The feral gleam within the predator's vertical slits scoured the underbrush, its senses sniffing out the strange ripple of vitality that had disturbed the flow of this primordial forest. clad in muscles covered with fur spun of shadow and silence, the jungle panther stalked on with murderous ease, his golden eyes flaring like tiny suns sinking in poison.
The new tsetse predator, Buzz Windbreaker, was just above a spongy green leaf, barely hovering. His insectile heart pounded like a war drum in his transparent carapace. Though of late he had been promoted to Rank Two, in the presence of this cat-god of death, he was still a mere spark of steam before a storm.
Buzz whimpered in his mind, mandibles quivering, please, oh gentle deathcat, take your regal murder elsewhere.
His wings flicked, unconsciously, spreading clouds of scent and pheromantic panic.
"Meeeow…"
The purr of the panther was tinged with curiosity, the voice was a slithering through the foliage as silk in malice.
Buzz's compound eyes widened. The hunter had noticed him.
"Oh no. No no no. This is not the way I go. Not splattered like an insect pancake in the middle of nowhere," Buzz's thoughts spiraled. "I was promised evolution! A cosmic devourer arc!"
A shade engulfed him. The paw of the feline came down out of the sky, and with it the weight of a crashing world.
[Threat Level: Lethal. Emergency Measures Engaged.]
[Blood Infusion Protocol Activated. All the Physical Parameters were Doubled Temporarily. Lifespan Cost: One Hour Per Second.]
Buzz was burning inside, his blood-circuits screaming with fire-essence. The magic within his muscles compressed and he felt a rush of instinctual power that he had never known before. His thoughts broke and splintered under the pressure, but honed like a knife on the stone of the universe.
He dodged.
A blur. A scream of displaced wind. Claws raked through where he had hovered just seconds ago, leaving behind a crater of exploded leaves and shredded bark.
The panther purred again, irritated by the missed strike. Its eyes narrowed, reading magical traces lingering in the air.
Buzz spiraled into the canopy, wings trailing sparks of lifespan residue, his entire being vibrating from the recoil of nearly being annihilated.
[Emergency Measures Deactivated. Lifespan Reserve Adjusted.]
Buzz sagged in the air, wings fluttering weakly. He felt hollow, like his essence had been drained through a cracked core.
"That… was too close," he muttered, now drifting above a dew-laced mushroom.
In that moment, a brutal lesson etched itself into his growing soul: power without caution was simply another form of suicide.
Three days passed like dream fragments caught in the weave of morning mist.
Buzz refused to approach any living thing unless his lifespan fell to desperate levels. That single encounter had rewired his survival algorithm. Until one moment—a baby squirrel, chewing on an oddly pulsing fruit, triggered his alert system.
But the squirrel, as if touched by subtle mana awareness, bolted immediately, abandoning its prize.
Buzz alighted on the fruit.
It pulsed. The aura was not just about nutrition, it was spiritual.
His proboscis was out, and runes were playing at the edge of it. He pricked the membrane of the fruit with care.
[+1 Day of Lifespan Acquired.]
[+1 Day... +2... +3...]
The figures were turning in a corkscrew manner like heavenly gifts. His inner mana was spinning in a chaotic manner, and his mind was swelling like a balloon that was being filled with liquid thoughts.
[Total Lifespan: 5 Days.]
[Spiritual Force Increased: +0.001. New Evolution Path Unlocked.]
The soul of Buzz convulsed. His mind grew as sharp as a razor. Where his brain used to stammer in agony when overworked, it buzzed with fresh knowledge.
He had made a step not only to survival, but to transcendence.
He started the chase again, not after blood, but after fruit impregnated with the same divine life.
Days passed. He bled animals. He scanned plants. He combed with monomaniacal intensity. His present life-span had settled down to about ten days, but the fruit had escaped him.
And then-a pattern.
Behavior of animals changed.
Frogs, deer, squirrels, the very predator panther--all going the same way, and disregarding the laws of predator and prey. As though by something older than instinct.
Buzz, puzzled, but interested, followed.
The sky was torn open by a sonic boom. Mana fractured.
Another sun flowered in the sky.
Then there was a voice, old and seething with Godly pride, that resounded over the world.
"DAMN YOU, DEMON! Thou wilt never degrade this world. The Radiant Knights will cast you into the Abyss beyond flame!"
Buzz stopped in mid-air. The sound itself distorted the mana around him. His wings shook with the mere sound of it.
Then another voice: a laugh of thunder and sadism.
A battle had been commenced.
A war among gods.
And Buzz, the re-embodied tsetse fly of ambition and sarcasm, was now a spectator of celestial war.