Chapter 23: The ambush
While Drake, Diana, and Arte were resting, the Holy Knights had now regrouped to continue the search for them.
"You will be forming parties of ten, even if the beasts are powerful for their stage, they are still in the Body Refinement realm like you. There should be two monkeys and one tiger. You are allowed to kill, but you have to capture at least one of the monkeys alive. I will be searching for them by myself. If you think you cannot handle it even as a group of ten, immediately inform me.
"Is that understood?" Bishop Daniela asked.
"Yes, Lady Bishop!" everyone shouted.
"Then continue."
As soon as she gave the order, everybody spread and moved heading in the direction of the party of three. Bishop Daniela waited until everyone left, rode her mount and followed after them.
'There shouldn't be any problems now. Too bad this useless mount of mine can't follow their smell.'
Back in the cave, when Drake arrived, Arte and Diana were already up and eating fruits for breakfast. Drake joined them and when they finished eating, he took out a book and tossed it to Diana.
"This is a book about pill-making left behind by Ginna. If you plan on getting revenge, there are several ways you could help us instead of battle."
Diana caught the book and looked at it briefly before storing it away.
"Thank you; I will carefully study it when we find a safe place." She was a bit shocked by this move from Drake. This wasn't like him at all.
Arte on the side, however, was looking even more shocked.
"Isn't that a book about pill making? Lucky you, we can't exercise pill making in my clan until we reach the Merging Realm, so we only have a selected few that do."
"Oh? How come? I thought a clan like yours would be trying to nurture a lot of pill-makers." Diana asked.
"We want to, but there are not a lot of us reaching the Merging realm. So, we are specializing in different occupations after it," Arte replied.
Diana and Arte spent a few minutes discussing pill-making while Drake was getting ready to leave.
"It is about time. From now on we should run non-stop until we arrive at the river that you mentioned," Drake announced, urging them to get up.
"Indeed, we wasted too much time, and I almost forgot we are still being chased." Arte agreed and stood up, immediately followed by Diana.
The three of them departed from the cave and started running with Arte leading the way. They thought about carrying Diana, but they decided it would be too risky in case they need to fight. They kept running for about half a day when Arte suddenly stopped.
"A group is closing on us, they will reach us in about half an hour," he announced.
"How do you know?" Drake asked him, looking at him curiously.
"The sense of hearing of our race is extremely acute and since they are not trying to hide, I can faintly hear them," he replied.
Diana was panicking, but she managed to hold herself together.
"Do you know how many there are?" Drake asked once again.
"I can't know their exact numbers, but they are certainly more than the previous group and less than fifteen."
"Then we can't fight them head-on, this time they will be prepared for us since we already killed five of them. We also can't keep going on like that since they are faster. We should ambush them." Drake looked around checking his surroundings. "Diana and I can climb the trees, I do not think they will be that careful to check them.
"Unfortunately, we do not have enough time to set up some traps for them. Can you use your bloodline skill? The roar that disorients those who hear it?" Drake asked Arte.
"You know about it?" Arte exclaimed, "Yes I can use it, but only two times and each time I use it, I lose a lot of stamina. Forcing it, a third time is possible, but I will probably be helpless afterwards until I recover."
"How much time will they stay disoriented?" Drake asked with a gleam in his eyes.
"About two, three seconds depending on their soul's strength. Why? You got a plan?"
"If they are unguarded, even Diana can kill them." Drake started explaining. "She and I will climb the trees and you will wait somewhere, where they can see you. As soon as they stop, you should use your roar immediately.
"Diana will start shooting them with her bow and I will jump trying to kill as many as I can until they recover. I will be easily able to kill at least four of them in that time and with Diana shooting down another two we will have reduced their numbers considerably. Then we kill the rest and immediately run since your roar may notify the rest."
Arte thought about the plan a bit before replying.
"There are a lot of uncertainties with your plan. They might not know about you guys, but they certainly know about my bloodline skill. If they react fast, it might not work.
"Also, people will certainly hear it so we will be giving away our position."
"Do you have a better one?" Drake asked emotionlessly.
"Not really," Arte said.
"Then we go with mine." Drake ended the discussion.
"Diana, go and climb that tree over there, the higher, the better. Keep your ears shut and after you hear Arte's roar, start shooting arrows. Do not stop shooting at them until they are all dead."
Diana nodded and moved to the tree that he pointed. Drake then moved to another one while Arte took one last look at him before heading some distance away from them and laid down waiting.
Not much time passed until they started hearing the commotion from the Holy Knight's group.
"Seriously, I don't know why we are forming groups of ten. The others were probably caught off guard."
"Yeah, I think Lady Bishop is being too careful. They are just some beasts after all."
"Well, they do have a white tiger with them. He can be a problem."
"What are you talking about? He can be a problem for two or three of us but not five of us if we are careful. After all, I have never heard of a strong monkey beast; they are not apes."
"Well, I suppose that's true."
"Come on, act like a man and don't be scared. Otherwise, we will not take you with us to the brothel after all this is over!"
Even though everyone broke into a laugh, none of them stopped moving at all. That was until they saw the white tiger standing a few meters away from them.
"Isn't that-" his voice was abruptly stopped.
RAAAAAWWWWWRRRR.
Arte immediately opened his mouth and unleashed his bloodline skill. It was a thundering roar that made all the Holy Knights cover their ears.
But it was too late, it had already affected them.
All they could hear was a buzzing sound and they started stumbling from being disoriented.
Drake immediately jumped to the middle of the group with his golden staff already summoned and expanded, swinging it downwards, smashing the head of one member. A fraction of a second later, an arrow lodged itself in the neck of another one.
Drake without stopping, swept with his staff making two of soldiers drop on the floor and he used his nails to cut the neck of another Holy Knight. The second arrow from Diana killed a fourth soldier.
Arte didn't lose time after he used his roar and rushed towards the group as well. Since he was some distance away, it took him some time to arrive and by then, the soldiers were already recovering, however, only six of them were left.
Seeing the soldiers recovering, Drake used an Air Bullet to hit one of the downed soldiers. Being unable to guard and being hit from such a close distance with Drake's spell, the soldier was doomed.
Diana released her third arrow, but this time the targeted soldier had recovered enough to avoid it. Seeing that the arrows were not fast enough to cause any problems apart from distraction now that they were not disoriented, he turned his attention to his closest target, Drake.
"FILTHY BEASTS, YOU DARE AMBUSH US?" the Holy Knight yelled and used his lance to stab Drake.
Drake had just finished using Air Bullet, so his reaction was a bit late. He placed his staff vertically trying to change the stab's trajectory and he succeeded but not before receiving a deep cut on his ribs.
Ignoring the sudden pain, he pushed the soldier backwards throwing him in front of Arte's way. Arte wasted no time, lifting his foot and lacerating the Holy Knight's back. The armour got cut through like paper facing Arte's sharp claws.
Seeing that they were only four left, one of the soldiers backed away a bit and took out a voice talisman planning to report Drake's party position.
Seeing the Holy Knight's actions, Drake and Arte rushed to stop him, but the other three Holy Knights intercepted them.
The Holy Knight saw that his comrades blocked them and he let out a wide grin.
"HA HA! EVEN IF YOU KILL US, THE OTHERS WILL FIND YOU!" mocked the Holy Knight. But he forgot about one crucial thing. His opponents were three and not two. That led to him being caught off guard by one of Diana's arrows.
When Diana saw the first soldier dodging her arrow, she knew that it would be very difficult to succeed in killing the third one. So, she decided to wait to catch one off guard. Diana found the perfect chance when a soldier backed away from the others and took out a talisman and instead of immediately shattering it, he chose to mock them. That was when she released her arrow.
The timing was so great that Arte couldn't help but exclaim.
"Nice one!"
Even the usually cold Drake had an approving look in his eyes. That last kill of hers bought them a lot of time.
"Fast! Go grab the talisman and shatter it!" a Holy Knight shouted to the other next to him.
The Holy Knight immediately rushed to pick it up, but Drake wasn't planning on letting that happen.
He charged at the one going for the talisman, ignoring the other two trying to intercept him. Arte also charged but to block the other two.
Drake seeing the two in front of him used his staff as a support so that he can jump above them. One of the Holy Knights, swung his lance horizontally targeting the staff trying to stop Drake's action.
Drake expanded it and chose to forsake it while he was in the air, succeeding in bypassing the two soldiers, and rushed barehanded to the third one.
The soldier that went to pick up the talisman was the timid one that was afraid of Drake's party before, so when he saw Drake charging at him having a crazy look in his eyes, he screamed and tried to stab Drake with his lance.
His posture, however, was off balance, making it extremely easy for Drake to dodge him by turning his body a bit. Then he grabbed the Holy Knight's throat, breaking it.
'This might come in handy later,' Drake thought while picking up the talisman from the ground and storing it in his ring.
Turning around he looked at the two soldiers that were in the middle of him and Arte.
The two Holy Knights left, were shaking from fear, making it extremely easy for Drake and Arte to finish them off.
"We need to run away immediately. Even though we stopped them from using the voice talisman, the sounds of battle and my roar could have easily alerted the others." Arte said.
Diana climbed back down from the tree and looked at the bodies around her. It was her first time killing someone and she was visibly shaken.
"Let's move," Drake announced moving towards their previous direction along with Arte seemingly ignoring Diana. But when he passed next to her, he stopped for a moment.
"Get used to it. We will be killing thousands of them in the future."
Diana looked at him, then at the bodies. She then closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them again, She tried to throw these thoughts away. Diana then followed behind Arte and Drake as fast as she could.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
firekid
firekid Hey guys, sorry but I am travelling today, so this chapter is not edited at all. I will correct any mistakes etc. tomorrow!
Thanks for the understanding and the support!
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