As he collapsed in relief, Lucius found his surroundings change to the tents of the rescue squad.
“Madman. A cool one.”
Evan couldn't help but admit it. Beside him, Lirael voiced her thoughts.
“The wyrm was definitely Gradias’s work.”
“Undoubtedly. With his elimination of Ralph before he could reach the rendezvous point, some of the monsters that had been tailing him will now scatter throughout the battlefield. After all, each unit was roughly fifty meters away from each other at the point of Ralph's death. Many monsters will not have locked onto another member of the cavalry. However, this does not seem like cause for concern. It looks like about ten thousand scattered. This is an amount that would be caught in the Alpha and Omega zones, and I highly doubt Gradias would take any extravagant measures to protect this minority.“
Draven then added his own analysis to Lirael's after agreeing with her, who then responded when Elara couldn't help but comment in awe.
“It's incredible how versatile sorcery is.”
“Indeed, Princess Elara. It is unfortunate that it is locked away to certain monsters.”
"...I should have known that six months of calling me that weren't going to change today."
The biggest problem with modern landmines was placing it in an area where allies would never step foot upon. With the anti-flank traps of shaman sorcery placed in alpha and omega zones proposed by Noah, allies would be neatly excluded while enemies would be blown up. By placing these in the flanks, it not only worked as a promise of annihilation if stepped on by enemies, it also zoned monsters within the flanks, as Gradias would detect the mana of the shaman traps and instruct monsters to avoid them accordingly. If not for the fact that a constant stream mana was required to keep each and every single one operational, Noah would have used sorcery alone to annihilate the monsters.
If Noah also placed these traps in the front by the five entrances, though one might be inclined to believe that the monster army would suffer more casualties and hence be a favorable maneuver, archlich Gradias would understand that there would be no difference no matter the direction the monsters were to enter the battlefield and hence do so in a way that would be favorable for themselves, such as encirclement, leading to a tactical victory for the monsters.
By restricting the shaman traps to the flanks, an intentional opening was created at the entrance and the invasion could be controlled to a certain extent, as the monsters would undoubtedly choose to come through the entrances in the wall rather than suffer mass casualties at the traps. Even if an intentional opening was suspected to be bait.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Though Ralph's premature death had caused a small number of monsters to scatter instead of pursuing Ariel as she traveled to the second rendezvous point, they would be caught by the trap zones on either flank, and perish anyway. Other than Ralph, the other unit commanders had made it to the first rendezvous point, but understanding that their presence was no longer strictly necessary, had recognised their limits and signaled the teleporters, leaving it to Ariel. Lucius, due to his bicorn accident, had arrived at the first rendezvous point slightly later than the others who had converged at the almost exactly same time, and had also been picked up by the teleporters. All that was left was for Ariel to make it to the second rendezvous point.
However, this was a tall order. The monsters leading the pursuit, boosted by Gradias's spells, were at this point clearly moving faster than a bicorn, and Ariel's repeated casts of acceleration on the bicorn had reached the point of only yielding negligible effects. Continuing to do so would only serve to significantly deplete her stamina as she strained her innate mana nodes from casting with them rather than a wand.
“Draven, I’m intervening!”
“No, you will not!”
Draven firmly refused in the face of Seraphina's insistence. At his words, Seraphina pointed over the side towards the solitary Ariel down below, who was now drenched with both her own and monster blood on the back of the speeding bicorn, and was wildly constantly swinging her spear at the monsters that were now able to catch up to her. Yet, despite her ferocity, the rate of monsters jumping on her only began to increase in quantity, and her spear arm was not getting any faster.
“It is obvious that she will die at this rate, do you want her to die?!”
“...The Lord knows what he is doing.”
“You're thinking of sacrificing her! Is her life worth that lit-”
“Stop. To think I'd have to use valuable mana to do this, fuck's sake.”
“S-sir?!”
‘Mimicry - Wyrm x 2, Basilisk x1, Troll x1, Slime x1, Chimera x1, Vampire x1!’
Over months of repeatedly using partial mimicry, Noah had mastered it to the point of almost treating his human body as a mimic. He had undone mimicry in an extremely delicate and precise way, such that just his human mouth appeared on the back of his wyrm form, in between the two who were arguing.
“How-No, never mind. Noah, Ariel is going to die. Do something! Do you not care about her?!”
Despite the loud whistle of the wind at such a height, the silence that followed her exclamation was deafening, and the mouth on the back on the wyrm, despite the lack of facial expressions, seemed to radiate an aura of disappointment.
“Seraphina. For someone that has spent so long with Ariel, it's embarrassing that you don't know much more about her than her combat prowess.”
“What ar-”
“Shush. Trust.”
The mouth melted back into the rubbery scales of the wyrm.