I have Nine Lives

Chapter 9: Cousins

Sahee and Felix's running speed were quite high, Felix was even running faster than her after he ate the bear's body and she had to use her innate ability to keep up with his new speed.

They already left the plains and the sun overhead was starting to grow hotter and hotter, reaching the savanna wouldn't take them much time considering their current speed.

Their surroundings started to change as yellow tall grass sprouted from the ground, trees became rarer and changed their shapes, they were quickly nearing the savanna and it took them only around 6 hours of travelling at their quickest speed.

Felix smelled the air and he could feel that the air around these parts was arid and hard to breathe, the sun overhead was beating down on both of their bodies and their fur didn't help their situation at all, Felix started to sweat along with Sahee.

They ignored their physical condition as they trudged towards the hyena tribe, after some more time of travelling in the sun they finally reached the hyena tribe that was based around an oasis.

Their buildings weren't that different from the cat tribe's the only difference was that their's were made of pale white bones, most of the people from the hyena tribe wore primitive clothes and acted simply, from time to time you could hear their laughter echoing, the moment Sahee and Felix appeared they were met with the bone spears of the guards.

Most male hyena's had a dumb look on their face but they were good at doing what they were told.

The biggest guard retracted his spear that was pointed at them and asked:

"What you want? Friend or foe?"

Sahee was in her humanoid form and they recognized that she was from the cat tribe, even though they were cousin tribes no one was trustful of strangers these days.

Sahee took out two bones from her clothes and pointed at herself and Felix then said:

"We came here as representatives of the cat tribe that stays near the big forest."

The big guard scrunched his face as he tried to remember who they were then he said:

"I don't know, I must go talk with a female, wait here."

Sahee waited with Felix in the sun while the big guard left them, the other guards were eyeing them warily while pointing their bone spears at them.

The hyena tribe was matriarchal, the females of the tribe were the brains while the males were the brawn, due to the evolution of the hex energy in their bodies they lost some of their extra members and gained a higher intelligence, the male's remained the same in the intelligence department but they became stronger, averagely a hyena male adult elite would have a bodily strength of 14, their mouth and teeth were their killing weapon as they could break bones with them quite easily.

The big guard came back with a female hyena that transformed into her humanoid form as soon as she saw Sahee and Felix, she eyed Felix not understanding why he wouldn't transform into his humanoid form but then decided to talk with Sahee:

"I heard from this big lug here that you have come with the invitations for the great hunt, you almost came too late, the great hunt will start 2 days from now."

Sahee was puzzled, as well as Felix, what great hunt? They weren't told anything about that.

Seeing their puzzled looks the woman took the bones from Sahee's grasp and looked them over for a few times before she started laughing:

"A male must have given your leader these bones, he didn't even bother to explain to you what they were about, whatever, people from the cat tribe always come to our tribes to join the lion tribe as scouts since we are one of the first subordinates they always want to butter us up, whatever let me explain how this works."

The woman threw both of the bones away as a bunch of male hyenas in their primal form pounced on them as cracked them with their teeth.

Sahee didn't know what to say but the female hyena started to explain:

"My name is Shinda, I'm the guard's leader, you can ask me questions later, the great hunt is a way for the lion tribe to find good subordinates and it's quite a simple endeavour, all of the contestants are pitted against each other in a deathmatch and only the remaining 10 survivors are allowed to join the lion tribe, based on their performance they would be assigned different positions in the lion tribe along with strategical resources and protection of their tribe."

The woman waited for questions from them but they were both quiet as they digested the information, Felix didn't mind, he wanted to stretch his body and fight to the death, Sahee didn't agree with Felix, this was quite harsh for her so she asked:

"What tribe's are in this contest?"

Shinda thought for a bit before she answered:

"Mostly from the cat tribe like you two, however, there are a few contestants from the black bear tribe this year, there are also a few from the Emu tribe, even though they are fence-sitters most of the time when it comes to resource division they now sent people to join the lion tribe, very strange if you ask me."

"There is also a contestant from the Elephant tribe, this is considered quite strange as Elephant tribesmen are pacifists, why would he join such a contest?"

While she was telling them the contestants, she was also explaining her doubts about some of them, both Felix and Sahee listened quietly after she finished rambling they realized that she finished telling them about the tribes, there weren't many tribes and most of the people were from the cat tribe, Felix wondered why?

Seeing Felix's expression Shinda could guess what he was thinking about:

"The other tribes feel that they would look down on their ancestors if they joined the lion tribe, after all, even though the lion tribe is strong they aren't invincible, it just that they are very balanced and they give great opportunities for their subordinates, as long as you are talented you wouldn't end badly in the lion tribe."

After she finished explaining everything to them she pointed towards the nearby oasis and told them:

"You can rest for a while at the oasis with the others, some of our younger tribesmen will also want to officially join the lion tribe, even though we are their subordinates we are only given very few quotas for our youths to join the event due to our scavenging nature..."

Hyenas couldn't stop themselves from eating, they would eat until nothing remained if they were hungry, they would do anything for food and they wouldn't care if it was rotten or not, the lion tribe looked down on this behaviour of theirs and when they became their direct subordinates they didn't give them many quotas they could use to join the event.

The difference between them and the other stronger races was that the lion tribe would admit them even if they didn't have invitations!

If someone from the tiger tribe decided to join their tribe they would invite them in a heartbeat regardless if they were very talented or not, however, this was very unlikely considering the bad blood between the Tiger and Lion tribe, along with the fact that the tiger tribe lived in the mountains that were quite a long distance away from the savanna, even if a tiger cub wanted to rebel and join the lion tribe he would be caught on the way to the savanna and sent back home to repent.

Felix walked to the oasis with Sahee and waited, from time to time he would drink some water to quench his thirst, there were 10 other youths with the features of a hyena, 6 males and 4 females, they were all looking at the outsiders warily, hyenas were twice as strong as the cat tribe in bodily strength, but they lacked refined techniques and they only fought haphazardly, they were also quite reckless so back in the day a lot of hyenas died to the hands of the cat tribe ancestors, bodily power didn't necessarily mean killing power, and in life and death situations those with better experiences and techniques would win.

Of course, with lesser bodily power it also meant that you could only go for kills and you couldn't try to capture your opponent or you might be the one who ate a loss, killing someone was easier than capturing them.

None of the hyenas interacted with Felix and Sahee, they knew that they would end up slaughtering each other sooner or later so they didn't want to interact with their future victims.

Sahee and Felix understood them so they just sat there, from time to time eating some of the things prepared from the tribe when they were hungry and drink water when they were thirsty, the both of them didn't exhibit any of their techniques as they saved them for later.

After 2 days passed they were both ready to go towards the event site, they were led there by another woman from the tribe who didn't tell them what her name was.

The examination site was around 200 kilometres away from the hyena tribe and it was a place full of bones, the male hyenas couldn't control their saliva as they gulped heavily when they looked at the bones.

Laughter could be heard as the two people from the black bear tribe approached the event site.

A big fat fellow came as well, he had big floppy ears and a giant trunk instead of a nose, he was the one from the elephant tribe, he was silent as he ignored everyone.

Hundreds of people from the cat tribe appeared in groups of 2 or 3, most of them looked quite haggard and weak as if they were ready to drop down after a few seconds, but Felix could feel that they were only acting.

Sahee looked around and saw some guys who were sticking their heads in the ground, those must have been from the Emu tribe.

Suddenly a deep majestic voice could be heard coming from above, a big fellow dropped from the sky, he had lion ears and big whiskers along with a beautiful mane for hair, his tail was swinging from side to side as he eyed every participant and then he gave a toothy grin showing his sharp teeth to everyone and stated:

"You all know the rules."

He stomped on the ground and all of the bones from the area caved in as a hole appeared on the ground, it was an underground arena!

The man explained shortly:

"This arena was created by the mole tribe and it spans around 100 kilometres, it's like a maze, you will all have to go down there and fight for 10 days, normally our tribe would only recruit the last 10 living people but we made an exemption this year, as long as you are alive by the time the 10 days are up you will be given the scouting job in our tribe, based on your performance on how many people you killed your rank will increase to the maximum of lieutenant in the tribe."

"Anyways go now, I will be waiting here for the whole 10 days, you will also be disqualified if you killed someone after the 10 days are up."

The man traced with his finger on his neck when the word disqualification left his mouth, most of the people here understood that disqualification meant death from his gesture!

Felix looked down in the underground arena, this type of arena would be advantageous for those of the smaller sized tribes, the big black bear tribe and the elephant tribe would have a harder time, even the Emu tribe was considered quite tall for the arena, the arena was made by the mole tribe so it made sense it was quite small.

The lion tribesman looked around and seeing some gazes that told him they thought the arena was unfair for them he laughed and pointed at the two black bears:

"What do you guys think of the arena? Pretty great right?"

The black bear duo didn't say anything as they looked down, the lion's aura was fully engulfing them and that made their bodies shake in fear!

Seeing that both of them didn't say anything the lion took back his aura and said:

"The winners will be taken by me to the lion tribe city, you will be given further information if you are still alive after the 10 days are up."

Felix and Sahee were one of the last groups that jumped down in the underground arena as there were few single people from the cat tribe that wanted to team up with them, Felix and Sahee refused all of them as they couldn't trust anyone in this situation, who knew when they would backstab them?

Both Sahee and Felix were considered to be quite smart, especially Sahee as she had more knowledge of the world than Felix, she used to do quite a few chores that needed her to travel around in her youth due to her obvious potential, she needed to learn how to deal with different situations so she could learn how to read people well.

Felix just didn't want to team up with anyone because they all felt weird to him, they had a strange smell and he could feel they weren't sincere at all when they asked to team up.

Both of their silhouettes disappeared into the underground arena as the lion tribesman surveyed the now empty area, the hyena woman that led them to the place already left before the lion tribesman arrived.

The lion-man sighed as he looked down at the hole in the ground and muttered:

"Our lion tribe fell so hard that we need the help of this type of people, so embarrassing!"