NOVGO.NET Chapter 1131: New Strategy
Chapter 1131: New Strategy
His vision shattered into a thousand shards before knitting together into something new. Angles overlapped and folded until one point of clarity emerged: Kitsara’s bird form soaring high. The ground blurred below due to the speed, turning the world into streaks of color. Quinlan’s sight became hers.
When she was far enough from the Fujimori lines, Kitsara slowed and then held her position. Her form became the anchor point in the air, and Quinlan dropped a precise tear in space at the ground beneath. He slashed his hand, and the Warp Gate blossomed.
“It’s done. Let’s go,” he spoke up calmly.
The girls began stepping through one after the other. The portal spat them out a few miles behind the Fujimori lines, even behind where the supply wagons and command tents clustered. They arrived silent and unnoticed.
Quinlan closed the gate. Then, he lifted his hand and called upon the wind. The air bent to his will, curling around each of the women before snapping tight as if invisible threads had hooked into them.
He pulled, and together they rose into the sky. The sudden lift sent hearts racing and hair whipping, but none resisted. The higher they climbed, the stronger his wind carried them until they pierced the low-hanging clouds and leveled off.
From there, the battlefield lay revealed like a painting on a canvas. Fires smoldered across the ground, the Fujimori lines shifted and flexed, and the stronghold walls still shone with layered wards.
They all looked downward as they gathered information.
Vex was the first to break the quiet. Her eyes narrowed on Black Fang. The ancient woman’s gaze was locked far below, on a single figure standing apart from the lines. Kaede, unmoving, watching the siege with a statue’s stillness.
“Hubby,” Vex said, her voice edged with unease, “I think Master is wondering where Lilith and Morgana are located. Do you know anything?”
Quinlan’s reply came quickly. “Sadly, Cassandra has not been invited into their little decision-making tent, so I cannot be certain. What I do know is that she is hundreds of miles away right now. That means Morgana is most likely not here. Perhaps not even Lilith and her Scarlet Lilies. I imagine she would be with her sister instead.”
At that, Black Fang turned to him sharply. Quinlan had to fight a shudder back as her eyes narrowed. For a heartbeat, she weighed him, trying to puzzle out how he had planted a spy so deep. Then she shifted back, expression becoming once again unreadable, and accepted his words at face value.
“They split up,” she said at last.
Quinlan nodded. He understood what she meant. Morgana was dangerous enough, especially when backed up by the Scarlet Lilies, and even more so when shielded by the royal guard.
Kaede, on the other hand, stood at the head of her clan and her duchy. Separating the two only made sense, considering how powerful they were. Instead of holding hands and idling together, they could reap rewards across two paths at the same time.
Black Fang spoke up all of a sudden, voice cold and determined. “Kaede Fujimori cannot be allowed to bring them here with her portal.”
Vex sighed heavily. “Master… you’re planning to drop on her, aren’t you?”
“I will not let her open a portal.”
Black Fang replied stoically. She hovered in the air with no tremor, no hesitation, only that grim certainty that made her terrifying. Her aura was a purple, poisonous storm that never quieted, a constant pulse of lunacy and brilliance blended into one. She was a true predator, one who thought of nothing but the strike, and when her eyes stayed on Kaede, the message was clear.
A woman like her would burn the sky itself if it meant having the mere chance at killing her prey.
Quinlan met Black Fang’s stare and felt the same desire to murder as she had emitted when she departed to kill Morgana.
He did not doubt her skill for a second. He had seen the way she moved, the way the world folded when she let herself loose, and he hadn’t seen the woman go all out yet. That he knew.
Still, he would not be reckless.
“I will not stop you from striking, Lady Black Fang. But dropping you into the middle of the Fujimori ranks right now sounds like a bad idea. Kaede is not a lone blade; she is surrounded by her strongest. Even from here, I can recognize a few geezers and grannies from the feast, the elders of her clan. If she, or anyone else, spots you before you are on her throat, you will face an entire army and an entire duchy at once, alongside the mysterious existence that is Kaede.”
For once, Black Fang did not play the cold robot who refused to part her lips. “I know the risks.”
Kitsara returned from her bird form and landed lightly on Quinlan’s shoulder. The two other birds returned to the forms of her extra tails and attached to the right above her butt.
Her voice, when it came, was bright and oddly practical.
“Lady Black Fang, I have a proposal. Let the rest of the party make some noise. Their squad will keep their eyes busy and lure attention while you and I hold above the lines and watch Kaede. When the Fujimori girl lifts her blade to cut open a tear, that is when we drop to strike in the moment she is busy with the portal. She will not have her full guard with her. We get one clean opening, we take it, and then deal with the consequences.”
Black Fang didn’t need to think.
“I accept.”
Quinlan let out a breath he had not known he was holding. The strategy fit him, too. Strike when the enemy’s motion opens the wound, not when they are calm and ready. He glanced across the faces gathered on the wind: hungry, eager, dangerous. Their eyes were bright with the joy of the hunt.
“We’re here to get Ignis and his wives to safety,” Quinlan spoke up. Then a grin tugged one corner of his mouth. “But that is obviously not all. We could have finished this quietly and been gone by now. So why are we still here?”
He let the question hang for one long heartbeat.
“The Vesper Consortium is not our enemy. Yes, they are cornered and bleeding. Yes, the crown has decided to make an example of anyone who helps us. They are on the defensive, but do not mistake retreat for weakness. The syndicate is a machine forged across numerous centuries.”
He looked past them to the battlefield, to the banners and the numerous high-level mages inside the stronghold doing their best to resist the invasion. “And I am Devil, their golden boy. We’ve fought long and hard to earn the good graces of the syndicate, so why let it all burn to the ground? We are hunted by the same people. The consortium needs strength, and we need allies. Both of us stand to gain if the other thrives.”
His eyes swept the group. “Today, we are here to achieve four things. One, we secure capable allies. Two, we become stronger individually. Third, we loot valuable loot from the corpses of our slain enemies. Four, we give one, fat and loud middle finger to all who thought capturing Devil and defeating his group would be a piece of cake.”
He began manipulating the wind element to sneakily resume moving high in the skies, just as he sent his group one final glance.
“Ladies…”
“Let the hunt begin.”