I have Nine Lives

Chapter 11: Guilt and remorse

There were just 2 days left before the appointed time would be up, the lion tribesman looked down in the hole and muttered:

"Let's hope that only the cream of the crop survived."

Felix was hastily running through the underground maze as he tried to keep himself hidden and kill others if there was the opportunity, up till now, he already ended the lives of around 20 other cat tribesmen that tried to kill him, but he could sense that there were fewer and fewer people around, it was also easier to hide now.

Felix didn't know if he was unfortunate or not but he met the bear brothers again, fortunately for him, he was in his stealth and unless he attacked them they wouldn't be able to find him.

The one that he injured scratched his head and told his brother:

"That damn trash did a number on my poor skull, fortunately, its almost healed by now."

He looked around and told his brother:

"Bro, that cat woman was very good, it was really unfortunate these hyena women were acting like they tried to please us, I like it more when they struggle and bite!"

Felix's eyes widened as he heard about the cat woman, but it could also be the cat woman from any other tribe, after all, there were a lot of women from the other cat tribes.

But his gut was telling him that the one they were talking about was Sahee, he went in the opposite direction the bears walked in and looked around, he felt that something was upsetting him, he wasn't sure why but he felt his stomach hurting even though he wasn't hungry, it was like phantom pain.

He didn't know why he felt like that but as he looked down he could feel his cheeks becoming wet, was this what remorse felt like?

Felix didn't like the feeling at all, he knew that what he did was bad, especially because she was one of the very first people that he knew even though not well, they had somewhat of a bond and he broke it, but after he started to remember what death felt like his eyes clouded over.

His body stopped as he just sat there in the dark thinking:

"Was it right to leave here alone? But the feeling of death... the constant darkness that I can't see through, the feeling of my body disappearing, the light it felt nice but it was burning..."

Felix contemplated and shook his head, he felt wrong but he would have done the same if those events happened again, his instincts were just shouting at him at the time, he just wanted to escape and not feel death again. His new intelligence was a blessing and a curse, if he lacked intelligence he wouldn't fear death as much as he wouldn't understand it, even though he would still obey his instincts, in some type of situation his instincts may contradict with his thinking.

Felix's eyes narrowed as he watched a cat tribesmen betray his last colleague, the man was clenching his teeth as he ran his claws inside his colleague's throat, his teammate had wide eyes as his face turned wrathful for a few seconds before his head fell, the cat tribesmen who done the deed had a crazed look on his face he wanted to laugh but he didn't want to leak his location.

Felix appeared above him and his head rolled to the floor, he had the same crazed expression as before as he didn't understand how he died.

Felix looked at the betrayed teammate and saw that his eyes were both wrathful and fearful at the same time, was that the same expression Sahee made when she died, he wondered.

Felix shook his head to clear his mind, it wasn't time to think about Sahee anymore, but he remembered that he had to go back to the village with the guards sent by the lion tribe when he got his rank, the lion tribe wanted to parade their recruits and there were a few tribes between the cat tribe and the lion tribe.

Felix put those thoughts to the back of his head, he will see what he would do once he arrived at the village.

One more day passed and it was the last day before the death battle royale would end.

Felix was currently hiding in the darkness looking around, he could feel the ground shake under him as his ears fluttered, he heard the footsteps of a rather big creature!

Felix narrowed his eyes as he thought for a few seconds before he realized that it was the fellow from the elephant tribe that was coming through!

Felix made himself as small as possible as he used his stealth technique and hugged a wall, the elephant tribesmen walked in front of him, he was 2.5 meters tall in his human form and his head almost went through the ceiling of the underground maze, he had the head of one of the bear brothers in his hand, he clutched it in his meaty arms then crushed it letting a spray of blood go on the ground and Felix's body making it appear in the behemoths presence!

The elephant looked down at Felix and gave him a small smile as he said:

"Hello, there cat tribesman quite unlucky for the blood to spray on you isn't it?"

The behemoth looked to be friendly at first glance but Felix could see something in his eyes that unsettled him, it was a pure unbridled rage that he couldn't understand where it came from, he never interacted with this person in his life.

The elephant wanted to scoop Felix in his arm but Felix dodged easily, the man was strong but slow and his huge clothes made swishing sounds when he moved his body making his moves easily traceable.

The elephant smiled as he created a hole in the wall that Felix previously hugged, in his hand was the other bear tribesman who was roaring and struggling to get out, the bear tribesman was also big standing around 1,90, but the moment the behemoth elephant clutched his neck and ripped him through the wall he became cannon fodder!

Felix watched on with wide eyes as his head was ripped from his shoulders and a shower of blood ensued, Felix jumped backward to dodge it, his stomach growled as it had been some time since he had seen so much meat and blood, the black bear tribe was at least 2x stronger than the brown bear tribe!

The elephant looked at the downed body then at Felix who was almost salivating, he shook his head as he saw Felix's state and he said:

"All carnivores are the same, sigh, and I wanted to let you go, unfortunate."

The elephant arms traveling speed suddenly increased as he almost caught Felix, however, Felix wasn't as big as the bear and even with the increased speed he was still able to easily dodge him, but the thick meat and muscles protecting the elephant's body meant that there was no chance for Felix to kill him, after all, there was a high chance that even if he slashed his throat he would be able to stop the bleeding!

Felix wanted to escape but he was dirty from the blood and his stealth became ineffective, he wanted to run away but the Elephant charged down walls without care as he followed him, at the rate he was going the whole underground place would collapse!

Felix knew that the only way for him to survive was to collapse the underground maze, the Hex enchanted dirt would kill him but it would also heavily injure the elephant, he had more lives but the elephant didn't.

Felix ran around making the elephant destroy the supporting beams of the underground maze, combined with him going through the walls as well the whole underground started to shake, the remaining survivors didn't know what to do as they could feel the ceiling above them ready to cave in and bury them alive!

There weren't many survivors but they were still above ten, however, they were all hiding deep in the maze to avoid the others as the time wasn't up yet.

The elephant knew that he fell into Felix's trap, he became too angry as he realized that all meat-eaters were the same so he wanted to end Felix quickly, but he was lead by the nose to this happening!

The elephant chuckled as he saw Felix stop running away, they were quite far away from the exit and he could feel that the ceiling caving in on him would kill him even if he reverted to his primal form which had even higher defenses!

The mole tribe used the immense Hex reserved in this particular piece of land to create this underground maze, normally speaking the tunnels would have collapsed without the support of the hex energy which strengthened the dirt to the point that it was truly like a granite maze.

The elephant sat down as he looked at Felix and asked:

"Why do carnivores eat so much meat?"

As a herbivore, the elephant couldn't understand why the carnivores couldn't eat herbs like them. His mother and father were both eaten by the Lion tribe and he refused his elder's instruction, he wanted to get into the Lion tribe and assassinate the fellow who killed his parents.

It seemed he would fail to keep the promise to his deceased parents.

The elephant sighed as he felt the room was getting smaller, he grasped his big ears and he frowned as he watched Felix warily looking at him and asked again:

"Why do carnivores eat so much meat?"

Felix didn't know what to say, he looked down at himself then at the behemoth in front of him and told him:

"I'm not sure, when I'm hungry the first thing that I think about is eating meat, in the past, I have tried to eat some herbs as well when there was no meat, but my body started to get weaker, I could feel that eating anything else besides meat would weaken me..."

The elephant started laughing as he clutched his stomach and said:

"This is understandable, even we from the herbivore tribe wouldn't want our bodies to weaken, but why would you kill someone unarmed who was only protecting their child?"

Felix frowned, he never killed someone that didn't attack him first, well if he excluded the birds, snakes and rabbits that he ate when he was younger and when he first came to this world, however, he was very hungry back then...

Seeing that he had no response and the underground cave was ready to fall on his head he shook his head and looked down while he muttered:

"Mother, father, little Banjui is coming to visit you soon."

Felix's eyes widened as he could feel his air leave his body, his body was trapped under the debris as hard rocks were slowly crushing him, he could be considered quite unlucky as the impact of the ceiling crashing on him avoided his head and he would live to endure the pain of being crushed alive.

He looked in front of him and saw the elephant who had his head caved in, he died instantly due to the impact, Felix mouth started watering as he watched the mountain of flesh, he wanted to approach it and eat at least a little bit of meat from him, but his body was slowly getting crushed while only his head was free, he could feel his internal organs turning into mush as his brain was being deprived by clean oxygen.

His turned purple and red as he vomited a mouthful of blood, he could feel death closing in, and it was even more traumatic than his previous experience, he could feel the strength leaving his body as his soul did the same thing.

The darkness appeared, the void, the deafening silence, he could feel his soul going straightly down towards the light from before, however before he could black out he could feel someone's arm grasping the back of his neck and throwing him away from the light!

When he woke up the lion tribesmen looked down at him from above, he looked around and realized he was half-buried in the debris and bones.

The lion tribesman grasped his paw and took him out, he looked around and realized that there was no one else who could have escaped from there and he sighed as he eyed Felix and ordered:

"Transform into your humanoid form!"

Felix fell into an awkward situation here, he tried to do some poses or stretch but the lion man just furrowed his brows as he asked:

"Are you making fun of me?"

Felix shook his head quickly, the trauma from his death was still there and he couldn't think clearly, so he answered directly:

"I can't..."

The lion man's eyes narrowed as he asked:

"Why you can't? Haven't you gone through the adulthood ceremony?"

Felix told him what happened at his adulthood ceremony while missing some details such as masking the techniques that he got as his ability and that he grew to his current height instead of gaining a humanoid form.

The lion-man grasped Felix's body as he poked him around the neck and stomach area before he said:

"Very interesting, you are telling the truth, you are also missing Hex energy from the body, but this could be attributed to the fact that you haven't eaten much in the days that you were underground, coupled with the exhaustion it means that you can't absorb Hex energy anymore."

However he still felt that there was something strange about Felix that he couldn't put his finger on but he decided to ignore it, he was the last survivor and that meant he would gain a rank in the lion tribe, however, he knew that someone who couldn't even achieve the humanoid form didn't have much talent, but he also survived the whole 10 days so he couldn't give him the basic scout rank.

The lion-man caressed his mane for a little bit before he said:

"Come with me to the lion tribe, you are now a tier 1 scout of the tribe and you will be given the appropriate resources, you will also need to go through the rank ceremonial appointment which consists of showing some of our protectors where your village is and escort them there while also walking through the villages of the other subordinates of the lion tribe, do you understand?"

Felix nodded his head, he sighed as he looked down, the lion-man knew that something was bothering Felix but he didn't give him any encouraging words as he picked him up and started running at quick speeds towards the capital of the lion tribe, encouraging words were for the weak and there was no place for the weak in the lion tribe, the old and sickly would be thrown away like trash while the younger generation would be protected and nurtured.

Felix was contemplating what he could tell Lucian and started to doze off, the lion-man didn't say anything as he let him sleep and kept running...