Sora blocked as the knife rushed through the air but he misjudged. The knife wasn’t aimed at him. The knife was aimed at Lucifer himself. The knife cut into his elbow and severed off his forearm.

Even knives of the future were incredible. They were akin to a perfectly honed sword and easily cut through his bone. Lucifs forearm fell to the ground in a plump as a line of blood sprayed from the remaining stump.

“Ahhhhh, what? No!” Sora yelled at Lucifs actions.

Lucif had decided to sever his own arm to stop the spread of poison. It was either that or death and he chose the former.

The scent of blood wafted in the air and caused the surrounding self-aware outcast to be attracted to it. They were part animal so their sense of smell was ten to forty times that of humans. There were a few herbivores amongst the enlightened tribes but there were also many carnivores. These demi-human carnivores could smell that scent of thick blood a mile away.

Lucif slowed down the bleeding by wrapping his arm with his shirt. He pulled it as tight as he could but his arm was still bleeding profusely.

Sora quickly ran to the side and grabbed a bamboo shoot which he snapped off and then broke out the insides creating a straw like shape.

“Put this in your mouth and then jump into the river, use it to breathe.”

“Ah man, my arm is hurting like hell and you want me to dive into the river?”

“Either that or die.” Sora grabbed Lucif and easily threw him into the water.

Splash

Sora didn’t look very strong, he had a thin frame and was very flexible but his muscles were thick and strong like tree trunks.

Sora reached down and grabbed Lucifs arm, he then sucked in a large amount of air which he then stuffed into his stomach, causing it to bloat and expand in size. It looked like he was pregnant with a large amount of babies. Or more accurately, he looked like a person ready to burst.

Sora rolled around in the blood until it was fully smeared across his clothes. Then he began to gnaw on Lucifs severed arm like a juicy steak.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh

3 figures jumped down from the trees and landed in front of Sora. They had white coats of fur and sharp vicious looking teeth. Their eyes were yellow and they reeked of death.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Sky Serpent.”

Sora pulled Lucifs arm from his mouth and began to speak, “Why is the snow wolf clan invading my tribe’s territory?”

“Heh, it may be your territory but what about the hunting laws? All humans are forbidden from entering the Northern Jungle yet you brought one here and killed it. Just look at your fat belly, you have eaten well without sharing it with the rest of us.”

Sora wiped the blood from his lips as he said, “You are right, I did eat this human but I didn’t bring him here. He was already dead when I found him.”

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh

6 more figures joined the fray. 2 had black fur and cat ears with beady yellow eyes. They were from the Black Panther tribe. The other 4 were mostly human, except they had fox tails and fox ears. They were members of the nine tailed fox tribe.

“He was already dead? You talk from your backside, how could he have died? If someone killed him they would have surely eaten him the moment he died and we only smelt the blood recently. So how could he have died so long ago?”

Sora bit down on the arm and crushed into the bone, this visibly angered them to a great degree. For the carnivorous tribes they found intelligent humans and aliens to be one of the greatest delicacies. By eating their brain and feasting upon their flesh blood, they believed it could strengthen them.

“Look at the river over to the yonder, do you know what river that is?”

Whoosh, whoosh, rumble

Seven more demi-humans appeared. 2 appeared from within the ground, 2 from the air and 3 from the surrounding forestry. Now there were 16 people in total. ‘Snow wolf, black panther, nine tailed fox, earth worm, vermillion bird and the angry beaver tribe. This is looking bad.’

The female from the vermillion bird tribe started to wave her lashes as she softly spoke, each word seemed to heat up the surrounding air by 3 or 4 degrees. “The river of lost souls.”

“That’s the river of lost souls?” One of the wolves asked.

“Yes, called as such because bodies would randomly appear from under the water. The swordfish tribe have tried to investigate but they couldn’t swim against the powerful water currents.”

“Yeah, that would explain why we didn’t smell the blood until recently. It’s because the human drowned instead of being bitten to death.”

“But something doesn’t add u..”

Sora crunched into the arm one more time, drawing everyone’s attention and angering them once more. He wiped the sweat off his head, he had successfully distracted them from speaking about it anymore.

‘Time for the grand finale.’

Sora threw the whole arm into his mouth and gave three big chomps before licking his lips with his long tongue.

“Y…you dare eat in front of..”

“Hiss…” Sora’s venom gleeked from his mouth and landed on the dirt in front of the fox. The venom sizzled and burnt a hole through the rock leaving behind a trail of steam.

Gulp, this action made them think twice about attacking. After all, even if they attacked and beat Sora the human had already been devoured so they would get no gains from it. After weighing their options they decided not to attack.

“Tsk, from now on our tribe will be setting up a station here.”

“Ours too…”

“Mine as well…”

The tribes unanimously agreed before parting ways. The temptation for human meat was just too great. It wasn’t often they were able to feast upon the flesh of intelligent sentient beings. The humans on this floating country were just too powerful.

Sometimes the best strategy was to sit and wait. If there was a small chance that another dead human would wash up here. Then it was well worth the reward.