Chapter 48

SOMA:

“Dammit,” I mutter when I feel a slice on my leg, prompting me to look down for confirmation. Whatever that might have been cut through my pants and into my skin, with blood already trickling down my leg. When I sight it, it looks like tiny wire but seems to be pointy, which probably was the reason for the cut on my leg.

“What is that?” I say, a little loud enough for Leonard and the warriors to hear while still staring at the tiny wire, a bit uneasy at what it might be.

“That is— Oh shit, get down!” Leonard suddenly yells out loud, and quickly I find myself on the ground, awaiting what was going to happen next. And something sure did happen.

I could hear the sound of things moving in the air. By the sound of it all, I’m sure they were metallic. Pretty fast I must say as they were cutting through the air.

I might have been fast enough to get down. And maybe a few of the others. But someone wasn’t, because as soon as the whole thing started, I hear a slight grunt from one of them with the force sounding like it had hit someone.

When I manage to look behind, I could see that everyone was on the ground, which makes it difficult for me to tell if everyone was still alive.

The sound of the metals cutting through the air was making me a bit scared. I do not know what that is and my ears were already getting affected because the sound seemed to be increasing with every passing second.

It got to a time where I couldn’t take it anymore so I put a hand over my ears to try to wade off the sound. And by the time it eventually stopped, I was already feeling sharp pains in my head. More like a throb that wouldn’t want to go away.

“I think it’s safe to stand up now,” Leonard’s voice reaches me. I hear as they start to rise to their feet but I take my time on the ground to let the throb in my head go away. Hurts like hell.

“We’ve lost a man,”

And that was enough to get me up on my feet. When I do so, I could see an unmoving body on the ground, and by trying to get a heartbeat from him, I realized there was none.

Pieces of tiny metals or whatever it is were plummeted from his back up to his head, showing how much damage went through to him. And it was at that time I realized what might have put him in a condition where he could not fight off the damages. Nothing else but silver.

I grip my hair in frustration because I know that it was my fault. If I had not tripped over the tiny wire that caught my leg, this would not have happened. I’ve totally made a mess of things before we could even get to an important stage of the mission.

“I’m sorry, guys,” I tell them, apologizing for my costly mistake. “I didn’t see the thing that resulted in this. I should have been extra careful,” I then put my head down in sorrow, still in a bid to let them know how bad I feel about what happened.

A hand lands on my shoulder so I look up to see Leonard by my side. “You do not need to apologize. Anyone could have tripped on that. We are already in a zone that leads to the Black Lotus’ supposed base, and there are bound to be traps all over. We only need to make sure we act accordingly and maybe we could avoid another casualty like this,”

I nod, acknowledging that he didn’t take it out on me. “So what are you going to do about him?” I ask, referring to the lifeless body on the ground.

Leonard takes his hand off my shoulder and starts to act like he’s thinking. “What are we going to do about him? Hmph. I don’t think we can do anything. Let’s just leave him there. Attempting to do something now could either delay us or worse set off another trap. We've taken too long here already,”

And that was a clue that we had to leave the zone, which we all adhered to immediately. But this time, we changed tactics. Initially, I was leading the way because I was getting accustomed to the pathway. Now Leonard has taken over. And I’ve got high hopes that it would be easier.

I wish I knew a thing or two about traps. That aspect was one of the things I neglected during my years of training. No matter how much I was forced to focus on it, I neglected it to the core because I felt it was a waste of time. Even going as far as giving excuses that it was meant for the careless.

If Leonard hadn’t been aware of it being a trap, I sure would have died at the very spot. What would even make that possible was the fact that I could not hear the metals coming before it did start to rain in our directions. That was one brutal way of murdering a man.

“Be careful not to touch anything. Those metals could still injure you,” Leonard says, and I look around to see that we were heavily surrounded by the metals that came from setting off the trap.

I knew this was going to be a hard nut to crack for me. And I’m talking about the entire mission. If the Black Lotus are who they say they are, and with what I have experienced as a start, then I should count myself lucky if I survive until the end of today.

I have not even completed that thought in my head when Leonard pushes me sideways with his hand. Out of instinct, I do the same to the next man behind me and it all goes on until none of us were on the way.

That is when we see the reason for that. Something like a spear had come out in full force from the woods that we were venturing into. With one swing from it, someone would have ended up dead. Oh goodness, what did I sign up for?

I swallow a loud gulp from what just happened. But doing that makes me realize something. Because when I look down, I see that in an attempt to push me out of the way, Leonard’s hand was on my bosom.

It feels super weird that I cannot even tell him what he’s doing. Instead, I look up at him, hyper-focusing so he could feel a bore through him. And it works because he suddenly looks at me and so with my eyes, I gesture down to his hand.

He realizes his mistake and swiftly takes the hand off from me. It even becomes more awkward because of the embarrassment that circles us after that.

Nothing is said by Leonard who then proceeds to go through where the spear had come out from. The same spear that would have killed someone right now if it had been me leading the way. Would probably have been me ending up dead from it.

We all follow suit as he goes into the path, bending a lot not to come in contact with anything that might end up being another trap.

Where we end up coming out from was far different from what we had gone through now. The place seems to be a lot rocky than with woods that it has me wondering which territory we have fallen under.

It looks like the third main werewolf territory base. I have never been to the place but from what I have read and heard, it is a rocky area and more humid than the other bases. Could be this place.

But I doubt that in the most sense because why would it be the base with a lot of traps?

Speaking of traps, we are about to get down for another one because someone has set up something standing at a place that he should not have been. And like a boom, his leg shatters, setting off the remaining traps below us.

Quickly, most of us jump to avoid what had happened to the warrior that set off the trap. I was lucky because I was standing close to one of the traps. If I hadn’t jumped in time, it would have been another story.

The rest of them join me as I land in a safe zone, or so I thought. But I was able to see that another one died as a result of the shattering trap.

Disgust coils in my throat from the sight of their bodies. It makes me want to puke but I know this isn’t the right time, especially when Leonard brings something to our notice.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

I look at his face first and then follow the direction of where he is looking at. When I do, I see that there was something pointed in our direction. Looks like a cannon that is ready to be fired as we can see it smoking up already.

“At the count of two,” Leonard starts to say in more like a whisper, “you all should jump off this place while going away from the direction of that thing. Is that taken?”

I nod, and I see that the others do too. This is going to be one hell of a jump because such force would most possibly send us into a location that would end us up in another trap. And I am not ready for that.

“One...” Leonard announces, “And two!”

And at the same time, the shot from the thing fires out while we all jump away from there. And just as predicted, the force was much stronger than us because it felt like a bomb when it landed where we were standing not too long ago.

By the time I supposedly land, I hit my head on a rock, a cut instantly opening up by the side of my head.

I don’t know about the others but I don’t feel too good now because of how much force that came with it. Luckily for us, we all survived the blast, but not without injuries sustained.

Still, we push on, knowing that the wounds would heal soon. And in the course of it all, we encounter more traps, losing another man at the end of the day.