CHAPTER 333: CHAPTER 333: VAGUE HINTS

"Yes, we’ve had visitors not long ago," Oliver replied with a deep frown.

"Oh, see," Kael smiled, "We come from the same place and we have been looking for this peach valley for some time.

You can tell that it’s urgent,"

"So, those earlier visitors are your people?" Oliver asked to be sure, his expression becoming increasingly darker and more serious.

"Yes, if you and I are referring to the same group, then yes," Kael claimed.

"Oh, so you take responsibility for these actions?" Oliver asked, his facial expression showing his rage.

"Responsibility? What did they do?" Kael asked. He looked surprised and confused.

"You don’t know? Those so-called visitors kidnapped one of my kind and refused to release him.

I was simply patrolling the area, this is my little territory after all. If they are your friends, you would do well to warn them.

Our tigers are on edge lately and anything can cause us to respond with brutal force,"

’You shouldn’t have told me those things...’ Kael thought coldly, "Oh, I didn’t know that. Actually, I’m lying.

I knew about their shenanigans, I just didn’t care because it served a greater goal of ours which was to get your attention,"

Kael was using his spirit sense to read into Oliver’s intentions and gauge his personality as well as other information from him.

He noticed that when Oliver talked about the tiger that was now a captive of Chloe’s group, he didn’t seem sympathetic or sad at all.

He just seemed wary and apprehensive. As if he were uncertain about something. Kael dug deep into this surface thought, just enough to glean more of what Oliver might be thinking without alerting him.

He wasn’t afraid of forcefully taking over Oliver’s mind but Oliver had some uses for now.

He discovered that Oliver was only fearful because he didn’t know the strength of the group that captured that tiger. If they could capture that one, they could capture him too.

That was where his thoughts lay, the very thought that these groups could have enough strength to capture a tiger also unnerved him a lot.

"Why do you want our attention?" Oliver asked. He could hear his own heart beating extremely fast and if he could hear it, so could Kael and Katari.

He was nervous, scared. The fierce expression he had was just a facade. This was a Veggie Tiger, not a War Tiger or any other kind. They were not aggressive by nature unless necessary.

"As I said, we came here to visit but as with all visits, this one is not without an agenda. We came here on behalf of Darius and something else of great importance that I cannot tell you," Kael said.

As if to play along, Katari nodded her head vehemently. One would assume she was mute with the way she barely talked.

"Did something happen to Darius? What is the matter?" Oliver’s ears perked up when he heard Kael’s words.

"I cannot tell you, I have to speak with one of your decision makers first, and you don’t look like one.

Do you think I want to come to this place? I have my own territory and business to attend to, yet here I am for the sake of Darius and goodwill.

Don’t blame me if you can’t handle your problems in the future," Kael’s tone grew stern even though he had a considerate expression.

"There are problems?" Oliver got more curious. Kael was talking so vaguely and the hints he was dropping were not enough.

"Are you going to keep on asking questions or act fast and inform one of your leaders," Kael warned with a growl.

Oliver was stunned, Kael wanted to use him as a messenger. But he didn’t know the full details of the message.

Tigers weren’t like lions which operated in a social group. They like living alone and having their own space to themselves with the exception being mother tigers.

Even if he wanted to deliver this message, that would mean he had to enter the territories of those terrifying tigers without their permission.

That was a very dangerous thing to do.

"You want me to meet them for you?" Oliver asked. He realized that he had freewill and could just decide not to go at all.

Those guys were scary and didn’t have a good sense of humor, How could they possibly react to a lion coming to the peach valley with bad news?

Kael sensed Oliver’s intentions and spoke up fast, "If you don’t inform them, I’ll have to go meet them myself, and you will help us...that is certain,"

He didn’t hide the threatening tone laced in his voice.

"Of course, once disaster strikes and everyone is looking for who to blame, it would be your head on the line, not mine," Kael added.

At the last minute, Kael manipulated his spirit energy subtly to introduce the element of fear and despair. It was very small and almost insignificant.

He simply treated it like a seed that he planted at the surface of Oliver’s storming thoughts and allowed it to be washed away by his consciousness.

The seed of fear began to germinate at a slow pace. Oliver could still ignore this budding fear but it was unlikely that he would have peace.

"Anyways," Kael and Katari suddenly stopped, causing Oliver’s shoulder to brush against Kael’s shoulder.

’Ouch,’ Oliver exclaimed in his mind. He felt like he had struck his shoulder against the side of a steel mountain. His joints ached and he had to stop himself from shouting.

Kael turned his head to look down at Oliver who had stopped and was looking at the ground with a strange expression. His golden eyes gleamed with interest but he didn’t say anything about it.

He had felt Oliver bump into him and indeed, it felt like Oliver didn’t have any strength at all. He was the one who was hit but Oliver was the one who felt like his shoulder was about to fall off.

Oliver now realized that Kael might be slightly more dangerous than Katari. It made sense, he could command Katari so he had to be stronger than her, according to Tiger Logic.

"I’ll be leaving your territory to meet up with my group. I’m seeing if we can talk about the release of that tiger.

Don’t forget to send my message, okay?"

After Kael said that, space twisted around him and Katari before they disappeared into nothingness.

Oliver stared at the spot they had been standing on for some seconds, different thoughts traveling through his head.

"Ah," He sighed. His antlers glowed faintly with green light as he extended his power to the closest tree beside him.

The tree extended one of its branches to touch Oliver’s back, transferring vital energy into his body and healing the hidden injuries he had gotten when Katari pounced on him.

At the same time, a fruit fell from above and landed in Oliver’s outstretched palm. His clawed fingers held the fruit up to the sunlight as he observed it with care.

It was a peach fruit, a strange peach fruit. The fruit was a yellowish-red and brimmed with inner power. This was the equivalent of a high-level delicacy for herbivores.

Oliver opened his mouth and bit the peach fruit, enjoying its sweet juicy taste.

He felt his insides being cooled down as well as the acceleration of his body’s operations. He stood there, in the middle of the forest, enjoying the peach fruit that any fruit-lover all over the world would fight for.

’I really have to go,’ Oliver thought. That seed of fear was already germinating. He was thinking of who was the best tiger to meet now among those he knew.

He thought of meeting Darius’s mother but he shook his head. That tigress was too aggressive, it was one of the reasons Darius had left in the first place aside from looking for a training ground.

After mentally checking all his options, Oliver realized that those high-level tigers were just too unwelcoming to other tigers.

But if any tiger who was staring was meant to receive Kael’s message, it would naturally be the most exceptional and strongest tiger in Peach Valley.

Oliver could only think of one, a tiger that was so extraordinary that no one could match him on the same level.

A tiger who possessed two different powers, a chimera...

’But he also has the worst temper,’ Oliver thought to himself.

After some thought, he faced the east and began walking in the direction of that ’place,’ with uncertainty in his eyes. He still had to cross some other tigers’ territories to get to that place.

Luckily, some were his friends...

***

At another location, space twisted and churned.

Kael and Katari appeared out of nowhere side by side.

"Welcome Your Majesty, welcome Your Highness," a voice spoke to them.

Kael looked to his side to see a three-tailed red fox with black patterns on its body.

Kael raised his brow. Wasn’t this Ken’s mate? Vixy’s former assistant? The one who had left her position as one of Vixy’s assistants?