NOVEL NEXT The Green Cradle 15 – Rules of Nature
The black beast came down from its perch high up on the massive tree. Its landing was strangely muffled as though it hardly weighed anything despite its size and being a good third bigger than the red primatus.
Seeing it up close, the changeling could finally see its herculean physique. It only had two arms, but they were twice as thick as the larger pair of arms on the red primatus. It had a hulking upper body, as though it were a bodybuilder, with some of its muscles hidden away by its black fur.
It had a slimmer lower body, which seemed to affect its balance making it constantly walk with its knuckles on the ground. It also had a tail which appeared similar to that of an ox.
It had no markings whatsoever on its fur or body, save except a patch of silver fur at the back of its head. Its face resembled that of a baboon’s, but seemingly longer and more pointed. Its most eye-catching feature were its horns that seemed to curl backwards like a ram’s but instead of curling towards the front, they curled to the sides then ended by pointing upwards like the sidewards shape of an “S”.
It stared at the changeling with its deep red eyes as though it were anticipating it to make the first move.
Thinking that now would probably be the best time to determine how much power it had, the changeling morphed its two pairs of arms into one pair to match the black beast. Condensing the stored mass into those two arms, the changeling placed focus on raw power.
With a roar, it charged forward with its arms outstretched towards the black Tyrant. Seeing the changeling’s move, the Tyrant in turn stretched out its arms forward to catch the changeling’s hands in what appeared to be a contest of brute strength.
The two clashed and the initial force of catching each other’s hands released a wave of force that knocked most of the primati watching off their feet. The ground beneath them shattered sending dust and debris in all directions.
The first thought that the changeling had as soon as they clashed was ‘it was impossible’.
It felt that the Tyrant’s raw strength was equal to or greater than its own, so its very first idea of overpowering the beast with all of its contained mass was impossible. Moving the Tyrant felt like it was trying to move an entire mountain; it held that much potential power. It had to win through a different method.
In its thoughts, it looked back towards the Tyrant and was slightly stunned at what it saw. The black Tyrant appeared as though it were smiling.
Seeing a potential challenge with the changeling, for the first time, the black Tyrant was excited. How long had it been since its birth had it dominated the world it lived in without a single creature to stand up to it? Its life had been mostly boring as it simply strutted around when trouble came, and it was usually enough to end it.
All the ones that had challenged it, including Tyrants, had simply broken too easily. They always tried to trick it or use some means to escape, or take advantage of it, even though it was pointless. And today, this little creature had shown up at the edge of their home, emanating power like it was trying to let all the beasts within the region know of its presence.
Sensing it, it decided to bring the troupe to see what it was and was initially disappointed with its small stature and how its presence seemed to dim as soon as it revealed itself. On a whim, it decided to bring it along since one of its companions appeared to be one of the wood-folk that lived further away from their home.
However, never did it expect this little beast was actually a wonderful prize. As soon as they clashed, it knew it was different. None of its challengers in the past had chosen the path of this mimic, which had decided to face it directly.
Experiencing this for the first time, the Tyrant became excited and couldn’t help but smile. Finally, its boring world was lifted and something strong had finally shown up at their home, and chose to take it head on.
Seeing their stalemate, the Tyrant felt that it wasn’t enough. It wanted to see how far it could take its abilities and how well the changeling could bring it out, so it further exerted more power and pushed further at the changeling, causing the earth around them to crack and shake.
This was why the changeling felt it was an impossible task to win with raw power. It already took all of its stored biomatter preserves to match the Tyrant directly, and yet not only didn’t it budge, it still had more power in reserve. Even if it had more biomass, it just wasn’t practical to burn through all that energy to have a slight advantage in a simple game of strength.
What’s even more concerning is that the changeling already concocted the most potent toxic fumes it could muster and released it at point blank towards the beast, and yet a dose that should have been enough to knock out a beast three times its size was showing no effect. Just what was in this Tyrant’s immune system?
The changeling had to think quickly. If raw strength and toxins were out of the question, then it had one other option provided by its inherited memories – martial ability.
With the changeling suddenly releasing the tension in its arms, the Tyrant was abruptly propelled forward due to the loss of resistance and smacked right into the changeling’s headbutt.
Addled by the blow, the changeling followed it up by grabbing the Tyrant by its horns and giving it a knee right onto its face.
Now that it was completely dazzled, the changeling finished it off by firmly grabbing one its arms, positioned one of its legs under the Tyrant, then using the beast’s own weight – threw the Tyrant over its shoulder; smashing it onto the ground.
If a martial fighter of any of the civilized races could witness this scene, they would’ve recognized what the changeling did was a well-executed throw.
It appeared as though the changeling held the advantage, but the surrounding primati remained quiet and continued only to observe. Although it understood that the fight wasn’t over, the changeling was still suddenly caught off guard as the twitching mass that was the Tyrant made a sudden forward flip towards it.
Leaping backwards upon reflex, it knew it had done so too soon as the Tyrant used the scant moment it was helpless in midair to grab its ankle and in an act of herculean proportions, swung the changeling overhead like a flail and smashed it onto the ground.
The earth caved from the impact and just as the changeling was getting its bearings, it was suddenly swung into the air once again and thrown to the ground once more. Before the changeling could recover, again, it was swung, making it realize it was being thrown around like a sack of meat. This happened several more times with increasing speed and momentum until eventually the changeling had gotten used to the timing and let out well-timed kick right onto the Tyrant’s face.
Dazed by the sudden attack, the changeling managed to slip free from its grip and gain some distance. Shrugging off the damage, the Tyrant looked at the changeling with what seemed like a savage smile. It was apparently enjoying the fight.
The changeling needed to be careful. It can shrug off most blunt damage like the thrashing from earlier due to its constitution, but it felt like its leg would have been torn off if it didn’t stop its onslaught. Losing limbs meant it would lose biomass, which would pose a problem if it couldn’t end the fight anytime soon.
It decided to close the distance once again. From their earlier exchange, the changeling felt that it still held the martial advantage as combat techniques currently serve as its best means of battle.
However, just as the changeling charged forward, something massive appeared in front of it, blocking its vision. Alarms sounded off in its head as it dove down to avoid whatever it was that blocked it and leapt to the side gaining distance.
Looking back towards the Tyrant, it found that its hands and forearms had swollen to unrealistic proportions. Its forearms now much larger and rivaling the size of its own torso, the black beast - with one of its hands extended outward, actually tried to grab the changeling when it lunged forward.
Unlike the mysterious black entity it previously consumed whose abilities felt abnormal and out of place in nature, this was the first time it encountered a natural creature that possessed the ability to manipulate the volume of parts of its own body. Seeing the earth cave from its fist resting on the ground, it appeared to also have the mass to match its size.
With a thundering roar, the black Tyrant charged at the changeling; tearing the earth like a force of nature.
Now aware of the Tyrant’s larger forelimbs, the changeling decided to confront it once more but with greater caution. Even with the increased size of its arms, the Tyrant didn’t seem to move any slower.
As they clashed once more, the changeling felt the pressure of its blows despite avoiding them directly. Just being near where it swung its massive arms was enough to shake its balance as it could feel the air being displaced with each swing.
The damage from the wind pressure was negligible so the changeling took every chance it could and returned some fast but sharp blows. Avoiding a hastily thrown punch while returning with an uppercut; ducking backward to avoid a grab while returning with a kick from below – each exchange grew more intense as the changeling kept putting the pressure.
In a fit of rage, the Tyrant raised both of its arms to hammer the changeling. The powerful slam caused an explosive shockwave that sent earth and stone flying in all directions. Even if the changeling could avoid the direct attack, it wouldn’t be able to escape unharmed from the blast.
That would’ve been true if it chose to avoid the attack while on the ground.
Realizing its nemesis was nowhere before it, the Tyrant looked up too late as the changeling unleashed a heel drop kick directly from above onto the Tyrant’s head while it was in the air.
With momentum, gravity, and using all its stored mass to deliver the blow from its heel, the force from the kick was strong enough to drive the Tyrant’s head into the ground, unleashing another shockwave that sent a ripple of cracks across the earth.
The resounding blast resonated across the primatus’ territory. As the earth and dust began to settle, a heavy silence soon descended upon the battlefield. Seeing the changeling being the only one standing, the wolf siblings along with the little green fae cheered and expressed their joy, but the changeling remained vigilant and took caution with the surrounding primati as it didn’t know how they would react to one of their leaders being taken down.
However, contrary to its expectations, the surrounding primati continued to remain silent. In fact, as it looked towards the white Tyrant, Oneris, it couldn’t help but feel that the beast was… also smiling.
That attack was reinforced by all of the changeling’s stored mass along with all the gene data it had compiled to form the hardest and heaviest biomaterial it could generate and converted its entire foot for that moment. Going by its calculations, that attack would have had enough force to turn the head of the Greater Armatect it had previously fought to mere paste.
It was incredibly unlikely that the black Tyrant could have survived the attack, let alone be able to continue to fight, yet these beasts thought that it still had a chance to make a comeback? Its suspicions were soon answered when it heard the earth behind it churning.
It turned around just in time to see the black Tyrant rise from the ground with a strange white vapor rising from its body. The Tyrant stared at the changeling with glowing red eyes before it gave out a thunderous roar towards the sky.
Its massive arms that swelled suddenly compressed and tightened to look as they did prior to their fight, but suddenly began to emit more vapor as they mysteriously started to shine with a metallic red luster.
Perhaps the most unnerving change of them all was that after the Tyrant’s transformation, it suddenly took a martial stance. A stance... that shockingly appeared similar to the changeling’s own.
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