Chapter 205: Meeting at the battlefield
When compared to the journey we made to the north, traveling to the current frontlines was just a short stroll. A short stroll during which I nearly drained all of my energy on constant phasing through the world, but still.
"Huh, I can already hear the fighting." Before we even reach the mountain pa.s.ses that the messenger from before told us about, the sound of fighting already reached our ears.
"It means they failed to stand their ground as well. Is this the end of my tribe?" Clearly bothered by the situation, Teria failed to even guide me towards the place. If not for her father pointing us in the general direction when we left, I wouldn"t even know where to go in order to join the fight!
"Not with me here. I may not be as stocked on everything as I would like, but I still have some aces upon my sleeve!" Encouraging the girl, I swallowed the saliva along with the feeling of guilt caused by the lie that I told.
With the number of stones, weapons, and tricks I had on hand, I could only at most attempt to hold the invasion for some time. With only three recurring stones in my possession, the main reason why I was so hesitant to use the barrier one all this time, my ability to make a change on an overwhelmingly huge battlefield was simply not sufficient.
"I can see their troops! They took over the second and third pa.s.s and are converging on the valley behind them!" Only when Teria actually pointed that out for me did I manage to see anything.
From the birds-eye or a flying-cultivator"s eye perspective, the entire area looked pretty awesome. Not in terms of natural beauty. There was nothing of it at all in the rigid tops of the mountains and lifeless valleys underneath them, painting this whole land as a completely dead one. It was the beauty of the defenses that the winged tribe set up in this treacherous land that made me awed.
With seven small valleys cutting through the plain to the west and a huge volley that penetrated the entire area to the east, just by holding those seven pa.s.ses one could completely block the invasion through the entire mountainous area.
But right now, just like Teira said a moment earlier, human forces continued to pour through the two of the pa.s.ses they conquered, a.s.sembling behind the backs of the five ones that still put up a fight.
"I guess I should just wreck the pa.s.sages and then deal with the troops that got through…" Thinking loudly, I ceased my shifting and allow my insane momentum to quickly die off due to the resistance of the air itself. Coming to a near halt right above the ongoing battle, I gestured at Teria, only to have her catch me underneath my arms and hold me in place.
"Thanks for the help." Muttering to the girl, I didn"t dare to pull my eyes away from the scene below. Right now, I had to decide how to best use my limited resources to achieve any objective I would want. And to be frank, it wasn"t an easy decision.
With only three recurring stones at my hand, I could just use two to block each of the breached pa.s.sages by devastating the entire area around them. In fact, if I were to bet a bit, I could even attempt to just use it on a mountain between the two conquered pa.s.ses, hoping that the rubble would block them both. With that, one more stone would more than suffice to get rid of everyone who already made their way through…
But there was one fatal problem connected to those plans. And it was that ultimately, I had no idea how powerful the recurring stones were.
For me, they were like a one-b.u.t.ton-solve cheat, allowing me to reset any kind of fight to a situation when only I would remain standing. But in times like this, when I had to actually precisely use their insane might to get rid of the enemies while making sure not to affect the fort pa.s.ses that were still holding…
To say that I was hesitant to use the stone would be a huge understatement!
"Wait, is that him?" Suddenly noticing a familiar face, I wrestled myself free from Teria"s hold before allowing my body to fall freely to the ground. After reinforcing my legs with the mana that still remained in my veins I waited for a few moments before I finally crashed into the ground, roughly two hundred meters away from my target, and right in the middle of human, wingless soldiers.
"What was that?!" "AN ENEMY!"
"KIll!"
Various shouts appeared in the instant I straightened myself up. But all the signs of hostility ceased for a short moment when those willing to go against me noticed a certain detail of my look.
And that was the lack of wings on my back.
"Everyone, cease your hostilities. I"m not here to kill you." Raising my chin and looking at the soldiers surrounding me, I continued to caress the recurring barrier stone with both of my hands. In a situation like this, I didn"t dare not to pull it out, given how at any moment, those soldiers could shake their shock away and resume what they were trained to do.
"Then why are you here?" Stepping forward, one of the sub-officers looked me straight in the eyes. "Wait, who are you even?" Quickly adding another question, the man in the middle of his thirties placed his hand on the handle of his sword.
"First off, I"m Marius." Answering the questions in the opposite order, I then looked at the mounted figure in the distance. "And I"m here to have a talk with the prince. I believe he still didn"t forget my service to him."
Taking a step forward, I turned my head away and looked at the officer with a small smile blossoming on my lips. "You know, back when I basically conquered an entire strategical hill on my own, allowing you to survive in that battle back then for a little longer!"
This was one of few ace cards I had on my sleeve. The fact that the last time I appeared on the battlefield, I did fight for the wingless tribe!
"Huh? What are you talking about?" As if to put a wrench in my plan, the officer asked. "Can"t you recognize our banners? We weren"t here back when the last conflict took place." Taking a step forward, the officer actually halfway pulled out his sword. "And I don"t care about anything you did back then."
With my attention drawn to their banners, I finally realized just what was putting me off so much. And it was sadly the answer to the question I asked Teria"s father back in their mansion - where did yet another whole army come from?
Because when I looked at the banners that some of the soldiers held high in the air, I recognized the very same symbols that were all over the fallen northern kingdom!
"Then all you need to do is to let me talk to the prince out there." Still trying to avoid the conflict while worrying about the possibility that the danger of the mission would appear right now, I pointed my hand towards the face I saw from high up in the sky.
"Prince Domain? Huh? And why do you think I will let you meet him?" Clearly surprised by my statement, the officer didn"t hold back this time. Pulling his sword all the way out, he pointed its tip at my throat.
"Because if you force me to fight, then what cleared out entire swaths of mutant this guys was fighting with, will happen to you instead. And given how I want to talk with him…" Spreading out my arms I made sure to keep the stone hidden in my enclosed palm, "it would be pretty inconvenient if I ended up killing him just because some meatshields of his decided to be too diligent."
For a moment, the entire situation turned into a silent standoff. At some point, I even came close to just activating the stone and ignoring the chance of learning about the situation, only to force myself back every time.
So far, I only used recurring stones on a selected few and mutants. In other words, only on either small numbers of people or things that I didn"t consider people at all in the first place. But now, using it would mean committing genocide.
With how small the valley was, the wingless troops gathering here were put tighter than they would ever be in any formation of theirs. In other words, this was the perfect ground to achieve the highest lethality for my recurring stones… But it also meant that after using them, my mind would be placed under an even greater burden.
And to be fair, losing my sanity over the killings I would do if I were to use the barrier stone, just for the sake of obtaining a means of dealing with Jeff… Just by making that connection, by showing what I was actually fighting for, I saw all my possible options in a brand new perspective.
"I see. Go through, then." In the end, the officer hid his sword before moving aside. After him, his soldiers followed suit, quickly squeezing together to give me the way towards the same prince I got the sacred core from in the first place.
"Long time no see, brother." After making just a few steps, I called out to the man. Noticing the voice even though the noise of constant commotion around him, the prince looked in my side. Then, from how his eyes suddenly widened, I could tell he recognized my face as well. But then, his eyes wandered to the side a bit, before widening even further.
"DIE!" The voice of the officer from before rang in my ears, this time accompanied by the sound of metal cutting through the air.