I have Nine Lives

Felix could feel his body heating up before he became unconscious, but now all he could see was only darkness around him.

It was somewhat of an ethereal feeling as he felt his body but he couldn't interact with it, he couldn't see it but he could feel his connection to it, this was the first time he felt such a sensation and it couldn't be said that he felt bad.

It was like swimming in a mildly hot pool, it was a nice sensation for Felix, that was only the darkness started to move up and down around him, it was just like he was in a storm on the ocean, he couldn't control his consciousness anymore as he was absorbed into the storm and felt that his nonexistent insides were moving around.

He felt like he wanted to vomit but he couldn't as there was nothing for him to regurgitate.

It was from a nice sensation to a sickening one and the abrupt change scared Felix quite a bit, he didn't know what he was supposed to do. How could he escape from this dark region?

Felix's body was twitching and moving in the tent that was reserved for him, no one was inside the tent beside him as his unconscious body would be moving from time to time before staying still once more.

Felix woke up only to be in a familiar environment, it was the cave from the test, this place marked him quite a bit and it was strange that he returned to it.

Unlike before Sahee wasn't present at all as her spirit already passed on but there was something strange in the air around him, he could now feel and smell his surroundings, he could even hear the little drips of water in the enclosed space that he was, he wasn't sure where the water came from as the drips seemingly came from everywhere at once.

These types of sounds coming from everywhere started to slowly madden Felix, it was slow but sure as time passed relatively quickly wherever he was, his eyes were wide and bloodshot as he looked around, his body was continuously twitching due to the constant dripping, suddenly a clapping sound could be heard from nearby as two big and black silhouettes appeared.

They were the two brothers from the black bear tribe!

However, as Felix looked at them he could see that they were transparent meaning they were spirits, they each both had a shit-eating grin on their faces as they looked at Felix and they said in unison:

"That old lion really gave us and the others a good opportunity to resurrect, look at him gawking at us not understanding what's happening!"

Suddenly from behind them all of the people that Felix had killed during the trail appeared, they all had red eyes and were looking at Felix with deep anger in their eyes.

The only person who wasn't looking at Felix that way was the Elephant tribesman who didn't even want to take a part in this, he was a good distance away from the small unit that was opposing Felix.

He looked at everything with impassive eyes as he shook his head and disappeared, he didn't want to take part in any of this, he already died and even though he couldn't pass on he was still lingering through Felix's subconscious because both of them died at the same time in the same location.

Felix frowned as he looked at everyone around him, he was already quite jumpy due to the constant dripping that was still sounding in his ears, and what he saw didn't make him any happier, he wasn't sure if this was an illusion or not but considering what happened with Sahee, what was happening currently was most likely real!

Felix decided to not wait around and be squashed by the whole army as he tried to use his stealth technique and seeing how he was able to employ it he immediately disappeared from their eyes.

As soon as he disappeared everyone started panicking and running away, it seemed that all their scary faces and red eyes were only a facade they put on so Felix could let his guard down, and maybe with luck they could slay and devour him.

However Felix didn't fall for that and immediately counterattack killing half of their squad in one blow, they transformed into motes of light that were absorbed into his body and he could feel that the severed feeling that the lion shaman inflicted on him starting to disappear.

Felix wasn't sure what happened when the shaman made that motion towards him but he started to understand a little bit now, maybe he ripped the connection with one of his extra lives, considering that the moment he woke up in the darkness he could see that he had a life in minus, but there were some brackets below the 4 heads that remained which had a +1 in it.

Felix didn't know what to think about it at that moment considering he felt quite well he ignored it, but now that he saw what was happening it made him remember and he took another look at his lives seeing that there were 4 and a half heads there with a +0.5 in brackets.

It seemed that his connection to his extra lives could be cut by experts that reached a high amount of control on hex energy, it was pretty strange for Felix as he didn't explore his ability properly before and took it for granted, but there wasn't much he could learn about it without such incidents anyways.

He sighed as he continued his slaughter around him absorbing all of the other souls, he was sure he ate none of these people so why were they used for his extra lives? He thought that the extra energy from eating corpses granted him extra lives but it seemed he was wrong about that one.

As he started thinking he came to a small realization while eating the corpse would activate the extra life he maybe needed soul energy at first to condense it or something like that, he wasn't even sure where these thoughts came from but they seemingly popped in his head as he thought hard enough about it.

The black bear brothers were left for the last as they tried to beg Felix for forgiveness, but he just decapitated them and absorbed them into his body, the Elephant tribesman finally appeared after everyone was slain and he sighed as he looked at Felix:

"It seems you have finished them, what are you going to do with me?"

Felix looked at him for a few seconds and didn't know what to say, the man wanted to join the lion tribe for revenge, he just wanted to avenge his parents and this was a thing he could respect, everyone had to look for their own, even though his emotions weren't fully developed Felix could understand some of them and he couldn't get to hate the elephant in front of him, he just felt him be pitiful as he was the one who created the collapse after he chased him, so he basically killed himself there.

Felix wanted to let him go, but he didn't know how, so he approached him and jumped on his shoulder, Felix was the same height as before even in his mental space but size didn't matter in here.

Seeing Felix acting this way made the Elephant shed a few tears as his body started to dissipate on his own, he had a small smile on his face as he looked towards the ceiling of the underground that was currently collapsing as well around them:

"Father, mother, I'm coming back to your embrace."

He dissipated into light that didn't enter Felix's body as he just started to go upwards and out of Felix's body that stopped twitching outside.

Felix felt himself to be back into the darkness and as he looked around him he felt that his body was waking up and his consciousness was also getting injected into it.

Felix found himself in the tent of the camp, he felt his head was hurting quite a bit and as he looked at the corner of his eyes he saw 5 heads remaining without any brackets below them, if the lion shaman was here he would see that the part that he cut from Felix attached itself right back and it wasn't running around his body wildly anymore.

Felix shuddered for a little as he felt someone approaching the tent, this was strange, when did his senses improve to such a high degree?

The tent flaps opened as Landers entered, his eyes lighted up as he saw Felix was conscious and he approached him before petting him on the head a few times while saying with a worried tone:

"I heard you have collapsed in front of the shaman, I thought this war took a lot out of you but you already woke up so soon! I guess you are stronger than you look on the surface."

A smile blossomed on his face as he looked at Felix, it seemed Landers truly looked upon Felix as kin or a close friend, Felix wasn't sure why the time they had together wasn't that long and they didn't have any special experiences together, he just found these things to be strange to him as he didn't know that deep bonds would be created between two persons in life and death situations.

Seeing Felix's puzzled expression that appeared on his face after he got petted, Landers thought he was wondering what was happening outside so he decided to inform him:

"The shaman already finished with everyone, a few captains escaped from both sides along with a few generals from the tiger tribe, also the son of the shaman got injured quite a bit and he will have to rest for a long while before he would be sent for any missions."

Landers sighed as he kept Felix company and briefed him about most of the events that unfolded after he went out cold.

It seemed the shaman absorbed everyone and stabilized his youth while the light from the skies receded after it got enough energy, the loses of both tribes were immense both in troops and in captains, the tiger tribe was basically done for as some of the generals from the lion tribe went to their mountains to capture all of their civilians and relocate them closer to the capital of the lion tribe to be monitored 24/7 as they would be forcefully integrated into the lion's society, the ones who didn't want that would become slaves.

Also considering that most of the troops of the subsidiary races under the lion tribe were annihilated they lost most of their clout and became true underlings under the paws of the lion shaman, he could do whatever he wanted with them now.

Felix shook his head as he heard everything, the tent flaps opened again as Catro entered with a stiff smile and said while ignoring Landers:

"The shaman is requesting for the hero Felix to come and meet him in the main tent, he seems to want to talk about some things with you."

Felix got quite the bad vibes from the shaman but considering his current situation he wouldn't be able to run away even if he wanted to, so all he could do was comply and follow both Landers and Catro towards the main tent and talk with the shaman, he just hoped he wouldn't do the same thing as before as he didn't enjoy the whole event.