It was decided that Uramasa and Shin were to present the "collective" idea to Jishin. Stas didn't interfere, subtly indicating to his comrades that there was some discord in their relationship with the prince at the moment. This meant that it was better not to highlight Stas's role in the plan.
The others accepted this with understanding.
A day later, it became clear that Jishin appreciated the plan. The only thing he disliked was the need to ask for assistance from Io.
Getting into debt with such a person was literally asking for trouble.
Nevertheless, Stas still managed to convey to the prince the necessity of decisive action.
After a moment of thought, Ordyntsev even felt a little sorry for the young man.
At twenty-one, he had to deal with things that broke many grown and established men. The need to scheme, engage in long-term planning, fear exposure, wage war, and plan actions against his own brother – it was too much for one person.
And as if that wasn't enough, in Jishin's eyes, Shiro had managed to make a serious mistake. And although it all turned out to their benefit, doubts remained.
The prince was torn, not knowing how to act. Of course, he wasn't planning to betray Shiro, but he couldn't forget either.
Ironically, had Sumada learned about something like this a few years earlier, he would have attacked Stas without hesitation. However, the war and the need to be responsible for his people made him grow up and reconsider many things. For his age, this was a big leap.
But the problem was that even so, it wasn't enough.
In any case, the letter to Io was sent, and all that remained was to wait. And to carry out Io's task of protecting the internal communications.
At that moment, Kaede was busy with Minoru, so she was unavailable. Stas wasn't happy about this, but he understood that the Kuchisake-onna was also the apprentice of the ancient yokai. Right now, Minoru was clearly using some magic to make it easier for her to get out into the fresh air. At the same time, she continued to train and teach Kaede.
Along with the mission to protect the rear of Jishin's army, Stas received maps and instructions on where the attacks most often occurred. Considering the level of the attackers, the command decided that a dozen warmasters acting alone should be enough to cover as large an area as possible.
Stas became one of those warmasters.
Unfortunately, life loves to throw surprises.
*****
The meeting between Stas and a group of five warmasters wasn't a surprise. Leviathan had warned her master in time. But the difficulty was that she had managed to do so just ten seconds before the attack.
It was simply impossible to prepare sufficiently in such a short time.
"Finally, we've found another Sumada," said a twenty-two-year-old lad with rust-colored hair, unmistakably pointing at Ordyntsev hiding in the foliage. He involuntarily stood out against his colleagues with armor of clearly good quality and a richly decorated sword. His face expressed mild boredom, as if he already knew how it would all end.
Besides him, there were four other warmasters. Judging by his demeanor, he was the commander of this group.
"Stop hiding, I can see you anyway."
'He's a sensor – that's bad, but nothing unexpected. Levi, strength level?'
'Ordinary warmasters, the leader – advanced. Very high level of prana. Hard to say – either an experienced advanced or even a veteran level.'
'Curse it! Don't stick your neck out without an order.' the situation was very bad. You couldn't escape a sensor, and help was far away, so he had to accept an openly unfavorable fight.
Seeing that the ambush had failed, Stas calmly jumped down from a height of four meters. His prana-infused muscles barely even strained from the collision with the forest floor.
"For your treachery, you will all answer and burn in hell! Our lands are destroyed, homes burned, and families killed! And it's all your fault," one of the ordinary warmasters shouted, glaring at Stas with malice.
"To be entirely honest, we weren't the ones who attacked your country; it was the Daimyo of Rashta Country. Only then did he seek our help," the earthling corrected pedantically, provoking a storm of curses and explanations from his opponents as to why he was wrong.
Although Stas usually didn't like idle chatter, the situation was different now.
Ordyntsev didn't want to fight against such a large number of fighters at once. Although he was stronger than most of them individually, together they could quickly finish him off. Furthermore, the identity of the advanced warmaster was seriously bothering Stas.
"Pathetic excuses," spat another warmaster. "What, are you scared, you Sumada filth? Don't worry, we'll kill you quickly. We're not scum like you."
"Take him alive," the leader ordered grimly, silencing his subordinates' cries and making it clear that Ordyntsev would not have a good time in captivity, judging by the commander's chilling smile.
'Your decision to prattle was a mistake.'
Thanks to the conversation, Stas had enough time to covertly complete the formation of one of his most powerful techniques.
When Stas decided to take the exam for advanced warmasters, Jun suggested he learn a new technique. And although Ordyntsev succeeded using his own invention, he mastered the one his sensei offered.
It was a powerful offensive magic of a solid advanced level with the potential to be enhanced to an advanced-veteran level.
But it wasn't without difficulties.
Creating the technique required significant concentration and methodical formation of the desired result in his mind, accompanied by the necessary hand movements.
However, one could do without the latter if they had good control of prana.
Thus, Stas began covertly creating the technique, concentrating prana in his hands for the time being.
And when withholding the technique was no longer possible...
"Earth Technique! Deadly Quagmire!" Ideally, Stas was supposed to wave his hands intricately, lean over, and slap the ground with his palms, but such a movement would have given his enemies a couple of moments to react.
He didn't want to give them that chance.
Instead, his legs sank waist-deep into the ground, causing him to practically instantly slap the surface and activate an expanding wave of change.
With a prolonged creak, the surrounding trees, bushes, and even stones swayed, falling to the side and beginning to sink into the suddenly softened soil.
The scene unfolding was frankly eerie. It was as if the world suddenly "melted."
The scale of the technique was also notable. Considering the agility and speed of the warmasters, Stas didn't skimp on prana, which covered an area of three to four hundred square meters.
Even if the warmasters managed to instinctively push off, they still fell onto the active technique. Attempts to cling to trees were futile as they sank into the ground even faster, and it wasn't easy to pull their legs away from the now-sticky soil.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
And the strength of the technique spoke for itself. In a matter of seconds, the surrounding reality turned into an absolutely flat yellow-gray plateau. Everything that could sink did sink. This even affected various soil mixtures, giving the sand a yellowish tint.
The desperate warriors, screaming, tried to pull themselves out of the sucking abyss, but they were frankly bad at it because, unlike quicksand, which hindered a person from escaping and slowly dragged them down due to gravity, Stas's technique also applied force to this.
Yes, the power of even ordinary warmasters was great. From their blows and leg flailing, when they tried to dig themselves out, whole chunks of earth flew in all directions, but all to no avail.
Now, the losers awaited a slow death from lack of oxygen, as the prana-infused earth would not release them.
Nevertheless, someone resolutely refused to die.
A shadow flickered, and the commander landed on the back of a mercenary who was almost out of the trap.
"Ah, you so..." the rest of the speech was unintelligible, as the earth reached the mouth of the unfortunate warmaster.
Before Stas, however, stood a perfectly alive opponent!
'Well, at least I've dealt with the ordinary ones,' Ordyntsev thought sarcastically. The fact that he had spent a solid chunk of his prana and a severe fight lay ahead did not inspire optimism.
'Ah, it would have been much easier if he hadn't gotten out.'
"Air Strike!" The earthling's eyes widened as he dove into the ground like a fish. He did it just in time, as the entire top layer of soil was ground up and blown away.
But the next second, the air warrior had to urgently dodge to the side, escaping Stas's spear, which wanted to play a bit of Count Dracula.
Three stabs - and Stas jumped out from under the ground, if it could still be called that. Now, it was something like poorly sifted sand.
"Air Technique! Slashing Leaf." The compressed plane of air not only nearly cut off Stas's legs, preventing him from going deep, but also exploded, throwing the severed and crumbling piece of soil upwards, right under the opponent's sword, which had a suspicious trembling of air around the blade.
Speeding up and slipping past the blade, which, with two fluid movements, split the hovering cube of earth, Stas punched the enemy's head with his prana-infused fist with all his might.
Bang!
The air warrior managed to infuse his head with prana, so he only got a bruise instead of a split skull, but he was still thrown to the side.
Only, while still in the air, he began to slow down, and then changed direction altogether, shifting to the right. And he did it for a reason.
At the spot where he was supposed to land, two stone serpents burst from the falling earth, pointlessly snapping their fangs, grabbing emptiness.
These were ordinary, unmodified stone serpents, as Stas had no time to create an enhanced technique.
Ordyntsev clicked his tongue in disappointment, warily watching the slowly descending young man.
He responded with the same look.
In this short but fierce fight, the warriors immediately understood that their opponent was clearly worth something and very dangerous.
Only neither of them was going to back down.
"My name is Ichiro Avasaki, known as the Cleaving. Who am I fighting against?" The enemy formally introduced himself, observing etiquette.
The young man's surname made Stanislav even more serious. A fighter of the great clan – this was no ordinary opponent. Now, it was clear why he specialized in air attacks. Additionally, having a nickname was another indicator of his exceptional nature.
Though Avasaki had not officially entered the war, this did not prevent them from sticking their nose everywhere, making life as difficult as possible for Sumada.
"Shiro, known as the Serpent. I serve Sumada," he explained, seeing Ichiro's face stretch out.
"I must admit, I'm surprised," he nodded. "I thought fate had pitted me against a pure-blooded Sumada, and most likely from the main family... Although, wait," Avasaki paused, and Stas had a bad feeling. "Serpent-Serpent-Serpent... Weren't you the one who managed to escape from two drago..."
"Attack already!" Stas roared, interrupting Avasaki, and, gritting his teeth in anger, began preparing the etheric serpent technique. He was fed up with this inexplicable rubbish.
How glad he was that not all the elders who had sent him to his death were dead. He would definitely prepare something special for them.
"How rude," the interrupted warmaster frowned but did not argue.
Air gathered behind him once again as he silently activated the movement technique. In this, he was similar to Stas, since Ordyntsev had also automated the use of gliding under the earth.
The warmasters rushed forward simultaneously, but Avasaki was the first to release the technique. And it was something of truly serious magic.
"Air Technique! Cleaving Hurricane!" Avasaki took a deep breath and exhaled sharply the name of the technique and the raging prana, causing the surrounding space to literally explode with chaotic whirlwinds that tore everything in their path to shreds.
It appeared strikingly akin to a giant mixer.
Furthermore, the technique was so strong that its whirlwinds penetrated even the earth, tearing everything in their path there as well.
But Stas was ready for something like this. Earth control was a slow ability, but it could also be used creatively.
"Earth Control!"
Right in the path of Stas's movement, a huge three-meter reinforced earth cube grew, which seemed to serve only as a shelter, but that was just the beginning.
"Earth Technique! Earth Push!" It was not a technique in the purest sense, merely a direct command over the earth, to which Stas had bound his emotions, simplifying its control.
The impact force was weak, but the power was excessive.
The huge cube of earth slowly rose and, with a heavy hiss, flew straight at the surprised Avasaki. Stas, in turn, jumped onto the opposite side of the cube, hiding from the air technique, and immediately firmly attached himself to it with prana.
Instantly under him, to the right, left, and above rushed air whirlwinds, grinding trees and grass into a green-brown paste.
Stas's calculation was simple. Techniques like the one released by Ichiro require time to gain inertia and fully unfold. If you get hit closer to the beginning, the consequences won't be as severe.
And so it happened.
The buzzing air on the sides chipped away at pieces of stone, but there was more than enough safe space for Stas in the center.
But even so, this was still not the end.
The heavily exhaling Avasaki, who had spent a lot of prana on this technique, calmly stepped aside, intending to let the cube of earth pass by. At that moment, he was only worried about Shiro standing on the other side.
Ichiro saw him thanks to his sensoric skills and wasn't too worried.
Only the serpents bursting through the falling earth, glowing with a suspicious purple light, forced him to strain to avoid dying in their suffocating embrace.
Air techniques exploded in all directions, grinding both the cube and the serpents, but some reptiles scattered to the ground, avoiding the first strike.
On the other side, Stas was not relaxing either.
Levi hadn't lied. Their opponent, indeed, had a monstrous amount of prana for an advanced warmaster. Fortunately, he was still not a veteran, but calling him an ordinary advanced warmaster wouldn't have been accurate.
The whirlwind of the battle spun not for life but for death.
Ordyntsev no longer hesitated to use everything he had learned and mastered over years of hard training.
Bloody Strike exploded wind blades and wind shields. Cursed Fog forced Avasaki to disperse it with powerful gusts of wind to clear the battlefield.
Time and again, the earthling dived into the ground to deliver an unexpected blow, but Ichiro's ability to feel him forced Stas to jump out immediately so as not to catch an air explosion underground.
After all, Ordyntsev's speed under the ground was worse than on the surface.
Avasaki, who, as Stas had long understood, was clearly not a simple fighter, also had a hard time.
Ordyntsev was a very cunning, mean, and inconvenient fighter. He rarely attacked directly, and often, each of his attacks was a trap to lure the enemy into the strike of stone serpents, fog, some suddenly emerging stone to trip them, or something else just as unexpected.
As mentioned earlier, Avasaki compensated for Shiro's skills with overwhelming power and impressive volumes of prana.
However, such an intense battle could not go on forever.
At some point, the reserves of both warriors began to show the bottom. In addition, no matter how they dodged, they still received several wounds. Thus, Stas had his left arm sliced by tiny blades, his chest armor slashed open, albeit the blood flow was arrested, and his lips were bruised and bleeding. Ichiro, on the other hand, could boast several puncture wounds from the fangs of stone serpents on his arms and legs. If not for his abnormal reserves, he would have been drained long ago.
The heavily breathing warmasters wearily froze on the broken wasteland that stretched for several hundred meters in any direction. Underfoot, crumbled vegetation softly sprung or sand rustled.
Stas once again managed to use Deadly Quagmire, and Ichiro tried to crush him with Cleaving Hurricane.
The latter spell intrigued Ordyntsev greatly. Seeing that Avasaki was not going to attack anytime soon, he decided to try to find out something.
"What is this technique, Cleaving Hurricane? I'm hearing about it for the first time, even though I've tried to learn more about your clan," Ordyntsev clarified innocently, expecting nothing in particular. The answer was all the more surprising.
"The technique of the main family," Avasaki explained as if it were self-evident, devoid of any arrogance.
After their unsuccessful attempts to kill each other, a fragile mutual respect developed between them.
"Ordinary clan fighters do not have access to it."
"Oh, I see," Stas nodded. "Did your nickname come from it?"
"Yeah. I've always been able to do it very quickly and easily," Avasaki smiled proudly, but then immediately erased the smile. "But now it's my turn to ask. What are these serpents? I heard you have the technique of worms, but I haven't heard about the serpents. And when I couldn't dodge, they almost devoured all my prana! Barely managed to knock them down."
"Personal invention. Modification of the worm technique, combined with lineage," Ordyntsev said, prompting Ichiro to nod respectfully.
"I don't see the point in us fighting any further," the young man finally said, demandingly looking at Ordyntsev.
"Fully agree," Stas resolutely consented. Although the earthling understood that victory over this Ichiro would be very significant, as he was not a simple clan fighter, the risk was not worth it.
He might have tried something with an attack by the lurking Leviathan, but even so, Ichiro could easily kill her.
And Stas was not going to risk his pet.
"Then farewell, Shiro the Serpent. The battle with you was interesting. I hope we meet again."
"Goodbye, Ichiro the Cleaving," grumbled Stas, then quietly whispered. "And I hope not."
Having already left quite far, Avasaki turned around and smirked cunningly.
"The air hears everything."
Stas just spat in response, causing another burst of laughter, though it also made Ordyntsev himself smile.
Looking around at the devastation that had occurred, Stas had to admit that he was gradually entering the list of people whose actions were quite capable of slightly changing the landscape.