Chapter 20

Divine noticed humans or some human looking species in the forest.

They were running as if Flaming Paw was nipping at their heels.

There were four of them. All wearing chain mail.

Two had swords and the biggest had a war axe. The second smallest didn't have a weapon, only a knife and an empty scabbard in his or her belt.

They were more or less injured and totally exhausted, but they were still desperately running.

What were they running from?

If it was an existince like Flaming Paw, Divine would definitely escape without looking back.

But he was curious enough that he at least wanted to find out.

Divine followed the humans from up above through the trees.

The smallest of the humans was falling behind more and more, favoring one leg. The biggest adjusted his or her own tempo to match.

The other two slowed a little too, but didn't stop to wait for the others to catch up.

Divine wasn't surprised when their hunter suddenly appeared in the radius of Divine's qi sense, stalking the humans from up in the trees, just like him.

Only Divine was a little higher up in the trees.

It was a shadow cat.

An especially impressive specimen.

Much stronger than the shadow cats he had run across in the past.

Be that as it may, the shadow cat was still only half as strong as the five-tailed fox Flaming Paw from whhat Divine could sense.

Still Divine chose to err on the side of caution and waited for the shadow cat to attack to make his own move.

The shadow cat closed in on the humans from above.

Even if the humans were sometimes looking up fearfully they didn't spot their predator in the shadows of the trees' leaves.

The shadow cat was so focused on its prey that it didn't notice Divine sneaking closer.

Divine was still a step behind when the shadow cat jumped the humans.

The shadow cat jumped onto the smallest of the humans flattening him or her on the ground and directly shot forward to attack the biggest human from behind.

The biggest human, who looked like a giant woman from the body proportions showing underneath the chain mail, got her Achilles heel ripped with the shadow claw technique.

The dark qi severed right through the sturdy leather boots, the flesh and the tendon.

Showing great perseverance the giant woman didn't fall to the ground and only went down on one knee.

She blocked the shadow cat's next attack holding her great axe behind her back, but she lost balance. She was pushed to the ground with the shadow cat on top.

Her companions couldn't help her.

The small one the shadow cat had jumped on was still out of it.

The other two had come running the moment they had noticed something, one with a drawn sword, the other with a knife, but the attack went down so fast and they had been too far away and the attack went down too quickly.

Claws strengthened by dark qi were nearing the big woman's neck.

At that moment Divine landed right next to the shadow cat. But because he couldn't have stopped if he had slashed down while landing, he raised his sword and took a swing.

Claws dug deep into the neck before the beheading could rob the shadow cat of its movements.

[+7 Blood Qi Essence]

[+12 Blood Qi Essence]

Now both were dead.

They had the highest amount of blood qi essence Divine had ever collected from individuals.

Twelve from the shadow cat, he definitely had to take the corpse or at least the beast core back.

Divine kept his sword at the ready because the one with the knife didn't stop stunned like the other and kept coming at him.

The sword wielder who had stopped called after him in a language Divine didn't understand.

It sounded like a warning.

Smart guy.

The warning fell on deaf ears and the knife wielder kept running at Divine.

Divine noticed how young the overzealous one looked. With that meager beard he couldn't be older than twenty. Still a boy.

Of course he stood no chance against Divine.

In the blink of an eye before he could even complete his first attack Divine disarmed him.

Divine held his sword at the boy's throat and looked at the sword wielder. That one had a proper beard and looked old enough to be the boy's father.

Divine made the boy kneel down by pressing his blade on the boy's shoulder.

Stunned and totally frightened the boy just complied.

Divine gestured at the man to throw down his sword.

The man hesitated until Divine moved his sword a little and left a shallow cut at the boy's throat.

Divine threw a look back at the smallest human and noticed that she hadn't moved, but had regained conciousness and was just staring at the dead giant woman with empty eyes.

The face was almost unidentifiable under layers of dirt and blood, and the chain mail covered well, but Divine was pretty sure the small human was a woman.

Now what to do with the humans?

Divine needed rope. fortunately the system shop was always with him.

[+1 Spirit Hemp Rope] [-1 Blood Qi Essence]

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Beorn threw his sword to the ground only with great reluctance, but what could he do against something that had killed that terrifying shadow cat with one stroke.

Since some of the new hires that hadn't been from their old group had killed a female shadow cat and its kitten the whole group's situation in the Witching Forest had developed from bad to horrible.

Before then they had already been in the forest for three days and had only lost two people.

In what only could be called a vendetta the shadow cat had hunted the remaining members of their group one after the other until only the four of them had been left. Now there were three.

The shadow cat had been the strongest of its kind that Beorn had ever heard of.

With its skills as a deadly hunter, its strength, its familiarity with the Witching Forest and its high reserves of dark mana it had played with them for days.

And then a little goblin suddeny appeared, clad in a robe that even if it was dirty, bloody and ripped was still pretty new, high quality and in a completely foreign style.

Beorn first thought he was hallucinating.

That little goblin had killed their powerful tormenter with one stroke of its high quality short sword.

That powerful goblin, no that couldn't be a goblin, that creature with the appearance of a male goblin looked back to Nola lying on the ground before he focused his piercing eyes on Beorn and the kneeling Torm again.

Suddenly a really long rope appeared out of thin air.

Great, the creature with the unnaturally strong goblin body could do magic too. Beorn's knees became even weaker.

The creature had the one end of the long rope in its clawed hand and the other end slithered at Beorn.

His instincts screamed at him to run away but that notion died immediately when Beorn caught the creature's eyes staring at him.

Beorn almost couldn't take it anymore.

After the long and dangerous trek through the forest at the beginning, followed by the torturous flight that lasted four sleepless days and nights where he lost more of his friends every single day and right when their nightmare lost its head, it got replaced by an even more powerful nightmare.

He resigned himself to his capture and stood still as the rope slithered around him and tightly bound his arms to his torso.

The rope was so long that more than enough was left to bind Torm and Nola with it too.

Only then lowered the creature its sword from Torm's throat and let him stand back up.

Beorn got goose bumps when the creature came closer and started sweating like a frightened pig when it touched his body to frisk him.

The knife in his boot got confiscated along with his satchel with the meager rest of his supplies. He had lost the knife on his belt days ago.

The sheath for his sword got taken away too.

Torm was approached next. Torm trembled and muttered silent prayers under his breath the whole time while the creature frisked him.

After the creature had built a pile of their possessions it pulled the two men with the rope with him and went to Nola.

Nola and the giant Marka had joined their expedition last minute.

Beorn had pegged Nola for a noble on the run. Marka being her guard or even personal knight.

The two had mostly kept to themselves and Marka had always been there to protect Nola, be it from man or beast.

Beorn could understand that Nola was totally devastated and in shock.

The tall woman had saved Beorn's ass countless times these last few days too and he had grown to not only respect but like the silent woman.

Nola didn't even visibly react when the rope tied her up too and her stuff got taken. She just stared ahead with empty eyes.

But when the creature that looked like a goblin started looking through Marka's belongings Nola let out a heart-rending cry.

She tried to get up but couldn't. The last two days she had been running around with an injured leg and it seemed like the shadow cat landing on her had made it worse.

Nola started crawling to Marka and the creature.

The creature only glanced at her and then turned its frightening gaze at Beorn.

Beorn understood and stepped in Nola's way.

Nola shot Beorn a scathing look. Beorn could see the sadness and desperation underneath.

At least some life was back in her eyes.

The creature finished frisking Marka and all of their stuff was piled up.

Five satchels, Marka had been carrying two, six knives, two swords and a great axe.

The creature packed the knives in the satchels and used Beorn's rope to tie all the stuff into a big bundle.

The creature looked around and seemed ready to move on.

What was going to happen to them?

Beorn was still nurturing a tiny glimmer of hope deep inside of him that he could survive this and see his wife and children again one day.

He should never have accepted when his old friend had come to him with the job.

An exploration of the Witching Forest to scout for a relatively safe path through.

Beorn had known it would be very dangerous especially since they didn't have any real knights let alone a mage with them.

The pay had been very high, because of the danger and the fact that they were searching for a route to smuggle goods from the Holy Lumodian Empire to the Kingdom of Medani.

Beorn had taken the job because his famiy needed the money urgently and they had been payed in advance.

And if they managed to meet the contact in the kingdom and then came back through the Witching Forest they would get a hefty bonus.

Against all odds from all of the twenty-seven people Beorn was still alive now, but dreams of completing the job had been tossed away days ago. Now he only hoped to survive.

Startled he noticed the creature had been mustering them. Beorn's thoughts had really wandered there for a moment. He was exhausted.

The creature picked up the heavy shadow cat's corpse with ease and came up to them.

Beorn's fear spiked and his heart beat like crazy when the creature stepped close again and then went behind him.