I move both bodies into a corner and place a box over them. While it definitely wont hold up to further scrutiny, I’m hoping the reinforcements arrive before anyone gets the chance to check.
Speaking of reinforcements, they should be arriving in about ten minutes, which should give me some leeway to move around the building if I need to. After all, because of our traitor situation, it’s almost guaranteed they’ve got the warp pad stock full of soldiers ready to barrage them.
I look out the window, and the lack of soldiers in the courtyard seems to affirm my hypothesis.
‘Hopefully whoever teleports can handle it, because I’m pretty sure that important guy was at least a tier 8.’
I take five minutes to rest and regain some of my spiritual energy. While it may not be a lot, it should be enough to get me at least one more of my spiritual attacks. I do this while in the locker of course, don’t want any stray soldiers to out me.
‘Man I really need a name for those attacks. Maybe… spirit blade? No that’s way to simple, there must be millions of spirit blades out in the world already. What about… teleporting strike? Nah, a bit too on the nose for my liking. Ugh whatever I’ll think about this later.’
After my short rest, I get out of the locker, careful of any soldiers that may be nearby, though I suspect their full numbers are occupied at the teleporter.
Making my way carefully throughout the corridors, I watch for any sign of movement or sound. Every now and then I pass by a hurried soldier running to where I first saw the warp pad earlier at the center of the building.
Deciding that this is a good opportunity to scope out the situation, I begin to follow the flow of soldiers from a distance while making sure there are no soldiers behind me.
Once I see the entrance to the large, cavernous room, it immediately hits just how many soldier are here.
‘Holy shit! There’s gotta be at least four hundred in this room alone!’ I exclaim in my head.
Looking at all these soldiers sends sweat pouring from my forehead.
‘Can we really get through all of these guys? These reinforcements better be on their A-game or we’re screwed!’
I look on the outskirts of the soldiers, looking for any sign of my teammates. Not that I would immediately go up to any of them if I could, I can’t exactly trust any of them, though I may not have a choice.
‘I wonder what the rest of those guys have been up to. Hopefully they haven’t been caught yet...’
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Gael’s POV
Once the barrier wards came up, I knew there was no point in playing the stealth game any longer, we’d been had. Someone betrayed us and to be honest, it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of my expectations.
I can think of a million reasons alone why someone would defect. Maybe they wanted to guarantee their safety, maybe they got offered a lot want to take of money, maybe they just hate Moren enough that they’re willing to let us be collateral damage just to take him out.
In the end their reasoning doesn’t matter, they’ve betrayed not only us, but the whole kingdom, and for that they cannot be forgiven.
With full stealth now pointless, my next best option is to use full guerilla tactics. Taking out as many of these assholes as I can without getting caught.
As a practitioner of illusions such tactics are somewhat of a specialty of mine. Evading and misdirecting are the name of the game here, as well as maximizing the amount of soldiers I can kill before I have to leave.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
So with my mind made up I do just that, attacking whole squadrons led by a tier 7. My plan for these is to usually take it slow and pick them apart piece by piece, but as I’m on a strict time limit, I’ve got to speed things up a bit.
I first take out the tier 7 by ambushing him first. If this doesn’t kill him outright, then it should at least be enough to take him out of commission for the remainder of the engagement.
Then, I proceed to systematically dismantle their psyche using my spiritual energy, spreading a disorienting mist across the area.
Once that’s done, it’s only a matter of time before they fall, allowing me to end the fight with a clean 20 or so kills.
I continue doing this at a rapid pace, and while I do manage to take out a good amount, my spiritual energy isn’t infinite.
At this point my invisibility skill has long worn off, making me worry for the fates of my fellow crew members, though I can only hope that they are doing well for themselves.
‘The reinforcements are arriving in about ten minutes, so I’ll find a place to rest until then. I’m going to need all the spiritual energy and mana I can get for this upcoming fight.’ I think to myself.
Just as I begin to sit down and recover, I suddenly feel my danger sense skill blare at me from behind. Understanding that I won’t be able to move out of the way in time, I decide to use my mist step skill to teleport four feet forward.
This separation gives me enough time to take a look at my attacker. He’s some sort of officer clearly, and by the skill and precision executed in that sneak attack, clearly some sort of stealth specialist.
We stare at each other briefly before he pulls a notepad from his breast pocket and scribbles something inside.
Once he’s done, he looks up at me and says sternly,
“Your good, must be at least a rank 3 talent if I’m not wrong. Unfortunately, I must ask you to give yourself up. Keep in mind the Empire would be willing to reduce your sentence if you are willing to participate in some sort of military service though.”
“Sorry, no can-do young man. I have to say, you’re quite the talent yourself, and so young too! Even now when you’re standing right in front of me I can barely keep track of you.”
“Ah, that would be a trait of mine. No matter though, if you refuse to comply, I’m sure the Empire wouldn’t mind sending the full force of our mind user department at you. Maybe then you’ll be a little more ‘amiable’.” He says as he disappears completely.
‘Shit not a light user! These guys are always the worst!’
Having no choice but to fight, I use my mist close skill to create multiple copies of myself. Now all I can do is wait for the man to show himself to attack.
What he’s doing is reflecting all light off of himself, causing him to be almost impossible to spot with your eyes. The weakness of such a skill, is that any other senses aren’t as affected. The problem with this guys is he surely has multiple traits and skills to mitigate that weakness.
Something like a Silent Step trait, alongside considerable skill, would make him a troubling opponent for most people.
‘Though I’m not most people of course!’ I laugh to myself.
Out of seemingly nowhere, a light beam forms and flies at one of my clones, dissipating it.
‘These guys really are the worst.’ I think to myself. Before sending waves of regular mist outward from my palms.
While I do this, he continues to barrage my clones with beams, occasionally they are able to dodge, but most of the time they are destroyed in one or two attacks.
Finally one of beams targets me and being to focused on releasing mist into the area, I’m unable to fully dodge in time, allowing him to land a good blow on my shoulder.
I quickly pause my mist spewing and spawn more clones for him to attack.
‘This won’t last long, I need to increase the mist density in here and quick!’
So, I do just that, pumping my entire focus into spewing mist around us. Unlike when I was ambushing squadrons, this mist isn’t a disorienting mist. Instead, it’s just regular mist, allowing me to save my spiritual energy.
After a minute or so of this back and forth, finally my plan bears fruit, and I’m able to see the man’s outline in the mist. Instead of revealing my cards right away, I decide to play it slow in hopes of baiting out an attack.
I allow him to slowly whittle down my clones one by one, until finally there’s only one left, that being me. I play up my injury, making grimaces and acting like I’ve lost full control of my arm.
“Last chance.” He says confidently.
I spit on the ground.
“Fair enough.”
He slowly approaches me and pulls out some sort of invisible blade. While I can’t see it perfectly, the faint outline I CAN see is more than enough.
He brings his sword down on my neck in a wide swing downward. Just as it’s about to reach me, I use mist step once more, this time appearing right behind him.
Before he can even react, I shove my hand into his back and out his chest, bringing his heart with it. The shocked look on his face tells me he still hasn’t comprehended what happened.
He falls over limply and I fall to the ground on my ass while breathing heavily.
‘That took quite a bit of effort. Too much effort if you ask me. Now I’ll be running on empty for when the reinforcements get here. Which speaking of, should be in… 5 minutes? Wow time sure flies when you’re my age I suppose.’