I have Nine Lives

The two women and one man looked at each other, it seemed they have made their mind up as they glared at Landers and bit their own tongues!

Landers knew that something like this could happen so the moment they tried to bite their own tongues the iron rope that was tying them up together started to flicker as electricity went through it and zapped the 3 of them, numbing their whole bodies making them unable to move.

They were pretty much paralyzed as they looked at Landers with wide eyes, their bodies would have shaken from fear if they weren't physically unable to.

Felix looked at what happened with wide eyes... what was Landers going to do to them?

His response came quickly as Landers untied them, they all fell to the ground bundled up due to the paralysis.

The moment they touched the ground Landers got near to one of the females and cupped her face with his left hand before putting the knife near her mouth and saying:

"Such a beautiful face, it would be a pity to die with it disfigured wouldn't it?"

Felix's current situation gave him vibes that reminded him of Shima's treatment and he didn't really like what he saw, he didn't think that Landers would be able to do such a thing.

Landers looked back at Felix and seeing how he was quickly getting disgusted with his behavior made him rather awkward, he knew from Siracha that Felix must have gone through some similar situation and this was triggering bad memories for him.

Landers sighed as he put the knife back and told Felix:

"You should go back."

Felix shook his head as he said:

"I..."

Landers told him with an authoritative voice:

"I'm your superior and you should go back to meet with Manitola and Lindo, this isn't a place that you should be, if you can't handle the procedure then you don't get to look at it, simple as that, also don't think that they would have felt sorry for you if you fell in their hands, haven't you seen how they were ready to poison you to death back then?"

Felix knew what Landers said made sense, in this situation when they landed into their hands and they needed information to further their conquering attempt so if they didn't want to give the information normally they would have to resort to extreme measures.

Felix still didn't like what was going to happen but there wasn't much he could do, but this was mostly because he still had some trauma left from being handled like that by Shima, normally he wouldn't have cared.

Landers sighed as he asked:

"Have you settled down? If you still can't withstand the images that will come I recommend you go meet with the others now."

Felix took in a deep breath as he responded:

"No... I think that witnessing this might help me with my trauma."

"It could help but it might as well reinforce it, are you sure?"

Felix nodded and sat down nearby getting a good view of whatever was going to happen to those 3.

Landers decided to go ahead and continue, he took out his knife again and pointed it at the same woman's face this time he didn't say anything as the message had been already sent.

He inched closer and closer with his knife towards her face, it was a known fact that fox tribesmen prized their beauty regardless of gender.

However, he started with one of the women because of her minuscule facial reactions, from what he saw he realized that she was scared of death even when she was trying to bite her tongue, so she would cave in easier when it came to torture, right now he was playing the psychical torture and if it didn't work he would move to the physical one.

The paralysis started to slowly wear off as they could finally move their mouths again, the woman eyes started flickering as she looked left and right but she knew she couldn't move her body yet, she saw her comrades being huddled together with her and they were in a similar situation, up till now all she could see was the knife that was being pointed at her face.

It would be a lie to say that she wasn't tempted to tell Landers what he wanted to know, her mental defenses were slowly cracking under the pressure that Landers was putting on her but the other woman and the man finally started talking again:

"Hold on Miku, we know that it's hard but hold on!"

Landers sneered as he said:

"Think that because you can move your mouths that you can bite your own tongues already? Think again!"

The moment Landers said that the other two tried to bite their tongue only to find out that their jaws were too slack for them to do anything, while they could talk they didn't have enough strength to bite their tongues!

It was unfortunate but they could either spill the beans or die in painful torture, there was nothing to stop Landers from doing the same thing again with the iron rope.

The woman that didn't have to stare as the knife was getting closer to her face had it easier as she continued saying:

"Miku don't give up! I and Marcus are backing you up, we are both going to the otherworld together with you!"

"So don't relent, don't betray our tribe just like that bitch Manitola did! We need to endure!"

"It's easier said than done."

Miku said while having a sad expression on her face, Landers was actually taping the knife on her face and he seemed ready to do some handiwork!

While she was ready to die she didn't want her corpse to be defiled, who knew if Landers and the others were going to throw their disfigured corpses back to their resistance towns?

It was painful enough for her relatives to hear about her death but if they were to see her body in that situation... they would surely die of a heart attack or something similar.

While she could bear to die she couldn't bear for her relatives to follow her as well... she wanted her elderly mother to die of a beautiful natural death so she could to nature properly.

Miku opened her mouth as Landers looked her directly into the eyes:

"I can tell you what you want to know... but please promise that after you kill us that you won't do anything to our corpses... please bury them here so we can all return to nature."

While Landers was doing a job, he was neither a sadist nor a man that would break his word so he promised her:

"I will bury you here and If I break this promise I shall be smitten by my ancestor's spirits!"

Miku smiled, it was a very sad smile that showed she had accepted her fate, even though more of her comrades would die her family was full of civilians and she knew that in such conquering situations the civilians would be spared, they could be used as work hands and they were weak so they wouldn't be able to revolt even if they wanted to.

Miku started to give out all of the information that she knew about the resistance in their region, multiple regions had defensive barriers or tech given by the human tribe and theirs was the weakest, they were in the south near the ocean and while the forests were plentiful they didn't have as many resources as the other regions, well they had their wood but they didn't want to give it to the humans.

In this situation, Landers felt that the time they needed to conquer the whole continent increased again, her explanation didn't make him feel good at all about having this intelligence.

He looked down at the three people who were slowly regaining their motor skills as he sighed, the knife that he held in his hand went directly through the skull of Miku as he approached the other two and snapped their necks like they were two chickens.

Felix sighed as he watched everything happening, he didn't even have to torture them physically and, the mental torture was enough for one of them to break and tell him everything that he needed to know.

Landers was a man of his word so he dug up a big hole and put all of the corpses inside, Felix didn't feel like eating them and Landers would have stopped him if he tried to, considering a promise is a promise.

Felix looked at the dug earth and sighed as Landers put the ground back and filled the hole even leaving a small drawing there as a memento that will disappear sooner or later.

He bowed towards the grave and said:

"It's not that I'm cruel but you are too weak, in this life we are just unlucky to have been born to different factions, conflicts are unavoidable and so are deaths, I hope that in your next life we will be friends instead of enemies."

Felix found it rather strange that Landers would even hold a eulogy for strangers that he just met, but from what he could see he was as serious as he could be... maybe there was more to Landers than being the best of his branch and an upcoming new general.