Chapter 4

The red blood dripped from his knife and seeped into the ground. His hand remained steady despite the thumping heart. Without waiting to rest he started cutting the corpse with experienced methods and collected the heart, liver and other important organs in his sack which was made of leather specially processed in several herbs which helped in masking the smell of blood. Otherwise, he would have to face a stream of hungry predators. He also collected some blood in his bottle, after which he ran into the forest for 5-6 minutes straight.

"This much should be far enough," he thought while resting his back against a tree. The small fight hadn't been tough but concentrating in a life or death scenario would leave you mentally exhausted. And in the jungle, you must always be at your best.

After resting for some time he started moving again. Looking for any traces of a fight of some bigger animal nearby. Finally, he found a trail. Broken branches, some leaves displaced on the ground. A chase of some kind. Following the tracks, for about 15 minutes he heard people fighting. Sneaking forwards among the bushes, he saw a man struggling against a light blue wolf. From his size, it was probably rank 2. Two other guys were supporting the man from the right and left flank. He recognised the red pattern on their sleeves.

"What are the fucking Philanders doing hunting just several days after the shit they pulled? Aren't they afraid of our gang? The boss must have had people looking for the clues. So them being here instead of holing somewhere safe, meant they had some backup, probably from the main clan".

The fight though pulled him out of his contemplation. Several arrows were sticking out of the wolf. The left guy was slightly behind the other two and was harassing it with his bow.

The middle guy was tall and buff, the armour on him was of better quality. His sword was long and heavy and was keeping them safe against the sharp claws of the wolf. He must be Ronny, though he couldn't see his face clearly from this far, there were not that many rank 2 warriors in the philander gang.

Ronny dodged another biting attempt from the wolf and quickly hit the wolf on his back. Blood gushed out and the wolf howled in pain. He was looking tired but didn't give up yet.

Though, seeing the wolf getting injured, the guy on the right(rank 1) pushed forward, thinking of finishing the fight. A big mistake. Wolf used his claws to block the knife and his sharp teeth to bite his neck.

Ronny didn't miss the opportunity, plunging his sword through the neck of the wolf. In a few moments, 2 lives were lost just like that. Saho was so engrossed in seeing the fight that he failed to see someone approaching from the back.

" look what we have here," the guy coming from behind said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, and with this, the whole attention was on him.

" fuck, I am screwed, hope they don't recognise me," he thought.

And that's exactly what happened. "If it isn't the dog of the 'harey' gang." Because of Thomson Harey, they were called by this name. And on hearing 'harey, everyone around him tighten the hold on their weapons.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

'there's Ronny and the other guy at one side and the new guy at the back. Should I run sideways? No, then I would have 3 guys chasing me and one of them is an archer. And with a rank 2 in the mix, I would not hold long against them. I need some time'.

Without showing any sign of panic on his face he started talking. " well, that was a nice fight. Too bad you let your comrade die like that "

'That's none of your concern' Ronny said with a hint of irritation. But the archer slightly glanced at the corpse, a hint of sadness on his face.

"Haha guess not. But it's sure is a nice day for hunting. at least it's something both our gangs would agree on."

Ronny started looking around. There might be other people from Saho's group. The guy at the back though didn't look that concerned.

"Yeah, we also have two other groups nearby. This should be fun. After what happened last week, we would like to kill a little more of you bastard."

Saho showed anger on his face hearing that. He knew they were both fishing for information and riling each other.

'I don't have many options. If what they say is true, it would only get worse for me as there were more of them nearby. Stalling would only be detrimental to me as I am truly alone.'

" yeah you are right, we do need to settle our score for stealing the orb". Saho said while slowly moving towards the guy at the back.

The mention of the orb managed to distract them for a second. Saho abruptly ran towards the guy catching them all off guard.

But Ronny being the more experienced one understood his intentions. "Don't let him run away" he screamed as he sprinted behind Saho, who was more than 100m ahead of him.

In 3 or 4 seconds he was in front of the rank 1 warrior. The change in his demeanour was shocking, from a harmless boy to a ferocious predator. He struck with his knife across his chest, the momentum pushing his opponent's sword back. They exchanged several strikes in the next second or so. Hard strikes made to brutally push his opponent out of the way only managed to make his hands tremble.

"I need to finish this fast" he could hear Ronny gaining on him.

He fainted by shouting and attacking his head. With the way, he had been setting his opponent up with hard strokes, he managed to fool him as when he blocked his knife he noticed there was no power behind the blow. But it was too late, a dagger pierced his armpit. The armour had left the space to not hamper movements and this weakness proved fatal. He cried in pain but Saho was relentless, couple of strikes later his head rolled to the ground.

Not staying behind to cherish the victory he ran ahead.

" you motherfucker stay there" shouted Ronny. It was a humiliation for a rank 2, as under his nose he had managed to kill someone and escaped. "Let's see how far you can run", he chased behind.

Saho dodged sideways as an arrow flew where his head would have been. " this is dangerous". He had been crisscrossing amongst the trees, using every rock, bush to hamper the speed of Ronny. He knew that it was impossible to run faster than him, as one advanced in ranks, their physical capabilities would also increase.

"If this keeps on I would run out of stamina and be easy picking for them, I need to counterattack somehow "

Through the trees, he ran and noticed a massive deodar tree, it had a massive trunk of several meters wide. Running fast he formulated a plan. This tree would blindside Ronny for a fraction of a second. He pulled his bow from his shoulder and knocked an arrow in it. He didn't stop running as they would notice the absence of footsteps on the dry leaves. Counting seconds, 1, 2, 3 4, and now. He jumped forward while turning backwards mid-flight and released the arrow. The arrow sailed through the air but failed to strike the head which came behind the tree.

It struck him on the shoulder, Ronny made a quick decision to not stop his momentum seeing the arrow coming towards him from the edge of his eyes as if he had chosen to dodge backwards instead of sideways, he would be dead. But the poison on the arrow had managed to Peirce him through his armour.

Saho rolled to avoid any injury as he fell to the ground and immediately got up to run.

The chase continued. Even though Ronny would be a little tired after fighting the blue wolf and now with poison further weakening him, he still couldn't confront him with the archer still pestering him.