I have Nine Lives

Chapter 125: A strange underground place

Lindo was starting to panic as he couldn't find anything that resembled even one bit of Felix, was he truly annihilated by the explosion?

Lindo couldn't believe it, he felt entirely responsible for what happened as he didn't make sure every upper echelon was truly dead before sending the troops in.

He tried to dig into the bottom of the crater thinking that somehow Felix might have been trapped there only to realize that the bottom was crystallized and so hard he couldn't do anything to it... maybe Landers could but he was really weakened at the moment and thus unavailable.

He wasn't really sure what to do in this situation, could he even go back and show his face to Landers and Manitola without Felix? The troops were surely dead but Felix's disappearance was a mystery.

Standing in the crater won't help him anymore and he already searched wherever was possible for him so all he could do was go up and give them the news...

He started to scale the crater making his way up to the surface, when Landers saw that he came back up empty-handed he felt something in him snap but he controlled himself as he tried to get up, he still had a report to do and the civilians of the hedgehog tribe also needed to be taken care of, hopefully, he would be able to bind them to the tribe just like he had the snails.

However, the moment he tried to get up he almost fell face forward if it wasn't for Manitola catching him.

"You should rest vice-general, you already have done all you could."

Lindo tried to support him as well but Landers slapped his hand away weakly having no effect on Lindo but showing Landers's intentions.

*Cough* *Cough*

Landers put a hand towards his mouth as he coughed before saying:

"Lindo you will have to do the report and the cleanup aftermath, we also have to wait for reinforcements and we need some time to heal, fortunately, we still have the snails to help us, while we did lose all of the lion troops which saddens me greatly we have around 350,000 snails left."

The snails didn't have civilians as they were all biological weapons of the same strength, the fact was that their actual combat prowess was really low and the only thing they were useful for was their poison any half-smart person would be able to avoid their crude way of launching their poison and easily get rid of them, however in strategist's hands the snails could become great weapons.

Lindo headed to get the hedgehog civilians back into what remained of the village along with the snails.

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Felix groggily woke up as he wanted to clutch his head, everything was shaking around him and he felt like shit.

He became unconscious the moment the explosion engulfed him and the lion troops and his reviving ability automatically sent him to the nearest safe location as he couldn't control it, it was similar to the time Shima experimented him but unlike back then where his ability was restricted here he was actually sent somewhere but the thing was that he didn't know where he was!

As he looked around he realized that he was somewhere underground as he was familiar with such places he had been to such a type of place more than one time but he couldn't say he really knew where he was.

His location was new and he could feel that his body was full of energy as he got up, he looked in the corner of his eyes and realized that he lost only one life which was a good thing, he thought that he might have lost more.

Now that he finished checking himself he started to thoroughly observe his surroundings to see if he really was in unknown territory.

It took him a little bit of time as he realized that he didn't know his way around and that his sense of direction was somehow messed up for some reason.

He tried to take a left only to go to the right and find out he arrived back from where he started.

He was in an underground labyrinth and he couldn't find his way out!

He tried to do something but all he realized was that he couldn't get out, it was quite strange as he thought about it, if he moved right he would go left and vice versa, maybe he should go up or down instead?

He tried to dig into the ceiling only to realize it was so hard that his claws broke the moment he tried to drill into the ground.

It was rather strange as he tried to go down, the earth below was also hard but less so however being underground Felix didn't really want to go even further as he didn't know what could he find there.

But in this situation there wasn't much that could be done, he would either die of starvation by not being able to find the exit of this damned labyrinth or go down further and investigate what was there.

Since both options weren't good he would take the option where he would actually be able to do something.

So he started to dig, the earth was rather hard but not impossible to dig as it was on the ceiling so after some time passed he created a passage big enough for him to travel through, he could feel his stomach growl which indicated that the time that passed wasn't short.

He found it quite strange that such a long amount of time had passed, was his perception of time distorted as well under the ground? He sighed as he went through the passage he made as he fell further underground.

He felt the wind soaring around his ears at high speed which was strange considering the hole he made wasn't that long so why was he falling so quickly and for such a long time?

Suddenly he felt hitting the solid ground as the falling sensation stopped, he looked around once more and saw that he was in a different location now, houses that looked to be meant for mini-sized persons were surrounding him and he realized that his body was currently immobile for some reason.

He took a look down at his body and saw that it was being bonded by steel chains that were inserted in the ground below him, he tried to move his body only to realize that there was no way he would be able to move anywhere in his current position.

Small houses... intricate trap that made him unable to move, he already knew where he ended up and the person that approached him cemented his hypothesis.

It was a small man standing around 40 centimeters, he had his eyes closed and a small mustache with a bulbous star-shaped nose, it was one of the mole people!

Felix wasn't sure how he ended up in their lair as he tried to struggle and rip off the head of the mole in question as he didn't like his current position at all, it triggered some memories that he would rather fully forget.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he struggled he couldn't get out of the bindings as they were somehow tightening around his body the more he struggled, thus he stopped his attempts at escaping realizing that he made things worse.

The mole-man laughed a bit seeing Felix's attempts at escaping and after he settled down he opened his mouth and said:

"Enjoying your 5-star bindings?"

Felix didn't really know what he meant so he just glared at him which made the mole shook his head as he said:

"You are quite interesting, I never thought that one of the lions' men would be able to find our village and still be dumb enough to come by himself, I thought that our first meeting should have thought you something about our race but it seems the impact was rather minimal."

The mole shook his head as he continued:

"Well whatever, now that you are in our hands you will be a great trophy that our leaders will thoroughly enjoy, hopefully, you will have some important information that you will be able to supply us with."

Normally Felix would have done something up till now, but he felt that his strength was leaving him for some reason, it was an experience that he never had before it was somewhat linked to his surroundings, but before he could even look around to see what was happening to him he slowly started to blackout.

The mole-man from before slowly approached Felix's unconscious body along with some more mole-people as they looked at his downed form and started to lift him, the mole-man with the star-shaped nose didn't do anything as he watched the others lift him before taking a pebble-sized communication stone from his clothes and inserted his hex energy into it.

A sultry voice could be heard coming from the other side of the stone that asked:

"Migdal? You are one that rarely calls you got some good news for me?"

Migdal's lips turned up as a smile bloomed on his face:

"Yes your majesty, I have got the best present for you with it we might even be able to go a step ahead of those pesky lions that trouble us on the southern parts."

The voice that came out of the stone sounded interested as it said:

"Ohoo? Tell me more I'm very interested."