38 VISIONS

Rex charged the snake as it recoiled and twisted in pain. 

The serpent moved like a typhoon of barbed whips. 

He and Hassan flipped and rolled under its spinning limbs and charged through the sand waves unscathed. For the most part at least.

Hassan was faster. He reached the snakes underbelly with a powerful leap. Flowing veins of sand followed— trailing off his fingers as he lunged forward and stabbed its stomach. The currents of sand turned to bladed sandstone prisms and stabbed into the reptile soon after his fingers.

The werelion was flipping off of the snake long before it slithered backward off the piercing sand constructs, now leaking blood from five gaping wounds.

The half-goblin was making its way to the other eye— a practical plan of attack after Hassan's words. The only problem was he was only a boy, and the World-Serpent was made in the image of a god.

A weird glow rose from beneath its scales. Like it ate a thermite explosive before fighting them. Rex's fur stood on end and bits of sand rose as the desert reverberated from the around Serpent.

Before Rex could call out to the boy, an audial blast from within the serpent leveled the once uneven desert plain.

They all were sent tumbling from the blast.

But cats were made to land on their feet.

Rex hit the ground running. The World-Serpent roared at the center of the pit formed around it.

As he approached the sanded cliff drop-off, he found the half-goblin's slowly revealing form. He was half buried and in a daze.

The serpent began slithering up the sanded hills to reach him as it leaked warm blood and gaseous poison. More oily mud constructs of werelions rose in its wake.

Rex didn't have time for a plan. But he had one thing he didn't have at the start of the sudden mission.

Mana.

He jumped off the cliff and began his descent. With outstretched hands, he reached for the sands surrounding the snake and it's poison followers. He could feel the heat of the sun soaking into the sand, superheating the crystals within and overwhelming it with solar essence.

As he fell, he imagined invisible hands beneath the sand, shaping and guiding it into his image. As mana did.

The sands at the bottom of the pit around the snake rumbled and shook.

Rex's hands glowed the same shade of the sun rays above.

He slammed his hands closed. The winds shook from the explosive clap. At the same time, the sand pit closed in on itself, locking the World-Serpent in place and stopping its constructs from reaching the half-goblin.

The serpent roared and spit poisonous balls of green fire at the hardened sand dome formed around it.

Slowly it began breaking its way towards the boy.

Rex was too close for much else and sometimes the only way out was through.

He roared.

The serpent looked up to find his massive leonine form— illuminated by the suns rays, plummeting straight down to it.

The serpent's eyes went wide. Rex knew that predatory look from anywhere. When opprotunity and circumstance lined a meal up with a starved character.

For a fraction of a second, he wasn't looking at a snake.

He was face to face with a drunk low-end business tycoon looking for an easy target in the alleys of the Blood-Woods. Or a teenage gang leader looking to jump in Rex for no reason other than dominance.

His lions fur darkened.

He burned the memory from his mind.

He burned.

The World-Serpent opened its jaws to swallow him whole.

Rex fell like a jungle-fire asteroid and dove into the beasts mouth.

His world never went dark. Instead it magnified with taste and sound and feeling as muscles that felt like wet iron twisted and flexed, attempting to grind him into a paste as gaseous saliva bubbled and steamed.

The smell of hybrid hormones, sand, chemical imbalances and fire nearly made him faint. Unfortunately he couldn't due to his bones being crushed by the monsters stronger internal muscles.

He burned all the same.

[70% Mana Remaining…]

He burned hotter.

[50% Mana Remaining..]

[Predator's Frenzy 70%]

Pink flames flickered into existence and began deep frying the endless layers of muscle. He cut and slashed and roared as he became like a small sun inside the creatures throat.

Outside, Hassan stood at the cliff of the sand pit, watching as the world-serpent coughed up its own ashen innards and screeched in pain. The scales around its throat and upper chest began to glow purple and pink from within.

Hassan smiled to himself, "He's nothing like you, Amalu. I find that interesting... I find him….. interesting. Perhaps Bastet understood this. She understood I could fit here. In this world twisted by chaotic magics. I could belong. I could be me."

The flames burning inside the snake burst through its scales.

"What was it you tried to summon before, Pride-Lord? Oh yes, the spear. A beautiful weapon. One I am familiar with." Hassan spread his legs apart and squatted into a sumo-style stance. The sand around his feet flowed like water. In a flash, he stood and brought his body into a fine tuned point.

Beside him, a sandstone spear exploded out of the ground.

As it stood beside him, he watched the serpent and closed one eye— as if he was taking aim.

Inside the serpent, Rex reached his apex of power.

No more memories as emotional fuel. No more predatory drive. Just fire to erase it all.

He put the last of his mana into a final blast and felt release.

[+400 EXP]

Sunlight touched his fur.

The snake fell and hit the ground missing its head. He fell out of the throat on a slip and slide of burnt giblets over black glass grounds.

DING!

[You have Leveled Up! You are now Level 10!]

[1 Stat Point Available]

DING!

[Mission Complete! Your Rewards have been granted.]

[+2 All Physical Stats]

[(Venomous Saliva) has upgraded to (Lion-Drake Fangs) due to your Barbed DNA Reserves and current Werepanther Form.]

Rex marveled at the system notifications as he lay on his back next to a dead world-serpent. "Can I just stay here until the full moon? I think by then I'll be able to give Remulus a run for his money. As long as Bastet keeps feeding me snakes."

Footsteps took him out of his thoughts and had him looking up into the face of Hassan with the half-goblin on his shoulder.

"Sup." Rex coughed black smoke.

Hassan looked up to the boy— who was wide eyed and shaking sand out of his hair, "Tell him."

"I remember." The boy said.

"What?"

"I remember my name!"

"You do?" Rex got up to his feet— probably a little sooner than he was ready for.

"My name is….. Syphen."

"Who the hell names their kid siphon?" Rex asked himself in thought but smiled all the same, "Nice to meet you, Syphen."

The two shook up.

"I suppose the concussion from the serpent

sent him to a place of recollection." Hassan said.

"Or the goblin magic reconnected him with his roots." Rex shrugged— cringing as the movements reminded him at least six of his fingers were broken and portions of his fur and skin was torn off from the serpents muscle spasms.

"Indeed." Hassan nodded.

"... so, anyone got a bandaid?" Rex asked, "Or healing sand?"

"If you feel proficient enough with your Solar-Sand, you could summon a few Bastetians to lick your wounds. Their tongues are pure magic!" Hassan said with a smile.

"I'm too tired to comprehend what you just said in any moral way." Rex turned around to eye the snake carcass.

They stood at the bottom of the sand pit on a black glass ground. Under the suns rays, he could see the frozen in time poison constructs stuck beneath in a purple sheen. Above, the serpent lay headless at his feet.

"I must've burned the whole skul—" His thought process fell short as he looked up to find the snakes head pinned to the far wall of the sandpit by a sandstone spear the length of two cars. Probably weighed as much too based on how deep into the sand it dug and it's insane thickness. For a moment he questioned if Bastet herself threw it.

Then he turned to look at Hassan.

"We are meager, but we are strong." He repeated pridefully.

"You're….. you're supposed to be fifteen…" Rex mumbled.

Hassan looked at Syphen then back to Rex, "Well, yes b— Rex, wake up."

Rex shook his head in confusion, "What? You just sounded like someone els—"

"Rex— wake up or we're gonna be stuck in combatives all day!" Hassan's lips moved one way but the words that came out flowed differently.

He stopped questioning it then, "That was defintely Tyson's voice. Shit! It's morning already?"

Seemingly at the same time, Rex and Syphen grew lathargic before abruptly passing out and fading away as sand.

Hassan brought his hands together in prayer and did the same.

Behind his bulk, Bastet stood alone, surveying the carnage.

"They have potential. But so did the others. They'll need more. More than I can give. Hopefully they find it. I like the little one."