Chapter 305: Territories [400 GT Bonus]
Theron’s plan was quite mad, but it also understated an endless sort of confidence he had in himself.
The fortress was ford of several defensive formations, but none of them were offensive. In fact, the fortress’ defensive formations were almost more costic than anything else.
A true large-scale formation would be able to withstand the assault of hundreds to even thousands of Mancers of the sa level for hours to even days at a ti.
These ones weren’t nearly so powerful. Instead, they could probably withstand about a dozen or so minutes from about the sa number of Mancers.
They were there to prevent anyone from just using stealth abilities to slip by and win by a fluke. This was ant to be a challenge that was comprehensive in its evaluation. They didn’t want it to be a single person who manned everything and won it all single-handedly.
And if that did happen, this individual would have to be truly exceptional by necessity.
All things considered, the formations weren’t that strong or that useful. If you were at the point where they could be breached, then your efforts had probably already failed. But no one had ever thought to use them like Theron had.
The defensive formations were baked into the very foundation of the fortress, which was likewise buried deep into the ground. The structures of the two were intertwined.
This was how most defensive formations gained their sturdiness. Gathering strength from the environnt was a bare minimum requirent.
Theron’s plan was just to let the formations do what they did best.
First, he had Sigil control the root systems in the surroundings, not destroying them, but simply changing their direction. It wasn’t a large, or even particularly difficult task.
The purpose was about the sa as folding a piece of paper before you ripped it in half. Doing so would create fault lines of weakness that would make the material more likely to break along a certain line.
Except in this case, the “material” was the earth itself.
Once this was finished, Theron called for Aliza. As their resident Earth Mancer, her only task was to use the formations as a conduit to pull more Earth Mana from the ground than it could withstand.
When things reached their saturation point, it was Theron’s turn to act. He stood by a river more than 200 ters away from the castle walls. Then, he shot a signal flare into the skies.
At that mont, the world seed to rumble.
Aliza overloaded the formation, and the earth cracked.
Theron’s eyes flashed and he entered Veinsong. Large amounts of Water Mana began to pool around him, heavy and dense, and then he punched out.
BOOM!
A tide of water was forcefully diverted, waves ford by [Tidal Convergence] and further enhanced by his Blue Pufferfish Echo layering on its tides that ripped through the suddenly brittle earth.
Theron almost instantly reached a state of Mana Depletion. Considering the sheer amount of Mana he had, and its density now, one could imagine just how far he had to push himself to force such a thing.
“31 minutes…” Theron thought as he felt his vision swimming. He fell back, collapsing into the water, but this was exactly where he needed to be.
Even now, he wasn’t wasting any ti as his body was carried back toward the fortress in a stream of flowing river.
By the ti he got back, the 35th minute had yet to even start, but the flowing water had left him feeling revitalized. He had gone from less than 10% reserves in Mana, to back just over 30%. And that was more than enough for him to function.
At the sa ti, the fortress was now surrounded by a loop of roaring river water that curled all the way back toward the river once again.
The manmade stream was only about five ters wide, a far cry from a true defensive barrier. It was a distance Silver Mancers could easily leap over…
At their own peril.
None of the group mbers questioned it for a single second. That was because each and every one of them knew why Theron had done this, and exactly why Theron had said they would be in an undefeatable position—even to the point of sending a signal flare into the skies as though not afraid of alerting the enemy of their position at all.
Theron was already a monster all to his own.
Theron with a river to battle in was a god on this battlefield.
…
Theron had replenished himself back to 50% when Ray and Supra finally returned. As expected, they had the information he wanted. The locations of the two fortresses were indeed exactly where Theron thought they would be, but what he was more interested in was exactly who they were. And he got that answer too.
To the southeast were the Sangun.
To the northeast were the Firewings.
This was valuable information, but what Theron learned afterward made him frown.
He listened to the information about the terrain, and even received detailed sketches from the both of them. There were certain skills that all academy students would have, and even military stream students had to take so classes that honed things other than their strength. As such, Theron knew that the sketches were trustworthy.
And that made it all the more ridiculous.
Theron looked to the southeast, then the northeast. There was no way they would set up the fortresses like that, would they?
Theron’s gaze shifted again. This ti… he looked to the southwest and the northwest.
The river he had just diverted ran straight down behind them from the east to west. Ray, who went to the southeast, had to go through it to get to them. But judging by his report, it diverted into an L shape, so he had to cross it from north to south, and then from west to east to get to the location of the target.
That ant that one territory got the benefit of protection from a true river on all sides, and the others were left to the usual landscape. Without Theron’s diversion, the river would have only naturally protected them from one enemy.
But more importantly than that… the Sangun were the ones to benefit from such a thing.
And far worse than that, if Theron was correct…
They had actually put the Nightingales right in the middle of all four fortresses.
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