Chương 33: B1 | Chapter 29

A Few Days Later"They're still rejecting our delegations…" the emperor mutters, his voice growing just as dark as his face looks.

"Do they not realize we are offering them leniency?"

"I fear they do not, Royal Father," Lucius states from his place kneeling near the projection.

"Otherwise they would jump at this chance."

"Indeed," one of the Invasion General's legates states from his own place kneeling next to the General.

"We assume that they are overestimating themselves or underestimating us."

"That's likely," the emperor says while scratching his chin a little.

"And either one of those could lead to our making a real enemy of the Class S Ability Holders under their command." Silence fills the small building as the three legates and one Invasion General kneel towards the projection. Eventually the emperor focuses on his son and says, "Invasion General, you are to capture the Class S Ability Holders at all costs. Send them into an unstable portal and station guards at the Gate to make sure they are captured when they try returning to their world."

"Understood, Royal Father," the Invasion General states with his head still down. Then, after a brief second, he raises his head and asks, "If I may, Royal Father…" and after seeing his father nod, he continues, "Do you have word from the Void Priest's Temple when preparations for Legate Lesius's revival will be complete?" His Imperial Father's eyes narrow as the man slowly speaks, "You understand as well as I do that the preparations take months. I hope you aren't insinuating that we rush the priests."

"Of course not, Royal Father!" the Invasion General rushes to correct himself.

"I simply wished to know if they were taking their time or proceeding at the usual pace." The emperor frowns at that before sighing.

"Unfortunately, they don't appear to be giving it any priority. But we can't risk complaining to them." This has the Invasion General gritting his teeth. Right. Because if we complain, then they may leave the world entirely. Then we wouldn't be able to revive any longer. A brief commotion comes from the entrance of the building, bringing the gazes of everyone within towards it and making the soldier there shiver in fear.

But he remains firm anyways as he slams his fist across his chest and kneels down, declaring, "Your Imperial Majesty, Invasion General, we have gotten word that the Class S team has been seen on the walls of the Western Fortress." The Invasion General narrows his eyes slightly.

"Understood," Lucius states.

"You're dismissed." Then, as the soldier salutes again and rushes out of the building, Lucius turns towards his Royal Father and says, "I will handle the Class S natives."

"You better," the emperor indifferently states with only a small hint of threat in his voice. And just as quickly as he does, the projection vanishes. Lucius turns to his legates after climbing to his feet before ordering, "Bring Tribune Lucilius here. Tell him to prepare a spirit summoning." All of the legates around him gasp in surprise, and Lucius isn't surprised. Spirits are the closest things in the universe to the fabled divine. And death spirits are even more terrifying than spirits of other elements.

If the unstable portal doesn't work, we may very well have to rely on a spirit. The Invasion General clenches his fist at the thought before walking out of the building, leaving the terrified legates behind. Aria One Month after the Battle Over the course of the next month after our claiming of what we now designate as the Mountain Fortress, the invaders repeatedly send forces to attack the fortress. And we repeatedly have to defend against them.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. But what I can't understand as I look out over the wall of the fortress at the next incoming wave of invaders is why they're doing this. Because all they're doing is sacrificing their soldiers. They're not sending enough to even break past the wall, much less take the fortress back. So why are they attacking? It just doesn't make sense to me. Wait a second…

My eyes narrow on the approaching enemy forces before I raise my radio to my mouth and turn it on, "Sir, Crimson here. Are you seeing this as well?"

"Affirmative," he responds as I focus on the enemy soldiers. The levels of these forces are quite a bit higher than the levels of the previous attackers. Which means they might have something special planned this time. I raise my rifle and point it at the enemies before looking through the scope. They look more experienced as well. Out of nowhere, amongst the two or so hundred approaching enemy soldiers, two dozen stop running with the rest still continuing forwards.

And after the main force gets within a few dozen meters of the wall, the two dozen who had stopped suddenly raise their hands.

"Alpha Predator here, enemies appear to be preparing a powerful bombardment spell," the commander's voice echoes out of my radio along with the radio of every soldier around the wall.

"Their target is the gate. Non-mage soldiers retreat. Mages prepare barriers as needed." I quickly begin to retreat away from the gate as more soldiers move to replace me, filling the wall above the gate with a bunch of mages. And right as the light from the enemy mages begin to form spell circles above their heads – large ones – more spell circles appear in front of the wall around the gate.

Then a large barrier covers the gate, following which a ball filled with various different elements including lightning, fire, and darkness emerges from the enemy's spell circle, heading straight for our barrier. Unfortunately for them, their attack doesn't manage to break past our barrier. Although it does manage to crack it.

"Fire!" the lieutenant general stationed at this fortress shouts, his voice echoing out across the walls right before our soldiers open fire on the still-approaching enemies. Out of nowhere, right as I'm preparing to fire as well, the wall beneath me begins to shift and groan. And it's not just beneath me, but I notice a few other spots across the wall doing the same thing. Each spot being where one of our Predator Division team members are.

Then the fortress walls all collapse around where each one of us is standing, following which I see some sort of portal beneath the walls. But I quickly narrow my eyes and grab onto a piece of rubble that's heading straight down towards the portal while enhancing myself with my soul energy.

And without hesitation, I pull out a grenade from the clip on my waist, activate it, and toss it directly under me, letting it explode and send me flying away from the portal where I land in a burning and partially exploded heap on the side of the fortress wall. Ugh. My body quickly begins to repair itself, and my armor slowly repairs itself afterwards, proving to take a bit longer since the pants and part of my back on the armor was pretty much burnt to a crisp. Along with my flesh beneath.

Through the slowly fading ringing in my ears, I hear a voice coming from my radio. But the ringing is still loud enough to make that difficult to parse. So I just turn to look at the enemy forces, only to find them having halted in shock. I grin at them as the last of my hearing returns. Guess they weren't expecting this. I stretch a little once I'm back on the wall. Meanwhile I find the other members of Predator Division doing perfectly fine as well.

Apparently everyone managed to avoid the portals in their own ways. Snow just used one of his ice blades to glide down away from the portal, meanwhile Harvey created a barrier before she even began falling. Just casually walked off the barrier and onto the still standing portion of the wall like nothing had happened. The major shot an arrow at the portal, destabilized it, and made it blow up before he could reach it. Although he got some injuries from that.

And Vargas was actually saved by Harvey, who was keeping an eye on us all as the team's defensive expert and scout. Particularly him since he has no direct combat capability without touching someone and using his mental ability. Then the enemies all retreated right afterwards, proving exactly what these attacks have been angling towards. They want to deal with us. Or send us away at least.

"I'm no expert in portals, but I'm pretty sure those portals weren't stable," the major says with a grunt as a medic uses healing magic to heal the man's injuries, the glowing green spell circles around him proof of that. Harvey, Vargas, and I all nod our heads in agreement at that. Meanwhile the lieutenant general under the First General – Lieutenant General Silvers – speaks as he climbs the last of the stairs and joins us, "Our spatial mage agrees with that assumption."

I quickly salute the man, and I'm not alone in that. But he just casually waves us in dismissal, apparently not in the mood for formalities.

"Would you say it's safe to assume the enemy was targeting Predator Division?" the lieutenant general asks our division commander. The major frowns for a second while glancing at the fallen enemy soldiers who had failed at retreating without casualties before saying, "I believe so." Then he turns to look at the lieutenant general.

"It would appear as if they're trying to send us somewhere." A few seconds pass as the lieutenant general looks out over the walls while rubbing his chin. Only for a rather terrifying smirk to stretch across his face as he mutters, "Is that so?" He has something in mind for this. The man glances over each one of us from the division, and just his glance alone sends a shiver running down my spine. And why do I feel like I was just signed up to be bait?