Chapter 266: Plan
266 Plan
In the forest, the reinforcement from the Zhou Kingdom arrived. Led by five Martial Lords, they came to this forest to see an empty camp that should be filled by their soldiers.
They were bewildered when they entered and found an empty base. There should be a few thousand soldiers in this camp. They didn"t know that Alex had ma.s.sacred them.
"Where are the others? Why is this base empty?"
"What the heck are they doing?"
"Hurry, search for the one in charge. I will kill him for leaving this base empty."
The soldiers immediately searched the entire base and their surroundings but found no one. After an hour of searching, they found many corpses.
They were bewildered when they saw corpses in the forest. They thought it must be the corpses of their enemy because they were ambushed by the soldiers. But, when they saw the corpses, it was their comrades" corpses.
They continued their search and found more than a thousand corpses of Zhou Soldiers. To their surprise, they didn"t find any corpses of their enemy, nor they found a monster corpse.
They were startled and immediately came back to the base to inform the Martial Lords. The Martial Lords were sipping their wine while waiting for the result.
"Not good. Bad news! We... We found more than a thousand corpses in the forest. All of them came from our Soldiers. We didn"t find any monster corpses or enemy corpses. We suspect that our soldiers had been ma.s.sacred by someone."
"What!" The five Martial Lords immediately rose from their seats. Some of them even unintentionally spilled their wine.
At first, they thought they were careless or were pursuing their enemy. But after they found the corpses and empty base. All of it clicked on their head.
"The enemy ma.s.sacred them."
"Immediately gather all soldiers. We are going to investigate this matter." One of the Martial Lords said.
"It is better to split our forces into four. Three of us will each lead five hundred soldiers to investigate the case. Then, the last two will hold the fort here with the last five hundred soldiers.
"Before, we didn"t have a Martial Lord in this camp. Even if the enemy has the advantage of numbers, the Martial Lord can buy time so the other two can catch up.
"It is the same with this base. If they approached this place first, there would be two Martial Lords in their way. We should investigate this night."
"But, won"t it be dangerous to send our forces now. I think we should retreat as we don"t know their size. Considering they managed to kill thousands of our soldiers without the people on the battlefield knowing. They should have a big army." Another Martial Lord asked.
"After ma.s.sacring our forces, they shouldn"t know that we have arrived. With that, we can take advantage of them and investigate the area.
"If they have outnumbered us. We will retreat until the main reinforcement comes."
After debating for a while, they decided to use that strategy. Not long after, two thousand soldiers had been a.s.sembled. The three Martial Lords that led the soldiers were two 3-Star Martial Lord and a 4-Star Martial Lord, while the ones who were standing by on the base were both 4-Star Martial Lord.
Not long after, they finally moved out. Unbeknownst to them, splitting their force was the most foolish strategy they can think of.
"Make sure you don"t leave anything unspotted in this darkness." One of the 3-Star Martial Lords led his group through the woods in darkness. Luckily, it was a full moon, so the forest was not in complete darkness.
After around fifteen minutes, he finally smelled blood scent. He thought it must be their fallen comrades. They proceeded even more carefully.
They found around two hundred corpses in the area, and surprisingly, all of them were Martial Grandmasters. Because of their number, Alex didn"t have time to dispose of them as he needed the time to make arrays and help the war.
He inspected their surroundings after finding the corpses before he felt something off. The blood from the corpses had dried, but he could see fresh blood around them.
Because of the corpses, they only made a weird marking. He tried to lift the bodies up and found something unbelievable.
"This... this is Array!" They also had an array master in their kingdom, but they only numbered a few ten as this continent didn"t have that many array masters. And even for them, didn"t dare to send their Array Master in this war.
As soon as he found the array, the array suddenly started glowing.
"Not good!" He rose from his position, but only to see he and his troops had been surrounded by an array.
"What is this?"
"There is also one beside you."
The soldiers started panicking. The 3-Star Martial Lord shouted, "Don"t panic. Immediately leave this place and ready for ba-!"
Suddenly he was restricted by numerous white whips that rose from the array. He immediately struggled with all of his might. Luckily, the array was only a rank 3 array. He could break free pretty easily. But it was too late for him.
"Dark Curtain." Anna didn"t make a dark sphere to trap the Martial Lord inside. She made a dark plate this time. It was more befitting to her skill"s name, "Dark Curtain." The plates were just above the wood and covered the moonlight just like a curtain.
The light didn"t come toward them as their vision immediately filled with darkness. But because of their surroundings, they didn"t lose their vision completely, as they could see their surroundings, albeit barely.
The Martial Lord immediately broke free from his restraint, but it was too late. Alex"s arrow, Leoz, had arrived to take his life. Leoz had been moving at high speed and locked him down after Anna used her Dark Curtain.
When Leoz arrived in front of him, he was finally able to see Leoz"s figure.
"You!"
"Thunder Cut." Leoz swung his big sword that had been covered by thunder to cut his head, thus killing him.
...
A few minutes earlier,
Alex also received another news from Ngina.
"Young Master, I spotted a reinforcement. Their number should be two thousand with five Martial Lords in command."
Alex frowned after hearing the news, the most important thing was five Martial Lords.
"Do you have any idea about their strength?"
"I only observe the Martial Lords closely. Two of them are 3-Star, and the rest are 4-Star Martial Lord. It seems they are going to investigate the area.
"Two 4-Star Martial Lords will hold the fort with five hundred soldiers. As for the other three, each of them will lead five hundred soldiers to investigate us. My suspicion is they are wary about our force as they misunderstood us as a force from the Southern Kingdom."
"..." Alex pondered for a moment. The trouble was 4-Star Martial Lord. Anna and Fabio can indeed fight with a 4-Star Martial Lord. But after seeing Leoz"s opponent yesterday. He became a bit hesitant to make a decision.
He remembered those three Martial Lords that Leoz fought, suddenly had an increase in their strength, and became 5-Star Martial Lords from their original 3-Star Martial Lord strength.
He was wondering if these new Martial Lords will be able to do the same. After all, that power came from a pill. He tried to consider retreating from this place. But before that, he decided to check his system, specifically his tickets.
[Gacha Ticket x412]
[Premium Ticket x0]
[Dart x0]
[Summoning Ticket x0]
[Summoning Coin x0]
He then checked his spirits" status
[Anna (Dark)
Level: 32/80 (2-Star Martial Lord Stage)
Exp: 172084/230000]
[Leoz (Thunder)
Level: 33/80 (3-Star Martial Lord Stage)
Exp: 187634/240000]
[Nelson (Dark)
Level: 29/80 (9-Star Martial Grandmaster Stage)
Exp: 12348/200000]
[Fabio Fabotelli(Fire)
Level: 32/80 (2-Star Martial Lord Stage)
Exp: 32497/230000]
[Greg (Earth)
Level: 28/80 (8-Star Martial Grandmaster Stage)
Exp: 62830/190000]
[Jeanne (Thunder)
Level: 24/80 (4-Star Martial Grandmaster Stage)
Exp: 1/140000]
[Vera Fabotelli (Water)
Level: 23/80 (3-Star Martial Grandmaster Stage)
Exp: 123984/130000]
He thought about exchanging his normal tickets to premium tickets. But because of this, he didn"t exchange them.
"System, use every ticket as well as every summoning coin I will have."
[Processing Tickets]
[Sublimation Spear (R) x1]
[Summoning Coin (C) x1]
[Wooden Fan (C) x1]
...
...
...
[Wooden Log (C) x1]
After using all 412 tickets, the system immediately used every summoning coin Alex got.
[Processing Summoning Coin]
[Suon (R) x1]
[Metal Slime (C) x1]
[EXP Card (UC) x1]
...
...
...
[Green Wolf (UC) x1]
Alex got only five (R) EXP cards. He sweatdropped when he saw he only got five Rare EXP cards.
"System, use four EXP cards on Anna and the last one to Fabio. No, use every (UC) and (C) EXPs card to Fabio too, I want him to level up twice."
[Are you sure, Host? Anna can level up two levels with just three EXP cards. While there is Leoz as another option.]
Alex was taken aback to hear that. He immediately realized that the pressure in this situation had gotten inside his head that even he couldn"t make a good judgment.
Alex took a deep breath. His system just reminded him of his situation. He said in relief, "Thank you, System. The pressure has clouded my eyes from seeing the bigger picture."
[Your Welcome, Host.]
Alex took out Leoz"s card, "I need your help. I"m going to summon you."
"Wait for a few seconds, Young Master. I am surrounded by loose cultivators." Leoz replied as the time ticked in. The Martial Lord had been moving toward their place.
After a few seconds, Leoz replied again, "I am ready, Young Master."
"Summon." Alex summoned him hurriedly as they didn"t have much time.
As soon as Leoz appeared, Alex said, "Follow me, we are going to meet the others."
When the other spirits saw Leoz, they were taken aback. They immediately noticed that something happened.
"There are three Martial Lords coming to us. Each of them is leading five hundred soldiers. There are another two Martial Lords that hold the fort for them. That"s why I summoned Leoz here.
"We are going to target one of them at the time. But, because of their number along with the Martial Lord. I am not going to use the previous strategy. We are going at them in full throttle.
"I decided this because I felt something was off in yesterday"s battle. Leoz needed to fight three 3-Star Martial Lords that suddenly became 5-Star Martial Lord. But, when we fought the group. They didn"t have the same condition." Alex explained briefly.
"They ate a red pill before their cultivation suddenly increased," Leoz added his experience.
Alex nodded, "I a.s.sume the red pills are exclusive to Martial Lords. And here is the problem, if they have the pills, then we should consider them as 5-Star or 6-Star Martial Lords, not 3-Star or 4-Star Martial Lord.
"Of course, I don"t know how the pill works, but just to be safe, we should a.s.sume it that way. So, the problem is how we can kill the Martial Lords before they use the pill. But before that..."
Alex immediately used three EXP cards on Anna, one EXP card on Leoz, as for the last one, he put it on hold for the time being.
Anna and Leoz were surprised to level up just now. But they decided not to say anything useless for the time being. Instead, Anna immediately asked, "Alex, didn"t you scatter the array in the forest? We can use the Wistful Shackle Array to hold him for a split second."
"Yes, I can do the rest." Leoz nodded his head.
"I will cover the moonlight for a while with my Dark Curtain. It won"t blind them, but it still makes them lose almost all their vision. Even if they are using the domain to see their surroundings, Leoz can overpower them as long as they didn"t use the pill first."
"Yeah, I can do that," Leoz affirmed.
"Alright. Our plan is for Leoz to kill the boss first. If that can be taken care of in a jiffy, then my plan is..."