Chương 116: Chapter 193: Protecting The Queen

Caddock"My Lord, the Tangled have cut off the southern fort and overrun the eastern one. We're currently devoting every man we have to scouring them from the countryside but the rate that they are reproducing behind the frontlines is untenable." The scout said, standing rigid.

"Frederick's monster come back to bite us in the ass, I suppose." Caddock said.

"Amazing how much more loyal a dog is when you don't kick it. That fucking moron."

"William Oh must be some kind of tactical genius because-" The scout began, his mouth snapping shut as Caddock glanced up at him.

"It doesn't take a tactical genius to bring a better weapon to a fight than the other guy," Caddock mused, looking down at his map.

"That being said, every weapon has a weakness…" William Oh"They've deployed nukers in flying palanquins to do strafing runs over and around the forts. It's killing a large fraction of me and slowing down our numbers drastically." Anna said, her expression vacant. Pawns were passing over the map, held up by Anna to represent the flying nukers.

"Can you fly, Anna?" Anna shook her head.

"I can make wings big enough, and I'm more than strong enough to get airborne, but the balance eludes me. I always wind up spiraling out of control and smashing into the ground."

"You need tailfeathers." Will said, glancing over at Anna.

"Or maybe…ankle-feathers?"

"Oh!" Anna said, eyes widening.

"Bee is gonna try it. She's the best at shapeshifting." Anna's expression twitched.

"She got blown up. But she thinks that it could work if she got some practice." That takes time. And they're watching the ground with an eagle eye to prevent us from taking the sky from them.

"Tell Travis to make an extra-strong illusory flying Bee already high in the sky. Have it dive onto one of the flying bombers and rip them up. If we can disrupt their search pattern, a couple more Bees could take the opportunity to join the fight in the air." It would be best for us if they thought we already had flight-capable Tangled, too. Make them hesitant to send out their Nukers, which would allow Brianna to reproduce faster.

Will had to admit, even though he was aware of the paladin's raw numbers, he was still surprised at the manpower Caddock had access to. If I had just charged straight in… Will thought, studying the hundred or so Nukers criss-crossing the skies above the forts. He might've taken out an outsized number of Caddocks people, but he would've eventually been worn down by sheer numbers. The fact that they were bringing this much firepower to bear on Brianna meant they weren't directing it elsewhere.

They were forcing Caddock's hand, depleting his resources just to prevent their Tangled problem from growing rapidly out of control. Food was going to become a problem soon. Brianna's copies were created at whatever level of satiation the original had, So there was a soft-cap on the number they could make before they started starving and/or dyign of thirst.

It was a big number, but Caddock was crushing that number down as best he could, and the copies were slowly growing more and more hungry as they continued splitting off a copy of a copy of a copy who hadn't eaten in days. Their Resistance was outstanding, but they were bound to start seeing a performance decrease by the end of the week. We're three days in. By the end of the week, I'll have my Hammer of God ready to go. Will turned his attention to his Phantom hand.

He'd capped the speed of its rise while in the atmosphere to prevent the bag of arrowheads from falling apart on the way up. Will had no way of telling where the atmosphere ended, or if it ended at all, although his discussions of light with Ghoul seemed to imply that was the case, and there was some boundary between the sun and the atmosphere which caused light to bend. It's about two hundred miles up. Will thought, consulting his map, using the legend on the corner to eyeball the height of the bag.

The thought of a boundary between atmosphere and non-atmosphere gave Will pause. If his Hammer of God increased the mass and speed of a projectile over time, and it took several minutes or even hours for the arrowheads to arrive at their targets… Would the arrowheads eventually be moving fast enough to be torn apart by the air itself? Will would've never thought of it if he hadn't moved himself so fast that flying through the air felt like slamming his face through an endless solid brick wall.

At a certain speed, the air just couldn't get out of the way fast enough. And these would be going even faster. … Let's stop moving the Phantom Hand upwards. If this turns out to be a success, two hundred miles is plenty of distance to create a powerful impact. And even if it fails miserably, at top speed Phantom Hand can make it back to me in less than an hour instead of days. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

By the evening, The 'fake Bee' gambit paid off, and the flying Nukers were disrupted long enough to get Bee to retreat to some isolated locations at the edge of the map, where the tiny shapeshifter grew wings and launched herself into the air. Will watched the Bishop pieces at the corners of the map raise into the air, Wobbly at first, but eventually getting their air-legs.

In response, the palanquins of Nukers began to carry a dozen or so Climbers in order to have enough firepower to shoot down Tangled attacking from the sky. This meant they couldn't field as many palanquins, and their vision grew gaps, at the hundred or so groups making passes over the sky shrank down to only a dozen or so. On the other hand, each of them were flying fortresses capable of knocking dozens of Bees out of the air in a matter of seconds.

That's fine, I just wanted to keep pressure on them and create gaps in their vision.

"Are you going to sleep?" Anna asked.

"Eh?" Will asked, glancing up at her.

"I don't need to sleep. My Resistance is high enough that I won't need to for another couple weeks, at least." Anna's eyes went vacant for a moment before she glanced at him.

"Loth says you should get some sleep. Even though our bodies can stay awake for weeks, our minds gradually lose brainpower, which accelerates after a few days awake. You'll start being less careful and making mistakes." Will wanted to argue, but it made too much sense to disagree with. Loth got some sleep the night before so…

"…Have Loth take command while I take a nap."

"She's on it," Anna said, one of her copies already creating a little nook in the sandstone cavern for Will to curl up in, lining it with blankets and pillows. Will wanted to take off his helmet, but the chance of getting killed in his sleep was too high, so he simply curled up in his armor and tried to ignore the cold metal pressing up against the side of his face.

Being bone-tired made everything more comfortable though, and with Anna radiating heat beside him, Will was able to fall asleep to the sound of her breathing and the gentle scrape of pawns moving across the map… … …….

"AAAAH!" Will sat bolt upright at a chorus of screams that sent his body running before he even woke up. The infuriating bucket around his head and the omnipresent miasmatic blue prevented him from getting his bearings. All he could hear was Anna screaming, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. Phantom Eye 140 Charges remaining. The state of the sandstone hideaway flooded his mind in a fraction of a second.

The Annas that had been sleeping beside him were contorted into painful positions, eyes wide and screaming. The same was true of the seven Annas that have been overseeing the map, pawns clattering across the floor as they thrashed in place. They're being hit by some kind of psychic attack that exploits the link between them! Will thought, sprinting to the map. As much as he wanted to go and help them individually, he knew she was better served by him understanding what had happened.

Even though Anna had dropped their pawns in their thrashing, Will could still read the map. There had been a rather large force of Caddock's men that were attempting to pierce through the center of the map, seemingly a desperate bid to re-establish contact with their cut off forces. Phantom eye. 139 Charges Remaining. Will sent his Phantom eye straight up and overland to take in the scene for himself.

Will spotted the oversized group of Climbers, forty or so, sprinting straight south, ignoring the hundred or so twitching Ria scattered around them. That must've been a ruse. Will could tell that despite being outwardly equipped like warriors, a large fraction of them simply were not. He could tell by the way they carried themselves. Above certain levels of Strength, there was a characteristic bounce to one's step that revealed the general level of Strength a warrior possessed.

More than half of these Climbers did not have that stride, despite being outfitted with heavier armor. Only a handful on the outer edges of the formation looked like they had that distinctive movement. Did they set up some kind of curse relay? Will had never seen it personally, but he'd seen tanks do damage relays, allowing them to soak damage s a team rather than relying on any one Tank.

Who was to say you couldn't get all your crowd control working together to hit a hive-mind with the most powerful mind-whammy you could possibly bring to bear? But why are they ignoring the hundred or so Ria and running straight past- Will's skin went cold, eyes widened as he looked down at the southern edge of the map, where the Queen piece had toppled over. They were drawing a straight line to Jean, the original. If she died, they all died.

Will turned his attention back to the Phantom eye, when he noticed one of the Climbers in the middle of the formation glance up at his eye. Will dismissed it immediately. So Caddock gathered all of his Crowd Control in one spot and dressed them up like warriors to lure out Ria. Naturally, Ria would be deceived, tell Loth that they were warriors, and Loth would order her to attack them. It was Caddock taking advantage of Ria's poor Acuity and average intelligence.

Does he know she's the backbone of our order relays and deliberately made this choice or was this a happy accident for him? One of the cursemages must be following the psychic link and directing the group towards Jean. If they managed to kill her, then Will's current advantage would evaporate quicker than spit on hot coals. Will wasn't concerned about his 'advantage', though. He was more concerned about Brianna.

Will could see Loth's group already moving straight towards Jean's hiding place, already having read the situation and come to the same conclusion as Will. June's group was backing off, the illusionist and scout seemingly retreating from the thick of things, likely to put themselves in an advantageous position to either abandon Will or pick off Caddock's stragglers without too much risk, whichever was more appropriate. Will didn't blame them for it, they didn't have much staying power in a direct conflict.

He just needed to prove to them that their best bet was to hang around. Will did some quick measurements before dismissing the map, spinning on the ball of his foot and sprinting for the exit to the cavern. Loth was making a straight line for Jean, so Will decided to aim further north of her. He would buy Loth time to unravel whatever spell was on her, trusting that she could figure something out while he made these bastards pay for their 'tactical genius' with their lives.

Will observed them from a distance with Phantom Eye as he ran. More than half of the remaining flying mobile fortresses were keeping an eye on the group making their way south towards Jean, creating an interlocking field of view that saw them being protected from every angle. Well, maybe not every angle, Will thought, glancing up. Since so many of Caddocks flying eyes and ears were clustered around this group, Will could easily find a gap in their outside field of view to get airborne.

Will did so, sprinting straight up into the sky. While the Family Gathering set wasn't boosting his Aspect, the massive amount of Resistance he was getting from his current Kit was more than enough to allow him to create springy footholds in midair and sprint up them until the entire world began to look tiny beneath him. Caddock's flying palanquins hovered around a hundred feet in the air. High enough to get a good view of everything, low enough for their Abilities to reach easily. Will went much, much higher. Hah.

Who needs the Relic? I am the Hammer of God. A minute later, when Will was about a half-mile above them, he tucked himself into a ball to reduce his profile, tucked his head down and wrapped his arms around it to conceal the distinctive bucket helmet, and dismissed the platform of air keeping him away from plummeting to the ground. The Will-bomb had been released. Will followed himself with his Phantom Eye as the wind began to whistle through the holes in his helmet.

Softly at first, then with increasing ferocity as he gained more and more speed, quickly reaching a deafening howl. Will used Aspect of the Immortal Serpent to control his drag and steer himself, still tucked into a ball, towards the center of the formation. If Caddock knew a damn thing, he'd be expecting Will to interfere, and likely had set up countermeasures specifically against him. Hopefully he didn't have countermeasures for this.