Lord Of Puppets-Chapter 163 – Risky move.

"....Hey....Hey.... Is there any spot on the carriage?" – asked the wounded soldier who was helping out his injured comrade walk.

"Do you bloody see any space left!? We have already people stacking over each other! Any more and the carriage will straight up be unable to move." -said the knight ridding on the horse.

"Please.... He needs to rest. He doesn’t have any-"

"WE ALL ARE TIRED!" – shouted the knight.

"I can’t fucking walk on my own right now and need to use a horse to even think about moving!"

"UGHT!"

"Dude.... Your stomach is barley holding. You can’t shout while in this state." – said the second knight as he walked towards the rider who was grabbing onto his stomach and coughing up bit of blood.

Suddenly the knight on the horse vision grew blurry before then he lost consciousness, which caused the man to lose his balance and fell off the horse.

"!"

"Dude!" – said the worried knight as he approached his friend.

"..."

"What is going on here?" – asked a second rider who approached the scene, who appearance to be the leader of the group based on his armor.

"...Shit! His wounds!" – said the worried knight who was checking up on his friend.

"..."

"Leave him." – said the rider.

"?!"

"What?! But we can’t-"

"Caravan is already full and you said it yourself." – said the rider as the worried knight tried arguing.

"And the fucking horse of his is already at its limits. It can carry only one person...."

"Then let it carry him! We can-"

Before the man could finish speaking, a piece of ice suddenly flies right next to him.... And hit the fallen knight right in the face, finishing off the man on the spot.

"?!"

"WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE!?" – shouted the furious man as he held his dead comrade in his arms.

"He was already dead anyway." – said the man on the horse.

"You. Get on the horse. You still have a chance." – said the knight as he pointed at the man who had trouble walking.

"You all hear me!?"

"Those who die or those who have no hope at coming back home will be just abandoned!"

"This is nothing personal, but we can’t carry dead people with us!"

"Then what about that fucking corpse in the carriage!? Why are we taking it back!?" – shouted the still angry man.

"..."

"Because we need to." – said the rider.

"Now, you can keep on moving or just stay. Your choice." – said the rider as he quickly resumed the soldiers’ march.

"..."

(....Just the hell was that back then?) – thought the rider as he stared at his hand that was missing the ring and middle fingers on his left hand.

(Elves were easy targets! So who-)

"!"

"HEY! THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE FOREST!" – shouted panicking soldier, which instantly alarmed every single one of the soldiers.

"..."

"..."

"Hey. Are you fucking with us?" – asked the soldier with a spear.

"No! I’m sure! I saw something moving in the forest!" – said the panicking archer as he stared hysterically at the forest, looking around in panic.

"!" – upon spotting something moving, the archer without warning instantly let lose his arrow amongst the trees.

"..."

"..."

"...."

"God fucking dammit!" – said the spearman.

"It was probably just wild-"

However right as the spearman said that, the soldiers spotted a large number of humanoid figures emerging amongst the trees.

The soldiers instantly went into the full panic mode... And right before their leader could even speak up, a hail of crossbow bolts suddenly came flying, which hit and pierced countless soldiers’ bodies, instantly killing some of them that were at the front.

"!"

"ENEMY ATTACK!" – shouted the leader of the group as his horse was suddenly shot dead by the barrage of crossbow, which caused the man to quickly jump off his mount before his horse went down.

(Shit! Who is attacking us?!) – thought the leader as he quickly used the ice magic to cover his sword in thin layer of ice.

"!?"

"Shit! Who are they?!" – said terrified soldier as the golems revealed themselves in front of the soldiers.

"!"

(I don’t recognize those armor designs!) – thought the leader.

"WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?" – shouted the leader as the golem army began leaving the forest.

"I’M WARNING YOU! BACK OFF!" – shouted the panicking leader as the golems came closer.

"I SAID BACK OFF!"

"..."

"?"

"Eh?" – the leader got ready to fight.... But right as he did, the golems at front suddenly stopped moving.

(What are they doing?) – thought the leader as he saw more and more golems emerging from the forest.

"I’M ASKING AGAIN! WHO ARE YOU?!" – shouted the leader who tried standing his ground as the terrified soldiers tried backing away.

"STAND YOUR GUARD!" – shouted the leader, trying to stop his soldiers from moving.... However, one of the soldiers didn’t listen.

He tried running away, but as soon as he did, the crossbow golems took aim and fired off their weapons at the man....Which ended up with him having several bolts pierce right through his back and just kill the man right on the spot.

Several soldiers upon witnessing the scene tried running away as well.... But once they got too far away from the group, they were too instantly shot to death.

"STOP! ALL OF YOU STOP! THEY WILL SHOOT YOU! YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!" – shouted panicking leader.

"They are only shooting you if you run away!" – shouted the leader, who instantly understood what was going on.

"..."

(Dammit! This isn’t good!) – thought the panicking leader.

(They have way too many guys with crossbows on their side!)

(Most of our archers have been dealt with and mages including me are out of mana!)

(I could conjure [Ice Wall], but there is no way in hell it will be able to keep all of them in check!)

(Not only that, these numbers alone are too much for us!)

(What do we do?)

(No matter how we look at this, we will be fucking destroyed in our state!)

"Hey! Who the hell are you!?" – shouted the leader.

"You are no longer attacking us, that means you want to talk, right?!"

"..."

"..."

However the golems did not gave any form of reply, which only filled the soldiers with anxiety.

But even if they didn’t spoke, they still took actions.

3 golems moved away from the rest of the golems and stepped forward, alone.

"..."

"Are you the leaders here?" – asked the leader of the injured soldiers.

"..."

(Not talking again?) – thought the worried leader as the trio of the golems suddenly extended their arms and then dropped their weapons on the ground.

"?"

"..."

"Em... What are you doing?" – asked the leader.

"..."

"..."

"..."

The tiro of golems tilted over and grabbed the weapons once again, lifting them up high into the air, before then once again just dropping them on the ground.

"???" – the leader stared dumbfounded, not understanding what the hell was going on alongside several other soldiers who had the same expression.

"!"

"I-I think they are telling us to drop our weapons?" – said an archer with a missing eye.

"..."

"Do we do it?" – asked one of the knights.

"..."

"Yes." – replied the leader as he dispersed the ice around his sword, before then dropping his weapon.

(As the things currently stands, we have no way of fighting back in our current state.) – thought the leader as he raised his hands into the air.

"DROP YOUR WEAPONS! WE ARE SURRENDERING!" – shouted the leader, ordering his soldiers to stand down.

"..."

Soldier didn’t knew at first what to do.... But they quickly came to realize why the leader made that decision.

DEATH.

There was no way these heavily injured soldiers could had won against this army of these unknown soldiers.... And so, they reluctantly dropped their weapons and raised their hands, signaling their surrender.

As soon as the last soldier gave up, the golems went on the move.

They slowly approached the soldiers and began surrounding them, while also confiscating all of their weapons.

Afterwords, the soldiers were then straight up poked with the weapon, hinting to the soldiers that they are going to the forest.

With no choice in the matter, the soldiers entered the forest alongside the golems and began traversing the forest... Before then finally arriving at what appears to be a cave in the middle of the forest.

"..."

"Shit!" – one of the soldiers who did not trusted the golems one bit tried running away as soon as the opportunity showed itself.... But he ended up getting shot right in his with a crossbow, killing the man instantly on the spot.

The other golems guards went up as they looked towards the soldiers.

"WE WON’T FIGHT!" – shouted the leader, trying to calm down the panicking soldiers.

"Just.... Led us." – said the leader before moments later the soldiers as well as the golems entered the cave.

However, as they entered, they quickly realized that something was.... Off.

The structure of the cave didn’t looked very natural as they went deeper in.... And not only that, they saw more and more golems inside.

"..."

"You are not humans... Are you?" – asked the leader of the group who did not received any form of reply from the golems.

(I couldn’t really tell from afar, but now that I have a closer look, I can clearly tell that these things aren’t humans.... But what are they instead?)

(Monsters?)

This was the leader suspicions.... And it wouldn’t take him long to solidify this theory, since as the group went deeper into the dungeon, they would not only encounter the boss monsters, but also the brand-new ballista golem.

Before then finally coming face to face with the six-armed tall humanoid creature.

"..."

"Monster." – said the leader.

"..."

"Yes." – written down Thauma on the note that it then handed it over to the man. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"!"

"You can communicate!?" – asked surprised man.

"Yes." – replied Thauma with same note.

"..."

"What do you want from us?" – asked the worried man.

"Don’t use magic. I’ve noticed." – written Thauma, instantly filling the leader with the sense of pure dread

"I can kill you before you even have a chance to speak a word right now."

"..."

"But since you didn’t killed us and made sure we are captured, that means you want something from us." – said the worried leader as he lowered his hand.

"Yes." – replied Thauma.

"I want information."

"I want to know what is going on right now in the outside world."

"If you refuse. Death."

"..."

"I understand." – replied terrified leader.