I have Nine Lives

Chapter 10: Fighting to the death

Felix looked around as Sahee sat near him, both of them were now in the underground arena, and due to their feline traits they could both see well in this dark place.

They could see that the walls were imprinted with some runic scribblings that glowed a deep blue, they weren't sure what they meant, as it wasn't written in the common Tarot continent language.

Suddenly out of the dark a silhouette attacked them, however with their eyesight they easily parried his attack and slashed his neck, the figure clutched its bloodied neck as he died slowly on the dark ground.

Felix got closer to him and he realized that it was one of the people from the hyena tribe, Sahee frowned as she looked around, where were the others?

Suddenly out of the ground a hyena popped up and slashed at Felix, another two came from the dark and tried to decapitate Sahee with the same method.

Sahee's body disappeared as she used her innate ability, Felix's did the same, they were still there but the sudden disappearance made the hyenas miss their mark, Felix's claws went directly through the hyena's head reaching its brain and killing it instantly.

Sahee hesitated on killing the Hyena, she killed the horned rabbit for her adulthood ceremony but she thought that it was an unintelligent being, she was hesitating on killing someone that she knew and could think like herself.

The hyena however wasn't hesitating, he smelled the air silently and cursed when he found no odor, however since Sahee froze up on the spot his claws found a mark directly in her thigh by luck and slashed a deep gash into it until the bone was seen, the other hyena smelling blood immediately attacked Sahee after he identified her location.

Felix seeing his partner being distracted and injured jumped quickly while being invisible and landed on the hyena that was ready to chomp Sahee into pieces, his claws went inside the hyena's skull killing it immediately.

The other hyena saw how its brethren died and slashed his claws on his head in a downward motion trying to cut into Felix along with the corpse of his comrade.

Sahee stopped hesitating to see Felix was in danger and thrust her claws in the hyena's direction, the hyena felt the sloppy attack and seeing that it was the only one alive remaining from his group he decided to retreat, after all, he only needed to survive, even though he was dumb he understood at least this much.

Felix sighed as he escaped death, it wasn't permanent but he wasn't sure what will happen once all of the heads in the corner of his vision disappeared, would he truly blackout forever and disappear?

Sahee gasped in pain as she took out some bandages from the inner pockets of her skirt, she gritted her teeth and placed some herb ointment on the wound then applied force to stop the bleeding and bandaged herself, she walked wobbly for a few steps then put some more strength in her leg, it was obvious that the damage did to her thigh was quite high, however, she didn't say anything as she started to walk around, Felix didn't say anything as he followed her.

The dark surroundings were perfect spots for ambushes unless you were from some type of feline tribe, the only ones who were at disadvantage here were those from the Emu, Black Bear, and Elephant tribe.

Felix realized that they had an advantage as this test was mostly used for cat tribe members and this type of environment could be used for them to unleash the most of their ability, in this type of environment only those with superior stealth abilities would win and this would point out the more talented people in this kind of event.

Felix smelled the air, but his nose told him only blood was around, from all directions, someone must have died, even though this was a survival test the others wanted a higher rank in the lion tribe, the more kills one had the better resources and protection their tribe would get once the test ended.

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Animals weren't greedy but once they evolved into their humanoid forms they started to devolve into human emotions, greed, anger, lust, hatred, envy, gluttony, they developed things that their minds weren't accustomed to but acclimated to them in time, however, this type of emotions would appear in the harder times of the people of the Tarot continent, these type of emotions would intensify under a situation such as this one.

Felix didn't know where to go so he used his hearing instead of his nose, he could hear shallow breathing from some directions so he decided to avoid it along with the injured Sahee, she helped him back then so he decided that here would be the time that his favor would be paid.

Sahee knew Felix was avoiding the competition for her sake and this made her feel trust him more, her sense of kinship with him also increased by quite a bit as all he did was to ensure her safety.

She also felt bad that she froze up and this cost her an injury that almost disabled her for the course of the event, if Felix and she would be ambushed and Felix couldn't deal with the others quick enough there was a high chance of dying for her, she felt that she was ready for the real cruel world out there but it seemed she was mistaken, she was severely lacking in experience... she even wondered why Lucian sent her out this early and started to doubt her capabilities.

Felix didn't know what she was thinking about as he used all of his senses to navigate around the underground arena, he knew that he couldn't meet with any big group of contestants or else while he would be fine, there was a very high chance of Sahee meeting her doom, it wasn't that this would impede him from winning, but he felt that he owed her one because she took him off the forest floor after he passed out, even though he 'saved' her back then when he slashed the female bear's eyes out, he also saved himself so he didn't think that one counted.

Felix's ears moved a little bit as he heard whispering coming from behind a wall:

"This damn test is suited to the cat tribe, what can we do here brother?"

The voices were strong and loud even though they were whispering:

"Calm down, all we have to do is wait, since we are also dark in color it will be harder for some of the participants to find us, and if they do, do you think the cowardly cat tribe will attack us while we are like this?"

Felix turned on his stealth mode as he motioned with his paw for Sahee to keep quiet and wait, he jumped over to the top of the wall and looked down seeing the two Black Bear tribesmen staying with their backs to the wall while looking around warily.

Felix could feel that from this angle he could instantly kill one of them, he had the stealth advantage along with the fact that both of them weren't looking up, and even if they did he was invisible to them, combined with the darkness of the underground arena they shouldn't be able to feel him at all.

Felix's eyes hardened as he dropped directly on one of the black bears and his claws dug through his skull trying to reach his brain, suddenly his claws stopped one centimeter away from the Black bear's brain and he could feel his stomach being squeezed by a strong hand, his claws broke and blood dripped down from his paws.

He couldn't help himself from coughing blood that dropped from the ground, the Black Bear used his other hand to check on his head and saw that he was bleeding severely, however it wasn't a deadly wound if the bleeding would be stopped.

The black bear looked at Felix's body and sneered while saying:

"You thought that you could break my head so easily?"

He clutched Felix's body harder and his spine snapped, Felix's body dropped to the ground lifeless and bloody.

The black bears nodded to each other and waited for any other attacks.

A new Felix appeared behind the wall, his eyes were wide and Sahee didn't know what happened, she heard only a muffled thud and nothing else as she was in her humanoid form her senses weren't very enhanced, they were above human standards but the wall before them was also quite thick.

Felix didn't want to talk about what happened and he only motioned for her to avoid this wall at all costs, Felix just felt death for the first time with his newly evolved brain, and he could say that it wasn't a nice feeling.

The feeling of falling in the abyss, darkness everywhere, suddenly there was a light at the end of a tunnel, however, after that light appeared he blacked out and found himself behind the wall, it was lucky he didn't appear in front of the bears or he would have died again, 5 heads remained.

Sahee didn't question what happened, she didn't want to anger Felix after all he goes through for her right now, so she kept quiet and followed along while making sure she didn't hold him back even more.

A bunch of Emu tribesmen ran around at quick speeds and Felix could feel that he reached a dead end because of them, the Emu's were in front of him so he decided to go back and avoid them, however, if he went back who knew if the Black Bears would notice something?

He could see that Sahee was quickly getting exhausted with time, it's been around 3 days since the bear incident and he knew that they must have gotten bored and started walking, what if he went back and they saw him along with Sahee?

He gritted his teeth and went ahead with Sahee while using their stealth techniques to the maximum, they avoided the running Emu's and tried to go further but Sahee breathed out too hard before they could go behind a corner and disappear from the Emu's vision attracting their attention.

Felix cursed under his breath, now they had to fight with the whole batch of Emus, they were around 8 and all of their eyes immediately targeted the injured Sahee, Emus were cowardly creatures but once they attacked they were hard to defend against, they were also very fast a little bit faster than the cat tribe, however, they couldn't control their bodies as well while attacking.

Sahee blinked and 4 Emu's were on her, she dodged by jumping backward but she cringed as she landed on her wounded leg and almost fell, she leaned backward as a hand almost grasped her neck.

Felix was having a hard time fighting 4 opponents faster than him, however, his body was agile and smaller than theirs so he could dodge their attacks and even retaliate from time to time, but the wounds he left on their bodies were shallow and could be easily recuperated from.

He knew that if he wanted to kill them he had to surprise them, Felix disappeared but the Emu's were on high alert, they knew of the talents of the cat tribe so they all went back to back to create an impenetrable defense.

Sahee was on her last legs as she tried to dodge an attack that was ready to claim her life, but her attacker suddenly fell to the ground while grasping the back of his neck which was now severely bleeding.

Felix motioned to her and they both disappeared in the dark, the Emus entered into a defensive stance but quickly realized that both of them retreated, the injured Emus tended to their injuries while the others kept watching the surroundings for ambushes.

Felix got Sahee to a safe location before he told her:

"I'm not sure if I can keep you safe anymore..."

Sahee's face started to darken as she looked down at her skirt, she knew that she was a burden and that she messed up bad, will Felix abandon her here?

Felix looked at her and didn't know what to say, they were lucky the Emu's didn't pursue them for some reason, maybe that was their territory?

Felix didn't know what to do in this situation, he had more lives but he hated the feeling of death, it was something that marked him considerably and he didn't want to feel it again unless he was the one who was making the mistakes.

Felix sighed as he looked at Sahee and disappeared from her vision, Sahee started to struggle, she sat down to rest but now she realized that she was too weak to get up, it seemed Felix saw that as well as he left her alone, he knew that she couldn't follow him anymore and staying in one place with a small group of two like theirs was technically suicide in this situation.

Sahee's hot tears dropped to the ground making small dripping sounds, she knew that she was a burden, she knew that, however she couldn't believe that Felix would abandon her like this, she wanted to struggle and follow him again, but she just couldn't her injury didn't heal much and her energy was sapped, she was dead weight!

Then she became angry as she realized Felix had more lives, she only had one, she knew that she had one, she wasn't special like him, she wanted to shout and make him help her again, but her voice remained blocked in her neck as her eyes darted to the side.

Two black bears appeared as they looked around and smelled the air, Sahee's injury opened a bit after she struggled to get up and follow Felix and the duo of black bears appeared with their nose in the air!

They were both splattered with blood and feathers, the sounds of bones crunching could be heard from their mouths, they killed the Emu tribe!

Sahee wanted to get up and escape but she was at their mercy in this situation.

The black bears got closer and closer to her, even though they couldn't see as well as her in the dark their noses didn't lie to them, their ears could also hear her shallow breathing.

The injured black bear took a better look at her as he got face to face.

He whistled as he looked down at her body and said:

"Isn't this woman quite fine brother? What do you say should we share her?"

His brother came nearby as well and looked at her features and snorted:

"Share this cat tribe trash? If you talk about eating sure, but if you talk about something else you can have her all for yourself."

His brother scratched the back of his head and winced as his head injuries weren't fully healed, he remembered the pesky cat tribesmen who injured him and his eyes turned a little bit red then he looked at the woman in front of him and said:

"I'm a bit frustrated brother, why don't you go and keep watch while I play with her to death?"

His brother shook his head as he left the two behind, the bear tribesmen smiled creepily as his hand touched Sahee's cheek and said:

"I will enjoy this..."

Sahee wanted to scream but her mouth was gagged immediately, hot tears dripped from her eyes as she looked around wanting for Felix to appear and save her.

But no one was coming, her clothes were ripped and the Black Bear started to play with her, his breathing roughened as well as he played with her for ten hours then looked down at her still body, her injuries worsened and her wound opened, she bled out to death, the talent of the eastern cat tribe died today.

The brother of the bear tribesman came back and said:

"You can eat her alone, you already unloaded yourself so many times in her, disgusting!"

The violator's appetite dropped as well and just took one last look at her before he covered himself and left along with his brother.

Felix was nowhere to be seen, he was already far away from Sahee's location, he knew that what he did was selfish but he didn't care much, he valued his life more than others and did his best to return her the favor, she would have died anyway if he didn't wake up. While he thought that his help at that time didn't count, he changed his tune really fast when it came to his life and death.

Felix sighed as he looked behind him, it was for the best if he lived. His animal instincts told him so, his self-preservation instincts won over his new human emotions.