I have Nine Lives

Chapter 110: Attack the woodpeckers! Save Felix!

The army started to march directly towards the woodpecker tribe but first, they deployed some scouts to scan the area, they didn't want to fall into the same trap that Felix supposedly fell.

Landers was at the head of the troops as Manitola told him whatever she knew about the woodpecker tribe:

"They are quick and they have very strong beaks, they could easily penetrate the black iron armor with their beaks alone if you let your guard down."

"They are quite fast and their weakness is their brittle body, however from what we saw they would surely get some type of technology to make up for this."

Landers listened with rapt attention, he needed to save Felix! He knew that he wouldn't die but he knew that the cat was rather shaken after being kidnapped once.

He didn't want him to go through a similar situation but that might have happened already considering the time they wasted to cross the bridge, Landers was blaming himself for what happened to Felix, maybe if he sent someone else with him instead of sending him alone...

Landers shook his head, nothing else could be done now but charging into the tribe and saving him!

The scouts came back and strangely none of them were caught in any type of trap, they reported what they saw which confused Landers quite a lot:

"What do you mean the village is half-abandoned and the only people there left are the young and weak?"

"We only reported what we saw vice-general Landers, we aren't sure if it's a trap or not, should we head inside while in stealth?"

The 150,000 troops weren't only footsoldiers, there were the stealth troops and logistics mixed in there as well, while the assault troops made up the bulk of the number.

Landers sighed, if they wanted to trap them with such an obvious scheme they would play their game!

Landers moved the troops directly into the village taking over it rather easily... he scratched his head thinking that he would now be surrounded or something similar, things would pop out of the ground and start shooting at them, however all he found out was that he had thought wrongly.

Felix was nowhere to be found nor were there any troops or the like, the village was truly abandoned, the weak, old and young easily told them that their army went to support one of their allies which were attacked by kangaroos and spiders.

At this point, Landers was confused, what happened to Felix? Was he captured while the troops were marching to help their allies and now he was with them? That was even more unlikely considering they didn't have the home advantage while on the run.

Landers scratched the back of his head, they captured the village rather easily but he felt empty inside as he saw not even a patch of Felix's fur around.

He sighed as he asked Manitola:

"Besides the snail tribe do you think there is any other tribe that would be able to make trouble for Felix?"

Manitola thought long and hard about it and her eyes lit up as she remembered something:

"Actually I think there might be one tribe but they are really reclused, they usually live like hermits underground and they don't interact with the other tribes at all, the only one they interact with would be the living tree's souls."

"They are called the rabbit tribe and they have some strange practices, while they resemble the fox tribe as we both make our burrows underground they are uncharacteristically bloodthirsty and fanatic to the point that even some gods detest them, well the evil ones love them so they have multiple God's chosen because of that, and they could be considered rather strong."

"Do you think they might have captured Felix so they would sacrifice him?"

"Well it could have happened, they usually sacrifice people from their own race but sometimes they would attack outsiders if they felt they carried abnormal amounts of natural energy...l"

"Yeah, he is most likely there."

Manitola put a palm over her face as she realized that Felix must have been captured by those fanatics, he was a special God's chosen and even she could feel the abundant natural energy coming from his body, let's not even mention them who were experts on this type of stuff.

Basically, around 90% of them had a contract with the tree souls as they all dealt in one occult thing or the other.

Manitola looked around for a short while before saying:

"Leave the troops in the village, we don't need them to infiltrate the rabbits, they would attract too much attention, I know where Felix would be taken if they want to sacrifice him, I once went with my mother on a diplomatic trip to them and their leaders showed us their sacrificial altar."

Landers nodded as Lindo looked concerned about Felix's wellbeing, Manitola started to run while waving her hand towards the two of them meaning that they should follow her.

The duo quickly ran with her around 20 kilometers away from the village before she said:

"Dig down, we can't use their entrances so we have to make one of our own, If I remember correctly this is an empty patch here that we can use, we should be able to infiltrate the nearest village to the altar then make our way there, we should hurry even though their ceremonies take a long time up to 20 days its unknown if they shortened it due to Felix's special condition."

Lindo and Landers nodded as they helped Manitola to dig deeply into the ground throwing dirt everywhere around them as they finally started to fall after a while.

They slowed their descent as they grabbed the ground behind them with their claws and made their way down.

They found themselves in a place filled with garbage so smelly that they almost fainted, however, they steeled their willpower and jumped away from the garbage. Only Lindo was unlucky as he fell due to half of a rotting carrot, he hit his head onto the garbage and his face was then covered with rotting carrot pie.

Manitola almost giggled but she knew they were in enemy territory so she stopped herself, helped Lido up, and took a handkerchief from her special bag to clean Lindo's face.

Lindo sighed as he was rather embarrassed by what happened but continued to follow Manitola as they took abandoned streets until they reached the exit of the village and left it to only find themselves in the same tunnel that Felix had used.

They traveled the tunnel until they reached the bottom of the altar, however, Manitola frowned as she smelled the air and said:

"The blood smell is so intense around here usually... why is it diminishing at such high speeds? Could they have butchered Felix up already and now they are using the blood?"

Landers gritted his teeth as he heard Manitola's guess, his leg muscles started to tighten as he used all of his leg strength to jump directly to the top of the altar!

There he looked around only to see an empty pool that was going down to the bottom of the altar.

There was no one around but he could still smell blood down there which meant the person who was using the blood was still there!

He jumped from the top of the altar as he slowly made his way down until he found something that made his jaw drop to the ground!

He saw Felix quickly absorbing the remaining blood in the altar as a wisp that was slowly transforming from green to red was standing on his head and doing the same thing as him.

Landers took a few steps through the slowly diminishing blood and looked at Felix... it was him and he was unharmed, bar the fact that he became smaller by quite a bit.

His hand inched towards Felix but he stopped himself, he knew that he was using the blood to improve his body and breathing techniques as he recognized the breathing pattern...

Suddenly Felix opened his eyes as he looked at Landers and cocked his head to the side while saying:

"Landers? What are you doing here?"

Landers chuckled as he scooped Felix up and put him on his shoulder then said:

"Well, I could ask you the same thing don't I? And who's this little friend of yours?"

Unknown words came out of the wisp for Landers but Felix decided to translate for him:

"I don't have a name but I'm Felix's friend now, he made a contract with me!"

Landers nodded and thought:

"Interesting, Felix actually contracted a tree soul? I never thought that they would be anything but antagonistic to people outside of the Sparron continent..."

"Well we should go now, it seems you have depleted all of the blood in the altar and whenever the people that own this place will learn about things won't end up well, it's better to leave right now!"

Felix nodded, he wanted to leave as well after he finished so he sat tight on Lander's shoulder as he jumped again leaving the altar through the hole at the top.

Seeing that Felix was well and uninjured on Landers's shoulder made both Manitola and Lindo let out a small sigh as Landers grabbed them by the scruff of their necks and started to run, he really didn't want to deal with whoever was controlling these rabbits!