Lament of the Slave

Chapter 106: Hard to Describe

"You still there, girl?" Deckard's voice, echoing in my head along with my instincts screaming at me what to do, caught me off guard and almost cost me a chunk of my wing. Yet to hear him brought a bit of comfort to my mind instead of fury. He cared.

Thumbs up. "Still here!"

Was it weird, I found formulating the words a tad more difficult? Hmm...Not really. Not when I had to suppress my urges pretty hard. It was like sitting at my desk at school again, trying to concentrate on the lecture, but my mind kept drifting to what I was going to do after the last class.

I know, a silly analogy that rather made me homesick, if nothing else. It was how I felt, though. Talking through the union rings while straining my will in an effort to keep my wits was challenging to say the least.

"Impressive. For a moment there, I thought you wouldn't dare..."

"I was...terrified." Perhaps a bit exaggerated and hard to admit, not far from the truth, though.

It took him a while to answer, waiting for the right moment, as he didn't want to distract me too much from the fight. "It would be odd if you weren't."

Not the answer I was expecting. "Why?"

"Crazy people...not now, girl. Later. Focus on the fight." Deckard said. "You've done well so far, met my expectations. So keep it up, go far beyond them and kick the guy's ass."

Well, easier said than done.

Stab, slash, swipe, chop, sweep, the guardsman tried it all, and I dodged everything he threw at me. Attacking him back was out of the question, though. The human wasn't giving me much room to breathe and blocked every attempt I made, just like before. Against all the risks and pain I'd been through, the deeper beastification didn't help that much.

However, the truth was, I was still struggling with the changes.

While having a hard time describing it and without a chance to look at the notification, no doubt informing me about the tier-up of the [Beast], I felt I could do more, be faster, hit harder. It was just a matter of getting used to my transformed body.

My new anthro legs? No problem. Whatever shape they were, it felt natural, like I was born with them, yet...they were different. Plus, I was bigger, more robust, and with a wider wingspan. When I flapped my wings now, oh man...they propelled me with so much force. Sadly, it still wasn't enough to allow me to fly.

What brought me the most anguish was that I didn't eat before the fight. I should have asked, insisted, because seriously, I was starving. And it was driving me crazy, or should I say, my instincts.

[Beast] wasn't some magic skill that transformed my body using mana. No, it didn't use that magical substance at all. It was a physical skill that dragged to the surface a beast hidden for generations and centuries deep within people. It brought back to the light what people were, what they came from, and what they had long forgotten.

There was just a tad more inside me.

I needed to eat...I needed food, something to stuff myself with it. Damn, I needed it so badly as [Beast], with everything it did to me, took almost all the energy I had to do so.

If it weren't for [Tireless Machine], which let me push further past my limits, and [Indomitable Will], allowing me to suppress those cravings, I would probably give up the fight.

So I soldiered on, determined to see it through to the bitter end.

Stepping aside, I dodged a thrust and hit the pole of the glaive just centimeters away from the pissed-off human's hand. No, I didn't go crazy or give in to my instincts. At least not entirely. It was the intention. All I had on my side was speed and strength, a lot more of it after the change. And frustratingly, I still couldn't get past his defenses. Thus, I simply gave up. Instead of going against the tide, I chose to go with it.