Chapter 18

The first cave he came across in the chief's tunnel was defenitely Witchtooth's.

A big cave cluttered full with pots, bowls made of bones and wood, with dry herbs and old pelts.

It smelled of old herbs and of old goblin.

There was an obvious tripwire a few feet into the cave. At least obvious for Divine.

But since every concotion inside these many containers could possibly be harmful and he wasn't that interested in Witchtooth's stuff at the moment, Divine moved on to the next cave.

The other caves in the tunnel only differentiated from all the other goblin caves in their size and the quantity of their pelts and rags.

In all of them were some food reserves and in some even old and rusty weapons.

Many goblings and some females were left here while the others were out raiding.

Divine wondered if there were still some guards here.

He walked along and everything was the same as the first stretch of the tunnel.

He noticed another difference to the other tunnels. There were no dead bodies here.

Either here ruled law and order or someone was responsible for cleaning up.

Obviously the second. Divine saw some blood stains that weren't that old. And there was enough blood that a goblin definitely died there.

The tunnel ended in a cavern bigger than Divine's.

Right in the middle was a gaggle of female goblins having a good time and being merry.

When they moved a little he saw their entertainment.

What Divine guessed were the five male goblins left behind to guard this place were lying on the ground tied up.

Two of them didn't seem to mind much. They had wide smiles on their faces. So wide that they looked like oversized frogs with their green skin.

There were the two females were riding them.

Divine didn't want to find out how the other three males felt about that because they had females sitting on their faces and he didn't want to look farther down their bodies to find out what they thought about it.

One of the spectators noticed Divine and stared baffled.

"Snarky? Is you Snarky?" It was Griffy.

The one that had beaten Snarky to death making room for Divine to take over this body.

After a few moments Griffy's disbelieving stare turned into appreciative mustering.

A few of the other female goblins turned at Griffy's words and looked over at Divine too.

Exclamations of surprise and excitement followed.

When they started coming over in his direction he surveyed everything in the cave quickly.

No well. And much dirtier. Only bigger.

Definitely worse than his own cavern.

A few weapons and armor pieces lying around. All completely rusted.

Some food. But he had better and more.

Some dirty pelt and old rags.

There was nothing of worth for him here.

Before the female goblins could get too close, Divine turned around and left with strong steps.

The females called out in disappointment but they didn't follow.

Divine had not fled. No one could prove otherwise. He was just done with his exploration.

And if he walked especially quickly back to the main cavern, then that was only a coincidence.

The goblins in the main cavern noticed him right away when he came back.

The advantage was they immediately made way for him and Divine hurried on to the tunnel leading to the exit near the forest.

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Witchtooth was back at her fireplace stirring one of her pots.

The rising sun greeted Divine above the forest when he left the tribe's cave system for the second time that day.

It promised to be a warm day. The sky was clear except for a few small white clouds that decorated the sky with their malleable forms.

At this exit was heavy goblin traffic so Divine went down to the forest.

While he was swiftly moving around the bushes and trees he determined that it was too dark in the forest.

Even with the sun up, not enough light reached through the trees to use for practicing the light qi part of the Stepping Light Traversing Shadow Movement Technique.

The forest stayed in a constant twilight throughout the day.

It seemed he really had to find a suitable place up on Heavenly Alpha.

Divine streaked with ease through the forest using only the strength of his cultivated body.

It was fun. Running fast, dodging trees. Hopping over bushes, stones and roots.

Divine really felt like exploring today and crossed over the small river that had been one of his borders before.

Not that goblins of the Lost Tooth Tribe didn't come here. He even saw some groups around right now.

It was only that Divine hadn't ventured this far in this direction before.

There were only the same trees and the same animals. Nothing dangerous.

A group of three goblins were fighting a horned rabbit in a clearing. Their ambush had failed and the horned rabbit attacked in retaliation.

One of the three goblins got pierced through the chest by the horn and the other two used the opportunity to kill the horned rabbit.

[+1 Blood Qi Essence]

[+1 Blood Qi Essence]

Divine didn't look down on the dead goblin because he had only narrowly avoided sharing the same fate.

Horned rabbits were fast little beasts.

Suddenly Divine noticed a group of foxes closing in on the goblins.

Divine felt their qi before he heard or saw them.

One of them had really a lot of qi. Maybe even more than him.

He kept to the shadows and watched the goblins frisking their dead fellow of his useful possessions, not knowing of the danger closing in.

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Dawn was almost over. The time to head back to their den was near.

Good that they had found some prey at last.

Flaming Paw led five two-tailed foxes of his pack skulking through the thicket.

They were closing in on their prey. Two little two-legs standing over a dead of their own and a killed horned rabbit.

The wind shifted a little and suddenly Flaming Paw noticed a fifth smell.

The smell of power. Mixed with the same scent the little two-legs had.

How strange.

Flaming Paw slowed down and let the members of his pack go first.

That's what he had created the fox pack for in the first place.

He would show Mother and the other seven-tails. And all the others foxes with their little skulks.

They would see who would have the last bark.

And he would show it to those tall pointy-eared two-legs that were living in the trees. They had shot at him and his pack with bow and arrow.

Damn two-legs and their weapons.

At least the little two-legs only had short and shoddy wepons and threw stones.

They made good prey. Not much meat, but they were numerous and easy to hunt.

The five two-tailed foxes jumped out of the thicket and attacked the two little two-legs.

It was over in seconds and the two were bitten to death.

The strong presence didn't move from its hiding place at all.

Flaming Paw kept on sneaking closer, always ready to change direction if it suddenly decided to attack his packmates.

He had the feeling that it had noticed him somehow.

Suddenly it moved.

Flaming Paw was prepared and immediately ran after the fleeing prey.

It really was one of the little two-legs like its smell suggested.

The little bugger was fast. Faster than Flaming Paw.

The only reason Flaming Paw could keep up was that he was better at maneuvering through the forest.

Flaming Paw really wouldn't have thought that there was an existence like that in the weakest race of two-legs he had ever seen.

When they ran through a bigger patch of morning light that managed to break through the treetops, his prey got a little slower.

Flaming Paw almost had the fast bugger before it sped up again.

Running high-speed through the forest after a worthy prey was fun, but the sun was steadily rising higher and it was time to end this merry chase.

Flaming Paw commanded his inner fire to carefully gather in his paws.

Real flames suddenly coated his paws and licked at the forest ground boosting his speed considerably.

Flaming Paw was catching up and getting ready to bite the little two-legs' neck when power expendure of his prey suddenly doubled and the distance between them grew again.

Shadows danced around his prey with every step it took.

It was really impressive for a little two-legs, but it couldn't keep that up for long.

Flaming Paw knew from his own technique that the energy cost of such a speed boost was very high.

Soon its power's presence got weaker and his prey slowed down.

Shortly before Flaming Paw was ready to pounce again his prey got distracted for a moment and almost ran into a tree.

After that his prey's energy reserves quickly replenished. The little two-legs ran faster again and gained some distance.

What an exciting chase, but it was high time for Flaming Paw to go back.

With his next move he would end it once and for all. No more playing around.