The return journey part 2
As the sun rose the manticore set off into the distant horizon. Bian wasted no time as he unsheathed his pair of Sai daggers. Impaling the tree and climbing up at an astonishing rate.
He would leap and maneuver over some branches and he climbed higher and higher up the tree. 'Return to monkey' he thought as he made his way up. Nearly thirty minutes later he had arrived at the top of the tree.
He saw a manticore resting as it licked its wounds. It tail was missing and there were holes in its wings rendering them unusable, suddenly alerted by the intruder it stood up and roared ferociously.
Bian summoned his spear and kept his distance from the manticore. When it saw the weapon in his hands, the manticore rushed at him, its hind leg was injured making its stance slow and clumsy.
Bian ducked and regained his composure before he positioned his spear to strike. He froze as the manticore rushed towards him aiming to finish him off. It got within range and pounced on him.
'Now!' Bian burst out in amazing speed as he stabbed the spear towards the eye of the manticore. It saw this move and desperately flapped its wings trying to back away, the holes in its wings rendered its effort useless as the spear pierced into the eye of the manticore.
'Disgusting' Bian thought as he felt the sensation of the spear damaging the juicy eye.
ROAR!
The manticore roared in pain as it began to shake its head left to right, it gave Bian a murderous glare and rushed to rip him to shreds. Bian dodged its attack and regained his distance, well aware of the fact that a single scratch from that manticore could result in death.
As it pounced towards him once more he summoned a beast soul blanket and jumped over the manticore while holding the blanket between his hands. He used it to move the spear deeper into the manticore eye, blood gushed out like a fountain as it roared weakly in pain.
Bian seized the opportunity and ran towards its head, he delivered a full powered kick towards the spear lodging it into the manticore's head.
[Mutant creature desert manticore killed. Beast soul of mutant desert manticore gained. Eat the desert manticore to gain zero to ten mutant geno points randomly]
Type of mutant beast soul of desert manticore; pet.
"I did it" Bian took a moment to catch his breath before fetching his Z-steel knife. He had difficulty cutting into the thick hide of the manticore. "If I didn't aim for the eye I would be the goner, I wonder which beast did a number on this big guy."
He removed a big chunk of meat from the manticore. He summoned the manticore beast soul and a lion the size of a house cat appeared in front of him.
It looked over at the manticore's corpse as its mouth drooled. "Alright, but make it quick" Bian said and watched as the cat sized lion ate the entirety of the manticore including the wings in a couple of minutes.
When it was done, he quickly unsummoned it and began his descent down the tree.
"That manticore is going to be furious once it finds only blood stains in its nest."
As soon as Bian got down from the tree he summoned the white panther and rode into the distance.
Came nightfall, Bian was starving he had gone on for days with no food. His surroundings, to his left and right was sand as far as the eye could see.
He removed some materials from his bag and started a fire using a beast soul blanket. With its natural resistance only the part set on fire would remain ignited, as long as half of the blanket was fine it would automatically recover in the void.
Bian planned on eating a small portion of the manticore meat, but it tasted so good he couldn't help himself.
[Flesh of desert manticore eaten. One mutant geno point gained]
[Flesh of desert manticore eaten. One mutant geno point gained]
He gained two mutant geno points after eating all the meat, he was so full he fell asleep soon after, summoning a blanket to cover his body. He unsummoned the other blanket used for cooking.
After resting his mind and body Bian set off to continue his journey, he rode on his mount, hunted and rested, about three weeks later he stumbled upon a cave from a distance.
"I bet some big and scary creature lives there" As Bian was talking to himself he was interrupted by a fierce roar. "It sounded just like the manticore I killed, but more lively and scary"
He hid behind a boulder and saw the manticore descending from the skies, it landed in front of the cave and roared angrily into the darkness.
ROAR!
A deafening roar came from the cave, a five meter tall tiger strolled out while eying the manticore. Its form was opposing and menacing.
Bian had cold sweat running down his back. The manticore he saw a few days ago looked completely different, just from its aura he could tell it was now a sacred blood beast. The aura of the tiger was even more suppressing than the manticore.
In the scorching heart of the desert, the sands burned like molten gold beneath the relentless sun. The silence of the dunes was shattered by the furious clash between two apex predators: a massive, feral Manticore and a colossal, golden-furred Giant Tiger.
The Manticore's wings unfurled with a deafening flap, casting a shadow that briefly covered the dunes. Its leonine body, covered in armored scales, glinted like obsidian. Poisonous barbed tail poised, venom dripping from its tip, and rows of razor-sharp teeth glistened in the sunlight.
Facing it stood the Giant Tiger, an awe-inspiring creature with fur the color of the desert's dunes. Muscles rippled beneath its coat as it prowled, fierce amber eyes locked onto its adversary. Its massive paws left deep impressions in the sand.
The Manticore lunged, venomous tail slicing through the air, but the Giant Tiger was swift. It dodged the strike, agile as a desert wind, and countered with a powerful swipe of its enormous paw. Claws met scales with a resounding clang.
Roaring in fury, the Manticore retaliated with a flurry of spikes shot from its tail. The Giant Tiger darted between them, avoiding the deadly projectiles, but it couldn't dodge them all getting impaled in several places. The tiger lunged forward, jaws snapping. Fangs clashed against the Manticore's armored hide, but it couldn't pierce the scales.
With a deafening roar, the Manticore's wings propelled it into the sky. It circled overhead, casting a looming shadow over the desert. From above, it rained down poisonous spines upon the Giant Tiger below.
The Giant Tiger twisted and turned, avoiding the barrage as much as it could. It had slowed down due to the effects of the poison. As the Manticore swooped low for another attack, the tiger leaped with astonishing agility. It caught the Manticore's tail in its jaws, biting down with all its might.
The Manticore struggled and stabbed the tiger repeatedly before it screeched in agony as its tail was severed, venom spraying across the sand. Enraged and crippled, it crashed into the dunes, sending plumes of sand into the air.
The Giant Tiger wasted no time. With a final, bone-crushing pounce, it pinned the Manticore to the ground, claws piercing through scales and into flesh. The Manticore writhed and struggled, it damaged and exposed the beating heart of its opponent but was no match for the sheer strength and fury of the Giant Tiger.
In the end, the desert sands bore witness to a brutal battle's conclusion. The Manticore lay defeated, its once-ferocious form now a lifeless heap. The victorious Giant Tiger stood triumphant, its fur glistening with sweat, blood and sand, a true desert king.
From the sidelines two spears reached the tiger in an instant, weak from the poison the tiger leaped back and shattered the first spear. As it destroyed the second spear a third spear cleverly hidden behind the second spear revealed itself.
A surprise attack, poison flowing in the tiger and a fatal weakness, the spear pierced the beating heart of the tiger. It collapsed on the sands of the desert. It couldn't be any more dead.
[Sacred-blood creature golden-furred giant tiger killed. Beast soul of golden-furred giant tiger gained. Eat the sacred-blood golden-furred giant tiger to gain zero to ten geno points randomly]