I have Nine Lives

Chapter 124: Bitter sweet victory

Landers looked at Felix as he motioned with his eyes to support him up, he wanted to see everything that happened properly instead of from his downed position.

Felix helped him up as he looked at Lindo and put his paw up indicating that he did a great job.

Lindo continued to smile as the barrage of rotating spikes stopped, and he oversaw the corpses of the hedgehog's leaders, not all of the surviving hedgehogs were killed as it was impossible to make the guards do something they couldn't.

Manitola looked down at the over-exhausted guardians at her feet, they gave their all under her mind control and they ran out of energy, blood was running down from their mouths and ears as they used every drop of energy they had in their bodies to the point they injured their vitality and lowered their lifespan.

It was obvious they wouldn't live much anymore and as she looked up she saw a big opening in the wall, the duo had made themselves useful and it was time to give them their farewell...

Manitola put her hands on each of their throats as she slowly clenched them cutting their oxygen supply and ending their lives, at this point, there was a high chance of death for them anyways so she just quickened the process making them suffer less.

She shook her head to clear her head and then told the snails to burry them, they deserved at least this much for the work they did, as unwilling as they were originally.

Some of the snails took the bodies and went ahead to find a good place to bury them.

Manitola returned to Lindo's side as they both looked at the surviving hedgehogs crying at the deaths of their leaders.

The blue-haired army leader laid down in a puddle of her own blood and brain matter as a younger officer was clutching her hands, there was a spike lodged in her right eye and the back of her head was blown open.

It was obvious she was dead as she could be but that officer never let go of her hand as the time that she got her head blown open replayed in his mind over and over again, she did it to protect him!

Landers looked around and didn't feel that well as he saw the hedgehogs crying over their dead ones but he sighed as he knew this was war, they had their own dead to take care of so even though he pitied the hedgehogs he still had to take over the village.

In war, there were no sides that were right or wrong but only the winners or losers.

The winners were right and the losers were wrong, 90% of the wars were started by greed just like this one, while the other 10% were by misunderstandings.

Felix didn't feel anything as he looked around, the deaths of these people didn't affect him at all even though he was supposed to feel even one thing but it seemed that the death of strangers didn't trigger his empathy.

Landers patted Felix's head as he told him:

"Can you help me up? We still have to get rid of the surviving hedgehogs as they would surely not just stay there and do nothing, they might be plotting their revenge already, while it would have been nice to incorporate them into our army it's impossible at this point."

The hatred that was sowed between the two tribes couldn't be washed away even if the hedgehogs annihilated the whole Lion tribe, which was pretty much impossible, the Lion tribe was very big and the capital of the Lions wasn't the only place the Lions thrived on the Tarot continent.

Felix nodded at Landers and asked:

"Shall I go and get rid of the others?"

Landers didn't think for even one second as he gave the order:

"Go."

Felix started to make his way towards the survivors along with the lion troops, the upper echelons were all dead and only the normal troops remained, without the stronger people the golems had already fallen to the ground like junk heaps as they became useless, no one was able to power them properly and the surviving hedgehogs were too engulfed in grief to even think about trading their lives to power up the golems, plus there was no hex energy in the surroundings anymore either.

Felix's actions weren't lowkey and no matter how grief engulfed the hedgehogs were they still saw how he was advancing with the 70,000 troops behind him, they knew that they were going to die at this point so they might as well take some more people down with them!

With a mighty warcry the remaining hedgehogs grouped up into a formation of 40,000 people and ran towards the lions with their fists up ready to brawl with them, both sides were injured and exhausted so that's what happened, it was worse than a street brawl, there was no finesse remaining in their attacks as they would even use their mouths to bite off the enemy's flesh, they fought like animals as they tried to outdo each other.

But no matter how wildly the hedgehogs fought it out, the lions now had the numerical advantage and the expert advantage as Felix fought through the waves of hedgehogs slowly, unlike before his speed was so slow that everyone could see him but his moves changed a bit.

Unlike before where he went directly for the vitals this time he would strike a few important spots on the body and paralyze them before letting them be ravaged by the lion troops, he was acting just like Catro would!

It couldn't be helped, even though he usually acted high-profile and used big moves this time he was almost out of energy so he needed a fighting style that conserved energy and dealt a lot of damage at the same time, he also couldn't use any breathing techniques due to the lack of the surrounding hex energy so he was stuck like this.

However, he still had his outrageously strong body and fighting experience combined with the lack of strong individuals in the enemy team he easily tore through the ranks, slower than before but with the same efficiency.

As time passed the hedgehogs thinned out until a thousand or so were left, then something unexpected happened.

A pulse of energy pushed everyone away as the hedgehog shaman rose from the corpses of his comrades, he had red eyes and the gash around his head was pulsing as green veins slowly appeared in the gash ready to make their way out of his head.

He was extremely angry as he looked around and realized that most of his tribe's warriors were dead, there were only 1,000 left and he was filled with extreme grief as he looked at the bodies surrounding him.

He snapped his eyes wide open as he glared at the lions who were ready to deal the finishing blow on his troops as he clenched both of his hands before putting them around his waist, he shouted as yellow energy slowly converged on his body creating a mini supernova that surrounded him.

Landers's eyes became wide-open as he wanted to take a few steps backward but he almost fell only to get supported by Lindo:

"GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE, HE WILL SELF DESTRUCT!"

His shout took the attention of every lion and Felix as they started to back away as fast as they could but a sinister laugh came from the hedgehog shaman as he said:

"You all shall accompany my hedgehog tribe to the underworld!"

The supernova started to expand at high speeds as it engulfed the surroundings transforming them into ashes and then suddenly imploding!

The explosion created an immense crater along with a deafening sound that made the snails go into their shells.

Lindo, Manitola, and Landers got out of the explosion in time but unfortunately, Felix and the others were still caught in it, they couldn't move really quickly after they exhausted their last amount of energy to get rid of all of the surviving hedgehogs.

Everything in a 600 meters radius was reduced to dust due to the explosion, a gigantic crater covered the same radius that was around 2 meters deep.

Landers fell to his knees as he watched the dust settle down, all of his troops were dead and Felix was somehow nowhere to be found... wasn't he supposed to revive?

What happened to him?

He felt his chest hurt as he clutched it and waited for Felix to appear but he felt something was wrong, why wasn't he coming back to them? The explosion couldn't trigger multiple times and make all of his lives be shaved away, could it?

Landers wanted to drop into the crater and search for Felix only for Lindo to stop him, he was going to go as he was in a better situation than Lander energy-wise.

Landers wanted to say something but he shook his head in the end and decided to let Lindo do it.

Manitola hugged him before Lindo jumped into the crater falling until he hit the bottom.

At the bottom, he looked around trying to find Felix, however no matter where he looked he realized that there wasn't even a tuft of fur that resembled Felix, which made him worry as he continued to look around doing his best to search every nook and cranny, Felix couldn't die right? He had nine lives!