Chapter 59: Tragedy in the Dark Part 1
The sound of the fight between the strongest participants of the war was like that of grenades resounding through immeasurable lengths, causing damage to the destroyed alliance army's already ruptured ears and fear to their battered hearts, they wanted to run at full speed and scream from the bottom of their lungs to at least blow off some of the steam of their fear towards Sophia, one of the participants of what can be called the most important fight of the war, she is the person who owns the military power that unofficially robbed them of their home, thus it is just normal to feel such things.
However, their superiors told them to slow down and not escape at their full speed until the night had fully engulfed the sky, thus they persevered, and with tensed muscles, they slowly marched towards the other side of the forest which the war did not reached its claws, that is the safest place for them, at least in the short term, after that, when the swept of the undead to truly reclaim their land has arrived, they will have no choice but to leave the forest.
That was what the two leaders explained to them and all of them agreed, thus they marched and marched continuously, patiently waiting for the night to come while mulling among themselves their weakness as they were powerlessly driven away from their lands.
_We know it is not our forest, to begin with, but still..._
They patiently waited, until finally, the darkness of the night showed its glory and as if to mourn with the monsters of the forest, the moon hid itself and was nowhere to be seen. The moment the night came, the Mantis leader and the Oni immediately ordered, in a soft voice of course:
"Make haste!"
And so they did, they ran with all their might, The good thing is that they are monsters and have good night vision, thus they don't need any light to navigate the thick forest, though of course because they are not in the same level of the military discipline as the soldiers of Sophia, their formations were destroyed immediately as they run towards safety.
Lucky thing is that no community-type monsters are in the vicinity because they either escaped or hid first and foremost before the war even started. But what they think is luckier, or perhaps what they now consider as the greatest fortune of their lives is that not even a single monkey pursued them in their escape, at first, maybe because of their brain being in adrenaline and commanding them to be patient, they cannot think of a reason why are those tenacious monsters did not chase, more so that they now serve a new master and it is just normal for a new subordinate to vigorously pursue contributions to be officially recognized by their lady, but now that the bomb-like sounds being immitted by Sophia and Bakunawa are getting dimmer by the second, their fear slowly subsided and their mind became clearer.
_It must be because their rebels got floored by Sophia._
Even the less intelligent mantises can conclude that fact simply because they have the same mentality, if your race that you thought of as the strongest got defeated in a manner that they did not even put up a proper fight, your confidence and pride will take a hit irrespective of whether the faction that was defeated by the enemy is a rebel or not.
_That is precisely what happened to the monkeys._
And if that dent to their confidence is not enough already, the sound pulse rattled their remaining ego, resulting in them doubting themselves further and making call judgments.
_Basically, we were saved because they were double-thinking their capacity to perform well under their master._
"So strategical monsters like Sophia have limits as well."
The Oni said as he continued to run alongside the mantises, his race should not be as fast as mantises, but as he already is an evolved form of his race, he is not restricted to such racial features, he is well catching up to the leader of the obsidian mantises.
"What do you mean?"
The one sighed, it seemed like he was not very fond of explaining.
"Because, if the spider queen's description of her is correct, then Sophia is someone who has an idea as boundless as the sky, but even then she doesn't have any choice but to use the non-suited battle monkey army hers."
The mantis leader looked at the Oni, seemingly puzzled by his words, of course, he understood the logic behind the explanation, what he could not understand was that:
"If she has ideas as boundless as the sky, then why did she not just kill a lot of monsters and form an undead army? The spider queen said it right? That she can somehow reanimate the corpse as long as she is the one who killed the monster, right?"
_Oh god..._ bulges of veins became visible from the Oni's forehead, his short patience becoming evident.
"Dude, you really ought to wrinkle that smooth brain of yours, think about it, will you create an army of undeads that you have to kill yourself to reanimate if your enemy will attack for like in five days?"
Well, of course, if Sophia wanted, she could do these things stated by the mantis leader, however, Sophia has a reason why she has to mainly use the living and just make the dead her main guns, what that reason is? Well, that would be a story of another time.
The mantis stared at the now seething Oni and asked a question that had been puzzling him for a while now.
"How did she know our attack day?"
The Oni suddenly stopped running, accompanied by the Mantis leader and all of their subordinates, the Oni looked at the mantis with wide eyes, as if he just said something shocking he did. Alongside the halt of the fighting sounds of the two hero prospects is the realization of why the alliance collapsed before it even dented any damage to their enemy.
Betrayed, they have been betrayed, and not just by anyone, they were betrayed from the very start by the one who created the alliance herself.
_Damn, the alliance must be her "first offering" to her lady._
He even forgot his previous behaviors toward the spider queen anymore, after all his accusations about the queen of arachnids at that time were quite the opposite of the truth. The Oni felt like crying, but he just could not, he could just swallow the bitter pill of their foolishness, because even if they were to realize this now, nothing would change for he knew that this war was already a lost cost.
Only the victory of Bakunawa can liberate them from this humiliation, but even then, it will be doubtful if she will even bat an eye on her so-called "allies" who ran away because they cannot fight any longer.
"... We... we will set a camp here to rest!"
The Oni said as he looked at his surroundings in which the subordinates of both his and the mantis leader were scattered it was not good to rest at this juncture but he could not help but shake his head and compromise as he saw the panting figure of his and his collaborator's men.
First, they were tired (obviously) physically because they had to endure the pain in their ears, plus because they could not take a break because of the danger of being caught up by the fight between the two forces of nature, so they had to eat the supplies whilst they travel, after all, they departed a little before after lunch, causing the provisions to be lessened significantly, thus they have to hunt or because monsters have most certainly escaped already, gather fruits and vegetables.
Just as the two leaders were thinking of that though...
"AWWWWOOOOOOOO!"
A long, loud, and somehow bone-chilling howl was heard by the whole forest, however, the people that are most affected by the howl are them, the Oni and the mantis leader as the thoughts of the great light and heavy cavalry of the enemy army lingered in their mind, all of them went on their guards whilst the two advisers of both the leaders dashed towards their lords, they have one sentence to say.
""MY LORD, I SUGGEST WE CONTINUE OUR ESCAPE!""
The mantis suddenly felt a chill all over his body, ignoring the shout of his subordinate that was practically shaking him already, but the Oni was more aggressive and gave his attendant a huge slap in the face.
"CALM DOWN! DON'T GET BLINDED BY YOUR FEAR!"
The Oni looked at the two subordinates, shifting his gaze from the mantis to the ogre, back to the mantis again and again. Because of that, he did not notice the odd behavior of his mantis counterpart, he proceeded to explain the reasons why they had to rest tonight and why would there be no wolves attacking them.
"As I said earlier, all of us are injured and our provisions have been consumed earlier, so we have to gather some fruits and vegetables. And don't worry about the light cavalry, the first layer battle must have been over already and they are needed to stabilize the prisoners and external environment situation, that howl must have been a pack member that accidentally got separated from his pals."
The Oni said so confidently, but he of course still worries about the howl a little, thus he let the mantises scout the area first if there were potential threats, he then divided the work into construction and gathering food in half, the construction group immediately went to create an impromptu camp using thick branches and big leaves, it is not as good as the construction ability of Sophia because the two races are specialized solely in fighting.
______
The mantis leader looked at the busy crowd, cold sweat still trickling down his forehead as the thought of the chill he had just felt lingered in his mind.
_Something really bad will happen._
It is his instinct that he is so confident about, maybe because they are the type of community monsters with lower than average intelligence, they have instincts sharper than the "humanized" or at least nearly humanized instincts of the other monsters. This instinct of his is the reason why his race avoided a lot of calamity, but well, it is also the reason why he always wants to fight the monkey tribe leader.
He wants to say this feeling to his Oni counterpart, however as a leader of a heavily discriminated race because of their worse intelligence compared to the other community monsters, he retracted himself from doing so because he instinctively knew that he would only be ignored and his "mere gut feeling" will not even be considered, he doesn't want that, after all, even though they are now nothing but deserters of the fabricated alliance and is on the run, he still have his remaining pride and he will not let it be trampled on that easily.
_... I am sure this is just nonsense... Yeah, that's right, it must be._
The mantis leader thought so without knowing that, if he just did not let his fragile pride go in the way of him warning the "brain" of the deserters, he would have saved both armies from a calamity given to them by their foolishness.
_______
The mantises nimbly dashed in between trees as they looked for any monsters, specifically wolves being ridden by either a goblin or a monkey, the moment they saw one, they would dash out of sight immediately and report it to their lord, of course in their way, they are also scouting for foods, sadly they cannot pick it up because they don't have the equipment to store it, thus, for the gatherers to not have a hard time finding edible things, they mark trees with fruits or even squirrels' nests who have nuts remaining on them.
Little by little, they went further away from their camp and because they could not see any traces of wolves and only the traces of animals running in the same direction as them on site, they started to unconsciously fully give their attention to food marking.
They even seem to forget about the danger they are in, the pursuers that they were so afraid of earlier, and just continue to trail the road of carelessness, until a certain mantis who just marked down a tree after eating a whole coconut, its shells, meat, husk and all saw a big crimson colored mouth of a canine beast, drooling immensely as if it is looking at a delectable snack, in its back is a bare-handed monkey, clenching his fist as he looked at the mantis who was too stunned to even shout, and because he cannot shout, the Crimson Wolf beat him to it.
"GRRRRR...!"