I have Nine Lives

Chapter 23: Experience and fighting styles

Sandors tried to ram Sumba to the ground and then grapple him, hoping that he could snap his neck while in the grapple position with his massive weight, however, Sumba used his footwork to dodge his charge and then grabbed his wrist to throw him to the ground.

Sandors laid on his back as Sumba's claws went directly for his neck trying to pierce it and the fight fast, he knew that Sandors told his teammates to back off but who knew when they would suddenly attack and put pressure on him?

Sandors didn't protect his neck as he rolled to the left barely dodging Sumba's claw attack, a small opening was made on his thick neck that only dripped some blood for an extremely short time before it stopped.

Sandors cracked his neck as he got up from the ground and tried to ram Sumba again, Sumba shook his head inside, while Sandors was extremely strong his attacks were easy to avoid and predict, and with his technique, he could use his enemy strength against him!

It seemed that Sandors was a rather unrefined fighter as he fought using his instincts without an ounce of his intelligence, however, due to his bodily evolution his instincts were dulled and not as strong as an actual crocodile so he was at a disadvantage versus someone who was using such peculiar techniques as Sumba.

Sumba breathed in and out as he dodged Sandors's ram again, since Sandors couldn't control his body briefly after the charge Sumba appeared behind him grabbed him by the waist, and threw him into the ground head first.

Felix's eyes widened seeing Sumba's fighting technique, however, he immediately found that he couldn't be able to use them due to his body, his cat body combined with his lack of strength meant that he couldn't use those refined techniques even if he wanted to, he might be able to steal some footwork so he could sidestep such attacks better but it wouldn't be that helpful.

Felix thought that he could learn something by watching this fight but he didn't understand much from observing, maybe if he fought himself he would understand better but Sandors specified that no one should interfere...

Sandors got from the ground and tried to slam his hands on Sumba's chest but Sumba grabbed him by the neck and started to crush it under his arm, however, Sandors smiled as he didn't feel a thing from Sumba's neck hold!

It seemed that Sandors was quite the brute as his muscles were stopping him from taking any damage from Sandors's attacks, even though he was lacking in experience and fighting style his body was extremely tough!

Sandors moved his free arms to continuously pummel Sumba's stomach to the point that Sumba even spat out some phlegm mixed with blood and retreated 5 to 6 steps behind him.

His eyes were red as his body started to heat up, the surrounding Hex energy finally activated itself fully under Sumba's control.

Sandors snorted as he activated his own peculiar ability, scales appeared all over his body increasing his ability to deal and take damage, the scales were spiked meaning that Sumba would have to aim to the empty parts on his body which were very few.

Sumba snorted as he controlled the Hex energy in the air and draped it around his body like a red cloak, the cloak covered his rags making him look rather decent now, he could even be called handsome and roughed due to his scars.

His speed and strength increased a lot as he disappeared from his spot and attacked one of Sandors's weak spots making Sandors spit out a big globule of blood unconsciously!

Sandors's eyes widened as he saw Sumba disappearing from before him appearing in the same spot as before.

Sumba grimaced as he held his fist, there were some bloody prints left on his knuckles indicating that he didn't come unscathed from that attack, it looked like Sandors's weak spots were there only to act as a bite!

Sumba breathed in again as the cloak around his body shortened and a hood appeared which he used to cover his face, some of his ragged clothes were now visible due to the shortening of the cloak.

Sandors was currently defending his body as he looked around seriously, even though he was lazy on daily basis due to his reptile genes, he was a natural cold-blooded killer with great instincts for fighting that were only diluted due to the bodily evolution that happened in the whole world.

Sumba didn't appear anywhere but Sandors's body started to move, his guard was broken as his eyes widened in disbelief then his jaw was broken along with all of the spikes around his body, his armor was destroyed and he started to continuously vomit blood as his internals were injured by Sumba's last attack.

Sumba finally appeared but he was breathing roughly as he tried to run away, Sandors couldn't move as he was currently vomiting his guts out so it was finally Felix's time to shine!

Felix quickly rushed towards Sumba's retreating figure which was quite slow now due to his exhaustion and injuries, Felix's body was tensing unconsciously as he approached Sumba, he could see the illusion of a cornered tiger that was ready to pounce and self-destruct along with his attacker behind Sumba.

Sumba's uninjured fist quickly snaked its way to Felix's neck trying to punch a small hole through it but Felix already knew that Sumba could predict his attacks so he moved in a different direction and didn't attack.

Sumba was flustered as he missed again and felt the killing intent coming from a different point, his arm was already stretched into a punch so his balance wasn't right, Felix's claws were centimeters away from his neck only for Felix's eyes to be blinded by a bunch of blood coming from Sumba's injured hand.

The blood finally revealed Felix's body to Sumba so he immediately pounced towards him, ready to kill him, since he was able to see him now he didn't have to wait for Felix to attack him.

Since Felix was a cat tribesman with a weak body, his stealth being the only thing that kept him alive in such situations meant that he should easily die in Sumba's hands, at least that's what Sumba thought.

Felix breathed in as he used Sumba's footwork from before to dodge his opponent's pounce, however, there was no way for him to counter as Sumba directly jumped backward to face him, his fist ready to destroy his inner organs as it was aimed at his chest.

Felix frowned as he jumped backward to avoid the punch only for a long claw to extend from Sumba's fist and impale itself into Felix's chest!

Felix started to bleed as he used the momentum from jumping backward combined with the impalement to extract the claw from his chest, Felix put his paw on his chest as he could feel his blood slowly leaving his average-sized body.

Sumba was smiling in victory seemingly thinking that Felix would bleed to death so he was ready to run away, however, he fell to his knees as blood started to slowly drip down from his ears, he put a hand to his ear as he felt the blood on his palms and frowned.

Korro immediately appeared in her bat form, with her mouth wide open, the flamingo youth was supported by Ricko and Sandors pale face was quickly making it's way to the changing battlefield, Sandors was extremely mad as he rushed directly towards Sumba who was out of balance and punched him into the ground creating a small crater under them.

Felix breathed in and out as his blood was leaving him only to see Ricko quickly closing into him and applying a green bandage over his body, he could feel his chest wound slowly closing due to the bandage but he still lost quite a lot of blood so he felt lightheaded and weak so he wasn't in any position to fight anymore.

Ricko frowned as he watched Sumba slash at Sandors with his claws making him lose one layer of flesh on his arm, Sandors grasping his injured arm in pain made him unable to pain Sumba to the ground anymore which meant he would escape!

The flamingo youth charged Sumba as he used his good remaining arm to create a wind blade that almost cut off the tiger tribesman's left hand off!

Unfortunately, the left hand was still clinging with its last hopes and cartilages onto his arm so it wasn't severed, meaning that it could be fully reattached and healed in the future.

The flamingo youth cursed very loudly:

"I WON'T REST UNTIL I ATLEAST RIP OFF ONE OF YOUR HANDS, OR MY NAME ISN'T DURIOTE FLAMINGO THE FOURTH!"

His left arm stump was bandaged but his shout along with his sudden movements made the wound open again, which made Duriote fall to his knees while having a pained expression on his face.

Sumba didn't say anything as his silhouette disappeared in the forest, it seemed he would be able to escape fully.

Landers shook his head as he saw Sumba disappear, he didn't go after him nor did the other captains as Landers told them to leave him alone, after all, he did promise him he would be able to leave if he survived an encounter with the youth team below him.

Landers and the other captains dropped to the ground, most of them had disapproving glances, the pig tribesman even told his disciple who was cowering behind a tree that he should have been eaten in this situation rather than displaying such shameful actions!

Landers ignored everyone berating their disciples as he got towards Felix and looked at his wound, he took a red-colored rock out of his bag and cracked it a little bit, ripping some parts of the cracked rock and crushing it into powder he offered it to Felix:

"Snort it and it should close your wound to the point that it won't open if you have to fight immediately."

Felix complied and snorted the red powder, the red powder traveled through his whole body before converging on the hole on his chest and quickly activating its properties closing off his wound, and even creating a crust over it means that after the crust dropped he would have healed completely.

Felix sighed as he put a paw over his injury and seeing that it didn't hurt as much anymore decided to slash away the bandages binding him as they were quite uncomfortable, Ricko wanted to berate him seeing his actions, but considering he was already getting berated quite forcefully by Penzo he decided to keep his mouth shut.

Landers then put his fist over Felix's head and told him:

"You didn't do great nor you have done many mistakes but I'm quite disappointed with your current display."

Landers sighed as he watched Felix avert his gaze from him, it wasn't that he was very disappointed with him but Felix didn't get the proper stage to unleash his potential, Sandors's intervention threw him off and broke his concentration and accumulation.

Landers decided to call off this training as there wasn't much time till the war will start, they would have around 10 more days before the war started so since they already got some deadly experiences under their belt it was time for them to learn some more sophisticated techniques. Seeing how the tiger tribesman easily beaten all of them with his made Landers realize that it was wrong to let the youths train on their own with their shabby foundations in the fighting.

Landers already told everyone of his plans so they started to disperse taking all of their disciples back to their respective tribes to teach them their tribe's fighting techniques in the remaining ten days.

Landers sighed as he motioned for Felix to follow him, they would train near the battlefield to spare time of traveling when they would have to get to the battlefield from training.

Landers and Felix started to run at their quickest speeds towards the designed battlefield.

It took them one day to get to the battlefield and Felix recognized it, it was around the borders between the territory of the tiger and lion tribes, he crossed the border when he went to deal with the supply route and assassinate that elderly lion.

There were already tents and people walking around both of the sides but there was a huge distance between them to the point that no ranged attacks would be able to touch their camps.

Landers had his own tent already up because of his rank so he invited Felix in so he could talk to him:

"Felix I can't train you anymore."

Felix's eyes widened in surprise, then why did he have to follow him to the battlefield then?

Seeing his puzzled eyes Landers gave him a reassuring smile and opened his mouth to tell him his thoughts and hypothesis on the matter of training him in the lion tribes fighting techniques.