I have Nine Lives

Chapter 117: The hedgehog tribe is prickly (1)

"The hedgehog tribe huh? Well, tell me their location then."

Manitola nodded as she pointed towards the north.

"It's somewhere around those parts, the hedgehog tribe is hard to approach due to their natural barrier, they usually shed their spikes once a few years and they use them to create walls and traps with them, even when I visited with my mother we needed an experienced guide from their tribe but I think I have memorized every one of the important places where traps are placed, however, their whole village is surrounded by their spike wall which is impossible to get behind unless they let us inside."

Landers put his finger on his chin as he said:

"Is it really that hard to break the wall?

Manitola shook her head as she said:

"You will see when we arrive."

Landers didn't ask for more, they started to move according to Manitola's directions and they reached a part of the forest which became rather dark, it was still day outside and it didn't near evening so it was quite strange to see darkness slowly descend around them, but if they looked back they could see a sunny place creating a contrast between the two locations.

Manitola stopped Landers and told him:

"We are very close to the territory of the hedgehogs which means there must be traps planted around if I remember correctly..."

She took a branch from the ground before poking the ground around her for a few seconds, suddenly in front of her the ground caved in and as she looked down she saw some purple spikes at the bottom of the pit.

"Poisonous spikes... it seems it is true, the slugs had allied with the hedgehogs."

Landers patted her on the shoulder indicating that she should continue, Lindo was just behind her making sure that if something unexpected happened he would be able to help her.

They continued through the darkened forest as their sights got more and more impaired, even Felix who was supposed to see easily through the dark felt his sights darken which indicated that the darkness wasn't natural.

Fortunately, Manitola's memory was rather good so they hadn't fallen in any pit traps nor had they tripped any ropes that would have unleashed a volley of poisoned spike darts.

The traps were rather simple but effective, if Landers didn't have Manitola's help this time around he was sure that he might have lost some soldiers here and he wouldn't have gotten unscathed from this stuff himself.

It seemed that Siracha's foresight was great as he saved Manitola thus binding her to the tribe and making things easier for them during their expedition. Having an expert on the place they were supposed to conquer was the greatest thing the Lions had achieved but they weren't the only ones with inside intelligence..., Siracha told Landers that the older woman who was with Manitola was taken by either the Balton or Haron continent which meant that one of them were advancing at speeds comparable to theirs or even higher!

Finally, after a few hours of dodging elaborately placed traps they reached a 10 meters tall wall made entirely from spikes, there was no gate in view nor was anyone at the top of the walls but Landers did feel that he was being watched.

Felix immediately asked Willy about the sensation of being watched:

"Hmm... well it's not tree souls, strange it seems that it's not something organic or I would have felt it."

Not organic? Felix realized that it must have been some kind of gadget from the human tribe then!

Felix whispered his finding to Landers who nodded and looked at the wall from top to bottom before realizing that what Manitola said was the truth, it was actually quite impossible to break the wall even if they all attacked it at the same time, the wall was very thick and long and trying to scale it would lead with you being poked until you bled to death.

Actually, he was wondering how would the hedgehogs leave the village without a gate?

He looked towards Manitola who understood what Landers wanted to ask her and she responded:

"As I said before only those that are allowed enter the village, there are actually no tunnels nor secret entrances, they open the middle of the wall with their powers."

"Their powers?"

"Yes indeed, even though they shed their spikes they can still control them remotely with their minds and hex energy, they can also transfer control to a different hedgehog so the guards of the wall can be changed if a hedgehog gets too old and dies."

"But wouldn't that put extreme burdens on those that tried to open the wall? there are so many spikes that they can't even be counted!"

Landers found their defensive idea to be rather great but it also seemed to have flaws.

"Not really as they can share the burden with the whole village, they have around 400,000 battle ready hedgehogs and even the children and elderly have some kind of battle power and endurance, they are actually one of the more battle-strong races of the continent but just like all other races their bodies aren't strong, their defense is their spikes and if you found a way to bypass them they would die in one shot, their bodies are actually even weaker than my people's."

"I see, well thanks for all the information, it's great to have you on our team."

Manitola nodded and smiled politely, they did save her from a rather bleak future with the other two continents as they could have easily not taken her in and she was grateful for that so she helped how she could, she was also rather motivated due to being Lindo's girlfriend... however she still had her regrets.

Felix jumped down from Landers's shoulder as he took a look over the whole wall, he had scaled a mountain when he went against the black bears, the mountain was way taller than this wall but he knew that this was a different situation.

He decided to ask Willy, he was a special entity with different abilities than his and he might be able to help:

"Willy, what do you think, how would I be able to scale this wall without alerting the locals nor injuring myself in the process?"

While he was back at full lives again he didn't want to waste them in a situation that he could easily avoid dying, he felt that as his body got stronger it would take more and more energy to regain his lives, and Aaltarox did say that after his body passed a certain strength after he died his strength would regress because he wouldn't have enough resources to revive Felix to full power.

Willy made a 'hmm sound as he thought for a short while before saying telepathically:

"Well, you could use your lightning armor and try to fly over the wall."

Felix's eyes started to flicker as he said:

"I can actually fly???"

Willy shook his head as he said:

"It is not really flying, but more of a super-powered jump and the ability to float for a few seconds in the air before you will fall, even your friend Landers can't really fly, when he attacked those rabbits back then he did a similar thing to what you will do now."

Felix knew that after he jumped over the wall he would need to either beat some hedgehogs into submission to open the wall or trick them somehow to open it, he looked towards Manitola who was more knowledgeable about them, and asked:

"Do the hedgehogs have any weakness?"

"Well they have one, if you put them on their backs it would be hard for them to get back up but it needs to be done in their primal form, or they would need to hit the ground really hard in their humanoid form as their hair would be pretty spiky so you could insert them into the ground."

Felix nodded as he said:

"Noted."

Felix then closed his eyes as he breathed in and out as lightning sparks started to appear around his body, Landers and the others looked at him wondering what he was up to, they understood that he must have got a way to pass the wall if he asked about the weaknesses of the hedgehogs but they didn't know-how.

Lightning started to quickly engulf Felix after a while as an intricate armor of blue color surrounded his body, his eyes turned emerald as the muscles in his legs started to contract, the ground under him slowly started to crack as his body slowly disappeared, he didn't want to alert the hedgehogs as he was currently glowing due to the lightning surrounding him so he turned his stealth on.

Felix's body then unleashed all of its strength against the ground as he created a small crater however the sound was somehow nullified as Landers clutched his right arm with his left while sighing, a small spark was sputtering at the end of his palm as he started to mutter:

"A great plan, however, it would have helped if he told us about it first..."

Felix could feel himself flying higher and higher as he already jumped ten meters into the air and he looked down at the top of the wall, he slowly started to float in the air as he passed the wall and entered the boundary of the village, Willy slowly started helping him to float down until they reached the bottom of the wall on the other side.

Felix's lightning armor stopped working as he breathed roughly, the ability put quite the stress on his body but fortunately, he could also heal quickly from it due to his advanced healing factor, if he forced his body he would be able to regenerate at the same time the lightning armor drained him of energy but it would have some after-effects that he wasn't sure he would like to experience.

As he reached the bottom Felix looked around and saw two guards standing straight near the wall, they had spiked long grey hair that reached their ankles and they wore red armors with no insignia on them.

Both of them had green eyes and they looked rather similar which indicated they must be brothers.

Felix stealthily moved between them as he finished analyzing his surroundings, he could see that the village was rather big and the houses were widely placed around, some of them were even made in the crowns of the trees placed around.

He knew what to do in this situation as he glanced towards the two guards who still didn't realize an enemy infiltrated their village and was eyeing them like a predator would do their prey.

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