Depthless Hunger

For Kai, the fight must have been savagery, bloodshed, and hunger. Omilaena watched from the outside, coolly examining their latest experiment.

Now that he was fully prepared, Kai flickered around the clearing, evading the manticore's bursts of quills. When they had been spent, he went on the offensive and the manticore reeled onto its back legs to fight him. Even though the manticore was many times his size, the two of them clashed like equals and spun through the center. Massive claws only battered at Kai's armored skin, while his claw skill tore great wounds in the beast's side.

As they fought, his body transformed subtly but steadily. The most obvious was the dark skin, like plates of armor growing over his body. His hands had transformed into claws from the first strike, but they were actually still growing. He was half a head taller than he had been at the beginning, and much heavier thanks to all the monstrous tissue.

Would all of this produce a Physique breakthrough? Kai had been stuck at D-9 for a long time, past Omilaena's ability to boost him further. Truthfully, high level Physique was still an unknown to her, and her experiences in the Coiled Empire hadn't particularly impressed. There was something missing on a fundamental level, she just had no idea what.

Zae Zin Nim would be the test case. She had a unique body that was heavily entangled with her cultivation, not to mention her culture and her own thoughts. That was going to be a nightmare to figure out, but hopefully also bring them to solutions that could work for all three. She had been collecting Physique manuals from every sect she encountered, so hopefully they would add up to some real insight.

Omilaena realized that her mind was wandering while she watched her lover fight a vicious beast. But as the fight proceeded, Kai stopped flinching at the claw swipes, and his own claws dug deeper every time. He wasn't even really fighting the manticore, he was fighting himself.

Despite her thoughts, she was keeping an eye on his soul, waiting for the slightest flicker of a deeper transformation. But Kai showed no signs of losing control or falling into any technique, Savage Heart or monstrous. He had absolute mastery of himself... there was just something darker beyond if he gave up that mastery.

It would have to be a mystery for another day, because just as the manticore raised its tail for another burst, Kai leapt at its neck. His unnatural maw bit deep into its flesh, and though the manticore struck at him with both paws and tried to smash him into the ground, it was rapidly losing blood. Eventually it collapsed, twitched one final time, and then lay still.

As Kai stood atop the corpse, not roaring but practically radiating victorious energy, Omilaena examined his soul one more time.