CHAPTER 74: HITS AND MISSES
Bella’s POV
“It seems like a sea of zillions of monsters have set foot on our land”, Ryan gritted out through the pack link.
“Stick to the security plan of the palace”, Kai advised.
“Set up the traps, Ryan”, Dominic commanded. “Bait them all and steer half of the army into rescue operations. I don’t want any casualties from our side”, he sternly said. “Not even a single citizen should get injured or killed. Round up the doctors in the underground medical centre too”, he added.
“Yes Sir !”, Ryan exclaimed and quick, effective orders were relayed through the pack link thereafter.
Dominic truly did a good job of training everyone for emergency preparedness for situations like these.
However, unfortunately, the enemy’s black coloured, skull imprinted flag was mocking at us on top of the tallest minaret of the castle.
They were gaining ground.
But the war had just started and we had a few tricks of our own, up our sleeves.
Bella’s POV
“Hmm I did not hear the fair fight oath come out of that otherwise lousy mouth of yours”, the Dark Overlord’s hackles raised as he spoke to Max as soon as the two of them reached the open grounds.
Tyra and Dominic had paled when Max had suggested a fight between him and the overconfident rascal. Kai had somehow put two and two together about what we were up to and stood grinning at us.
“Let’s play a bit dirty, shall we ?”, Max smirked and soon enough Kai and I body rolled between the two warring entities to fight the murderer of our pack.
“That is what you call dirty ?”, the Dark Overlord laughed when he saw that he was going to fight a different set of challengers. “Watch and learn, kid”, he smirked before four more carbon copies of him zoomed out of him, encircling the five of us. “Now, let us play dirty !”, he laughed while throwing up his hands in the air and harnessing all the energy around him to form any kind of Dark Arts weapon he wanted at any time.
“Your enemy is not an easy opponent to have. He will confuse you and try to use your confusion to his advantage, especially when he knows that the prophesy talks about his death in the hands of his son and mates. Just remember one thing. Every living body- human or supernatural shall have one thing that nothing else has. Can you tell me what is it ?”, the late Seer’s spirit had asked when Max and I were panting on the ground, soaking in our own pool of sweat after an intense training session, barely able to process what the Seer was saying.
“Soul ?”
“No.”
“Blood ?”
“No.”
“Heart ?”
“No.”
“Scent ?”
“No.”
“Need for oxygen, etc, etc”
“No.”
“To procreate”
“Oh God no !”
“God, I feel like tearing off my hair and chewing out my nails now”, Max had groaned exasperately at that time, completely exhausted too.
“Yes. Right answer”, the Seer had gleefully said.
“What ?!”, Max and I almost shouted out in shock, our weary cells going into hyperactive overdrive because of the sudden excitement gnawing in our cores.
“Do you want to say only living things can grow hair and nails from dead cells ?”, I asked confused.
“Those things can be easily replicated in the magical world we live in. No. Ofcourse no ! I am talking about feelings !! Every living thing can feel. It responds to stimuli. Even unicellular organisms. All other things are either physically tangible, replicable or controllable by our supernatural powers. But not feelings. And feelings trigger small electric impulses within our bodies which can be easily detected by- …. (she gave a dramatic pause excitedly and waited for us to complete the sentence but we two dumb heads had no idea what the answer was and hence, kept looking on at her like two knuckle headed dumb freaks, which we honestly were) …. – Lycans ofcourse !!”, she squealed the last two words.
“We can feel what ?”, Max asked confused.
“Feel others emotions ofcourse- their vibes, their vibrations and lastly their aura !”, she exclaimed. “Use the powerful art of Dark Arts like this to focus on – …. “, she had taught us how to quickly identify real bodies from dummies within 3 seconds, including the time of forming the Dark Arts circle and then using our enhanced Lycan senses to detect the change in patterns of the aura of the specimen.
Snapping out of my thoughts and quickly figuring the real bodied demon, I quickly mindlinked everyone, “At my 4 o’clock stands the main head of this fucking hydra. Target and isolate him out of the circle, Domz and Kai. Tyra and Max will handle the other 4 dummies”, I swiftly relayed my plan.
“Max can’t fight !!”, Tyra hissed but took her position nonetheless.
She was a good teammate and receptive warrior, and I appreciated that quality of hers.
No wonder she was the best warrior of the Dark Overlord earlier.
However, I wanted Max to have his moment in front of his mate and I did not want to ruin that “Great Revelation” of his !!
“Hmm I will give you time to figure that out”, I chuckled amused. “Till then bait Max as the prey and keep destroying these annoying fake turds”, I suggested and soon enough everyone was following my strategy.
This war was not going to witness the same mistakes as the previous ones, where many packs decimated to nothingness without a set strategy.
This time, it was going to be a no brawn, all brains show, even if we were caught in a surprise attack.
“I am trusting you, Bella”, was all Tyra said with a slight tremor to her voice before pumping up her loving mate in the air and throwing him towards the multiple faux warlords and hence successfully managing in isolating the Dark Overlord from the circle when his duplicate, non living minions made a run for Max.
Loud booms and blasts were heard in the background but I knew that was the signal Ryan and Zeke were giving that all pack members were safely inside the bunkers while the enemy soldiers were successfully trapped in deceptive grass pits, deviated towards the gunpowder filled room and lastly, a majority of the huge enemy force had been forced between the moat and the castle’s barrier wall, making it easier for our warriors to easily bomb them all from the castle’s parapet without breaking any sweat.
Looking at our royal flag unfurling back on the castle’s top instead of the enemy’s black, skull drawn flag, we all knew, including the ruthless monster in front of us, that we were gaining back lost ground that we had lost in the element of surprise sprung on us by the Dark Overlord.
The Dark Overlord glared at us when he realized that he had lost his edge but blasted off a huge, fiery Wheel of Death towards Max anyway.
“Noooooo !!”, Tyra cried out hysterically as the deadly Dark Arts weapon neared her mate.
This was the second time, I was hearing her heart wrenching shriek but unknown to her, it took more than that to kill a Lycan.
“GRRRR !!!!”