That Time I Got Reincarnated As An Abyssal Phoenix

(Finally here)

I quietly landed close to the edge of the forest after jumping down from a tree I was standing in. Once I was on the ground I took a look around and I almost immediately noticed that there was nothing and no one here, this actually made me smile somewhat proudly to myself, of course you wouldn't have been able to see it because of the retractable chitin plates that covered and protected my whole mouth when I wasn't speaking.

"It's me, you can all come out now" as I said that several dozen camouflage figures that were hiding around the area revealed themselves as they walked out into the open.

"Captain Kaen, it is good to see that you made it here without incident" one of the shorter male Harbingers said as they walked over to stand close to me.

"It's good to see that you all seem to be fine as well. Now then, please give your report my friend" I spoke while nodding for him and the others in greeting.

"Both of J and B team are here sir, we haven't received any casualties or injuries so far, it was honestly kind of easy all things considered" he paused for a second before moving on to the next subject.

"We also have already scouted out the area, I know that the Wraiths have already scouted everything out before hand for us but I thought that it would be for the best if we double checked just to be safe. You never know what could have changed, even if it has only been a day since we last checked" I nodded at that before letting him continue his report.

"Anyway, as for what we found, well, it's exactly as it was reported by the Wraiths. Just beyond this forest is a large open field with several scattered hills here and there. The enemy base is in the middle of the field and is surrounded on all sides by three larger hills, they have a stone and wood wall around the whole thing with watch towers on top of the three hills. There are some magical and non-magical traps that are also scattered around but they shouldn't be that hard at all for us to get past" he then quickly explained while pointing in the general direction of the base.

"What about the other teams?"

"Their all in position and ready for further orders, were just waiting on you captain" a new male Harbinger responded this time.

"It shouldn't be that hard for us to get in close past the traps if we use our camouflage and other stealth skills, it would also be a good idea to use those hills that are scattered around as cover for our approach. The real problem is getting past those annoying watch towers with out being spotted by the guards on top of then..." I said thoughtfully, we had already come up with a plan for this but it was still good to think of a back up just in case of emergencies.

"God damn it, this still feels really weird" I was suddenly pulled out from my thoughts when a female Harbingers started to mutter to herself about something.

"What is it?"

"Oh sorry about that, it just... well, I still haven't really gotten used to the idea that I'm technically walking around nȧkėd, not to mention how weird it feels to be like this when so many people are around" I couldn't help but look at her blankly for saying that.

(Seriously your really thinking about something like that now of all times, I mean come on, were literally in the middle of a mission) I thought while shaking my head.

"Well if we were wearing any clothes our Camouflage skill wouldn't be able to work properly as we can only change the colour of our exoskeleton"

"Fair point, however, it still feels incredibly weird to be unable to cover myself, if it wasn't for the fact that our private parts were also covered by retractable chitin I'd never be able to show my face outside again"

"Okay all of you that's enough of that, we have more important things to talk about right now" I said stopping the groups somewhat awkward conversation before it could continue.

"If you really want to talk about something like that please do it later, you know, when were not in the middle of a very important mission"

"""Sorry captain""" all of them quickly apologised before quieting down.

"Good. Now then, let's deal with those watch towers shall we"

After that we set our little plan in motion, I as well as two others that were from our group moved into the open area making sure to keep close to the ground as to not be spotted before we were ready. I had also used my thought communication skill to tell nine others from different teams to do the same, so now there were four groups of three heading towards a different individual tower each. It was rather easy to slip past all the traps that had been placed around the whole area, it didn't take us long after that to get somewhat close to the tower that our group was targeting.

We were about forty five meters or so away from our target now, if we got any closer however, they would probably be able to spot us pretty easily, even with our camouflage and the hills that were somewhat hiding us from view. I was thankful that it was actually starting to get dark out now or we wouldn't have been able to get this close.

"Are you two ready?"

""Yes sir""

"Good. Remember though, wait until I have taken the guards out before you two move up"

'Alright If everyone is in position we move on my signal, understood" I said through thought communication, as I did I got several affirmative replies from everyone.

'....Now!' I said after waiting for the moment that the two guards decided to look away for just a split second.

As soon as I said that I dashed forward on all fours while using my skill to hide the sound I was making, I then, once close enough, jumped onto the side of the wall that surrounded the whole place. I then quickly but stealthily made my way up on to the top of the wall before then jumping into the watch tower right in front of the now somewhat confused and stunned guards. Then just as they were about to shout out in alarm, not that they could because of my skill, anyway, I then cut into one of their throats with my claws while also using my tail to stab the second one in the head before either of them could do anything more then let out a silent scream.

"Done, now you two move quickly and get ready before anyone notices that something is wrong" as I spoke the two other harbingers appeared behind me and quickly took the dead Cultists cloaks off.

As the two quickly put the cloaks on I glanced towards the now very dead cultists and god, they were down right disgusting to look at. I had seen what the Cultists actually looked like under their cloaks before when I was helping to interrogate the ones that we had captured awhile back, however, that doesn't make them any less stomach churning to look at now.

They looked completely genderless with no hair on their whole body, also they had pale almost pure white sickly looking skin. Their eyes were hollow and empty, how they actually managed to see anything was completely unknown to me. As for the rest of them, well, covering their whole bodies were slightly glowing grey tattoos that gave me a strange feeling the longer I looked at them. Something else that was very unnerving about them was that they looked almost exactly the same, it was as if they were clones of each other, however, there was enough of a difference between the two of them to tell that they weren't. And finally, the creepiest thing about them was the black ooze that leaked from their eyes and mouths.

(What the hell happened to these people?) I thought to myself with a sigh before shaking my head and returning to the task at hand.

"Are you two done?"

"Yes captain" the two Harbingers now dressed in the cults cloaks answered back.

'Everyone else report' I said through thought communication after nodding at the two.

'The mission was successful' several voices responded to me after a moment of silence.

'Alright then. All teams, it is clear for you to all move in, however, be careful not to trigger any of the traps'

'Understood' once again several more voices answered back.

"Let's get this mission over with" I quickly activated my Camouflage skill again and jumped down into the base.

The base was actually rather simple if you looked at it as a whole, well, from the outside it was at least. The place was filled with large brick and wooden buildings that looked like simple warehouses, there were also some normal buildings here and there, however, there was something else that was very special about this place besides all of the supplies that they had stored here. This was the place were they made more Puppet bodies for the slave souls to inhabit. The place where they actually made them was a kind of underground factory. Thankfully for us though most of the Puppets don't have a soul in them yet, however, if we're not careful about this then that could change very quickly, if all those Puppets get activated we would be overwhelmed in seconds.

The plan is for most of our forces to focus primarily on taking out the guards on the surface one by one while a second smaller team tries to seal all the Puppets underground so that we don't have to deal with them until the reinforcements get here. If the plan does actually end up going wrong at some point I can just call in our backup but I'm hoping that we can at the very least trap the small army of Puppets underground before that happens.

"And... that's another one" I whispered to my self as I slit the throat of another cultist

I had killed several already but something suddenly got my attention as I watch the now dead cultist fall to the ground. I was standing in an alleyway that was between two warehouses when I heard what sounded like a muffled scream coming from behind the wall to my right, seconds later something smashed through the wall before slamming into the wall to my left.

"What the hell was that?!" I somewhat yelled in surprise, however, my surprise was overtaken by worry when I realised that the thing that had just been sent flying through the wall was one of my men

"Oh no" I breathed in sharply before I sprinted over to him.

The poor guy was in one hell of a state to say the very least. Not only had he just crashed through a brick wall but he also was missing his right arm and on top of that the lower half of his body was completely gone, it was as if it had been ripped off entirely. His upper body was also covered in slashes and puncture marks that seemed to have been made by several different types of things, for example, several of the cuts were too small to have been made by even the smallest dagger while others looked like they were made by a great sword.

"What happened to you?!"

"S-sir, I-it... it's him... ca-captain" the guy weakly said before passing out from a large amount of blood loss and shock. Thankfully for him though we Harbingers can regenerate from something like this pretty easily, however, that doesn't mean that it hurts any less.

"HeHEhEHeHehAhaHAHahAhaHa" I suddenly heard a creepy and insane laugh coming from behind me. It wasn't hard for me to recognize it and when I did, well, let's just say that I felt my blood start to boil with rage.

"How very lucky... I was really hoping that I'd get to kill you at some point"

"BaD bAd bAD toY, yOu ARe BrOkEN, bROkEn BRokeN. THat dAMn BiRd, iT bROkE My tOYs, My ToYs.. BuT dOn'T WOrRy, ThIS oNe wILl fIx yOu, YeS yEs, thIS oNE will fiX aLl Of tHiS oNe's pRecIoUS PrEcIOus ToyS heHeHEhAhaHA. NoW cOmE hERe, CoMe HEre sO ThIs ONe cAn FIx yOu hEhEHe, yES, tHiS oNe iS GOiNg To FiX wHaT ThAt StUPid sTupID BiRd hAs bRoKeN HEheHe"