Chapter 1180: Baiting
The guards and the hounds are dying one after the other without any discrimination, even though they are still trying to run away, they couldn't escape Sam's range that easily.
Sam changed the elemental energy to the earth element and this time used a different technique.
He once again shot the arrow into the sky and it made an arc. While it is descending towards the guards though, its speed is unusually high even by the standards of an arrow.
When it landed in the middle of the group, everyone understood why that is.
*BOOM*
A large explosive sound came as soon as it reached the target. The earth quaked as if a disaster arrived and in case of the guards it is nothing short of it. The ground cracked at first and then each section once again crumbled into its own while the guards and the hounds are still standing there.
When the dust settled, the guards and the hounds are half buried into the ground. The solid ground that was under them was nowhere to be seen and at this moment, they are in the middle of a quicksand. The more they struggled, the more troublesome it became to get out.
But the quicksand wouldn't last long. If they tried to endure a bit and block the attacks coming at them, they might have a chance to get away from that place. But in their terrified states, they couldn't think much and only Sam knew of this.
So, he didn't wait and shot another arrow. As the arrow was lodged into a guy who is just about to stand up, he froze on the spot and a bunch of metal spikes suddenly came from inside his body and he died instantly.
When the guards and the hounds saw this, they couldn't help but feel their throats run dry. They never felt so terrified. The gruesome scene is too much even for them and they couldn't even get their limbs to move in that instant.
And Sam took advantage of that.
He shot an arrow towards a small group where two guards and a hound are standing and the arrow hit the hound, which was nailed to ground instantly.
The guard suddenly came out of the daze and came to themselves before deciding to run, but before they could make a move, a bunch of vines came out of the corpse of the hound and held on to them as they sucked their vitality.
The more they struggled, the easier it became for them to dragged into the quicksand along with the vines.
The vines didn't stop there and proceeded to crawl towards the rest of the group and they desperately tried to get away.
They took out their swords and tried to swing it around them in the hopes that the sand will clear away and they could escape.
And a man who did it fast enough managed to do so and crawled outside, but before he could feel happy, an arrow came and lodged into his body and this time, he couldn't even sense anything related to the arrow.
He just died like that.
By now, only three people and a hound were left, looking at this state, they didn't want to die, even when they quicksand stopped sucking them in, they didn't struggle, they just stayed there and raised their hands and even the hound didn't make a move.
They are showing their intent to surrender.
Sam thought for a moment and decided to keep them for now and used harbinger to reach them.
When the three men and one hound looked at Sam, they felt terrified and didn't even dare to make an eye contact.
"We surrender."
One of the guards spoke.
"I can see that." Sam replied and gave them a sweeping glance.
"Who among you is a person of some authority?"
One of them raised their hands a little more and said.
"I am the vice-captain."
"That is good enough. Contact the city and ask for reinforcements and don't you dare use your code words like crimson forest, and golden sky. You will get a punishment far worse than death if you do something like that."
When the Vice-captain heard this, he widened his eyes in horror.
"How... How do you know the code-words?"
"How do you think?" Sam replied with a smirk.
"Cap..Captain."
Sam didn't answer and just waited for him to make a call.
The Vice captain made a call with shivering hands and spoke as Sam instructed.
After he was done, Sam let the four of them come and made them sit beside the a big rock.
He took out his communication device and called Noah and Kumar.
"I am done here. Are you done?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Okay then, come to my location as soon as possible. I have a surprise for you guys."
With that he hung up the call and waited for his partners to arrive. They didn't take long and when they looked at the four captives, they frowned in confusion.
"What did you keep them for?" Noah asked.
"To lure in some more targets. They are the bait."
"They are coming here?"
"Yes, it would take another ten minutes. Another guard squad, get ready. We would be doing this until they get any doubt, so we can chip them away as much as we can. Meanwhile, I have something for you guys."
Sam said as he pointed at their foreheads as he shared the information he got from the guard captain.
When they went through that information, they didn't find anything wrong but they knew that something is wrong since Sam showed this particularly.
"What's up with this? We already got most of this information from the City guard captain yesterday."
"Of course, in both cases, something that should have been similar is extremely different. Observe the details regarding the beast contract process."
As Sam said, both of them once again went through the process.
The beast contract is one of the earliest memories of the guard captain. It is almost a century ago.
But it is still clear. When both of them saw the beast contract process, they knew that something is different.
"Is that some kind of special beast contract process that is used by beast cultivators?" Kumar asked in confusion.
"Yes, it is. But this is a bit different even by those standards. The contract process is clearly shown, but from the looks of it, there is some preparation process which was not shown, until we could get our hands on it, I couldn't be clear, it would merely be a speculation until then.
One thing I know is that the city guard captain went through a different process and his was normal."
"Do you think this would effect our task?"
"If my guess is right, the situation would be influenced on a large scale by this. We need to be careful."
As they spoke, a shadow mouse came and informed Sam of their next prey's arrival and the three of them got into action.
Sam once again took up his bow while Kumar and Noah moved towards their target. This time, things went a lot faster than normal and the soon the group fell. They only let the captain of the group stay alive and dealt with the rest of them.
"Now, you are going to call the city and ask for reinforcement and tell them the situation has reached a bronze eagle level."
The captain was stunned.
"How do you know our code words?" Sam didn't answer and just replied with a slap on his face.
The code words obviously came from the memories of the two guard captains.
Sam doesn't know why the city has this many codewords, but he doesn't mind. At least, since he already knew they wouldn't be much of a problem.
And the code Bronze eagle means, the situation is a bit difficult and the other party has some height advantage and are taking them down. But the threat is not too high to the point they need to send a large scale troops. They are only requesting the city to send some ranged attackers.
Sam doesn't know what kind of criterion they used to make these codes, but they are only half-decent.
They changed the location a bit, they are near a creek which has a bit of wide opening leading to some cave upside.
Sam brought the captives to the foot of that path and left them there.
"You know what happens if you slip your mouth." He warned them with his bow.
And then he walked upwards and shot some random arrows along the path to fool the coming prey.
He even shot the captives with some normal arrows without much strength. They could only groan in pain, but they didn't dare say anything back and just let it be.
Sam, Noah, and Kumar waited in their hiding for the next batch to come.
When the next guard captain along with a bunch of archers came on their beasts, they finally launched their attacks.