With the lizard's death, Xeno started to gain a clear head, little by little, and as such began to analyse the situation.

His body wasn't in the best conditions, his forearms and tendrils were badly burned.

They were hurting a lot just with the few tries of moving them that he did.

Because the tip of his tail had been shot previously, now small cracks had appeared all around it. It wasn't that far off from the point of breaking.

'What happened to the others, no one had come to interfere into our fight. They should have won then...'

Xeno had indeed given orders to his servants to escape in case the situation had gone dire.

Thinking so if they had really lost, the bandits would have come to help their boss.

Although at the same time, it was true that if Vix and Zaha had such an advantage they would have come to help Xeno already.

In reality the fight against the lizard had ended pretty quickly, given Xeno's aggressive type of fight the bandit had to go all in to hope for a chance of victory.

Even more Egot literally didn't have either time or energies to utilize the rest of his tools.

On the other hand, in particular Vix couldn't do the same against her opponents.

Her surprise assault permitted her to directly kill two of the six bandits Xeno had assigned to her.

However in the meantime the other four had enough time to activate their nano shields and charge their guns.

Under the barrage of shots Vix could only increase her aggressivity, trying to either outflank the shields or exhaust their wielders.

Surprisingly enough for the bandits, she could heal herself by draining the two corpses of their fluids with her tendrils.

Coupled with her high vitality and physical strength, their battle became one of attrition.

However in the end Vix remained as the sole still standing up. Her ruthless combat stile started to intimidate the bandits, furthermore every death on their side would end up as a new sustain for her.

At the end of the fight, she stood still to recollect her thoughts. She had various holes around her body, oozing out dark red blood. Her tail, that resisted the slashes o the enemy daggers, was starting to detach in various point.

Suddenly she felt a cold material pressed against her torso.

"D-Do not move or I'll make a bloody hole into your heart!"

Then she heard the shaky and scared voice of a bandit.

Trying to sense better her surrounding she started to understand her current situation.

The bandit in front of her was missing an arm and was injured on one of his legs, but none of his vitals had been wounded.

He was holding first his rifle while contemplating the massacre before his eyes. Of the Six bandits that fought this red abomination, remained only a pile of seemingly mummified corpses.

Not far from her position there was a pool of red blood and the suffering body of Zaha.

As the only advantage she had against the bandits was her physical advantage, she had eventually lost her battle. Although she had not been utterly defeated. In fact one of the other two bandits had died, and the second one was barely holding on its life, pointing his rifle on the still convulsing Zaha.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Then suddenly from the direction of the fight of their boss, a big black object was making its way toward them at high speed.

Recognizing him as the enemy leader, the two remaining bandits started to panic.

"STOP! We have your precious companion as our hostages, come any closer and we won't hesitate!

We demand you and the rest of the convoy to quickly get away from here, otherwise you can say good bye to these two"

The bandit was clearly bluffing here, he new that if he really dared to kill the two hostages they would be the next to die.

Even their boss had perished against this monster! Although he did seem to have taken some good injuries, it wasn't anything fatal.

On the other hand, Xeno was sensing the situation ahead.

Vix didn't disappoint him one bit, she had eliminated all of her targets. Even more, She was still standing and could probably continue to fight.

On the contrary, he had overestimated Zaha's strength. She couldn't constantly reinforce her body with nano-energy as he and Vix could do.

Even if her instincts were on spot, the bandits were armed with tools and could coordinate a lot better than the ordinary beasts she had encountered while hunting.

The result was now pretty clear, she had to start eating something real quick to regenerate. Otherwise in the next minutes she would clearly die.

As such rationally speaking for Xeno the situation was a real mess. He couldn't trust the promise of the bandit, but trying to fight them right now would end up with at least the death of one of his servants.

Xeno had repressed the feelings of sorrow and sadness due to the death of his only friend through his new genes.

His nature since his transformation had become more crude and calculative.

But now this very threat made by the bandit started to make his feelings resurface.

Images started to flash inside of his mind. With them Xeno perceived the anguish he had to repress in the depths of the canyon once again.

However soon after an incredible sense of anger due to his impotence was starting to get the better of him.

'Not again! I won't lose another one of my friends this soon!'

Xeno started to slowly lose his rationality, he started to overload his body with energy. His unwrapped tendrils started to swirl and pulsate irregularly, while blue sparkles of light started to appear around his body.

His muscles started to randomly contract under the sheer power that Xeno started to accumulate.

Then he felt his blood becoming hot, boiling with pure rage.

As his body had gone past its limits, purplish blood started to ooze out of his mouth and tendrils.

However as it reached the ground, under the startled gazes of the bandits the blood started to move on its own, as if alive.

Almost thirty seconds later a perfect purple circle had formed around Xeno, although none of this had been noticed by him. As his state of mind wasn't a clear one anymore.

'Not again! Not again! Not again! Not again!'

The pain started to intensify in a matter of seconds, then strange purplish runes started to appear on his body, rhythmically pulsating.

KKIEEEEEEEEEEEK

Finally he let out a loud screech containing both his suffering and boiling anger.

Scared shitless from the events unfolding before their eyes, the bandits decided to drag with them Vix and Zaha into the underworld.

Whatever thing the strange alien was doing, it was clear that he had already refused their demand.

Then, suddenly, the sky started to darken and a purple beam of pure energy dropped on his position, enveloping Xeno completely.

A powerful shock wave reverberated around the proximity of the beam. The bandits and Vix had suddenly been destabilized.

Whit her superior instincts she had taken advantage of the situation, quickly taking away the rifle of the bandit in front of her.

Then Vix impaled the frail body of the thug with her tail, and soon after she attached her tendrils on his corpse, quickly draining it.

The other bandit was on an already precarious situation, he was previously holding on his rifle with his last strands of strength. But now he had utterly lost his grip on it.

As such without the rifle he lost his only insurance on the hostage. While he was frantically trying to grab again the handle of his gun, a loud thud reverberated on his head.

Killed both of them Vix hurriedly approached Zaha, she was in a perilous situation, gasping her last breaths.

[AN: I know she clearly doesn't need to breath actual air. You can see the process as an involuntary contraction of her mouth muscles if you want.]

Vix tried to feed her a random arm she teared off one of the corpses. However Zaha wasn't thinking anymore, her thoughts were completely clouded, life was abandoning her.

As such for Vix remained only one desperate action, she had yet to try this ability of hers, since a simile occasion never happened before.

If her tendrils could absorb the vital fluids from her victims, then they had to have the capability of the same process but reversed.

The major flaw, obviously, was that a great deal of vitality had to be extracted from her body. It was even more dangerous now that Vix wasn't in her best conditions.

While of this was unfolding, on a planet far away from Siri-0rF, an enormous figure was residing inside a pitch black capsule.

Although the creature couldn't move at all, its mind was feeling overjoyed.

'You've finally become one of us!'