A plan was slowly forming in Ast's head on how to win this event but there were many pieces and vital information that was still missing and it was prudent to take things slow till that.
So instead of killing and going all over the place, Ast decided to first establish some friendly relations and acquire more info about this world and the human continent.
"Viktor, inside the event there isn't much danger and even if we are killed we would just meet outside in reality so I want you to follow the other group. I and Anna would go with this golden armour group while you try to establish relations with the other group. We both would try to win this event in any way that seems appropriate to us"
"Yes Master, I will do just that" said Viktor, he too believed that with their powers not many could threaten them inside the event and it would be better to collect resources at different places.
Viktor's bats completely overwhelmed both sides and even took the three shadow cats away, none of them was able to do anything. Seeing the beasts that they have captured risking their lives taken away the guard captain from the 'Golden Lion' Kingdom was infuriated.
The mission they were given this time was a covert one, there were many spies inside the kingdom and to avoid suspicion the normal guards were chosen for the mission, but the guard captain was a special one. The mission this time was to help the princess of the kingdom to capture three shadow cat babies from the beast territory and help her subdue them.
The guard captain was Ray Nero from the Nero household, a noble from the kingdom and a new royal guard. He was young and powerful and it was his first mission after getting appointed as a royal guard, he was undercover right now and his mission was to protect the princess at all times.
He should not have cared much even if the beast were taken, but his personality was a bit rotten, he has always been treated as a genius and being from the noble household of Nero even the royal family paid attention to him and appointed him as a royal guard, which was a position of real prominence. But in this mission, nothing was going according to plan and he was forced to listen to every whim of the royal princess which he had to do with a smile on his face.
While coming back from their successful mission they were ambushed by some unknown forces and now a third unknown variable was taking away the beasts that they had captured with such difficulty.
Ray now didn't care about him being undercover, suddenly the tattoo on Ray's arm started shining and a lion with its mane on fire appeared. It was a new beast that Ast had never seen before but to be fair he had spent all his time inside a small forest due to his curse.
Seeing the appearance of the lion the ambushers wearing black hoods were surprised and backed away in fear. Ray saw that as an opportunity and commanded his pet lion to attack the retreating group.
The fire on the lion's mane started growing stronger and it opened its mouth to unleash a strong concentrated fire. Many among the retreating group were burned alive but some managed to evade the fire.
Seeing the attack from the lion Ast asked Viktor if his bats would be fine. Viktor smiled and said that the fire attack was slow and couldn't target his bats at all. Ast asked Viktor to simply abduct Ray using his bats.
Ray's attention was now focused on the swarm of annoying bats which were still hovering above their group's head. " Zeta, burn these bats to a crisp," said Ray in a loud voice. Zeta was the name of his pet which he received from his family.
As soon as the lion would use his fire breath the bats would quickly evade or just fly at a height where the flames couldn't reach, it was frustrating for Ray to see his pet's attack being ineffective against the bats. "Zeta use your growl" ordered Ray.
The lion opened its huge mouth and used a sound-based attack 'growl' on the bats in the hope to stun the bats. But the problem was Ray had already alerted the enemy by screaming it aloud. While Zeta was busy trying to stun some bats, suddenly a few of the bats pounced on Ray and carried him at a very fast speed towards a nearby rock, some of the soldiers wanted to help their captain but were stopped by the other bats.
Zeta on seeing its master taken away was surprised and quickly followed the bats ignoring everything else.