I didn’t know the officer that came forward. He was dressed in a similar uniform as every other soldier, with the only indication that he was in charge being his older age, and a couple of detailed medals on his uniform. I acknowledged his presence with a look and turned to the Holy Knight walking closer to him.
I was surprised to see that Helena had come all the way here from the Empire. She was donned in the usual golden armor that the Holy Knights wore, which caused her to stand out in the middle of the jungle, just like the other Holy Knights that were looking this way, and in complete contrast to the rest of the soldiers.
She had a few streaks of sweat falling from the side of her face, and a look of annoyance as she walked closer to me. “Good to see you, Radiance Althea.”
“It’s good to see you too, Knight-Commander,” I replied with a slight nod.
“Heh, and here we were, forcing Super-Demon to change out of his colorful clothes, only to end up with an army of golden-glowing knights,” Reeta said with a smirk.
Helena frowned and turned to look at Reeta. I feared that perhaps there were going to be issues due to how the Empire used to fight against Beastkin in the Final War, but after a moment, Helena looked at the other knights. “This is part of who the Holy Knights are. We don’t need to hide, and we don’t fear the enemy. Our glow is a message to them: that we are coming, and that they should know they will fall under us.”
“Is that so?” Reeta asked back with a slight tilt of her head. “As far as I remember, there were plenty of Holy Knights that were easily killed after being punched a little. So maybe it’s not such a good idea to glow in the middle of a battlefield.”
“You mock me, Beastkin, but it shall not deter our determination to fight and come out victorious,” Helena said without turning to look back at Reeta.
I could feel Reeta was about to speak once more, so I lifted a hand. “That’s enough. We’re not here to fight each other.”
“That’s correct,” Feng Liu followed up with a nod and taking a step forward. “We should get the operation ready as soon as we can. What do you have for us?”
The older officer that had just been watching the talk between us nodded and gestured with his hands to a small tent further head. Once inside, we were presented with a rather open space, where a projector was creating a screen on a white material. The man pressed a couple of things and a map of the area was shown to us.
“General Reds,” he introduced himself, doing a small military salute, before turning his attention to the screen. “I already know who you are, and while I don’t necessarily agree with how this operation came to be, I’m going to make sure that it comes out as successful as it could be.”
“As it should be,” Kang Hana said, slightly raising an eyebrow.
I wasn’t going to question what the man said as I focused my attention on the pictures on the screen. I couldn’t properly tell what exactly they were supposed to show me, since all I could see was nothing more than a view from the sky of the jungle and the mountains. Nothing that could be a target.
“What are we supposed to be looking at?” I eventually asked.
“This is the place where we narrowed down the area of operation of our targets,” he said, pointing with a small pen-like artifact that produced a red dot on the screen while shaking it all over. “We didn’t manage to capture a rare event that took place a few days ago, but right here”—he shook it in a small circle in the middle of the map—“were reports of a bright golden light coming from the sky and destroying everything there.”
“A few days ago? Was the destruction covered that fast?” Qin Yue asked, her eyebrows slightly raised.
Without waiting for the General to answer, Kang Hana nodded her head. “It wouldn’t be impossible for someone with Nature Magic and Earth Magic to be easily able to move a few things here and there, and make it seem like nothing happened.”
“That seems to be the case,” the General said, and the image zoomed into the position. “As you might be able to see, there’s a few blackened spots under the shades of the trees. They could be mistaken for just that, a shadow, but at the time of day, and the way that it differs from everything else around it, we identified it as the possible place of that event.”
“Why haven’t you carpet bombed the whole place then?” James asked, his arms crossed.
The General shook his head in response. “While it is possible, it could also just be a random place where magic was used, or it could have been something done just to distract us like how it happened at the capital, so it doesn’t give us the exact location of the base.”
“Have you sent people to investigate?” Qin Yue asked, this time getting closer to the screen.
“That has not been possible,” he answered, tracking Qin Yue for a moment, before the image on the screen changed to a view from the ground of the forest at night, where a few bright lines were drawn from one side to the other, creating an arch. “We know that the base is somewhere around that spot, but any approach with soldiers has been immediately retaliated with artillery shots that come from seemingly random places in the forest; all of them too far apart from each other to know exactly where to go. So we have been waiting for mage support before trying once more. Thankfully, you’re all here, and that might make the approach much more manageable.”
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“More than that,” Kang Hana said with a smirk, “We’re going to tear that place to pieces.”
“It’s still going to take a while to properly explore the area and find out where their base is. So I recommend you spend your time being in the best shape that you can be,” the General said, trying his best not to look at Kang Hana.
“Hm…” Qin Yue thoughtfully hummed, approaching the images on the screen. “There’s something odd about what you’ve shown us so far… Can you go back to the map?”
Without hesitation, the General returned the images. The same large map of the area was shown, but I just didn’t see anything important about them, so I waited to see if Qin Yue had. After a moment of looking over the images, she finally pointed her finger at a few spots all over the map. They were seemingly random, and it appeared like the General thought the same as he raised an eyebrow.
“The base is here,” she asserted, but she wasn’t pointing her finger at anything in particular.
“We know that, the issue is to know exactly where—”
“No,” Qin Yue interrupted with a shake of her head, “You’re looking at it.”
“What?” the General asked with a narrow-eyed look at the map.
Qin Yue lifted her finger and gestured with a large circle to the whole map. “It’s all over the place.”
“How can you tell?” The General asked, frowning this time as he tried to see what she could see. “Couldn’t it just be small places where they have a strike force?”
“No,” she replied, extending her hand to the General.
The man looked at her hand for a moment, and quickly understood what she wanted as he passed her the pen-like thing in his hands. She turned her attention back to the screen, and clicked a couple of times to show us the places of the attacks.
“These aren’t normal artillery strikes,” she said, pointing at the lights. “These appear to be a mix of Earth’s weapons with some form of Holy Magic. However, such a thing shouldn’t exist in these forms, which means that someone has to be feeding the magic to these weapons. Now, if you look closely at the map…”
She turned the image back to the map, and pointed with the red dot at a few spots. Kang Hana leaned forward as if trying to have a better look. “I don’t see anything…”
“It’s hard to notice, but these trees here are all the same,” Qin Yue said, pointing at a few of them. “The whole place that you’re looking at is likely to be the base.”
“So what? Are they camouflaged or something?” Helena asked.
“Yes and no. The camouflage is only on top. The base itself… is probably underground, and the entrance…” Qin Yue pressed a couple of things on the pen in her hands and the image zoomed in to a spot closer to where the General mentioned there being a Holy Magic event. “Should be somewhere around here.”
“Hm… I don’t really see everything that you’re pointing out,” The General said, his eyes focused on the screen. “But we were going to go that way anyway. Our plan of attack is to divide our forces into different squads where each one of the higher ranked fighters goes with and checks different areas of the jungle to identify from where we could find the base. However… judging by the confidence with which you’ve pointed this out… we might just go straight to the spots that you’ve pointed out.”
Qin Yue nodded for a moment, then shook her head. “Not everyone. I think they might have more forces surrounding the place. And we don’t know exactly how the base looks or operates, so there could be other things that we can’t see.”
“Very well then,” the General turned to look at Helena. “Knight-Commander, I wish to discuss with you our next move.”
“Very well,” she said with a nod.
“As for the lot of you… I’ll trust your assessment, so I’ll leave it up to you how you wish to proceed and we’ll work around it.”
“We go straight to it,” Feng Liu said, with Kang Hana nodding along, before turning to look at me. “And I think you’ll come with us?”
“That’s correct. If Eletha is in that direction, then we have to be there,” I replied and turned to look at Super-Demon. “Make sure you’re able to keep up.”
“I-I’ll do my best! A superhero has to be there to save the day, right?” he said with a shaky voice, followed by a forced laugh.
“Are you still sure it’s a good idea to bring this skeleton along? It’s not too late to just leave him behind,” Reeta said with a look of annoyance thrown at Super-Demon.
“Yes. He has to come with us,” I said, then looked at the General. “If there’s nothing else, then I suggest we go as soon as we can.”
“Of course. We’ll get ourselves ready, and set out once we’re done here. You guys go ahead and prepare.”
With a nod, I turned to leave the tent. Everyone else followed after me, save for Qin Yue, who decided to stay and work everything else with the General and the Knight-Commander. However, from what I could gather, we were likely going straight through the front door, and judging from Kang Hana and Feng Liu’s attitude, it seemed like they wouldn’t want it any other way.
I just hoped that they didn’t beat me in getting to Eletha… since I knew that they were going to kill her regardless of what happened.
With one final look at the place we were going to attack, I thought back to everything I tried to do with Super-Demon, and the image of Eletha appeared in my mind. I still didn’t know how I could possibly save her, and now there was no more time. If I could… I would pray to the Holy Gods to give me guidance… But now… it was just me.
“Whew,” Nicole let out, and I turned to look at her. “Even with all the affinity I have with fire, this place still feels super hot. Must be all the humidity.”
“Heh,” I chuckled slightly, causing her to look at me with confusion, so I quickly explained it. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about what was going to happen, and nearly forgot that, even if I didn’t have Holy Gods with me anymore, I wasn’t alone.”
“Eh… hehe, that’s right!” she exclaimed, puffing her chest out. “As a Goddess of Fire, I shall watch over you instead!”
“More like a burning chicken,” James interjected with a smirk. “Don’t get your head so big. You might just burn out before even getting there.”
Nicole turned a smirk back at James. “I can handle myself pretty well. But… Who knows if I’ll pull you out of the fire next time…”
“That won’t happen again.” James replied with a serious look, quite unlike before, when Nicole saying such a thing would cause him to mock her. “This time, not only will I carry myself, I’ll even make sure to be able to carry you out of the fire if I need to.” He turned to look at me. “You as well.”
It felt quite strange to have him look at us with such a serious look. It was likely a result of what happened last time, but it was good to see that such a defeat didn’t demoralize him, and that now, he was taking things even more seriously than before.
With a nod, I accepted his determination, and like everyone else, I went ahead to prepare.