CHAPTER 14: [The curse land] - [Smell lost] - [The elite force against Damian]

The eagle women were running like they had no tomorrow while the assassins reduced the distance between them at a frightening speed. The monkeys were a lot quicker than the woman and even though they tried not thinking about it the women knew that they were done for.

Even though It was a useless struggle, it gave them hope until they were caught up by the assassins. Maybe…maybe if an animal appeared they could escape while the assassins fought it.

Only seconds after they were caught up by the assassins and all perished under their blades, It was so fast they could even know they died. Their lifeless bodies of the eagle women fell to the ground and the assassins fell face to face with Damian, who had just been woken up by the sound of the body hitting the ground.

Damian opened his eyes and was faced with a bloody corps lying beside him. He quickly got up as he was taken aback by his sight, anyone seeing a corpse just after waking up would be scared to death.

The monkeys didn't attack Damian at sight as they didn't know if he was a friend or a foe, nevertheless they stayed on guard ready to strike at any moment. As a precaution, they had also surrounded him, so he wouldn't be able to flee.

Seeing that Damian got a bad feeling, were they trying to kill him too?

"Good morning, why do you owe me the pleasure of being in your company?" Said Damian in a joking tone.

"What are you exactly….wait are you the human the letter mentioned, our temple head told us that if we found you we must either bring you to our temple or kill you. So how should we proceed?" Asked one of the assassins.

"Firstly it's common courtesy to introduce yourself when meeting someone new, you should have learned that, no? Oh, and I am not planning on following any time soon seeing how you treat others." Damian responded while pointing at the dead body beside him.

"Do you think that because our temple's head asked us to bring you to him, you are of any importance? In my opinion you're just a lowly species, humans are the result of the regression of the monkeys. Your life isn't worth a lot more than those rudimentary savages that call themselves eagles." Shouted a monkey that was smoking with rage.

"Apparently you're too dangerous to be left alone, but seeing you face to face, I don't understand why we should be wary of you. Knowing the temple's head wants to see you must be hiding your power and that troubles me, to be able to hide your power from us, you must be quite strong. This will be your last warning, accept our proposition or be put down by our hands." Another monkey reiterated the question.

"Seeing that you didn't understand what I told you, I will rephrase it in a more simple way if you don't mind my choice of words… you should all go f*ck yourselves."

The next instant the assassins that were already barely holding back from killing him all dashed in his direction with their blades pointing at his throat and with a single thought 'kill'.

Damian's actions weren't useless or dumb, he has actively made them mad for no reason, if your enemy is guided by rage in a fight you will have the advantage over him because you will be able to fully use your environment.

​​Damian knew that was his only way out if he had chosen to follow them, he would probably only have had more time to live or be forbidden from leaving the temple.

With his new mentality, even though he knew he was facing great danger he was able to keep his cool and act, something Oliver would not have been able to do in the same situation.

Damian quickly jumped on the tree branch above him and escaped the area at fast speed, using his *light walk* He was able to attain a speed equal to the assassins, so they could not instantly catch up with him like they did with the eagles.

He had trained in jumping from branches to branches and after six weeks he had mastered it, his technique wasn't half bad compared to the monkeys.

Damian already knew who he would proceed to escape the assassins, as he knew he could defeat them with his current strength. He was only keeping up with them in speed and endurance, but his strength was greatly lacking.

He was going to use the divide and conquer technique. He planned entering a network of caves that he had seen a few days ago and would make it so that they would split up, he would then give his all to defeat the assassin that would enter the same path as him. Lastly, he would take his close and excite the cave without being noticed by the other monkeys if he crossed any on his way out of the cave.

As he was going over his plan, he heard something quickly approaching him and turned around to stop, a flying dagger pointed at his head. Seconds later, a flock of those daggers aimed at him arrived at alarming speed.

Damian could still run and jump from branches to branches while defending himself from one or two daggers, the number of daggers this time was far too big for him to possibly doge them as their speed was too great.

Damian caught a leaf and shielded himself, he let go of the leaf that nearly slowed down the dagger and their trajectory were deviated just enough for him to dodge them by stepping aside. He then turned around and used his *light step* at his current max capacity as he could see the entrance of the cave. Two seconds later, he had entered the cave and disappeared from his enemy's sight.

Seconds later, the assassins arrived at the cave's entrance.

"What should we do, it's most likely a trap of some sort." One of the most thoughtful monkeys asked.

"We could close the cave on him, so he dies here, he will starve or die of thirst before he can succeed in leaving the cave." Another one answered with visible thirst to see Damian die in a pitiful way.

"We can't do that, there could be another exit that he will use to escape, and if that happens we will be the ones to be blamed." Retaliated, the first assassin to the previous enraged monkey.

All the monkeys agreed with the last fact and didn't want to surfer the consequence of losing Damian, if they lost him now he would most likely try to take revenge against their temple for attempting on his life. It was a situation where the expression do or die gained all its sense.

They entered the cave without losing any more time, as they were already about thirty seconds behind Damian. Thankfully for them, he shouldn't have gone too far during this time because he had been using all of his mana at a frightening speed for his last *light step* technique.

Arriving at the first intersection the assassins seared in two groups of six, then at the second intersection in two groups of two and one went alone. As he continued to enter the earth even further, the hotblooded assassin from earlier arrived in a small space where he was faced with Damian's back.

The assassin didn't wait for Damian to notice him and directly went for a one hit kill attack to the heart using a poisoned coated dagger. His steps were very fast and so faint, it would even be difficult for a 5-star aura user to notice his presence while he was still a 4-star user. For this reason, he now smiled as he imagined himself bowing before his temple's head while presenting Damian's head as a gift.

How could he have imagined that Damian had the abilities of high demons, he had been taken in a powerful illusion the instant he entered the space. It was Damian's second ability, manipulation. He had used it to make the assassin believe that he was facing Damian's back, while in reality Damian was next to him.

When the assassin stabbed through the illusion it didn't disappear, and he had the impression of having just killed Damian, he then used his emotion manipulation and made the monkey even happier about having killed him to distract even more his senses. Using the distraction, Damian cut the throat of the monkey just as his illusion broke down from mana exhaustion.

At Damian's current mastery of his power, he could only wield a small portion of the power of the Inferno, and his mana didn't allow him to put someone of the monkey's level under illusion for more than six seconds. If he hadn't saturated his enemy's mind with happy thoughts, the assassins would surely have broken the illusion in four seconds and Damian would have most likely died by his hands as he was exhausted.

After taking a few minutes to rest, he undressed the monkey and whore his black assassin set and headed back to the surface. Midway, he encountered another monkey that was going back.

"I found nothing on my side, I am going to help the others on their side. I suppose it's the same for you." The monkey asked Damian in a bored tone.

"Yes, there was nothing, the human must have taken a different path or can go through walls." Joked Damian, still posting as the assassin he killed.

"Hahaha, you're right, then let's go, we must find him." The monkey first laughed but quickly gained an energetic and determined posture as he thought of Damian escaping them.

Without waiting for his comrade, the monkey took up the pace and turned at the first junction. Damian had succeeded in quickly getting rid of the monkey by voluntarily making him think of 'the human's escape', this way the monkey stopped his slow and bored attitude and rapidly left without noticing Damian was leaving the cave.

Once Damian arrived outside, he destroyed the entrance using his two sword to execute *quick draw*. The cave entrance collapsed, followed by a part of the inner cave, and a landslide made a part of the mountain above fall to the ground near Damian.

Damian's luck had struck, as the flower he had been searching for was now at his foot, still embedded in a piece of the mountain's fallen facade. The flower he had been searching for weeks had finally appeared. He picked the flower without damaging it and left the scene with a bright and devilish smile on his face.

TO BE CONTINUED…