Chapter 164: 164: Dragon Vitality

The body of the dead creature was carried as the group fled. The creature's body was surprisingly light to carry and didn't hamper the speed of their escape by a bit.

"Cut off the body parts of the creature into smaller pieces. Then, tear off its limbs and absorb what you can from the body!" Martha ordered.

The knights began to do so but found that the dried-up and thin pieces of flesh were tough.

"If Lord Kyros's words are true, then this thing used to be human. But this place has changed the composition and its body parts!"

"Human? How can humans have such hard skin? It's like the carapace of the Lizards!"

"The dragon egg! It absorbed things that we placed outside the egg! It must be that the vitality and tenacity of dragons are so strong that they began to devour the fallen bodies of these humans and created something like this! Haven't we all heard of the tales of how strong the vitality of dragons is! It could be this! Vampires are strong for their ability to devour blood. It might be that dragons absorb and feed on the body!"

"So every monster down here is as hard as this creature?! Great! This is just great!"

"Stop drinking the blood. It's already starting to make you guys irritable." Martha frowned.

"S-Sorry."

"Keep a firm control on your emotions. We will be drinking more of those blood. And I don't want you guys to fall into that Dark Maddening status that Kyros talked about... Ugh. It's even affecting me!" Martha realized that her emotions were getting disturbed as she felt a rising resentment towards her lord.

"We could face stronger dragons. Imagine if a Dracanae Ghoul has merged with the fallen body of any warriors with high vitality!"

They could hear various movements in the darkness as they moved. The group soon came across a large hole on the wall, and it led deeper into the ground, but Martha suddenly stopped.

"These tunnels... They are not formed naturally! Knights, it looks like whatever's downs here is more than one." Martha assessed.

Suddenly, Martha felt something and drew her bow and shot towards the darkness. Although she could not see in the deeper parts of the darkness, the arrow still managed to fly and hit something.

"Grraaaaaahhhh!" A pained roar was heard.

What followed was some trembling. It was as if a stampede was approaching them.

"It's like we're back in that cave!" Hems cursed out.

"Knights. Form a perimeter around me and maintain it. I will support you. Remember our previous battle. We fight while fleeing. Let's move this way." Martha ordered as they ran towards a path that was leading upwards.

As they reached a certain part, Martha could sense Fate calling.

"Hold your ground here! We fight in this uphill terrain. Rip off the limbs now and carry one piece with you in case you need a quick mouthful of blood." Martha readied her bow.

The knights began to stab their swords inside deeper as they moved and managed to rip off the creature's limbs.

The creature's limbs would twitch now and then, but the group placed it in their backpack and stood their ground.

"Lady Martha. Shouldn't we be fleeing up?"

"Try to sense Fate. If we move up there, we will see more enemies. And if we find more of them up there and have to deal with more from the back, we'd get caught in a pincer. And so we need to deal with this. Hold the line as long as you can. I have a plan. And take note of how I am using Fate's leading. At times it's not telling us what exactly to do but what we can expect. And out of those expectations, we must take the necessary actions to push things to our advantage. Their coming." 

Several humanoid creatures emerged from the small hole they saw earlier, and Martha immediately fired her arrows.

The arrow exploded as it struck the leg of one of the dracanae, and it stumbled down. But the surrounding dracanae suddenly humped and moved accordingly to avoid a stampede from occurring.

Martha cursed and fired more arrows.

The dracanae suddenly began to spread out, and some were even clinging on the wall and made high jumps.

"What kind of undead are they?! They're so organized!" 

The more Martha fought, the more she began to understand how such mindless creatures could react. She then recalled the stories that glorified the dragonic cultivators in the Midlands and Highlands. They had such terrifying battle instincts that some could even defeat warriors nearly five levels higher! And now, Martha understood why this was so.

"Combat... This is Path of Combat!" Martha stopped shooting.

"Knights, hold the line. This battle is different from our battle with the orc squadron. Each one of those monsters has the Path of Combat!" She explained.

As the group was finally rushing closer, Martha started to shoot once more.

FWIP! FWIP! FWIP!

The arrows that Martha shot would arch and move in an unexpected direction. The targets were the mid-air dracanae who were jumping or avoiding the fallen allies and those that were slowing down to avoid the fallen dracanae in front of them.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The arrows exploded even before they struck the dracanae, and some of the dragons stumbled and struck each other, finally creating chaos on the back row.

But the dracanae at the front of the rush continued on unhindered.

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"Follow my instructions perfectly. Do not question it." Martha concentrated on attacking as the three knights drew closer. Martha was a few steps higher than them and had the higher ground so she could snipe the approaching enemy.

Five dracanae drew closer and began to scale the uphill climb. The dracanae bent down as low as possible and even ran on all fours to avoid the attacks of Martha.

"Ready your attacks!" Martha ordered, and the knights harnessed force energy on their arms so that they could deliver a powerful blow.

The dracanae began to howl and leaped to perform clawing attacks.

"Retreat and give way for my arrows! And then attack the dracanae at the back!" Martha ordered at the last possible point.

All four of them began to run and climb uphill, and the three H's opened the path leading to Martha.

FWIP! FWIP!

Martha's shot two arrows even when the knights were still in the process of moving, and the arrows barely missed them and struck the closest dracanae.

The attack forced the dracanae backward as the arrows had a powerful pushing force energy at the arrow's tail end.

The impaling force threw it backward and caused the dracanae at the back to adjust their charge to avoid the creature.

Two of the dracanae stumbled and made the ones at the back lose their balance. It was then that the knights acted.

They slashed at the three dracanae.

SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!

The thick carapace of these dracanae prevented them from being severed, but it caused them to be thrown back.

FWIP! FWIP! FWIP!

Martha kept shooting while jumping backward while Hunter smacked one of the dracanae that was shot with an arrow to cause it to fall. Hems and Hemsey were striking their swords to kill the other.

With four dracanaes falling, Martha was using them to block the view of the approaching dracanae. The arrows swerved and spun, barely hitting the falling dracanaes and would only come to view to the rest at the last possible second.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

More of the dracanae got struck with the arrows, but there were still more dracanae rushing uphill. Just like the first, these humanoid creatures would move on their fours.

"On your formation! And get ready to move out when I tell you!" Martha ordered.

The three knights moved closer once more as they continued retreating uphill.

The dracanae was near them, and Martha issued the issue once more.

"Now!"

But as the group broke away and the arrows were shot, the dracanae also moved at the last possible moment and changed the direction of their attacks.

Martha's arrows missed, and Martha shot several more as she shouted in frustration.

The knights all started to block and attack the dracanae that was leaping at them.

Hunter managed to stab the leaping dracanae in the chest, but the dracanae was not blown back as the sword pierced through.

Another dracanae met Hems's sword with its bare hands, but the sword didn't penetrate this time.

Only Hemsey, who used an attempted Knights charge, managed to blow back the enemy and caused it to fall and roll downhill.

Hunter abandoned his sword the moment it pierced and evaded backward from the wide swipes and bites of the dracanae.

An arrow soon struck the opened mouth of the dracanae, and Hunter moved back to retrieved the stabbed sword and kicked the dracanae.

The other dracanae matched Hems's thrust strength with strength and proceeded to maw Hems, who was still forcing his sword forward. In the position and with the thrust he had exerted, he couldn't evade backward, so he used the force and made a low tackle on the body of the dracanae.

The dracanae clawed the back of Hems to avoid being thrown back by the tackle.

"Argh!" Hems cried as he tried to pull away from the dracanae.

An arrow flew and struck the head of the dracanae.

BANG!

But even as the arrow blew the head off, the dracanae was still moving. With the last of its strength, it carried the Hems and threw it towards the bottom of the hill.

"HEMS!" The knights cried and gave chase as their brother rolled downhill and headed towards the rushing dracanae.

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