I have Nine Lives

Chapter 116: No more attacks?

Landers already saw Catro coming towards them so he got up from the ground and waved his hand:

"So you are the one Diorno sent, well I can't say I'm going to be troubled about the defenses while you are around."

Catro shook his head, he saw that Landers still had the mood to joke around after everything he and the others went through.

"You are still the same no matter in what situation you are, anyways I'm only going to be able to defend the 4 of you by myself, unlike you and Felix I'm not good with crowds."

Landers nodded and asked:

"So why you came over? Want to talk about something?"

"Actually yes, I want to know more things about the battle, the troops are too preoccupied with getting rid of all of the bodies for me to talk with them and since all you do is sit around I guess you have time to talk."

Landers nodded and Felix propped himself up on all fours as he jumped on Landers's shoulder and said:

"Ask away Catro."

"Very good, I wanted multiple points of view as well."

Landers started to recount what happened from the moment that the ground started to shake to the last fiery attack that he unleashed on those 10,000 remaining rabbits with the help of Manitola.

"I see, I see... it seems that our location is either easily identifiable by the enemy or we have another mole in our ranks but considering we just got rid of one, it's a little bit unlikely another one would pop out so soon and break their cover."

"It seems that they must have some special observing capabilities that we do not know about..."

What Catro said was the truth, the tree souls were the ones that made a contract with the rabbits and were currently sending information to the underground empire.

Catro thought for a while but he couldn't make a conjecture this quickly as he needed more information.

"Anyways we should need to prepare ourselves for another battle, this time the enemy might go mad because of their loss and send even more troops, our troops are already using the bridge to walk over and it will take a long while but we will need to defend ourselves until all of them appear."

However, as they waited and kept their guards up they realized that there no more troops coming, nothing was happening anymore and as time passed Lindo, Landers, Manitola, and Felix fully regained their energy but there were no signs of attacks happening any soon.

Catro frowned as he realized that something was wrong, why were there no attacks?

He sighed then shook his head as he realized that the enemy might have chickened out due to their immense loss of troops.

Landers realized that the leader of the rabbits might not want to lose anymore because they lost the blood altar that was creating the troops in the first place, anymore losses wouldn't be recovered in a short time anymore thus the person didn't want any more needless bloodshed, so he must have taken another approach.

Landers shared his thoughts with Catro which made Catro come up with a conjecture:

"It seems that they might have allied with the other people on the surface to create a mixed army to defeat the invaders, this is the most likely outcome as the rabbits would surely not discard the fact that we have offended them in such a way."

He glanced towards Felix, they wouldn't have made such an enemy if he didn't do what he did.

But it couldn't really be blamed all on him as he looked at the top of his head and glanced at the green wisp of light that stood there.

He sighed again and decided to continue to guard as he was assigned the woodpeckers village to protect now, Felix and the others were still supposed to continue their expansion work, the surroundings of the village were rich with trees that were of a higher quality compared to the ones that surrounded the fox village so he needed to get a team to cut them up and send them to the human tribe as payment for the next batch of reinforcements that will arrive with their help.

Catro never had free time after he became the logistics captain so he waved his hand at Felix and the others and started to walk away, he had been defending them for a few days already and they were all rested up so they didn't need his help anymore, he had better things to do if there wasn't going to be any sudden invasion happening any soon.

Landers cracked his bones as he stretched, he was fully healed and ready to continue the expansion work as he looked at Manitola and Lindo who were also getting up from the ground.

Felix sat on his shoulder as he sunbathed with the wisp perched on his head, they were ready to head out as they wouldn't leave any troops behind here considering reinforcements were already coming through bypassing the bridge.

But first, he needed to lecture the woodpeckers who came back after they realized that the fight between the rabbits and the lions was over.

He jumped on the tallest building as he cupped his hands in front of his mouth to increase the distance of projection of his voice.

"All woodpeckers gather in the middle of the village, this isn't a request!"

The woodpeckers were rather scared of Landers, even though not all of them saw him how he took care of that mother and child duo some of them glanced through the windows of their houses and saw what happened with the child so they knew Landers meant business.

The mayor of the village came forward and kneeled in front of Landers as he said:

"Oh, great conqueror please forgive us for whatever transgression we have done."

Landers shook his head as he looked at him and asked with a sarcastic tone:

"You don't know what you have done wrongly?"

The mayor's eyes flickered as he thought for a second before saying:

"We... we didn't alert you before the rabbits attacked and we took the opportunity to escape..."

"Atleast you understand what you have done wrongly, unfortunately for this, I will have to make an example of someone so this would never happen again while we are the leaders of this village."

The mayor started to shake as he knew that he would be the most likely person to be made into an example as he was a person of power no matter how small it was.

Landers waved his hand as a wind brought up the mayor to the top of the house where he was, Felix jumped down from his shoulder and took a few steps backward as he looked at what was happening.

"Attention to me!"

Landers grasped the neck of the mayor as he lifted him in the air as if he didn't weigh anything at all, then the hand that was clasped on his neck started to increase its grip slowly cutting the oxygen supply of the mayor.

The mayor was a middle-aged man who looked quite average at first glance, the mayor's face started to turn red and purple before life slowly left his eyes, he tried to unclamp Landers's hand from his neck multiple times during the choking process but in the end, he died as his body became limp.

"This is an example for all of you, this an example to show that we mean business and you should give us the help that we need when we need it, if you continue to be fence-sitters this will be the fate of each one of you, we aren't tyrants but if you are going to go against us we can't help but become ones, however, if you are helpful to us don't think that we will treat you badly, we will reward you as we will reward our own as you now belong to the family known as the Lion tribe!"

Landers dropped the mayor's body to the ground as it crashed bringing his neck to an awkward angle if he had a chance reviving if his heart was restarted now that chance disappeared.

"Bury him, this had been all for today, but my friend Catro who will be responsible for the village will be the one you will report from now on, especially all of the information you know about the other tribes, their quirks, and habits."

Landers jumped down from the house along with Felix as they started to gather the troops so they could leave for another expansion expedition. There was still the snail tribe nearby and it was strange how the snails didn't attack up till now.

The troops gathered together as they marched in formation with Felix and the others at the head, going directly to the snail tribe's village according to Manitola's instructions.

Landers looked at Manitola who was being lovey-dovey with Lindo and coughed as he asked:

"I have a question for you, up till now some time had passed and I think the snails should have found out if something was wrong with the woodpecker's village so they should have investigated by now, I understand that the woodpeckers would still be reinforcing whatever allies they have but are the snail troops out of their village as well?"

Manitola shook her head as she said:

"Well snails are very slow and they are only strong because of their highly acidic secretions that are also poisonous, they are basically living weapons and they are mostly used by the other tribes instead of them attacking with their own capabilities, their shells are quite tough and hard to break but their bodies are soft and if you have some long-range hex energy abilities you should be able to kill them rather easily if your aim is good enough to hit them through the opening in their shells."

"They aren't a relatively strong tribe so I guess their village must have been most likely abandoned as they joined up with another tribe as their weapons."

"Hmm... so which tribe is the nearest besides the woodpeckers that the snails could ally with?"

"Well if my memory doesn't lie to me, I think it's the hedgehog tribe!"