I have Nine Lives

Chapter 122: A tie with many victims

The tie between the hedgehogs and the lions wasn't something that both sides wanted to see, for one the hedgehogs lost a lot of the golems that they invested heavily into along with a lot of their army forces.

The Lions also lost a lot of their troops, more than half of the ones they used in their expedition, this was the biggest loss they had since they had arrived on the continent, it hurt Landers deeply as he looked at the dead strewn around, most of them were flattened to the ground and imbedded there making it harder to retrieve their bodies afterward.

The hedgehogs weren't in a better position as numerically speaking they lost a lot more people in combination with their golems.

Landers couldn't help but cough a small knot of blood as he looked at all of the death around him making Felix worry a little about him as he supported his body.

Landers shook his head to clear it, he knew the horrors of war and that if he decided to invade another person's territory he should expect retaliation but that didn't mean it didn't hurt when he saw how his troops were slaughtered, at least he understood how the people he conquered felt, even though most of the time he did his best to reduce casualties on both sides if things were possible.

He took a few steps forward as he looked at the inactive golems, putting his view atop the tallest one where the shaman of the hedgehogs was coughing blood and glaring down at the remaining Lions.

"I can't believe they are so tenacious..."

Even though he and his people had killed 80,000 Lions it still wasn't enough for him as he wanted complete annihilation!

He gritted his teeth as he looked around at the wreckage that was his people's village along with the three hundred thousand bodies of hedgehogs lying around.

They were either in parts or even blood puddles, some of them were unrecognizable as if they went through a wood chipper.

It was grisly sight after grisly sight but there was nothing they could do besides look at it, both of the parties were too tense to move more from their current positions as they would be opened for attacks.

They had fought tooth and nail until they couldn't anymore so they were wary of each other.

Felix let Landers down to the ground as he put himself in front of him, he still had some stamina left but it was very minimal, while he had trained the first part of the stamina breathing technique to the peak he didn't break through to the next part so his aura could turn green, he still didn't complete all of the breathing techniques and he felt something special would happen if he completed all of them first before having that breakthrough, and he was still missing the agility and speed breathing techniques.

Landers coughed a bit more as he looked at Felix:

"You have done great up till now, I'm not sure if we can even get reinforcements at this point as they might be in trouble as well, who knows when the rabbit tribe would strike again?"

Landers's body shook as his heart rate started to slow however all he did was beat his chest a few times as he got his heart working again.

While he wouldn't die from this amount of injuries his body would automatically hibernate to replenish his exhausted energy as for now he lost all bits of energy and even overdrafted on some of his hidden reserves.

But he couldn't go to sleep now!

He tried to get back to a sitting position but he felt his whole body was like putting, he had no strength in it as he grasped the dirt below him leaving a hand imprint but nothing more, Landers hated this feeling of weakness as Felix tried to get him up on his back, maybe it was time to leave.

Felix could still escape as he still had enough stamina for that, but not for fighting, the surrounding hex energy was also pretty unexisting at the moment so he couldn't use his techniques anymore.

He was pretty much a sitting duck even though there were still troops left.

Felix made an eye signal towards Manitola and Lindo which they understood... but they didn't really like it, especially Lindo.

He looked at the remaining troops, 70,000 people were quite a lot of living souls, how could he bear to abandon them? Especially since they were brothers and sisters from the tribe.

Lindo felt sick to his stomach, would he really need to abandon his brethren here so he could escape?

He loved Manitola dearly but that didn't mean he lost his mind over her, he still had his morals that he grew up on, his love for the tribe was only equaled by his love for Manitola.

He wanted to make a compromise but as he saw the gaze of the hedgehog shaman looking them down as if he was a hawk and they were mice made him realize that there no way he would accept a compromise after everything that happened.

He glanced around, he knew that the moment any sudden moves were made the remaining hedgehogs would attack their troops, 95% of their troops were injured and he wasn't sure if the guardians who opened the gate were still alive, the pandemonium created during the fight made him unable to see where the two were buried.

He would go and look but they were watched by the hedgehog shaman while he was recuperating.

Felix was also out of juice and he could feel that the hex energy in the surroundings dried up, with Felix's condition he wouldn't be able to use his stealth!

Felix's stealth would have been the best tool in this situation, he could have saved everyone here!

But it seemed that while he did great things he would also have limits and he reached his at the moment.

Lindo didn't know what to do as he glanced at Manitola for support.

Manitola couldn't read his mind but she knew him well enough to know what he was thinking about:

"Dear, you should do what you think you can do, we are all exhausted here but if you have a plan you should put it into practice if you feel that it will work, at this point you either save all of them or lose them all, from what I can see Felix can still escape with Landers, as for the two of us... I will follow you with whatever you want to do!"

90% of her words came from her love for Lindo and 10% was mostly because she wouldn't be able to leave if Lindo didn't let her.

She gave him a gentle hug as he looked behind him at his brethren who were either trying to bandage their wounds or stood in defensive positions to make sure there would be no sudden attacks from the enemies.

Lindo decided at that moment as fiery energy slowly started to manifest in his stomach, he didn't know what it was but it gave him the courage to do what he felt was right!

He slowly started to crouch towards the ground as he made his way amongst the corpses trying to find if there was the duo who could open the wall, if they were the plan would already be dead but if they were still alive!

Currently, the shaman hedgehog couldn't focus on each of the lions so he only looked where they have huddled more together and Landers's and Felix's location, so while Lindo had moved from where he previously was the shaman didn't realize, after all, he didn't have more than 2 eyes and the other hedgehogs were in similar situations as the Lions, they had it a little bit better as they weren't injured and just exhausted by the hex energy deprival so they were at an advantage compared to the Lions who were both exhausted and injured to the point that they couldn't even lick their wounds properly.

Lindo continued to 'swim' through the corpses of his comrades and hedgehogs as he tried to identify which one of them was the guards.

He smiled as he left the area full of corpses as he realized that the guard duo wasn't in it!

That meant they were still alive!

He took a look back to the snails who also endured quite a few losses and as he took a better glance amidst the snails he realized that the guard duo was amongst them!

It seemed the snails must have protected them realizing that they were the only path outside this death trap.

Lindo slowly approached the snail chief as the old snail whispered something to him.

Lindo's eyes lit up as he heard the old snail's words before he nodded and slowly returned towards one of the closer warriors of the Lion tribe before he whispered something to him as well, it was the elder snail's message with something from his own as well.

He had finally found a way to not only save every survivor but also retaliate and capture the village in one fell swoop!