the poison refused to take effect thanks to his poison resistant passive ability. Thick blood gushed into his mouth as he squeezed his jaws tighter and began to chew. The monkey spider’s monstrous tail tried to let go of Felix’s neck, only to find that the cambion had no qualms about hanging on by his teeth.
He felt a rush of power as he swallowed the viscous black-licorice blood. He bit down even harder and felt his teeth crunch through thistly fur, muscle and bone until his teeth touched and the force of the next swing severed the tail.
The ground rushed toward him as he plummeted headfirst. It was exhilarating. Could it be that he was having fun?
That’s bad, right? Or is it good? It definitely feels good. This feels like it has to be the demon side of my nature, right?
He waited until he picked up speed, then looked up toward the daisy chain of monsters that still pursued him. He blink teleported, redirecting his momentum forward and up, to the limits of his ability, allowing him to use his terminal velocity to the best advantage.
He cut through the air feet-first and claws-out, through the highest monkey monster he could reach. He tore through it like a beastkin torpedo, shattering its link in the chain.
The rest of the monsters under it fell in a tangle of a half-dozen shrieking limbs.
Felix righted himself mid-air as he fell, and measured the distance to the ground. He teleported, alighting gently on the bloody patch of ground where several of the monkey spiders who had been unable to catch a tree limb and otherwise control their fall, had already gone splat on the ground.
One of the wretches survived the fall, but broke all its limbs in doing so. It squealed pitifully as it tried to crawl away on its useless appendages, most of which were bent at awkward angles.
The cambion crushed the creature’s head underfoot with a satisfying crunch.
Only then did Felix swallow the sizable chunk of tail still sitting in its juices in his mouth. Then he felt a surge of magic and information flow through him.
Congratulations! Your skill Devour has successfully absorbed Monstrous Spider Monkey’s Advanced Prehensile Tail
Advanced Prehensile Tail
You have gained superior control of your extra appendage. It is now fully prehensile and fully grown. You may use it for balance, style, cuteness, and grabbing objects. This is an extension of an existing feature of your Racial Ability: Feline Nature.
Felix dismissed the window and thanked Status.
I guess that answers the mystery of the naming convention for these monsters, doesn’t it, buddy?
Status pulsed with a sense of pride.
I see, so you’re the one who picked the name, are you? Well, no use arguing with you about it. Now what’s this business about my new tail having cuteness?
Felix felt the burning sensation from his tail’s sudden and rapid growth subside. He was left with a lingering awareness from the base at his lower back, to the tip of his new tail. It was longer now. Much longer. Almost equal to the length of his body. It felt thick and substantive. Unlike the flimsy annoying thing with a mind of its own that just happened to be hanging there before, now it was an extension of his body, constantly balancing his weight. He curled the tip of his tail around his own hand and pretended to shake hands.
“Let’s do good work together, yeah?”
Felix grinned.
He couldn’t quite see his colors in the blackwash of the darkness around him, but he guessed the pattern matched his mackerel blues, greys and black. The fluffiness was a definite plus.
Okay, so it is kinda cute.
If he focused, he could even cause the fluffy hair to harden and flare into spines similar to the tough monstrous spider monkey fur. That could prove useful as an extra layer of protection, but it made the tail somewhat less flexible while active. He relaxed and the tail was once again a pleasant fluffiness.
The amount of control Felix had over his tail as he curled and uncurled it, then contorted his new limb in the air like a veritable spider monkey’s tail was impressive. He was certain it could hold his weight and help him climb the way they did as well. It was bound to grow even stronger with time.
Movement from every direction converging upon his location caused him to grimace.
Ugh, no time to play with my new toy...
The beastkin cambion sprinted through the dense trees, with his new bushy tail trailing behind.
Yep, it’s definitely cute.