Chapter 324 - Hunting the Hunters (1/3)
"Hahaha... It... feels... so good!!" Lucien hears Oya"s excited voice in his mind as she runs through the dense forest of high trees with him.
After she learned to speak a few words, she also learned to communicate with him mentally even when she is in beast form.
Lucien smiles and strokes Oya"s head. She is by his side since the first day he arrived in this world, totally loyal to him, and that is why he loves her so much.
As Oya continues to run at super-speed, they easily travel miles towards Viset even though they are not running in a straight line but exploring the forest. Meanwhile, the main s.h.i.+p with Lucien"s wives and the other sh.i.p.s with the troops follow them a little bit slower in the sky.
Lucien can hear Aria, Ella, and Astrid playing in the sky as they fly above him, but then L.u.s.t warns him of something interesting.
"There are three people six miles ahead." She speaks mentally.
Lucien thinks that people can be just demi-humans hunting or doing anything usually. Still, he goes towards them to continue his "tour" with Oya.
Also, he praises L.u.s.t. "Your senses are getting more and more incredible, darling."
L.u.s.t giggles seductively in Lucien"s mind. "This is thanks to our hard work, hehe..."
"You kn-" Lucien was about to tease L.u.s.t, but then the mysterious people ahead entered the radius of his senses, and he heard a name that made him not believe in his own luck.
As many people may have the same name, mainly within the same homeland, Lucien did not speculate and just said to Oya kept moving towards those people carefully while listening to anything else they say.
Meanwhile, Rein, Niklaus, and Lanzo run towards the coast. They were very lucky to get help to escape from Viset, and now they think it is not impossible to escape the Alliance too. Of course, they have no idea that so many people who want to kill them are around them right now.
"Faster!! We should be close to the cat-clan by now." Rein shouts as he hobbles and has trouble breathing. His physique is really amazing as he can still move after being tortured for so long.
"We have to go north, or we will be found by people from the cat-clan," Lanzo comments while remembering all the atrocities he has already done for the cat-clan. Bully cat and fox girls were his favorite entertainment.
Niklaus also has trouble running while feeling a lot of pain throughout his body. "There should be no problems as the cat-clan is always concerned with defending their port from pirates..."
Hearing Nikalus" words, Rein, Lanzo, and himself can"t help but reflect on what it"s like to be buried in s.h.i.+t. They forced the cat-people out of their homeland and made them live on the dangerous coast, but now they are afraid to meet any cat-girl as their lives depended on it.
"Is this some kind of punishment for our arrogance?" Niklaus remembers how she intimidated a young fox-girl that he found very attractive.
"Buls.h.i.+t!!" Rein yells. "It"s all about power... we are screwed because of that b.i.t.c.h they call the Great Queen, but just as she used some witchcraft to make herself so strong, so will we, and then we will be back to retake what is rightfully ours!"
Lanzo shakes his head. "If I can get out of here, I will never come back again! My life is worth than this s.h.i.+t."
"But-" Niklaus starts to respond but then…
*Roar*
They hear a low growl coming from the bushes several feet ahead.
"Wait." Rein whispers as he picks up a piece of wood from the ground. Previously he would have used his claws to fight without weapons, but they were cut off.
Lanzo picks up a big stone from the ground, as he is in the same situation as Rein. They both start walking towards the bushes. "It must be a tiger..."
As soon as they arrive in front of the bush, Rein signals to Lanzo, and they both attack the bush, intending to hurt the beast behind it.
Rein makes a vertical attack with his piece of wood, and Lanzo throws the big stone, but both attacks. .h.i.t the ground as there is nothing behind the bush.
"?????" They look at each other in confusion while Niklaus, behind them, is also confused.
*Wooosh*
Everyone hears the sound of wind hitting the leaves of the trees and looks back quickly.
Yet they see nothing but trees and bushes. "Where?!"
"Dammit! We need to get out of here now!!" Lanzo speaks as he turns and starts running.
"Move on!!" Rein speaks to Niklaus while also turning to run.
Niklaus starts to move, but before he can finish taking a step, he feels someone behind him.
*ROAR*
Before Niklaus can turn around to see who"s behind him, he hears a deafening roar right next to his ear.
"AHH!!" Niklaus is startled and tries to run but falls over his injured leg. He rolls on the ground and looks back but sees no one.
"Son!!" Rein turns quickly and sees Niklaus on the ground and no one around. He gets more and more scared.
"AAAOOOHH!!" Then they hear Lanzo"s scream and look ahead just to see the badly injured manticore man flying towards them, or rather, being throw like a rag doll.
Rein quickly moves towards Lanzo to try to catch him before he falls to the ground and gets further injured, but…
*Wooosh* *ROAR*
Rein also feels someone moving close to him and then the deafening roar very close to his ear.
"AHHHH!!!" He screams and tries to defend in the direction of the roar, but a strong blow on his back throws him to the ground before he can see his attacker.
Nor did Niklaus get to see who attacked his father. All he saw was a swift reddish shadow pa.s.sing between them.
While Lanzo cries on the ground in pain from the burning cut on his c.h.e.s.t, Niklaus panics.
But Rein has a strong will and starts to get up off the ground while ignoring the pain in his whole body and screams in random directions. "Who"s there??!?!"
He knows that a beast would not play with them like that, so whoever is attacking them is an intelligent being.
"Why are you attacking us?! Who the h.e.l.l are you?!?!" Rein stands up yells at the trees and bushes.
"Me?"
Everyone looks up when they hear a deep male voice above them.
"??????" Rein, Niklaus, and Lanzo get shocked to see Lucien sitting casually on the branch of a tree while gazes at them with an amused expression.
"You..." Rein starts to speak but doesn"t know what to say next. He never saw anyone as fast as Lucien, so he is obviously scared, mainly because his group is so hurt to fight.
Lucien smiles sarcastically. "Oh, don"t mind me; you must fear my wives."
[Wives??] They think.
*Pah*
Then they hear the loud noise and look in the direction that Lanzo tried to escape just to see L.u.s.t in her dark armor cracking her whip in the air. It still has some of Lanzo"s blood on the tip.
Lanzo loses control of his body to fear and tries to drag himself in the direction they have come.
"s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t, s.h.i.+t!!!" Lanzo, Niklaus, and Rein exclaim together as they realize how screwed they are.
Rein looks at Lucien again and sees him disappear from the tree instantly. [????]
*ROOOAR*
Lucien found it was really cool to use Envy"s demonic energy to copy Oya"s roar. It is not the same thing, but it is quite useful in this situation.
He roars loudly as he pa.s.ses among the poor demi-humans, making them so afraid that they fall to the ground alone again.
Their legs are shaking so much that it is almost impossible for them to get up. They are literally almost scared to death.
"My bad..." Lucien speaks in a fake sorry tone while sitting on top of another tree.
Niklaus is almost crying while Lanzo is paralyzed with fear. But Rein again manages to question Lucien. "What do you want from us???"
Lucien almost feels sorry for the poor middle-aged werewolf. It"s easy to imagine how Eve and Pride tortured them. But of course, Lucien is still holding on not to torture them further before his wives can do so.
"As I said, your thing is not exactly with me, but with them." Lucien points up.
Lanzo, Niklaus, and Rein look up, beyond the trees, and see a giant ice s.h.i.+p in the sky. There is no way not to be impressed by that, but to their shock reaches its maximum level, three women jump off the s.h.i.+p and land in front of them.
The ground shakes when Astrid, Scarlett, and Olivia land in front of Lanzo and Rein.
Despite the tragedies that happened to Astrid and Scarlett had happened many years ago, Rein recognizes Scarlett by the similarities to her brother, whom Rein kept as a private slave for several years.
In Lanzo"s case, he recognizes Astrid by the similarities with her mother, who was one of the few people to disagree with his policies, but he doesn"t remember Olivia.
"You?!?!?!" Both Rein and Lanzo exclaim at the same time while Niklaus is confused.
Scarlett quickly grabs Rein by the collar and speaks angrily. "Where"s my brother?!?!"
"I don"t know! I don"t know!!! He must have been caught by Queen along with everyone else." Rein quickly explains while trying to understand what is going on.
Astrid and Olivia, on the other hand, look at Lanzo while thinking about how to torture him as long as possible, which does not seem to be easy since he is almost dead and very mutilated.
"I waited a long time for the day that would avenge my mother"s death." Astrid comments.
*Glup*
Lanzo makes a swallows sound while he knows that there is nothing he can say to get rid of that enviable end. Not only did he kill Astrid"s mother, but he had her r.a.p.ed by a human before dying by injuries.
Olivia takes a step forward and kicks Lanzo in the face. "d.a.m.n!! Do you even remember me after destroying my family?!"
Lanzo spits out a mouthful of blood and a few teeth on the ground before looking at Olivia with a confused expression. "I have nothing to do with stupid humans!"
"But your son did!" Olivia speaks angrily and then explains. "He wanted to use the power of my family to take control of the manticore-clan, and you killed my family for that as well as marking my face with that horrible scar so that I would always remember the pain."
Lanzo looks at Olivia and really starts to remember when she was younger, and he made a deep cut on her face. "You cured the poison... how?"
Olivia smiles and points to Lucien. "Gift from my husband as well as this revenge being possible."
Lanzo now understands why Lucien was playing with him like that. But instead of being shocked or scared, he starts laughing because his mind is already too broken for him to be able to reason properly.
He looks at Olivia and mocks. "What revenge? Look at me! That b.i.t.c.h took everything I had... even my wing. You came too late for it... she broke me, not you."
Before Olivia can speak, Lucien starts to laugh. "Eve is my oldest sister, so well, this revenge was done by our family."
"Oldest sister?!?!?" Lanzo, Rein, and Niklaus exclaim as they get shocked again. Unfortunately for them, their nightmare is not over yet.
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