Home > Varnog (Xian Warriors #6)(9)

Varnog (Xian Warriors #6)(9)
Author: Regine Abel

Flying through this would be a fucking nightmare, and I was literally getting turned on at the prospect.

“Furthermore, the city’s verticality is as steep on the surface as it is underground,” Varnog said, staring at the simulation with well deserved pride.

If this was the holodeck feed, I could only imagine how much more vivid it will be in a Dream Walk.

“Every single building within a city is interconnected by a series of tunnels and an extensive underground transport system. The fight will not happen in the streets of Kryptor but within its belly. Therefore, for the first few weeks, we will split the training between two groups. My brother Tremak will be in charge of ground troops which includes Warriors, Dragons and Coalition infantry. I will supervise the training of aerial forces, which includes first and foremost pilots, second the Weapons Officers, and then the rest of the psychic units.”

“This is going to be so freaking awesome!” Tyonna whispered, echoing my exact feelings. “If I had a cock, I’d have a hard on right now.”

We all chuckled.

“All the pregnant ladies should technically be able to participate as you will not be in physical jeopardy. However, you are all required to get authorization from Victoria and you will be closely monitored throughout the training,” Varnog continued, his voice taking on a gentler tone as did his features as he looked in our general direction.

It was mind-boggling how different, almost sweet, it made him look. I suddenly wondered how that fearsome male would gaze upon a female he loved.

Why the heck am I thinking that?

It was odd how the Scelk had suddenly piqued my curiosity in a way he and his people never had before. Even as I watched Sabra and Tabitha caress their growing baby bumps, I suddenly wondered what kind of father he would be.

“This little guy better cooperate,” Tabitha mumbled looking at her belly. “I refuse to be benched.”

“Ditto,” Sabra responded, frowning at her own.

“You’ll be fine,” I said encouragingly to both women. “Either way, your little ones will pop out well before we’re on our way to war.”

“Some of us timed our baby number two better,” Ayana said teasingly, before high-fiving Myriam who, like her, had given birth to her second son a couple of months prior.

Tabitha and Sabra both made faces at them, but I tuned them out, returning my attention to Varnog who had moved on to further details about the upcoming training. By the time the presentation and the Q&A session ended, I was stunned to realize Reaper had not entered my mind for a second. And even as I walked out of the room, it was the smirking face of Varnog that floated before my mind’s eye and his haunting voice that lingered in my ears.

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

Varnog

 

 

I was running through the uneven streets of Kryptor, the scorching sun overhead warming my cold blood in the monstrous form I had taken. Since we’d begun those Dream Walks with the Vanguard, the Kryptids home world had increasingly become my hunting grounds whenever I needed to vent the boiling rage that was my constant companion.

Since Bane had led us onto a more civilized path, we would often hold hunting Dream Walks in our Scelk Circles to help vent the primal fury that ran in our veins. Normally, we did this in our normal form, unleashing our bloodlust on virtual beasts or sentient beings, with no guilt or remorse. But of late, I needed to perform greater destruction to handle the bloodthirst that my increased interactions with the Coalition members stirred within me.

I was a formidable chimera. Standing two meters high and a little over three meters long, my body resembled my original scorpion-like form before I attached to my host, but with my legs standing much higher and being thicker, almost like a spider’s. Between my front pincers, a torso with two sets of speared arms supported what could most simply be described as a stag beetle’s head.

As the Soldiers ran in front of me, seeking shelter in the surrounding buildings, I spit balls of acid in their paths or at the building entrances, collapsing them and cutting off their escape routes. The whole time, I trampled the fools closest to me, stung some with my scorpion tails, stabbed others with my speared limbs, beheaded more with my giant mandibles and pincers, and sprayed acid upon those out of physical reach.

Their screeches of agony, the sound of their chitin scales shattering beneath my blows, their dark blood splattering the walls as their guts spilled onto the ground, and the acrid stench of their fear was nearly orgasmic. Their attempts at retaliation were laughable at best, their mouth darts ineffective against my thick armored scales, and their blaster fire even less bothersome than a mosquito’s bite. Although I had set myself to be almost godly in my powers, I had made the Soldiers identical in strength to those of the General’s latest brood. Their weak chitin armor was so brittle a single blow sufficed to not only break through it but also to inflict damage to their vulnerable flesh beneath.

Once too many, a face amongst the Kryptid took on a human, Tegorian or Lenusian appearance—the familiar faces of those who had walked out of the Great Hall two weeks ago. I had expected it, and Bane had warned me of the likelihood this would happen, still that hurt and fueled the omnipresent rage that dwelled at the back of my mind. Even now, they continued to stir my anger with their constant complaining and demands that they get the equivalent of our Dream Walk training scenarios, but not from us.

I chased those faces away, replacing them with those of more Kryptids or random vicious beasts. While this Dream Walk was the place where I could vent all the negative emotions that would prove devastating should I unleash them in the real world, indulging in certain fantasies would make my control when facing them all the more difficult.

Despite that, I didn’t hold back, ordering some of the Kryptids to start maiming themselves and each other. I couldn’t actually use mind-control in a Dream Walk. While I could mind-control someone to trap them into a virtual world, I couldn’t control their actions, only what they heard, saw or physically felt—like hot, cold, pain or even the illusion of suffocating. How they reacted to those illusions were their own free will.

In this case, the Soldiers weren’t real beings whose consciousness I had lured into this simulation, but merely virtual characters to whom I could dictate their behavior. As sick and disturbed as this made me, coercing my enemies into self-mutilating gave me a visceral pleasure that would no doubt horrify the members of the Vanguard, and especially those skittish members of the Coalition.

Through the mindless haze of murder and destruction, a distant voice called to me. At first, I ignored it, thinking it was merely a misinterpreted sound from the battle and the screams of the dying. Then I distinctly recognized my name being called by Sumin’s voice. Since her mate Tremak was currently in our village, that she would reach out to me while in the midst of a Circle session told me something important required my immediate attention.

I ended the Dream Walk and blinked, feeling slightly disoriented while reconnecting with my body and my surroundings. My mind still raged with adrenaline and bloodlust, and I took in a couple of deep breaths to get myself under control to avoid any unfortunate incidents—not that any had occurred to date.

I was surrounded by my other brothers, also standing on the red circle which indicated we were currently in a Dream Walk that involved violence; usually a form of hunting. Tremak was still deep into his own. He would have been welcome to join mine had he so chosen, but I believed my predilection for gore was a bit much even for him. Many of my other brothers were standing on other circles, each color defining the type of instance this was.

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