CHAPTER 48— SABARIAN ENVY
The change did not explode outward.It crawled.
Black fur slid over muscle in slow waves, swallowing skin. Bones lengthened with muted internal pops. His spine stretched, vertebra by vertebra, until his posture folded forward and settled onto four limbs. Claws eased from his fingers like unsheathed thoughts. His jaw widened. Teeth sharpened.
Green traced beneath his fur in faint, pulsing veins.
The serpent sigil along his flank did not glow.
It breathed.
Leylin lifted his head slowly.
And grinned.
The Sabarian tiger stood across from him, massive, striped in frost-white and iron-black, its demigod aura pressing outward in territorial warning. Its ears flattened. Its whiskers twitched.
Leylin licked the blood at the corner of his mouth.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
The tiger attacked first.
It blurred forward, a force of compressed muscle and killing instinct, claws carving trenches through the earth as it closed the distance in a heartbeat.
Leylin vanished.No sound.No burst of speed.No warning.
One moment he stood there.
The next..The tiger's paw cleaved empty air.
It barely had time to process the absence before something struck its face.
A paw.Heavy.Casual.
The impact folded its skull sideways and the world inverted.
The Sabarian tiger vanished..Not by will.By displacement.
Leylin's strike sent it tearing through trees, shattering trunks in a straight violent line as its body became a black-and-white comet ripping across the forest.
Branches exploded. Stone fractured. Birds detonated skyward in panic.
The tiger tumbled mid-air, spine twisting, limbs scrambling for balance. It forced its body to right itself, claws reaching for ground that had not yet arrived.
Then it glanced down.
Below..It saw itself.A black shape.Falling.
For a split second its thoughts fractured.
Me?
The silhouette beneath it stood still, waiting.But something about it was wrong.Too still.
Too composed.Too… hungry.The tiger's fogged mind snapped back.Not me.
Him.!!
Reality returned like ice water.It wasn't looking at its reflection.Leylin stood below.Waiting.The tiger hadn't even seen him move.The ground rushed upward. The tiger twisted to land..But the moment its paws reached..Leylin was gone again.
A ripple of black and green..Then claws raked across its flank mid-descent, redirecting its fall sideways, slamming it into the earth with bone-rattling force.The forest shook.
The tiger rolled violently, digging trenches with its claws to halt momentum. It skidded to a stop, breath bursting from its lungs.Leylin stood twenty paces away.Unharmed.Grinning.
Blood dripped lazily from his earlier wound where a stray claw had grazed him.
He lowered his head.Licked it.Slow.Mocking.The tiger roared now..not dominance.Rage.
It charged again, pushing through pain, demigod aura flaring in visible distortion around its body.Leylin did not brace.He walked forward.Each step unhurried.
The tiger leapt.Leylin vanished.Reappeared above it.A forepaw came down..not fast,but absolute.
The strike crushed the tiger out of the air and drove it into the ground so hard the impact cratered the soil beneath them.
Before the tiger could breathe, Leylin's jaws closed around its shoulder and he wrenched sideways, dislocating the joint in one fluid motion. Bone slipped from socket with a thick, nauseating shift.
He released immediately.
The tiger staggered back, one forelimb hanging wrong.Its eyes had changed.Not anger now.
Awareness.This was not a fight.It lunged again anyway.
Leylin met it mid-stride, but instead of colliding, he stepped aside at the last possible instant, his body brushing against the tiger's as claws skimmed harmlessly through fur.
As the tiger passed..Leylin's hind leg kicked.A simple motion.The tiger's damaged limb collapsed under it.It crashed face-first into stone.Leylin appeared in front of it before it could rise.A paw struck across its jaw.Not to break.To humiliate.
The tiger's head snapped sideways, teeth spraying blood into the dirt.Leylin leaned down close enough that their breaths mingled.He grinned again.Wider.Then he vanished.
The tiger whipped its head around wildly.Left.Right.Nothing.
A blur..Pain detonated along its ribs as Leylin reappeared mid-stride and drove his shoulder into its side, sending the massive beast airborne once more.This time the tiger saw him move.Barely.
A distortion.A flicker.Too late.It twisted in the air again, panic finally threading into its thoughts. It forced its body upright, claws ready to land..And again,It glanced down.Leylin stood beneath it.
Perfectly still.Waiting.
Like a hunter waiting for prey to fall into a snare it had never seen set.The tiger's heart stuttered.
It landed.Leylin was already inside its guard.Teeth grazed the base of its neck, not piercing yet.
Just resting there.A promise.The tiger froze.
Leylin's claws slid lightly along its chest, parting fur, feeling the rhythm beneath bone. The pulse of the core thudded against his senses.He could take it.Now.Easily.
His jaws tightened slightly.The tiger trembled.Leylin inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of fear.Then..Something tugged at the edge of his awareness.Distant.Faint.Human.His grin faded.His head tilted slightly toward the horizon.Annoyance flickered across his features.
"Argh… fuck."
The pressure around the tiger vanished.The teeth at its neck were gone.The weight in front of it..Gone.
The forest stilled.The Sabarian tiger remained frozen in place, one limb dislocated, ribs cracked, blood soaking into its fur.It did not move.It did not understand.It had not been spared.It had been dismissed.
And somewhere beyond the trees.. something shook it's head in intrigue.. "interesting "