NOVEL NEXT Chapter 54: Majestic Sonic Roar
Although he’d braced himself for pain, this time there were only minimal twinges. Predictably, the majority were in his voice box, but a few frissons radiated throughout his body making him feel a little bit like ants were crawling under his skin.
He briefly checked on the rest of the pride to make sure nothing was about to attack them. Then, focussing on himself again, he looked at what had changed in his status screen.
- Brain level 4 –> 5 (Cognition speed standard measurement 7 –> 7.5)
- Nervous System level 2 –> 3 (reaction speed +30% –> 40%)
Majestic Sonic Roar (T3) level 3 (75% to level 4) – As the lord of all you survey, challenge and damage your rivals with an ear-splitting roar, and support your allies. According to your will, decide to what degree the effects of your roar will have precedence. Those who feel inferior to you may flee; those who feel they are your equal may attack. Those who feel they are your superior will be enraged by your Challenge and may attack blindly. (50% –> 70% + Evolution level difference%) chance that your opponent will be stunned for a varying amount of time. Determination of inferior, equal, and superior is according to your Evolution level with a level range according to this Ability’s level (3). All non-ally listeners have a 40% - 80% –> 50% - 85% chance of feeling intimidated by you and losing some or all motivation to fight or desire to follow orders. All ally listeners have a 40% - 80% –> 50% - 90% chance of feeling inspired by you. A further 5% –> 10% chance of gaining a 5 –> 10 minute buff: *inspired*. Enemies will be impacted by a sonic-damage attack after the first (6 - Ability level) seconds. This attack will deal (Ability level * Evolution level) per second as its base. When fighting an enemy below your Evolution level, damage is (base damage + Evolution level difference). Using a sonic attack consumes stamina at an increasing rate the longer it is held. At level 3 you will be unable to move while this attack is active. You are now also capable of roaring in a way which produces little sound, but causes your body to vibrate. Although your body is capable of withstanding this vibration for a period of time, extended use may have consequences on your internal systems.
The differences to his Brain and Nervous System were as expected. Though he’d have to test them to find out what they’d be like in practice.
The changes to Majestic Roar, or rather, Majestic Sonic Roar, however….
‘It’s a bit of a block of text now, isn’t it?’ Dominic remarked to his leonine companion.
‘No kidding,’ the lion replied sarcastically. ‘My roar is so much more complicated now!’
‘Don’t complain,’ Dominic shot back at him. ‘Don’t try to pretend that you’re not secretly glad that your roar is becoming more and more badass.’
‘I’d be happier if my mane was getting more and more ‘badass’ instead of my roar,’ the lion grumped. ‘Roars don’t get females.’
‘They do if they chase away your rivals before you even come on the scene,’ pointed out Dominic. ‘Which with what I’m seeing here, is even more likely than before.’
Actually, the biggest surprise that Dominic had when he looked at the Ability was that it had become a Tier 3 Ability. That seemed to bear out his previous observation that the more complex an Ability was, the higher tier it was.
Quick Strike, for example, was very simple: it made a single strike faster. So was Crushing Bite: it dialled up the pressure power of his jaws. Pounce was a simple damage. The only complexity to it was the awareness of the target for the first ambushing strike and whether it was close enough to a vulnerable area to activate for that and subsequent strikes. They were all Tier 0, as were most of his Abilities – the basic ones he’d earned from Cores.
Second Wind was the only Tier 1 Ability he possessed and had the two effects on both stamina and health: quickly giving him more, and then taking it away afterwards.
Tier 2 Abilities were like Acid Bite which gave him a ranged ability as well as a close range one and enhanced his teeth against acid damage too. Momentous Charge was also in this category and had the complexity of actually being an illusion which only did damage as long as the target was convinced that it should.
Now, apparently, he had his first Tier 3 Ability, which was…well, kind of a mess. Either it would end up being very useful, or the opposite if the effects didn’t synergise well in practicality. It just had so many different features.
First, there was the challenging aspect, which prompted the enemy listeners to fight or flee, though Dominic knew from experience that he could kind of control how intimidated the opponents felt.
At least, he could control how much he wanted his opponents to feel intimidated. It wasn’t a sure thing, in that if the opponent was lower level or likely to run away from a large lion, the roar would just enhance their natural inclinations. Equally, if the opponent was unimpressed by the lion and not feeling disposed to attack, he wasn’t always guaranteed to make it do so. The new addition of ‘according to your will’ seemed to indicate that that hadn’t changed; indeed, it had probably been enhanced if anything.
The other previous effects seemed mostly unchanged in wording as far as he could tell, though the actual percentages of everything had increased slightly, as had the length of Inspired.
Then there were the two new effects: the sonic damage, and the influence of Vibrating Body. What was clear was that the damage potential would increase as his level increased and as the Ability level increased. Which meant that it would get ever more powerful. At present, with an Ability level of 3 and at an Evolution level of 23, it would deal 3 times 23 units of damage per second, which was a not-inconsiderable 69 units of damage. If he could hold that for thirteen seconds, accounting for the time for it to activate, it would do a total of 690 units of damage – more than his own health pool.
If he could increase the Ability level to 5 by the time he reached level 30, that would be 150 units of damage per second, for a whopping total of 1500 units of damage in an eleven second roar. It seemed beyond impressive.
Though, he did rather vividly remember the eerie sound of the amesheks’ howl which almost wiped out his own health while he was clinging to a tree, so maybe considering it was a Tier 3 Ability, it wasn’t so overpowered.
Again, although it didn’t outright state that it was possible, he suspected that the damage his roar did might be enhanced by combining it with the other amesheks’. After all, the original Sonic Attack description had talked about it being the ‘nature’ of sonic attacks which enabled the enhancement. That, presumably, hadn’t changed in the merged Ability.
Of course, there was likely to be a catch. As was common with these Abilities, it required stamina, but it didn’t say how much of it. Indeed, it just said that he’d use stamina faster the longer he held it. Another downside was, like with the amesheks, the fact that he had to stay still while using it. That was to be expected, though so Dominic wasn’t disappointed.
His opponents would probably have defences too that would reduce the actual damage done. Plus, it didn’t say what happened if he was facing multiple opponents: if he was facing three opponents and succeeded in doing 690 units of damage over thirteen seconds, would that be to a single opponent? Or would it be divided equally between them? Or could he choose?
The last would definitely be the best option for him and given the nature of sound it was definitely possible. Perhaps damage would reduce after a distance? It didn’t say anything like that in the description, though. Again, something to test.
Finally, there was the influence of Vibrating Body. Dominic did feel a little wary about this one considering its slightly ominous warning about possible effects on his own body if he kept it going too long. Unlike the other effects, this one seemed rather separate too – it didn’t appear that it would be combined with the challenging, inspiring, or damaging parts of the roar, but would instead be a different sort of roar.
Curious, Dominic dismissed the screen and attempted to roar quietly.
‘You’re doing it wrong,’ Leo told him after a few moments of nothing happening.
‘I know that,’ snapped Dominic at him. ‘Have you got any better ideas?’ The lion went quiet, so the former-human tried again.
‘What doing?’ asked Sekhmet curiously. She wasn’t the only one: Lionel and Fang were looking on in interest too. The amesheks didn’t appear so curious – they were mostly looking around warily – but Dominic felt that they were still paying some attention.
‘I got a new Ability,’ Dominic answered in the Pride chat since they all appeared interested. ‘I’m supposed to be able to vibrate my body instead of actually making a proper roaring sound.’
At this, the amesheks moved in closer, their curiosity abruptly piqued. They sniffed at him, their antennae moving in odd patterns.
‘Make another attempt,’ instructed one of the amesheks. Dominic obliged, wondering if they’d have any advice to give.
‘Too tense,’ announced the second ameshek. ‘You must allow the vibrations to travel through you without obstruction.’
Interesting. The former-human tried to take his advice, relaxing his muscles before trying to roar again. It took a few more attempts, and a couple more pieces of advice, but eventually he worked out that, instead of roaring, he should more think of it as humming.
Once he’d realised that and managed to relax sufficiently, he found an odd vibration going through him. It didn’t hurt in any sort of way, and he could intensify it or reduce its intensity by putting more or less force into his hum, but it was a little uncomfortable. Still, he was rather pleased with his success and thanked the two amesheks for their useful advice.
Of course, the challenge was going to be relaxing enough to use it in a combat situation. If the amesheks had to do it that way – which surely they did since they knew enough to advise him on it – then he didn’t know how the first sonic wolf he’d encountered had stayed relaxed enough to vibrate when he’d been biting into it.
Since Dominic didn’t want to test the other new aspects of his roar when he had no idea of what enemies he might draw in accidentally, they set off across the clearing towards the temple. While they did keep walking carefully, it appeared that this clearing was as much of a safe zone – or ‘safe’ zone – as the entrance was.
Even while watching out for a potential trap to catch the unwary, Dominic decided to sort out something that had been bothering him: names for the two amesheks.
‘So, do you two already have names?’ he asked in the Pride chat, though adding a ‘direction’ to it which made it clear who it was designed for. The mental equivalent of turning to someone and making eye contact.
There was a short pause.
‘Names…like what you use to distinguish between others of your kind?’ the first ameshek clarified – the one who had started out at a higher level even if the second had caught up.
‘Yeah. Well, kind of. Your leader told you what’s going on with me having, well, two souls in the same body?’ Dominic checked, pausing until the two amesheks answered with agreeing sounds before he continued. As he did that, he realised that, though Sekhmet had correctly identified that there were two personalities in his body, she hadn’t actually been given the whole explanation. Lionel and Fang were completely in the dark, though he wasn’t sure how much they would understand.
Since Sekhmet was clearly listening closely and curiously, he gave her a quick rundown of what had happened. ‘So that’s why I like to use names: I’m not used to identifying others by…what they smell like and so on.’
‘That explains much,’ Sekhmet announced. ‘This is why you call me ‘Sek met’? Does it mean anything?’ she asked with interest.
‘Yes, it’s the name of a powerful lion goddess in an ancient society of humans. They also lived in Africa, though far away from here,’ he told her, before abruptly realising that there was probably too much unknown context there for her to get to grips with it. She didn’t seem bothered by it.
‘My name is powerful, like me,’ she replied in satisfaction instead. About to agree, Dominic was interrupted by one of the amesheks.
‘So what names would you give us?’ he asked curiously. Having already given some thought to it Dominic was able to answer immediately.
‘Procyon,’ he said to the first ameshek, ‘and Sirius,’ he said to the second. ‘They’re two stars which are part of the dog constellations and, well, you kind of look like canines to me.’
The two amesheks seemed to mull over the potential names, perhaps even communicating in some way limited only to them.
‘I like it,’ agreed the new-named Procyon, with Sirius sending strong agreement across the Pride chat.
Dominic smiled internally, even if his mouth was incapable of forming it externally, sending pleasure back over the Pride chat to the amesheks. Naming always made him feel more connected with the new members of the Pride, so he was glad the amesheks were happy with the names he’d suggested.
In the time they’d spent discussing names and the concept of naming, they’d finished crossing the clearing to reach the temple and stopped in front of the doors. Dominic eyed it: there were some obvious changes here too.
