Kaden felt great excitement watching things slowly unfold. Everyone else were preoccupied with the porcupine and didn’t have sligtest idea that the Shadow Tiger was slowly coming closer. Kaden pretended not to notice it either. It might run away otherwise! Instead he moved closer to the porcupine, making it so that he would be as far as possible from the approaching tiger!
“What luck!” Kaden thought as he noticed the tiger had chosen Olren as its prey. “He is, after all, there to do the finishing strike to look good and is somewhat separated from us!”
The plan with the ambush tactic without traps was to drive the beast into retreat with greater numbers towards the one who would ambush with a quick and deadly strike to finish everything. It would at least cause the beast to be surrounded, if not dead.
Hem did some hand signs and stopped hiding, making sounds and so on. The porcupine noticed intruders immediately and came out of its little hole it must have dug for itself. It noticed it was out numbered and took a defensive position and started to move away while it.
Around at this time Kaden could sense the Shadow Tiger make its move. It clearly tried to go right in for the kill, but Olren was no weakling despite everything. At the last moment he noticed the attack and by using his usual illusory movements managed to avoid certain death, but was still injured when the tiger managed to claw bleeding gashes on his back.
“Help!” Olren shouted as he kept avoiding the tiger that seemingly flickered in and out of his sight.
Hem and Sari immediately noticed what was going on, but it wouldn’t be that easy to go help! The porcupine was still an advanced dire beast and possessed some intellingence. It noticed there was one more attacker, Olren, that was now preoccupied. It stopped running and instead flung shower of spikes towards Hem and Sari, while Kaden was slightly behind out of its target area. Thats where Olren had arranged him to be. Yet, he pretended to having to avoid the spikes too.
Olren was getting desperate noticing the situation. He knew what the Shadow Tiger was and he was already injured against it. Someone slightly less skilled might be dead already!
One could say that, if Verdict team members were human elites, the Shadow Tiger was a beast elite. It had sneaked in, understood the situation and taken advantage, striking at the worst possible moment.
“I will hold the porcupine!” Hem shouted. “Go help Olren!”
Sari nodded and left with Kaden himself some distance away trying to go slower, yet acceptably so.
All the while Kaden was thinking of ways to delay help reaching Olren. Greatest help proved to be the porcupine.
It had noticed its only hope to survive was to ensure humans around it would die or have to escape. Then it would do same while the Shadow Tiger had its meal. While Hem was an elite, there was no killing an advanced stage dire beast like the porcupine immediately. More so when it was defending and playing for time. While it defended with its spikes and claws agains Hem, it at the same time flung its tail and caused yet another rain of spikes. Target being Sari, who was trying to reach Olren.
This time some of the spikes landed on her leg and with the mana inside them, they even drilled themselves deeper until hooking themselves in place. There was no removing them in quick manner without causing further damage. She was clearly in pain and unable to move much.
Hem was tied with the porcupine. Sari was injured and slowed significantly. Only Kaden was free. He still had to pretend to help. He hoped that the tiger would kill Olren before his actions would start to seem strange.
The porcupine was occupied. Hem was not going to let it shoot out its spikes any more and was even overwhelming it. Hem would defeat it soon enough. Not that it even had many spikes left to shoot.
The tiger was attacking with greater fury. It knew its time was running out. Olren had survived its initial attack. Had that succeeded, the group of humans would have been in deep shit. It, of course, didn’t know how powerful Kaden was and only viewed the closing ‘human’ only slightly unusual like most beasts did.
It was time try finish off the slippery human it was fighting against! It leaped towards Olren from shadows and this time managed to make injured Olren fall backwards on his back. It quickly started to close in again intending end the fight!
Kaden was well within range to act, but he grinned and intended to watch. Olren kind of did notice the creepy grin on Kadens face and felt rage boil up. The tiger noticed this too, but didn’t really understand what it was, not that it even cared.
Then suddenly Kaden noticed something that made that grin disapear. Something entered range of his senses and it was moving at great speed towards the area. Kaden knew immediately who it was. Walden!
Kaden had not sensed his presence anywhere and was certain he was gone, but now he appeared somewhere just at the wrong moment. Walden would certainly be able to tell what was happening! If he let the Shadow Tiger kill Olren, Walden would know.
“Damn it!” Kaden cursed in his mind and started acting. Why did Walden have to return then! Just a few minutes later and he likely would have been able to watch Olren die! Kaden was extremely annoyed that he had to save Olren’s life instead! Now he had to shoot the tiger with a Fire Beam. He raised his hand and unleashed a suppressed version of it.
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The tiger noticed the blast and flickered to side a bit. Still it was hit and some of its flank was burned to crips, even through to bone. It was in pain and disapointed it lost its prey after all! It started to run away. As it was running out, it was happy to notice no one seemingly not chasing it. Then an ball of energy struck from somewhere deeper, beyond its sense range, and explosion swallowed it and its surroundings.
Kaden looked the explosion. Walden had struck from long range and was still closing in.
“YOU WERE GOING TO LEAVE ME TO DIE!” Olren screamed at Kaden. He was heavily injured, but somehow with all the built up rage, he was able to keep screaming.
Kaden looked at him silently, cursing the situation. So close and yet it was him who had to save Olren. Then he twisted an amicable smile on his face. “What are you saying, Olren? I merely had to charge that attack so it took time! I saved your life!”
“You lying sack of shit!” Olren continued. Yet, he had no proof. It was sensible that Kaden would have to charge a powerful attack like the one he had used. In fact, what angered him most was that he was saved by Kaden! The freak had saved him! Yet, he had too seen the energy ball from Walden and knew he was coming. Olren knew Kaden to be somewhat mysterious and could not say whether he had saved him because he had noticed Walden or whether his words just now were the complete truth.
“You should calm down”, Kaden continued his friendly act. “You are heavily injured. We need you to last until we find a healer. In fact, I think you may be slightly delirious! You should calm down and not talk. You might say something strange you regret later!”
Rest of the situation had calmed down too. Hem had defeated the porcupine roughly around the time Walden blasted the Shadow Tiger. He was tending to Sari, but wasn’t really sure how to deal with the spikes that had stuck in her flesh. They were made to get stuck hard in whatever they hit. If they simply tried to pull them out without care, it would drag along flesh too.
This ambush had gone entirely awry when the Shadow Tiger made its move. Half of the team was injured. Had Walden perhaps noticed the situation and come help them?
Walden finally entered the area. “What a mess”, he said and rubbed his head. Then he went to check Olren and Sari.
“That was a Shadow Tiger”, Walden said as he examined Olren’s wounds. “What the hell was one doing here? Its kind should be a bit deeper in the forest. Kaden, get Olren’s wounds tied up. We will be in kind of a hurry, but we should pass by a healer. We can’t have him bleed to death until then.”
Kaden was intending to do just that, but just as he was going to start, Olren refused.
“Give me the bandages!” Olren said. “I will do it myself.”
Kaden didn’t refuse. The last thing he wanted to do was to help Olren and he guessed Olren felt the same.
Walden was treating Sari. With some tricks the spikes were possible to pull out. Once that was done, the actual wounds were rather minor for someone of Sari’s cultivation.
“What a fucking mess”, Walden cursed yet again. “How was your hunt until now?”
Hem described their hunts until then. They had killed several beasts, so their missions wasn’t complete failure.
“I guess that is acceptable within this timeframe”, Walden finally decided. “Shit, things sure go wrong sometimes. Take this as a lesson. Even if you have a good working plan, there is no quarantees it will work the way you want. There was no way you could have expected a damn Shadow Tiger.”
“You said something about hurrying?” Kaden asked.
“As it happens, this has to do for your experience with beasts”, Walden replied. “You were supposed to stay longer, but I received orders to my long range communicator. That one is used only for important matters. We will be leaving this place as fast as possible. I will have to report a delay since we have to get Sari and Olren healed.”
“Has something happened?” Hem questioned.
“Indeed, a large remnant has opened up, basically a dungeon”, Walden explained. “Unfortunately it is within Sacronan’s territory, but not too deep. We will be pushing our way there and compete for whatever is in the remnant, then sabotage and prevent it to be searched further for the time being. Judgement and some troops are being sent there too so we will be meeting up with Nelsen. We will fight our way in, take whatever valuable we can and then leave before Sacronan sends more forces. We will then return and join the army coming through here later, but at that time we should have new orders. In other words, your training is over and we are being sent straight to the meat grinder. Time is of the essence.”
Kaden’s heart was beating. Finally a chance! He would get to kill and butcher people from Sacronan! Sure it was dangerous, but that was certain fact since the beginning. It was not a concern for Kaden.
“By the way Kaden”, Walden suddenly spoke to him. “I’m not entirely sure what is happening, but you might exercise some caution.”
“This is normal”, Kaden said as if it was entirely ordinary matter. “I’m always careful.”
“Not that way”, Walden said and shook his head. “It seems you have been noticed. Whether that is good or bad remains to be seen, but I was ordered to go have a look into that necromancer’s lab where you came from.”
Kaden frowned. So thats why Walden had left.
“Sure freaky place that one”, Walden said. “The laboratory was wrecked and signs of battle, but I don’t think I spotted even single thing pointing to anything living in there.”
“Thats because those ghosts in there unmake life”, Kaden said casually trying to make it seem like he wasn’t concerned that someone was interested in his background. “They’ll go for mana sources first, but anything living will eventually be consumed by them.”
“It took a while until I figure how to get past them, yes”, Walden agreed.
“Had you informed of me, I could have given you one of these”, Kaden pulled out a necklace that he still carried in his bag. He had already studied it and understood how it worked, but had seen no reason to toss them away or sell them. Perhaps now he could gain more trust from Walden by revealing it. “Wearing one of these they would have ignored you for a long time.”
“Maybe so, but as it happens, I was supposed to go see it without telling you”, Walden said. “Now that I’m done, its ok.”
“Shit”, Kaden cursed in his mind and the asked. “Why hide it from me?”
“All this started happening after that assassin attack”, Walden replied. “It seems like some believe there were more than one attacker. There were signs of fight that didn’t seem to match your stage. You wouldn’t be hiding something?”
“Shit”, Kaden cursed mentally again. That assassin attack was a problem! He had to play down the situation somehow. “If there was an assassin who is stronger than me, how am I alive?”
“Which is why there may have been someone who helped you”, Walden pointed out. “Motivations and affiliations are unknown. I only obey orders, but I know when someone somewhere is pulling strings. I may not know why, but somethings is happening. I guess no one wanted this helper to hide anything about you before I got to it. Anyway, we should be going. The less time we waste, the higher survival chance we have in Sacronan’s territory.”
Kaden could only follow. Right there and then he had nothing he could do. Perhaps it wouldn’t even matter. It seemed yet again the situation regarding him was misunderstood. Perhaps this nonexistent helper would be a good distraction. If that was ever revealed to be a false assumption, people might start to think far more dangerous options.