I have Nine Lives

Manitola felt rather sad and excluded in the lion tribe, she was an outsider that came in due to Siracha's intentions, if he wanted to he could have just let her have a pretty grim ending in the hands of the other continents contestants.

She was very glad of the outcome because it was the best however she was still ostracized. After all, she was of a different race, of course, they had the right to be suspicious of her, she came out of nowhere and was from the tribe that was currently fighting them on the battlefield.

Most of the lions from the 100,000 strong armies were looking at her with distrust and thinking that she was actually sending out precious intelligence from their camp to the enemies.

However, that wasn't true but she couldn't say anything in her defense as while there were no ways for her to defend herself there were also no ways for her to get incriminated so the people only talked, they didn't do anything to her but words also cut deep.

Manitola sulked on top of the wall as her feet dangled down, she sighed as she looked down at the village and all of the bobbing heads down there, they either talked in hushed tones or looked around with a sad tinge in their eyes.

It was impossible to like being under someone else's foot, the civilians were all scared and the defenders who surrendered were glaring at the patroling lions from the army, however, all of their weapons had been confiscated and they couldn't do anything to fight hand to hand with the superior lions so all they could do was sigh and glare.

Lindo approached her from behind as he sat near her and didn't say anything for a short while before deciding to open the conversation:

"You know people don't really hate you right?"

Manitola shook his head as she gave a small smile to Lindo:

"Thanks for trying to cheer me up but we both know that's a lie."

Lindo shook his head as he got a little bit closer to her then hugging her:

"It's not a lie, they are just wary of you but they don't hate you, you haven't done anything to incur their hate."

Manitola shook her head as she said:

"I don't even have to actually do what they are saying for them to hate me, I can feel it in their gazes, even Landers who is such a good person looks at me with questioning eyes... I don't know if it was the right decision to take me on this expedition, I already told you all I know about the continent and I'm not that useful on the battlefield as the stronger people already take care of everything before I can do anything... actually the same can be said for you as well."

Lindo coughed as he almost swallowed his saliva, she didn't have to be that blunt, did she?

"Indeed, we haven't been able to show our talents yet but that's mostly because Felix took care of everything by himself, I'm sure that in the future where Felix will be too overwhelmed by the number of enemies we will be able to shine brightly on the battlefield as well!"

"Maybe you are right..."

Manitola started to get a little bit happier, in the end, results were all that mattered in this world, so if she wanted to dispel the doubt that others had against her all she had to do was fight on the battlefield and get merit!

Now that she had a better goal she reciprocated Lindo's hug, her big breasts brushing against his chest making him blush a little as he coughed.

Felix was close nearby but he ignored the two love birds as he glanced outside the walls, no one was coming through the forest and everything was nice and quiet.

It was a little bit too quiet, it was almost annoying how quiet it was, Felix found that something wasn't right as he looked up from the walls, Landers approached him from behind as he said:

"You feel it too right?"

Felix nodded as things were too quiet he knew that trouble was arising.

"Do you think that the allies of the Fox tribe have realized that we took over the village?"

Landers nodded, it was most likely the thing that happened, or could have their allies realized that they broke ties and they wanted a piece of their pie?

While Landers got the permission that didn't mean they had to tell them until their troops arrived at the continent with their help.

After all, the ship they used was quite fast, and on paper, they were still allies.

Landers looked around but he couldn't identify any danger even with his superior eyesight, but he felt the danger as it closed into him and Felix.

Felix frowned as he felt that things weren't as good as they looked on the surface, he took a few steps backward as he felt danger, and at his feet where he previously stood, a purple dart impaled the wall immediately cracking it!

It wasn't because there was a special attribute to the dart but the dart itself was very heavy!

It seemed to be rather futuristic-looking as it was made of metal and some openings appeared in it when it landed.

The openings started to spew out a purple-colored mist which Landers and Felix immediately identified as poison, they tried to kick the dart away only to realize that it weighed so much that they couldn't move it! That was the sole reason it cracked the wall, it was so heavy that both Felix and Landers couldn't kick it away while they worked together!

Felix frowned as he didn't breathe in the poison, while he, Landers, Lindo, and Manitola could keep their breath for extended amounts of time and get out of the radius of the poison what about the newly captured fox tribesmen and their troops?

While they were strong it was unknown if their stamina was very good as up till now they haven't gone through any long fights, Felix looked at Landers and made some signals with his paws which Landers interpreted, they grabbed Landers and Manitola as they jumped down from the wall to a place where it wasn't infested with the poison anymore.

There they started to shout:

"Retreat from the village, EVERYONE EVACUATE!"

"USE THE HIDDEN PASSAGES, THE POISON WILL SPREAD THROUGH THE WHOLE VILLAGE SOONER OR LATER!"

As Landers shouted he looked up at the wall as the poison slowly started to fall into the village, he used the hidden passages along with the citizens and army as they left the village from the back of the wall where there were no people, or that's what they thought.

The moment they saw the light of the day they found out that their troops had been captured in gigantic steel nets as small people with mole noses dug out of the ground and glared at them.

The allies of the Fox tribe and expert diggers: The mole tribe!

They were expert diggers and trap makers, combined with the technology they got from the human tribe their power increased by around 200% making the capture of the ordinary troops a walk in the park for them!

The citizens were put to the side and helped while the lion troops were captured, it was obvious someone leaked the news and reinforcements quickly came for help, but who could it be? The lion troops had made sure to get rid of all of the communication stones in the village so how did they learn about the successful take over?

Did they have a mole in their ranks?

Immediately the eyes of the nearby captured Lions went directly to Manitola as they all thought the same thing.

"TRAITOR!"

They all unleashed their killing intent towards Manitola's direction as they wanted to break through the steel nets that were restraining them and kill her!

They were like rabid dogs ready to bite into anything that moved the moment their eyes laid down on Manitola, but Lindo came forward and put her behind him as he shielded her from the gazes of all of the crazed lions.

"This is not the time to blame someone."

Landers slowly got up from the hole they were in followed by Felix, he glared at the mole people that couldn't even get to his knees as he kept his senses sharp to detect any traps that could have been laid around.

The mole people were proficient in traps but weak in hand-to-hand combat so the people who were around here were mostly trying to goad Felix and Landers into attacking them.

There weren't many of them visible as the others were underground but there were around 10,000 of them.

Most of them were protecting the nets that were holding the lion troops while the others were taunting Felix, Landers, Lindo, and Manitola.

Manitola's whole body was shaking as she stood behind Lindo but then a firm grip on her shoulder made her stop shaking, she looked into Lindo's eyes and nodded, this was finally the time for them to shine... they had trained for this type of situation and they were ready to go!

They jumped out of the hole together getting in front of Landers and Felix as they said at the same time:

"We will take it from here, our abilities are better suited for this type of operation, you two stay back!"