Chapter 47: Chapter 46: Preparations

{Darganth}

Looking at the series of formations I had build around the small hill, I smiled in satisfaction. While limited by my current strength, they vastly outclassed what little amount of power I could currently use. Even restricting early fourth ranks would be within their capabilities, though only temporary. And while a small hill wasn't the best possible vantage point, it was the best we could find in the vicinity.

The only fault I could find in the current situation was the fact that fourth ranks were allowed to intervene in this zone, preventing me from being the uncontested peak of fighting strength here. While we had thought about making our way to one where it was agreed to send only up until third ranks, we had no idea where such a zone was and thus discarded the idea.

Now we were sitting in our camp on top of said hill, overlooking the nearby landscape. While barely twenty meters high, it gave us enough elevation to be able to look over the trees at the outer part of the nearby forest. The grassy, nearly entirely empty lands in the rest of the zone didn't even need to be mentioned.

Of course it wasn't completely perfect as a not insignificant part of the area was hidden from our position by the forest.

While sitting around in peace, I soon noticed a presence approaching our position. Looking in that direction, I frowned when I noticed a peak fourth rank beast leisurely walking towards us. Noticing my reaction, both Allaire and Jennia also expanded their senses.

“Do you need our help?” They asked me and I shook my head.

Trusting my evaluation, both lay back down to get the most out of the few hours we had before our surroundings would erupt into chaos. All three of us had already noticed the two large groups amassing near the city and towards the east respectively.

Stepping out of our tent, I calmly waited for the beast to reach me. Seeing a lion beast coming closer, I inwardly smiled at the fortune that it wasn't a flying beast. While there were near limitless different methods to archive flight through mana without having wings, they were nearly always slower or inferior in other ways.

And while I had sensed four more peak fourth ranks on the side of the beasts, the one in front of me had the strongest raw power. While it didn't necessary mean that he was the strongest among them, it was a good enough indicator.

“It seems that you have a death wish, my luck.” The beast growled while walking towards me.

This made me raise my eyebrow slightly, amused at his confidence. It took me a moment to realize that he probably thought me to be a human, making me chuckle.

Before the irritation at this could even set in for the lion, I let two draconic wings burst out between my shoulders while completely unmasking my presence. This stopped him dead in his tracks and made him look towards me with nervous eyes.

“What do you want?” I asked him after a moment.

“Straight back at you Wyrmling.” The lion replied.

At the same time I noticed him shifting his weight and position to be ready to attack me at any moment. Taking my own precaution, I take active control over the formations I had laid down and prepared them to intercept any attacks from him.

Only then did I concern myself with his thinly veiled threat. Or maybe it was supposed to be an insult as the term wyrmling could be interpreted in varying ways with the main one being as a classification for young dragons below a decade old.

“Should I feel offended by this or are you sense just this bad?” I asked mockingly, though keeping a close eye on him.

This made my opposite's eye twitch for a second, but he still kept calm and retorted, “I am more than capable of noticing the age of a dragon.”

'So an insult' I thought to myself while simultaneously ignoring it.

Due to a dragon growing stronger with age it was often viewed as insulting to say that one was younger than he is as dragons generally value strength, and by extension age, quite highly. This strong difference to many other races culture lead to misunderstandings nearly as often as it was used as an insult.

“I am asking again, why are you here?” The beast said after a few seconds.

“Why wouldn't I? You agreed with the beastmen to this little skirmish so I decided to use it to my benefit and let a few of the combatants vanish.”

My answer made the lion growl. Seeing his muscles tense slightly, I activated a few of the formations in return which made him back down again. We both knew that I wasn't powerful enough to fight him normally, but these formations were enough to bridge a large portion of the gap between us.

Keeping this tense stalemate for a few seconds, I carefully took control over more and more formations to be ready should a fight erupt.

“Stay out of things that don't matter to you dragon. And remember that we aren't some resource for your kind, we fight back.” The lion warned me and turned to leave.

His words irritated me for a moment, but once I realized what he meant it made me chuckle.

“Don't think too highly of your kind, mana is mana.” I answered him. My words caused an extremely short stop in his movements, making me sure that he understood their meaning.

While I had thought about asking how he knows about a dragons ability to grow stronger through consuming mana rich objects, I decided against it. The fact that he thought that it seemed to work only on beast flesh combined with the knowledge that the empress is a lesser dragon gave me enough of an indication.

It also allowed me to narrow down what kind of lesser dragon as few of them poses this ability, no matter how limited it is.

[Beastmen army]

Shortly after the short meeting between Darganth and the lion beast, the beastmen fully assembled at the edge of the designated zone. But despite being one army, there were two distinct groups visible just by watching them.

The first were the adventurers who were in high spirits despite the approaching battle. A part of this is due to this so called war being nothing more than their usual job on a larger scale and with a different name. Adding on to that was that their objective was the easier of the two, with them being responsible for hunting the weaker beasts.

The guards and other solders were meanwhile far more tense. While the weaker ones of them would support the adventurers, the third ranks and above are tasked with keeping their equals at bay. They knew that their chance of survival was small, with the number of beasts in each of these ranks likely rivaling theirs.

This was a large part as to why the beasts are generally seen as the strongest species and why the beastmen emperor agreed to this. While it was less pronounced in the mythical rank, fourth rank beasts could often fight against two or three humanoids of the same rank on equal ground. Combined with their numbers being roughly equal to the humans, they could likely win against tow or even three species if both sides mythical ranks weren't considered.

But despite these large differences between the two groups there was one thing they had in common and that was the regular frowning looks towards the sky. While not visible by the naked eye due to the clouds, they could clearly feel the group of beasts circling above.

But knowing and being capable of changing it were two different things. For one there was a peak fourth rank among them, making those that could even be considered to attack them a small number. The other problem was the difficulty of fighting flying beasts in the air. While less extreme, they had a similar environmental advantage to that of oceanic beasts.

This helplessness lead to an increased nervousness among the gathered, much to the dismay of their superiors. But those that were angered the most by this display were the operations leaders.

“If that bastard stays there for any longer I will personally shoot him out of the sky.” On of the few high ranked adventurers cursed.

“Calm down Mason.”

“Then tell that city lord of yours to shoot that bastard down as long as the agreement hasn't taken effect yet.” Mason retorted in anger.

“And then what? Their mythical rank will attack if he does that.”

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Mason didn't answer and instead changed the topic.

“And where the hell is that prince? The agreement starts in not even one hour.”

After his words there were quite a few mumbles of agreement. This made the man that Mason had been arguing with frown slightly as he had command over the operation. But despite technically outranking him right now, he hadn't dared to be too harsh to the prince.

With no good options to stop these mumbles, the commander could only wait helplessly until either the prince arrived or till the time the agreement started. Luckily for him the first case happened after just a few minutes.

“Commander Tavin, how did the days treat you?” Asked the prince while walking towards them.

Sighing in relieve that the awkward situation ended, Tavin replied with a smile, “Prince Kivar, good to see you.”

Waiting in silence until the prince reached them, the group frowned when Kivar looked over them judging. Especially the adventurers, who received a condescending look, grew irritated though most could only keep it bottled up.

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“Nice that the prince lowered himself to finally join us.” Mason said, not even bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice as well as his disdain for the prince.

While this made Kivar click his tongue in annoyance, he didn't do anything against Mason. After all, adventurers were well know to be free spirited with most of them having a strong aversion against persons of authority. This is especially strong in the case of those that earned it hereditary, like nobility.

Instead he chose to ignore the man and thus spoke to Tavin, “What are your plans to deal with these beasts. Especially the flying ones, the emperor wants them targeted especially due to their annoyance.”

“Of course.” Tavin said, explaining their plans.

First they would try to separate the fight into two as once the high ranks figured out their goal it would be far more difficult to archive. Maybe the beasts would even outright retreat to prevent too great losses, something that had to be prevented at all costs.

This was rather easy as both sides will nearly guaranteed work in small groups scattered throughout the area. Once they managed to archive this they would converge on small isolated groups of beasts. The most important part in this step was to exploit their numerical advantage to its fullest and widen it as much as possible.

Only when this initial advantage is established would they target the flying beasts. This was one of the most important parts of the plan as their speed could decided between a win and a loss. Even those flying beasts whose fighting prowess was limited the most by being on the ground could still deliver carefully placed surgical strikes against them.

Only if they manage to do this would they continued with the fourth and last phase. This was a frontal strike against the remaining beasts. While they would likely loose quite a few men during the attack against the flying ones, especially mages, they should still have more than enough men to overwhelm the beasts despite their own individual strength being lower.

When this explanation was finished, Kivar fell into thought. While objectively the plan was extremely well though out, he wanted, no needed, to find something to criticize and change to sell it as his own.

“Maybe we should merge the second and third phase to keep the casualties lower?” He asked, though his tone clearly made it sound like a command.

“But that would increase the risk by far. If either of the two objectives fail then our losses will me exponentially greater.” Tavin said.

At the same time there was a frown of the face of most others present. They could clearly notice Kivar's intention and didn't doubt that Tavin did so too but was just too scared to say it out loud. But at the same time none of them wanted to be the one to intervene as they were, both during and outside of this mission, bellow the prince in authority.

“Or we will archive a sweeping victory.” The prince argued back, no longer veiling his orders as questions.

“Yes, but I already said that it is risky and far more so than it is worth.”

The rest of the gathered watched on in silence as the argument became nothing more than a back and forth with neither backing down. Helplessly looking towards each other, they silently asked anyone besides themselves to interfere.

This continued for multiple minutes until Mason intervened.

“We already agreed to this plan and we don't have enough time for this.” He said, earning a glare from Kivar.

“Yes, you all agreed to this. I didn't approve of this plan.” The prince tried to argue.

This nearly made the adventurer erupt in rage, with him barely keeping calm and answering through clenched teeth, “Because you thought to have better things to do. So accept it and be present next time.”

These words enraged Kivar. Clenching his fists in at the dismissive attitude towards him, he was only stopped from swinging against Mason by the intervention of his guard.

This didn't go unnoticed by his opposite, though the adventurer just scoffed dismissively. The prince was barely a third rank while he himself was a veteran even among fourth ranks. In the case of a fight he would have to focus more on not killing him than on winning.

“You will regret this.” The prince said after a few seconds before storming of.

Looking at each other in irritation, those gathered didn't know how to react. Soon Mason and Tavin found themselves in the focus of their questioning looks. Themselves not knowing how to react, they could only shrug their shoulders helplessly.

Only some seconds later did the silence end, when one of the adventurers spoke up, “Well, that's one problem less.”

While he tried to sound optimistic, it didn't help to alleviate the situation. Instead it served as the fuse that made them erupt in a chaotic discussion with some supporting the prince and some arguing against him.

While he tried to stop it, soon Tavir was forced to look on helplessly as their unity broke before the fight even began.

After over a minute Mason started to try and gain their attention too. When simple words and gestures didn't work he snapped and enhanced his voice with mana.

“Now shut the fuck up you all. We are minutes before a war and you squabble like petty children because of what an idiot who just wanted achievements for himself said.” He shouted at them, making all heads snap towards him.

Sighing in relieve at the ensuing silence, he continued, “I don't think for a second than anyone of you didn't see through his intention so why do you even consider his words? This is war, not a way for conceit royals to better their chances to inherit the throne.”

His words made some of Kivar's supporters look down in shame while the majority stayed defiant. Though now they turned their attention towards Mason.

“Give the prince some respect. He may not lead this operation but he is still a royal.” One shouted.

This was soon followed by tens of other shouts in support of the prince. Sighing in despair, Mason could only pray that they would come to their senses.

{Darganth}

Smiling in amusement, I stopped watching the beastmen through the portal and closed it. While I initially only wanted to check how many soldiers and adventurers they would send, the discussion was just too fun to watch. The only reason why I didn't continue to do so was that they wouldn't reach anywhere in the remaining few minutes.

“It seems that this will be a lot more fun than I thought.” I said.

Jennia and Allaire, who had been watching with me, only nodded in agreement to this.

“Should we try to target one of the two groups especially?” Jennia asked after a short pause. Thinking about the idea for a moment, I nodded with a smile.

“Target the adventurers even more than planned. They have fewer mages so the soldiers will likely focus more on the flying beasts.” I said.

From the corner of my eye I could see a smile forming on Jennia's lips at this. Allaire also understood my intentions with this, though she just shrugged her shoulders.

“Then lets get ready.” Allaire said, pulling her bow from her back.

“I was ready since yesterday.” Jennia answered, her mana already forming space spells around her.

“Remember to meet back up here.” I said to them, giving them both a short kiss on the lips.

“Of course.” Jennia answered me before teleporting away with a smile.

At the same time Allaire already made her way across the field towards the forest. After letting my gaze follow her for a moment, I turned my head to the sky.

The three of us had agreed to first act independent from each other before regrouping here after some time. Allaire wanted to gather some combat experience and Jennia planned to try and perfect fighting with traps and the likes.

This idea came to her after I told her that some gods used similar strategies even against similarly strong opponents. This lead to her wanting to find her own way of doing it and this was the perfect chance to start.

While they would do this, I planned to have some fun and fight a third rank in human form. Ever since my rebirth I hadn't had the chance to have a good fight like that.

So in an instance I appeared high above the forest, looking down while waiting for the fighting to start. I didn't want to just fight against an opponent with high raw power and instead planned to search for a skilled one.

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