The two groups collided in the middle of the halls and surprisingly the beasts stopped before they collided, they even left some “breathing room” for the exhausted biped individuals they were following. But the tension could be felt in the air.

Not only from each of the hunters towards their prey, but also between the two hunters. Well, the wolf and the pride of lionesses. Even though they had their mind controlled to treat all other beasts as part of their group, tensions inside a group still naturally formed and all thirteen of the entrapped individuals were watching it in the first row.

While the big wolf completely cut the group off if he stayed put, they could probably slip through the lionesses if they were focused on the wolf. The problem was if the two hunters were going to fight and if they did, would they rather let them escape to defeat each other or would they still keep focused on their prey. Maybe the hunters believed that even if the prey escaped for now, they could catch it later, but it wasn’t a sure bet for the bipeds.

The growls reverberated with the walls and ceiling, causing a bit of dust to fall down. Should they try to fight to escape? Finally, someone broke the silence that had lasted the whole chase and these tense moments.

- Sooooo through which side will we try to escape? – Gabriel asked with curiosity towards the answers he would get. He himself had formed some ideas to escape during this stalemate, but maybe someone else had already created a better plan.

- I’d say through the cats, but I’m not really sure. – One of the wounded infiltrees commented. – The lionesses could divide, and some follow us, and others stay behind.

- But wouldn’t we be able to beat them then? – Another of their members questioned the impossibility of this plan, but the first one was quick to reply.

- Look at ourselves! We barely have enough energy to escape by ourselves, we can’t risk fighting anything anymore. Last fight we almost lost two of our members and now you want us to fight about five strong lionesses? It’s suicide! We have to find a way to escape without violence. Or violence on our part. Everyone else can kill each other for all we care, right?

Some of them nodded while keeping their attention towards the two sides of the hallway, where their hunters were starting to slowly approach. The lionesses’ movement was organized and rhythmic, while the wolf simply stomped one of his feet after the other whenever he wanted.

- Ok, we have to make a plan now! – The situation was turning dire and sooner rather than later they would be defeated, more so if they didn’t move. – If no one else has a plan, follow me, we are going to go below the wolf’s stomach. His legs are quite tall so even if he has hair there his body shouldn’t stop us! – Gabriel gave his best idea he had created during this moment.

No one rejected his idea, so they started moving towards the wolf, at which the lionesses increased their speed and followed suit. This caught the wolf by surprise, but he got into a position to fight. He didn’t lower his head as most wolfs do because with his size he had experienced that his head got attacked but if he left it high enough it wouldn’t be damaged.

The wolf lifted one of his paws but not to walk this time, instead he prepared an attack towards the incoming people. But they reacted quickly enough that only the wind hit them, causing some of the weaker individuals to fall down, but the others moved fast and helped them stand up so that they were below the wolfs head before its next attack.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

They barely managed it, but two of the lionesses had managed to follow them. The others were distracting the wolf because right now all of them were in a dangerous situation. If the wolf sat or simply lay down, he would crush them, and they wouldn’t be able to escape anymore.

Most of them had passed under the wolf already, but he got alerted and realized that something was wrong. He started turning around and one of his legs hit a lioness while another hit one of the escaping spies, launching him into a wall.

The spies shoulder hit first and its whole arm got dislocated. The leg closer to the wall also got hurt pretty badly, now needing help to move. Some of the spies that had fallen onto the ground had lost sections of their bandages and their wounds felt like they burned as they got dirtied by dust and mud.

Getting back up would normally be easy, but the lionesses finished the fallen agent and attacked the man who got close to him to help carry him. His leg was being bitten by one of the two lionesses that had gotten through and the other was now pouncing at him.

The group wanted to help this individual as well, but they didn’t have the time nor enough skill to help so after Kupi reaffirmed this by shouting.

- We can’t help her! If we try to do so, we’ll finish just like her… - And after a slight pause he finished his sentence. – Dead. Now we have to go! Come on, as fast as possible! – He claimed as he started moving away from the wolf and the lionesses that were finishing their comrade.

They were gaining ground but just because the lionesses were busy killing off their friend and the wolf was now starting to fight these two lionesses. When he finally attacked using one of its arms one of the targets evaded completely, being helped by its instinct, but the other lioness didn’t manage to fully escape his attack.

The waist was hit, pushing the body as a whole to the wall, but the feline was quick to react, and it moved its body to “stand” on the wall. This way it only needed to sustain the force as if it were being pushed down by it and prevent hurting its hips and legs.

This would have worked under a normal attack, but the sheer force the wolf had used meant that the legs of the mammal broke, and it screamed in pain. Before it could escape the wolf finished her by biting the lioness off the wall and crunching its bones inside its mouth. Now, the other lioness grouped back with its pride and prepared to attack the wolf.

Their original prey was already just a faint memory for these hunters who lived in the present and now were wishing more for revenge or determining the stronger one of the two groups rather than to pick on weak prey that they could catch at any other point in time.

The pride divided itself in three distinct groups, one on the middle and one on each side. Now more organized after the short chaos that emerged from the sudden movements from their prey. The lionesses communicated using body language and so they attacked together as one.

The wolf, although it could do significant damage every time it attacked, couldn’t attack and defend every direction, so with time it started to lose. First its legs got cuts and bruises, slowing him down and then its abdomen got attacked while he protected his face.

When he tried to attack the felines under him the ones attacking his face managed to harm his eye through his eyelid, worsening his eyesight on that side and inside of his head doubt and fear was starting to build.

This was the first time he had fought something with so much energy and valor to fight back because most of the time he picked up on prisoners or beasts that were an easy target, like the lioness he had killed not so long ago.

This fear grew and grew the more the pride damaged him and them he howled really loudly, echoing through the hallways and reaching our Gabriel, Arabelle, Kupi and their gang.

- Well, we know who won the fight now. – Kupi commented while walking steadily, not losing his momentum.

- Yeah, but what’s that useful for. We don’t need to know that we just need to get out of here. – One of the cloaked figures answered seriously.

- I’m just making small talk. We’ve been quiet throughout this whole operation and its not like some guards will appear right around this corner and hear us. – Kupi mocked, but as they were making their way around the corner, they saw guards!

But they were wearing different clothes than the ones above and they smelled horrendously. That was probably the reason why they were wearing masks. Luckily, they didn’t have any weapons on them so after fighting with the little energy they had left they managed to knock them out and steal their suits, although there was only enough for five of them. They had to resort to trickery.