"Are you looking for mercenaries?" Kiran asked with a crooked grin. At this moment, he looked like a brute who is only good at killing. He stank of blood and there is a wide scar on his face.
When the Village looked at him and heard this question, he was both surprised and became cautious.
"Are you sure you came to the right place?" The village head asked carefully. After all, everyone knew that the mercenaries that are hired by both the organizations are only used for attacking others and not defending.
Because the organizations are cautious on hiring them to defend and there is a good reason for that. At the start of all this, both organizations did hire some mercenaries to defend some small scale villages like this Marsh Villages. But both mercenary groups are filled with traitors and instead of defending, they destroyed the village.
So, from then on, defending was left for the main members only. It is just that this village is not worth defending for the main force particularly at the cost of the poor defense of the city.
While the village head is thinking rapidly and became cautious, Kiran said with that same grin.
"Don't think too much. I came to the right place. You see that scar on this face, it was given to me by that monkey bastard with his staff. I heard that he is coming to your village to attack. I would like to take some revenge on the way."
The village head was stunned. He didn't expect this to be the reason. Even though he cannot trust him completely, he saw a little hope.
Kiran didn't care about his thoughts and continued.
"We won't enter the village. You can activate your defense as per normal. We will set up an ambush outside. If we succeed in defending, just give us this week's output of your special spring water. I heard that it makes a good accompaniment for herbal tea."
The village hesitated. At this moment, Kiran and the remaining two raised their auras, startling him and they spoke.
"If we want to sack your village, we don't need to scheme against you. It is extremely easy. In fact, it could be considered a waste of our time. We are only here because of the personal grudge."
Only when he felt the pressure did the village head relaxed a bit. Because, he knew that the other party was right. If they really want to sack the village, they can do it head on. Because a late stage transcendent cultivator and a middle-stage transcendent cultivator of astral plane is a bit of an overkill.
After all, the rumor has it that the mercenary who is coming here is only a Peak stage Pre-transcendent cultivator. And the rest of his companions are more or less the same.
"How can someone like you get injured by that guy?" The village head asked Kiran. After all, the difference in power is too big.
Kiran just smiled and said.
"I was tired and unconscious. It was a sneak attack while I was recovering."
The village head nodded and then they proceeded with the cooperation. Even though, the village head believed what he said, he didn't let them in. The trio just set up their trap around the village entrance
There is only one proper entrance to the village and the remaining three sides are covered with marsh lands out of which the rear was developed to rear their water creatures.
The trio waited for the attack to happen.
And by the next day, they finally saw someone arriving in the vicinity.
Sam looked at his crystal table as he observed the situation in the woods.
He saw Akhil standing on a tree with the staff in his hand and couldn't help but smile.
There are a bunch of other cultivators of various races following him.
They jumped on the trees as they made their way to the marsh village.
"Kiran and Markan deal with the extras. Tamas, follow my directions. We are going to capture Akhil, in the Marsh right in front of the village. He shouldn't suspect anything."
The three of them proceeded with Sam's instructions. Kiran and Markan left immediately, while Tamas waited for Akhil to arrive.
In a few minutes, Akhil is only a few meters in front of him in the village.
He looked around and frowned at the absence of the rest of the mercenary group, but he didn't care too much and moved to attack the entrance of the village as he ran through the shallow marsh.
But suddenly, he sensed something is wrong, but before he could react, a shadow appeared from the marsh and it held his leg in the place.
At the same time, another shadow appeared behind him, held him by the shoulders, and pulled him back.
Akhil almost lost his balance, but he used the staff to support himself and kicked into the marsh as he jumped upwards in process of which he twisted his body to get rid of the grip on his shoulders.
He stood on the staff that was vertically nailed into the ground and looked at the marsh carefully.
The shadows disappeared as if they were not even present in the first place.
Akhil looked around vigilantly. His beast-like senses are on full alert.
All of a sudden, a creature that looked like a lizard suddenly leaped out of the water and directly came at him.
But one look and Akhil could see that it is not a real creature. It is an undead.
Akhil leaped upwards and did a somersault and grabbed the staff as he channeled his energy into it. The staff was slammed into the creature and its head turned into meat pulp.
He once again nailed the staff into the ground and stood on top of it, but this time, he didn't have much time as he suddenly felt the staff going down as if it was stuck in quicksand.
He used Void style and kicked on top of the staff. The energy traveled through and an explosion happened at the bottom of the staff, giving him the leeway to escape from it. But in mid-air, he was met with a few more shadow undead, which he started fighting against.
Sam who is looking at the whole thing, was impressed. Apart from him, Akhil is the only one who came close to mastering void style in the palace of inheritance at that time.
And now looking at it, he has improved over the years and the mastery of the void style is close to Sam's.
Too bad it is not going to help Akhil escape.
Because, Tamas' job is to not defeat or kill Akhil, rather just distract him while he sets up the trap to capture Akhil.
While the shadow undead is buying time, some other undead is already setting the formation up.
Tamas didn't even reveal himself until now and he is pretty relaxed.
Sam watched as Akhil jumped from one spot to another using his staff and not even landing once in the marsh, all the while dealing with the undead that was thrown at him.
But soon, it was over.
"Activate."
He instructed Tamas who took activated the formation.
As Akhil jumped kicked a shadow undead and made it disappear from the spot and used the recoil to jump to a different spot, the Marsh suddenly acted up.
The mud and water moved at the same time turned into arms as they swung themselves at Akhil.
Akhil felt a sense of trepidation as he started swinging his staff mid-air with void style to destroy the arms made of mud and water. But it didn't help him much a new arm was created as soon as one was destroyed and soon Akhil lost his footing and fell to the ground.
All the arms landed on it from all sides. And he was coiled with water and mud before they hardened sealing his place.
At this moment, a voice was suddenly heard in his head.
"Hello, Akhil. My old friend. How are you doing?"
As soon as Akhil heard the voice, he was dumbfounded.
"Sam?"
He asked with a shocked expression.
"Of course, it is me. It is good that you remember me. Now, relax and one of my guys will come for you. We need to have a good long chat over some wine and drinks."
"Holy fuck, it is really you." Akhil cursed as he yelled out loud.
Tamas came out and Kiran and Markan are also done with the rest of the group.
The three of them brought Akhil along with them as they moved away from the Marsh village.
In the forest nearby, Sam finally came out of the divine dimension and looked at Akhil with a smile.
"Long Time no see."
Akhil smiled wryly and said.
"You are already done with the puppet organization?"
"Well, it took longer than I thought. But it could be said, I had a great time and a greater harvest."
"Just when we thought we had a lead over you."
