“What do you think is happening tonight?” A man dressed in brown lightweight leather armour said to his similarly dressed female partner.
“I don’t know, but for General Lyrin to send us on such a routine scouting mission means that he has something big planned,” The woman replied as she kept her eyes trained on the Rohault camp in the distance. “But either way, all we need to do is follow the general’s orders and keep an eye on those Rohault bastards and light a flare if they…
Ugh!”
“What the fu…”
Before either of the O’Brien scouts could react, a giant black lion with crimson tints appeared behind them, taking a chunk out of the woman’s neck and stamping on the man’s head, instantly reducing it into a bloody pulp.
“That’s the last of them, Ace.” Leonel mentally transmitted back to Ace before leaping back into the sky using the air as a platform.
“Okay, I’ll meet you back at camp,” Ace replied via their spiritual bond, ignoring the two decapitated corpses by his feet as he too used [Geppo] to return to camp, using the clouds in the night sky to hide his figure.
After agreeing to his plan, Murciel explained how ordinairy scouts from the O’Brien Empire were warriors with wind-style battle-qi, but the elites, which they were likely to be using on such an important operation like tonight’s, worked in pairs.
The first would be a high-ranking warrior of the seventh rank with wind-style battle qi, and their partner would be a wind mage of at least the fourth, potentially fifth rank who was very adept at the Windscout spell.
At that sort of level, they would be able to use the wind to sense everything within an 80 to 100-meter radius, and unfortunately, the shadow robes wouldn’t do much in that situation. The shadow robe was able to hide your presence from spiritual perception, but a spell like the Windscout didn’t use spiritual perception but the wind itself.
To most, closing that sort of gap and killing your targets before they could react was near impossible, but for Ace, who could use [Geppo] and [Soru] so skilfully, he was able to target them from above and use a combination of his movement technique and gravity to close in on them from above, and after a few weeks of training, Leo wasn’t much worse than his human partner.
It had to be remembered that after the incident with the Cult of Darkness, Ace and Leo found their bond of partnership had mutated along with Ace’s soul. It allowed both of them to share their comprehension with the other. Although it didn’t allow them to instantly comprehend the insights of the other, it made it a lot easier.
Instead of having to comprehend it from scratch, it allowed them to look at the insights of their partner as if it were a book, allowing them to turn it into their own insights at twice the speed with half the effort.
After returning to the Pavilion, it struck Ace that they were limiting themselves. Since Ace could effectively transmit his insights to his partner, why did it have to stop at his insights into the laws of nature? Why couldn’t he share his insights into his other techniques? More specifically, the Rokushiki.
Though he’d never seen or heard of a magical beast using human-based techniques, there was no reason as to why it wouldn’t or couldn’t work.
After a few weeks, Leonel was now capable of skilfully using both movement techniques of the Rokushiki, second only to Ace. As a result, Ace simply had to transmit the location of each of the scouting teams hiding in the peripheries of the camp to his beast partner, allowing the pair to make quick work of each pair they came across without them getting the chance to escape or send word back.
Ace and Leo swiftly landed just outside the rear of the camp, where he found his team, along with General Murciel, patiently waiting for him.
“Did you get all of them?” The general asked.
“Yeah,” Ace replied. “All six scout teams have been disposed of.”
“Perfect! Now we can move on to the next phase,” Murciel stated. “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t need to take this risk. Now that we’re back on level fields, we ca-”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“It’s fine,” Amira replied, interrupting the general mid-sentence as she hopped on Leo’s back. “If I’m not even willing to take a risk or two for the sake of my nation, how could I ever be ready to lead it in the future?”
“The general’s right,” Chukaya spoke out. “If anything, I should be the one to take your place.”
“That won’t work,” Amira replied dismissively.
“Why not?” Chukaya asked back. “As it stands, I’m still stronger than you. If something were to happen, I have a better chance of escaping.”
“That might be true,” Amira indifferently replied. “But the last person needs to be able to ride Leo, and Leo doesn’t seem to like you very much.”
As she said that, Leo growled softly in Chukaya’s direction as if to prove Amira right.
Chukaya glared at the lion-type magical beast in displeasure for standing in the way of yet another missed opportunity to impress his crush.
“That’s enough,” Ace commanded, preventing Chukaya from voicing his displeasure and wasting any more time. “Killian, Leo, Mira, and I will drop the bombs on the rear of their army to signal the start of the battle.”
General, I’m leaving Ebeze and Chukaya under your command until we return.”
“Don’t worry about us,” General Murciel nodded, forgetting that he was speaking to a 13-year-old boy as if he were his peer. “Just take care of each other.”
“We will,” Ace said as he used [Geppo] to jump through the air in the direction of the O’Brien Army.
As soon as he stepped off, both Killian and Leo, who had Amira on his back, followed behind him.
After returning, it wasn’t just Leo he taught how to use [Geppo]; he also taught Killian and Joel. He would’ve taught the others as well, but it was a technique that required one to be a warrior of the fifth stage to learn.
On the ground, Ebeze, Chukaya, and even General Murciel watched with envy as the group from the Yin-Yang Pavilion essentially flew through the air. A feat that was ordinarily only achievable by saints and powerful wind mages.
“I wish I got to join the Yin-Yang Pavilion,” Ebeze muttered, a look of longing in his eyes.
“I’m surprised you both didn’t,” Murciel said, knowing that the two remaining teens were two of the most talented youths in the empire.
A disdainful snort escaped Chukaya’s nose, but Ebeze replied before Chukaya got the chance to.
“We tried, but neither of our talents met their requirements,” Ebeze said regretfully. “But looking at them, I understand why now.”
A look of surprise appeared on the general’s face as he glanced at both boys. After the princess left to join her new school, he had heard that the Pavilion was an institute that only accepted top-tier talents, but for both Chukaya and Ebeze to be rejected, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were only three students in the whole of the pavilion, because talents of that level don’t grow on trees.
“Speak for yourself,” Chukaya snorted. “I was already over 10 when they started recruiting.”
“You say that like you would’ve been accepted even if you were young enough,” Chukaya rolled his eyes. “Your lightning affinity may be of the exceptional grade, but your spiritual essence was only 19x that of your peers.”
“That’s only one off the required grade,” Chukaya snorted, ignorantly believing they likely would’ve made an exception for him.
“Whether you’re one-off or ten-off, a failure’s a failure,” Ebeze shrugged. “Just accept your inadequacies and move on.
“Alright, that’s enough. You two can talk about this later,” Murciel declared before Chukaya could rebut Ebeze’s point. “For right now, just follow me. I need to get my soldiers ready before the signal goes off.”
.
.
.
Whilst Murciel was hurrying to prepare his men, Ace and Leo were casually stepping through the air beside Killian, who, though able to use [Geppo], wasn’t as adept as the others.
“I can’t wait till I get to learn [Geppo]!” Amira exclaimed enviously as she watched her classmates walk on air as if it were solid ground.
“You’re almost at the peak of the fourth rank,” Ace said. “Knowing you, it’ll only be another month or so before you reach the fifth.”
“I can’t wait,” Amira said excitedly. “And when I become a mage of the fifth rank, I’ll be able to use [Geppo] and [Soru], with [Supersonic] and the [Floating Technique].
By then, I might even be able to fight on par with you in an aerial battle.”
It was then that she remembered just how much of a freak Ace was. If she really wanted to close the gap between them, comprehending ‘Impose’ was probably the best place to start, and even then, it was only a start.
Because Killian wasn’t able to move as fast as Ace and Leo, it ended up taking the group over 15 minutes before they arrived.
“So this is what a fully formed army looks like,” Killian marvelled as he hopped in the air looking down at the thousands of enemy warriors below.
“That’s right,” Ace nodded.
Though he’d been in multiple large-scale battles back during his days as a pirate, he had only ever seen and taken part in two wars. The war of the best in his last life, the war that claimed his life. And the Silverlight beast tide in this life.
But this was different. This time he was going in with the strength to protect not only himself but everyone he cared about as well.
Although he was a long way off from attaining the strength he needed to accomplish his goals, he was definitely on the right path.
“Okay, you guys ready?” Ace asked, turning to face Killian and Amira. “Everyone got the magicite bombs in their storage rings?”
“Ready!” Kil and Mira nodded in unison.
“Good,” Ace smiled evilly as he summoned a head-sized crystal with various inscriptions engraved onto its surface. “Then let’s give these O’Brien bastards hell!”