My Werepanther System: Starting with Nine Lives
Chapter 49 SIGIL-SKULLS

Chapter 49: 49 SIGIL-SKULLS

They called it an oasis.

In the jungle density of magically charged flora and magically cruel fauna, the waterfall churned its lake base like a bastion of the old world. When the relative foundations of peace were stronger.

But like any beautiful imagery in a harsh enviroment, it was only a mirage.

If one listened beyond the splash of water and flow of tidal waves, they’d hear bones snapping. Beasts snarling.

Sands weathering stone into smooth slabs.

Children screaming.

Behind the waterfall— in the oasis, a war waged on.

A skeleton-serpent the size of a dinosaur slithered through the defending native men and women.

Few of them had guns and used them on the creature.

It’s hard bones reflected the bullets, hitting a few of the fighters and grazing a few elderly.

The serpent came like the physical manifestation of the end.

It’s empty eyes beamed down on a cluster of children like peepholes into the void of the afterlife. Horns curled up at the end of its nose making the serpent look devilish in combination with its dark-glowing sigils.

It slithered upright, casting deep shadows over the crying children.

The serpent let out a hiss in the form of its dragging bones sending reverberating stony chortles up its body and out of its mouth.

It lunged at the children.

The warrior men and women, fueled by adrenaline, grit and a life of fighting for their people, fought through the small horde and grabbed onto the snake where they could, trying to pull it off course of the kids.

They were short. Their strength wasn’t enough. They needed that extra push.

And when it came, nobody saw it.

Out of nowhere, the skeleton-serpent’s head was ripped off course.

The serpent’s head flew left of the crowd of children, smacking against the stone ground so hard sparks flew and ignited the grass on the stones.

The snake slithered in a daze with a cracked jaw. Quickly, it shook its head.

Everyone heard a feline snarl, followed by something landing on the side wall of the cave.

It slid down to the ground in a cloud of rubble and smoke before slowly becoming visible.

Dark spotted fur. Green skin at the exposed chest. Goblinoid ears. The face of a monstrous Jaguar.

Syphen huffed, wiping the blood from his brow, "...hate snakes."

The warriors re-engaged the remaining skeletons.

Syphen wasted no time and charged the snake head on. Ignoring how it watched him approach.

His powerful leg muscles bunched up as he squatted low before pouncing on the massive skeleton-serpent.

Obviously, the skeleton-serpent waited for Syphen to line up with its nostril horns before charging forward and slamming him into the ground.

He hit the grounds so hard the stone cracked, his ribs broke and blood flew from his open jaws.

Right beside him, the children watched in shock. Knees scraped from the stone ground jolting and causing them to get banged up from simple proximity to their battle.

[20% HP Remaining....]

[Warning!]

[Find your Totem-Awakener or their magical essence to recieve boosted stats and healing...]

Syphen ignored the system message. The letters scared him. They sometimes looked like goblin sigils.

He looked away from the screen and came face to face with the children.

In their faces, he saw something. He experienced something. Something he wasn’t used to.

Familiarity.

Relation.

He’d made their same faces before.

Naturally, he was their age. He was them. The only difference was he had the power to fix their faces.

An odd feeling filled him. It was potent. Electrifying. It made his eyes water and his chest fill with air. It made his pain less terrifying. It didn’t make him want to run or hide. He wanted to be seen. He wanted to fight.

The fires spread on the grassy stone grounds as the serpent rose up off of his ribs.

He snarled.

The flames flickered and turned purple.

From the jungle-fire flows, the small covering of grass grew into lush gardens and bushes of thorns.

The feeling continued in Syphen. It was breathtaking.

It was everything.

When the snake prepared to charge again— even though Syphen now knew he was perfectly visible, there was no fear in him.

He inhaled. Not with his mouth but with his entire being.

The jungle-fire spiraled as he absorbed it from the nature surrounding.

Suddenly he was steaming with purple essence. His eyes went violet. His veins held the fire.

[HP 25.....28....47%]

[Totem-Awakener Essence/Mana Ingestion Recognized!]

[Totem-Awakener Essence-Transformation Skill Recognized: (Jungle-Fire)—-> (Jungle-Heart).]

The snake lunged again.

Syphen jumped into the snake.

He jumped with so much force, the stone ground cracked and he exploded towards the ceiling.

He was a blur of purple light. He moved so fast most everyone missed it and simply found the snake falling to the ground with a body sized hole running through its skull. As it fell, it hit the ground as ash. As if it was burned so fast it’s bones couldn’t physically process the heat in time.

Syphen hung from the ceiling. He fell and landed soundlessly on the remains of the snake.

[+450 EXP]

DING!

[You have Leveled Up!]

[You are Level 2]

In the silence, he listened, taking note of the silence spreading through the cave.

Quickly after, Hassan and Flora rode in on a focused sand dune controlled by Hassan.

"We cleared the horde." Hassan said, "That was a fascinating display of necromancy!"

Flora blew bone dust off the stock of her rifle before running over to the warriors who were wounded.

Among the crowd of people, a man stood up. He was old. An easily surmised fact after Syphen took note of his appearance. His skin was wrinkled and leathery from a life under the sun. His tribal tattoos were old and faded along his arm and chest. He wore a leather hooded poncho with a military utility belt holding up his skirt of sorts that was made of hemp threads. In his hands he held a book made of tree bark and wood cuts and a pen made of hawk feather and blood ink.

He spoke intensely in their native language.

"My brothers and sisters..... my children... great and grand! We are witnessing scripture in real time! I’ve dreamt of this day! We’ve heard the waters of the Nahual Falls call to us. All we needed was our shadowed guide! And here he is! The heart of the jungle is strong in him! As it will be in us if we live in his image as the Green-Cat Tribe."

Slowly, the people chanted in agreement.

"Todays pilgrimage will be called The Sprint to Nahual Falls. Followed by the Birth of the Shadowed-Jungle.... Where that which is unseen is as bountiful as the guardian himself. Look around! Life thrives!"

Syphen found Hassan standing next to him.

"Let him preach." Hassan said. "If I know one thing that will never change, its religion. The hope it brings is sometimes everything. It’s food and water.... holy sustenance. People need it. They need something more to this life. Something to believe in. Today. Maybe even tommorow, that is you, Syphen Rex."

"No." Syphen said as he slowly stood up, "That is us. We will believe in ourselves. I think..... I felt it. Right here." Syphen pointed at his chest, "I believed... myself. It made me strong. We have to help them have something inside..... or find what’s there.... so they can believe on the inside too. Rex wants us to do this. We will."

"For someone lacking in lexile level, you are well spoken... in a way." Hassan said.

"Who is lexile?" Syphen asked casually.

"....nevermind." Hassan said before adding, "Our tribe here is wounded after todays battle. So, I’m going to go make some calls to the sun. My sisters would be of great use here."

"Ok." Syphen dropped back down to all fours and took off to join Flora and the other fighters.

As soon as Syphen reached her and the others, he was directed to hunting and gathering supplies through the cave that now glistened with new jungle growth.

He did so for the next batch of hours.

All the while, Hassan had climbed to the top of the waterfall where he sat atop a stone and prayed to the setting sun.

Upon Syphen’s return, he dropped off three boars, ten snakes, a handful of fish.

The people were already settling into roles. Warriors that were wounded and recovering in the meager creation of wood and plant fiber tents had their bodies covered in Jaguar spots with green paint splashed across their chests.

Children were sleeping off the traumatizing events of the early morning and day with the elderly.

All except the man who was preaching earlier.

He had been waiting at the cave entrance and now stood as Syphen dropped his supplies.

"Welcome back, Guardian." He bowed, reaching out a hand that he curled like the clawed paws of a panther when stretching. It reminded him of the prayer pose they presented to Rex after he killed Beto the Blooded.

"Who.... No, what is your name?"

"I am Adelmo. Shamanic-Priest of the Green-Cat Tribe." He smiled, revealing he was missing many teeth while others were replaced with bat incisors, giving him wicked fangs behind his scraggly white beard.

"Adelmo...."

"Yes?"

"What is hope?"

Adelmo squinted with raised eyebrows as if Syphen asked him a highly secret question, "Hope..... hmmm.... It is the gift we can’t see with these eyes." Adelmo pointed at his own brown eyes, "Sometimes all we can do is hear it...."

At the same time, Syphen could hear the children snoring and warriors laughing.

"Other times all we have is a faint smell—"

One of the tribesmen cut open the boar freshly hunted by Syphen. The smell of blood and fatty meat made his stomach rumble.

"Sometimes it’s nothing but a feeling." Adelmo explained. "It’s the gift we can’t always see. Like you."

The sun had set enough for its rays to peer into the cave. The rays were refracted and split by the water, causing sparkling fissures of light to dance across the cave walls.

He could feel Bastet’s warmth in the sparkles.

A sudden exhaustion took him over. It angered him. He didn’t want to sleep. He had more questions. He wanted to keep fighting. He wanted to learn.

"I want this....."

Syphen took a few steps forward, trying to see more of how the adult women were making salves and discovering new fungal blooms in the cave fields, or how the more of the men and women were building sleeping quarters.

He continued on as his eyelids grew heavy and he shrunk in size.

Within another few steps, Syphen was in his human-hybrid form. A child. Like the others.

Then it hit him.

He fainted, landing in a massive plant fiber and flower bush bed where all the other children slept.

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