https://www.patreon.com/posts/64683957

Use the map and legends to reference the following chapters:

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0010 Cooperation and Efficiency

 

"Shit Marcus! We will die if we keep following them...".

"Shut up! If we lose them we could die anyway!".

"I'd rather abandon the mission and flee to some northern kingdom...".

"Shut up! If anyone dares to abandon the mission, I'll kill it myself!
Up there... A Copper Ant! Ramon! Your turn!".

Although they were still fine, the constant fighting the ants and trying to keep up with their targets from a distance became increasingly tiring, it wouldn't be long before one of them couldn't stand the chase.

The hope of keeping their group discreet was forgotten as their swords glowing with bluish green light began to slaughter the ants, and arrow shots glowing with orange light ripped through the air at great speed, passing through several ants leaving large holes through their bodies.

They made their way towards an ant different from most, it was almost twice the size of the others, almost the size of a bull, its body has a metallic copper tone, and its antennae and legs are yellow.

Two arrows hit the ant's body with a metallic sound, its body was not pierced, the arrows were deflected on impact, but the force was strong enough to knock it down and enrage it.

Upon getting up, the ant ran towards the men in black robes, who, taking advantage of her attention, followed the Marquis again.

"Ramon what are you waiting for? Control the ant!".

"Now? I don't have material ready to use!".

"What use is your fucking Green Path for then?".

With the improvised plan in motion, Marcus became irritated with his teammate, while one of the men close to Ramon took advantage of his horse's leap over the body of a dead ant, and ripped a tuft of Ramon's hair.

"Ouch!".

"Take... Use your own hair!".

"Fuck you, next time I'll rip the hair out of your ass!
That shit hurt so fucking much!".

Ramon swore at his colleague as he grabbed the tuft of hair in a quick exchange, his eyes glowed green as the hair on his hand twisted into a fine-rooted appearance, and shouted to his group.

"We need to open a wound on the ant!"

"Take care of my horse!".

One of them's response was followed by jumping off the horse and heading towards the ant behind them, this man wore a broad and heavy sword, his body glowed with bluish green light, and with a great swinging blow to the side with the sword, the ant was hurled backwards, knocking others down.

The group split in two, one continued to follow the Marquis, and the second went into battle with the Copper Ant, killing the other ants around making way for the man with the heavy sword to do his job.

Each swing of his sword caused the leaves of the trees to fly in all directions, as well as the robe on his body, revealing his bearded face with a scar cut across his forehead, from the middle to the side of his right eye diagonally.

His outfit below the robe was a breastplate of some sort of nearly black metal over a thin brownish leather suit, brown leather armbands with black iron plates and a battle boot.

The ant glowed nut-brown and the ground beside it made of earth turned into metallic grains like copper and fused to its body like iron armor, just like the other ants did.

But this ant, already extremely tough compared to the others, now with this copper armor would be an uphill fight for the group that didn't have time to lose.

"Let's see if you can handle the heat, my little friend...".

The bluish green light around the man's body glowed and turned to fire, and the fire burned fiercely with the man slamming his sword into the ant's body that withstood every impact like nothing, but with each blow, the sword's light turned into a blast of fire that tried to burn the ant.

The ant was slowly retreating and the others didn't even try to get close, being surprised by another arrow glowing orange that was ricocheted from her abdomen, for this time the place of impact began to freeze and the fire from the heavy sword of the man fighting against her made her body sizzle.

Ramon didn't miss his chance and took his shortbow, placed an arrow and along with the arrow the root tuft he created moved and wrapped around the arrow's head, leaving his entire appearance tangled up with the roots, then he pointed to the part of the ant's abdomen that was freezing and waited.

Soon a top-down blow from the heavy sword hit the abdomen opening a wound in the ant that was violently knocked to the ground, when it started to heal and close the wound, a glowing orange and green arrow managed to hit the wound opening and lock itself inside the body.

Watching the success, the man ran to hop on his horse, and they all followed behind the other group chasing their targets.

**************************************************

Far ahead, the Marquis' entourage began to tire as well, and soon they decided to follow the next step of the Marquis Honorato's plan, where they decided to return to the south, bypassing the path already made.

"Sir, we can already see the enemies approaching from behind!".

"Let them come, let's trap them between us and the ants...
... Get ready to get out of the anthill!".

"Yes sir!".

The soldiers of Honorato's personal cavalry passed killing everything in their path, but so far they have not shown any exceptional abilities, relying only on the bluish green light blades, and the orange explosive arrows, but both skills were strong enough to kill large numbers of ants in combined blows, cooperation was strong between them.

With one more hour of battle in the ant camp, the sun is past noon, and the main road they came from, can now be seen again, and this time few ants were still getting in their way.

"Prepare! Circular Defense! Wait to attack! Prepare!".

The commands were given by one of the men in the middle of the entourage, and soon the horses swerved in circles, slowing but never stopping, keeping the ants out of the center, while other men climbed onto the roof of some carriages and continued to fire their arrows.

His pursuers in black robe noticed the change in tactics, but there was no way they could stop, stopping meant being carried away by the sea of ​​ants from all sides and going back was no longer an option, for this time, going back meant heading towards the anthills and currently their horses had no more breath to cross to a safe path.

The safe path was the one in front of them, or at least it would have been if it weren't for the entourage waiting for them, Marcus leading the group frowned but tightened his horse's reins and urged his group to charge forward.

Arrows were shot between the two sides, some of the Marquis's men had their bodies pierced by the arrows at high speed and fell off their horses, some of the horses fell together.

On the side of the pursuers the situation was worse, for the explosions threw the men in black robes into the air and knocked their horses down, few managed to engage in close combat against the Marquis's men.

Swords collided with each other, arrows were now dangerous to use too close to allies, then the men on either side glowing with bluish green lights destroyed everything between their exchanges using swords of all shapes and sizes.

One blow missing the enemy was enough to rip two to three meters wide slashes in the ground, the ants caught in the middle of combat were crushed before they could close their jaws on someone and many continued to be killed at a distance to avoid swarms in the midst of battle.

Of the ten men in robe at the scene, six of them have already been carried away by the ants after being knocked down by the explosive arrows, the Marquis's men who were wounded were rescued by their colleagues and carried to the safety of some carriage.

The four remaining men leaned each other defensively waiting for the other half of the group to appear, and it wasn't long before an incredibly large, copper-bodied ant with thick armor, wrapped in branches of twigs with white flowers coming out of the upper part of its abdomen appear almost splitting a horse in half.

A man with a heavy broadsword, bearded and a scar on his forehead somehow fell from the sky, causing the ground to shake and knocking some men off their horses, soon the bluish green light emanating from his body like an aura turned into fire and began to burn everything around.

From the sky an eagle with a wingspan of almost three meters descended, grabbing a knight of the Marquis and carrying him upwards.

Just behind, six more men in black robes entered the circle to try to rescue the four who were surrounded.

But apparently all this effort was in vain.

The eagle in the sky had its wing pierced by an arrow and ended up releasing the man it was carrying, the man during the fall of sky underwent a transformation, the bluish green light completely enveloped his body and when it disappeared, all his dark armor turned white and bulky, with the appearance of rib cage bones, his helmet became like a skull, his common sword became a long white sword of bone.

As he fell he managed to completely bury his sword into the ant's head, and soon a gray glow flowed from his sword like smoke rising into the sky, the ant did nothing but fall to the ground motionless.

Long, flexible roots sprouted from the ground around the scarred man's legs and held him down long enough for another knight in skull armor to appear and put his white sword to his neck.

Ramon controlling the ant suffered a reaction from the first skull knight's skill, his first reaction was to try to run away then his body glowed green while his skin turned brown and wrinkled like a tree trunk, taking advantage of the transformation, he headed west, whipping the ants high with his hands like twigs as he fled.

Behind him, the eagle's owner had his hands transformed like a feline's with big nails like claws, his legs became muscular with three times the thickness that was normal, its leaps were high and agile as its claws ripped through the legs of the ants in its path.

Not caring about their colleagues, their belongings and tired horses running away from the ants, they just walked away as if nothing there had anything to do with them.

"Fuck Marcus, I want a bed and sleep for a week without waking up!".

"Yeah, let's go to some northern kingdom, I got tired of this shit empire a long time ago...".

Aside from the two running away, apparently the other two last died by the ants on the way to Marcus' group, regret was the main feeling among the survivors, as for Marcus, his expression was livid between hate and fear.

^"Shit! Why are these guys all practitioners of the Gray Path?
Green Path Abilities is common, but Gray...
Fuck! A Marquis with an entire Gray Path squadron?"^.

"You might be wondering why my men practice the Gray Path, right?
How about a friendly exchange, tell me who sent you and I'll tell you why they practice such a Path, what do you say?".

"Stop talking nonsense Marquis!
If anyone talks here, you'll kill us!".

Marcus took advantage and issued a warning to the rest of his team that now only had five people including himself, so that no one else would betray him.

While the men in black robes were held back, the Marquis' knights gathered their wounded and one by one, when they laid their hands on their companion, the gray light shone and their wounds closed, soon even the injured horses were saved, and the horses of their enemies were rescued.

 

Marcus' men watching the efficiency of the Marquis' men accepted their complete defeat, moreover, of his group, of the initial twenty, only ten had Rank B, the other ten were Rank C.

"You know, if I want I can just take the soul out of your body and learn about the information myself...
... The issue here is...
... I see talented men who don't deserve to die for nothing...".

One of the men at Marcus' side was tempted with a possible deal, Marcus began to ponder his situation.

"I want a one-on-one fight, if you beat me I'll serve you Marquis!".

The scar man declared trying to get up from the sitting position he was in, he wasn't afraid to die, he just wanted a good fight.

"Oh, if I shave all that beard off you, you must look a few dozen years younger, right young man?".

"Hump".

"He he he... Very well, you will have a fight...
... But not now, I have to deal with the inconvenience that sent you all to me...".

After a few more conversations between the Marquis and his captives, all his men stopped to rest now that the ants were expelled back to their anthills, body remains of the men in black robes were collected for examination or just kept.

"We don't know who hired us...
... Someone kidnapped my brother's family and used them to put me on this mission to follow the Marquis of Marro...
... Everyone here has been blackmailed in some way to get on this shit mission...
... The objective was only to send news of his position every twelve hours, and try to delay your return journey...".

"Delay my return?
A journey of at least two months and someone needs me to take even longer to get back to my city?".

"Yeah, we don't know any more than that, and looking at the position of the sun now, my report for today still hasn't been sent...
... Must be four or five hours late...
... That's all, let us go!".

Looking at the imprisoned men, the Marquis Honorato didn't like the slightest bit whatever the answer to the possible enemies pulling the strings, the target was not him, but his city.

Taking a deep breath, he smelled the sweet scent of the leaves mixed with the scent of burning and blood in the air, looked at his men awaiting their orders and let the air trapped in his lungs out.

"Fuck the Saint Sigun!
Men! Let's go back home!
Let's go back to Marro!".

"Yes sir!".