Slow mashing sounds reverberated softly in the swamp forest as a group of 8 warriors dressed in brown leather clothes and brown masks marched through the Spider Swamp while remaining alert to their surroundings.
In the middle of this group of 8 strange warriors were 2 civilians, civilians who currently had their hands, mouth, and feet tied and were asleep.
2 of the warriors who walked in the middle of the formation bundled them on their shoulders as the group continued moving forward.
One of the 2 civilians was a middle-aged man, the Commissioner of Defense of Obedin City while the little girl was the commissioner's daughter.
These were the remainders of the Swamp Marauders who attacked Obedin City the previous night. They suffered a lot of casualties but they fulfilled their goal.
All 8 of them were armed with different weapons.
As they moved through this dreaded swamp forest alertly, they occasionally experienced ambush from the native beasts of this forest but as veteran marauders, they always reacted a step ahead to kill these beasts.
This way, their journey continued slow and steady in the direction that they wanted as they did not awaken any unwanted beast in their journey.
A few minutes later, as their slow journey continued, the marauder who was leading the group from the front suddenly stopped as he closed his eyes.
Once he stopped, every other marauder stopped as they grabbed their weapons before directing doubled vigilance towards their surroundings.
While this happened, the marauder who stopped remained still with his eyes closed as he slowly raised his hands to hold and widen his ears a bit. He placed his ears to the blowing wind of the swamp and held this position for 2 seconds.
The next moment, his eyes snapped open.
"What is the situation, Sniffer?" The clan head of the marauders asked.
"We are being followed".
On hearing that, the marauders reacted calmly like they already expected it. "How many of them and is the kid with them?"
"The distance is still too far; I can't tell how many of them but I can guarantee that the kid is with them. I can smell his vampire powers from far away".
"Good!" The clan head smirked. "That f*cked army is still so full of formalities; I can predict their decisions from miles away".
"No, we continue moving, I already understand their plan". The middle-aged clan head grinned. "Leave deliberate traces behind for them, let them follow us to our lair, we are going straight to the tribe".
"Yes, clan head".
…
Thud! Thud!
Unlike the serene atmosphere, as the Swamp Marauders moved through the swamp forest, the situation among the soldiers was entirely different as all 20 of them were now in a race as dozens of beasts were hot in pursuit behind them.
Originally, on entering the swamp forest, they decided to walk normally in pursuit of their targets to minimize the noise that they made.
They didn't continue with this plan though since just 2 seconds in and they discovered that walking normally in this swamp was not too different from running.
The swamp was so muddy that normal steps would still induce squashing sounds as the soldier's boots stepped on the swampy floor.
Besides, walking was too slow for them, they were the ones in pursuit of the marauders. Once Crane thought deeper about the situation, he changed his mind as he ordered them to start a sprint after their targets.
Once the sprint started, the soldiers successfully increased their speed but in exchange, they awakened the dangers of the Spider Swamp.
Every few meters, they now encountered a mystic beast and dozens were still in pursuit behind them as they refused to let them go.
Whoosh!
Rex's eyes widened the next moment as a mud Python disguising as a tree suddenly sprang forth after the group of soldiers passed through it.
The Python's target was the female soldier behind Rex but because of his sword domain, Rex spotted it when the Python made its first movement.
[You have activated skill: Boomerang Slash!]
Despite the speed that he moved at, Rex was able to jump and orient himself in a way where Berserker carried all his weight to empower the sword slash as the snake was smoothly cut into 2 halves.
Hiss!
The Python hissed loudly but on landing, Rex's sword already descended on it as he diced it into bits and pieces, ending its miserable life for good.
[You have killed a Basic Mystic Beast: Mud Python!]
[You have gained 3 mystic energy points!]
"Run!"
Rex yelled at the female soldier who was about to tell him thank you as they both picked up speed again just in time to escape the diving attacks of dozens of Mud Pythons who were all disguised as tree branches.
After escaping this close encounter, the group of 20 soldiers continued traveling fast through the forest. It got to a point where they started seeing more vivid hints that pointed them in the right direction toward their opponents.
The rate of appearance of hints started becoming more rampant with time and Crane became suspicious, but before he could voice his worries, their luck finally seemed to run out as they encountered the demons of this swamp forest.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
From the frequency of the hissing, even without looking, all the soldiers instantly knew that this was no snake, these were Swamp Spiders!
"Take the other direction!" Crane yelled but it was already too late as the dozens of Swamp Spiders already had them surrounded from every direction.
Before they could react or make any subsequent decision, the demonic Swamp Spiders lived to their reputation as they attacked without any fanfare.
Pum! Pum!
The ranged spiders dug all 8 of their legs in the swamp as they raised their butt, exposing their dangerous weapon, their poisonous mutated tail as they instantly started unleashing waves of purplish-brown poison through their tails.
While they unleashed this disaster, the melee Swamp Spiders rapidly skittered across through the mud with their 8 legs as fast as they could.
In no time, they closed the distance to the students as they unleashed their load of destruction. Their muscle-filled poisonous tails launched forward at the students while they employed defensive options to protect themselves.
In mere seconds, these tenacious Swamp Spiders ejected tons of silk as they used it to grab dead tiny woods in the forest, using them to form body doubles of themselves which now served as their defense.
Behind their body doubles did they get to unleash the vengeance of their poisonous tails as the tail kept on poking towards the soldiers ruthlessly.
Of course, as mystic beasts, the Swamp Spiders were far bigger than normal spiders. These Giant spiders towered up to the soldier's calves.
Ptui! Ptui!
Rex could hear the sound of a hard object stabbing into flesh beside him as his adrenaline levels immediately rose to an extremely high level.
With a low thud sound, Rex kicked the ground before jumping upwards, barely dodging a lethal tail stab attack from one of the Swamp Spiders.
On looking down, he saw that 2 of his teammates for this mission were already got. These 2 now coughed black blood as the poison already invaded their blood system in mere seconds, this was how dangerous Swamp Spiders were.
At this moment, they struggled futilely as more Swamp Spiders stabbed them with their tails before dragging the both of them down to be devoured.
Just like Rex, the other soldiers in this team reacted on time as they protected themselves through different means.
Rex intended to use a big attack on landing but someone was ahead of him.
Clang! Clang!
The rattling bugle call of a Crane reverberated!
Rex instinctively looked up expecting the worst only to see a magnificent White Crane descending into the battlefield. Crane's summoned beast attacked even before descending fully as its feathers detached from its body.
In mid-air, the feathers turned into metal spikes that shot down at horrifying velocities at the Swamp Spiders. Dozens of Swamp Spiders died instantly to the attack, and this was what brought the soldiers back to life.
Rumble!
Turan's Triple Kill Sword slashed towards the spiders as a thick connected chain of lightning descended to roast the spiders to death.
Almost instantly after he moved, Morgana grabbed her Tessens and rotated in place as she generated a great wind that blew a large number of the Swamp Spiders away. The other members of this team also attacked.
Reginald's fire spread divine judgment upon the Swamp Spiders as the smell of roasting flesh soon filled the air.
When Rex descended from his brief flight, he wreaked havoc also.
[You have activated skill: Plutonian Slash!]
Boom!
Over 2 dozen Swamp Spiders were wiped out by the sword slash and the massive sword energy that accompanied it to wreak havoc.
From these series of moves, an opening finally revealed itself among the beasts. The soldiers dared not delay as they all picked up speed again to escape.
Only one of them remained behind, the soldier had a bitter look of regret on his face as black foams came out of his mouth, he was already poisoned.
Having lost 2 companions already, seeing this scene, the soldiers hesitated but Crane did not as he roared orders to make his soldiers focused.
"We already lost him!"
"Remember that saving the commissioner is the priority!"
"Run!!!"
All of them felt torn apart but they listened to the orders of their leader, they escaped. The least that Crane could do was throw a dagger backward to end his companion's misery as the dagger dug through his head.
They lost their 3rd companion in this mission in just a few minutes.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶