White Eye was enraged as he moved across the vast expanse of trees in the forest.
Everything that he had planned, everything that he needed to do was perfectly accomplished by him without missing anything.
White Eye had controlled his bats to attack the three Awakeneds on his own. Pitting himself against three Awakeneds was not an easy feat. Destroying all three of them on his own was an even greater achievement.
If not for the fortunate situation, everything would not have gone this way. Still, to be able to pull it off and have the ability to make it possible despite the obvious limitation of his skill, White Eye undeniably did great, until now.
White Eye was furious about his bats being reduced to the point that he could only stop everything and fall back towards the forest.
Remembering the previous conditions of the three Awakeneds, fury filled his mind. He was so close to getting all of them. That should have been a great feast for him.
Everything went according to his plan, but still, what did he get in the end? Failure!
White Eye, who was currently controlling the bat leading at the front, made a sudden turn towards another direction.
The prize was already in his grasp, but he still couldn’t get it. White Eye was truly unlucky this time. One could say that if Max didn’t get to see the live broadcast, then everything would have gone the other way.
No one would be able to stop Smiling Death and White Eye on their plans against the three Awakeneds.
Moreover, Max also didn’t have any plans of giving those three a helping hand. He was merely avenging himself and nothing more. But in the end, everything had gone this way instead. White Eye would just have to accept that he was the one who came out as a loser.
In White Eye’s mind, Smiling Death was the one who is responsible for today’s loss. If Smiling Death were only there, then he would have happily been consuming the blood of three Awakeneds by now, which would contribute significantly to his growth.
White Eye didn’t even think about where Smiling Death might be right now. That person should be on the currently on the run, wherever Smiling Death was doesn’t concern him anymore.
As, if White Eye ever sees a sign of him, then he will have to suffer the consequences.
Smiling Death had no idea that all this time, White Eye had been observing him and still haven’t completely trusted him. And so, through time, White Eye, like Max, had also figured out his weakness.
If he wanted to, he could easily send Smiling Death to his next life. He was but an ant for White Eye.
White Eye was only using him as a shield, a tool to accomplish his goals. Each time that they would have a good catch, White Eye would always end up with what he desired, blood. Aside from that, nothing else was of importance.
Another reason that White Eye had allowed Smiling Death to join him was that Smiling Death had nothing which could make him feel threatened.
It was true that his defensive skill had good use, but offensively, Smiling Death was no different than the ordinary people he was used to prey on.
In addition, White Eye could also bypass Smiling Death’s defense ability with his large number of bats and consume the most precious blood, an Awakened’s blood.
Many times White Eye was tempted to take the blood for himself; however, looking at the bigger picture, he should be able to prey on stronger opponents with Smiling Death around, so he held back.
Now, White Eye was deeply regretting his hesitation. In the end, he was left with nothing, and he couldn’t accept it. No, he will not accept it.
Staring far into the distance, on another secluded region of the mountain, wooden huts were arranged side by side.
With a chilling glint on his eyes, White Eye flapped his wings towards the location.
The surroundings bats followed his lead as they bared their fangs, showing their aggression already knowing what would soon be happening.
Behind them, a smaller bat gave a curious glance, looking towards the far distance before flying along with the others.
Max never went anywhere. All this time, he had followed the group, wanting to see where they would go now that they had suddenly retreat.
His current form was now the same as others; Max changed into a true blood-sucking bat, perfectly blending into their numbers. Max had immediately transformed once he saw the abrupt retreat of the bats, worried that he might get exposed.
Shortly after turning into a similar bat, he wildly flew everywhere around the other bats to shake off any traces which could identify him as the different one in case some eyes were focused on watching him.
Once Max felt that no one should be able to find him amongst the others now, he slowly went to the backside of the group, intently observing where they were headed to.
What Max couldn’t understand was why wasn’t he chased out by the other bats. The Awakened behind the bats should have seen the damage he dealt to those creatures, significantly lowering their numbers down to only a hundred.
He should already be escaping from the bats right now, but the attack that he had been waiting for was nowhere in sight. While they were traveling through the forest, Max had several times wondered if he was being led to a trap.
However, after so long, Max could still not think of a way for them to retaliate against him as he could flee unhindered anytime. Confident of his ability, Max chose to fly along with them deep inside the forest.
Unknown to Max, the blood-sucking bats were not just a puppet of the user; each of them could still act based on their instincts. Along with that, with the bats’ aggressive behavior, fights and deaths were common among them. White Eye could only ignore it as it was difficult for him to control each one of the bats. Also, the bats were numerous; a few ones dying won’t affect anything.
As for what White Eye had thought about when he saw the bats being reduced by a large portion, he merely thought it was because of the three Awakeneds.
Their attacks were quite erratic and endless. The mountains of bodies scattered across the ground around the Awakeneds also served as a cover. This made White Eye believed that all the disappearance of his bats was only them being killed while attacking.
It never once came into his mind that there was an outside influence transforming into a bat to kill all his bats. Even if someone were to tell him that, he would not believe it.
…
Reaching the end of the forest, what came into their view was a vast region of fields, and small wooden huts covered a small area of it. One would only need a glance to see people living in it.
White Eye had been through continuous failures, and he had also just recently let three Awakeneds go after he put everything into making it possible in the first place.
Now all of it went to waste, and White Eye was back to the beginning where he first started. Since he couldn’t prey on Awakeneds on his own without some luck, this will do for now.
White Eye stared at the people going about their own business. He could almost smell the blood in the air.
