Chapter 1256 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - 3

Chapter 1256: Chapter 1256 - Taming the Old World - Shadow Dragons - 3

"A commander’s indecision," Selphira stated, her tone carrying the very old wisdom of someone who had witnessed countless battlefields, "is a greater asset to the enemy than ten flawless strategies. She divided her forces simply because her fear of making the wrong choice overpowered her drive to try and push for the chance to make the correct one... It is the oldest mistake in warfare."

"And it likely is an error she never would have committed if that ancient entity was still guiding her," Julius added.

"Exactly," Ren agreed. "That is the entity’s core function while it still doesn’t have a perfect main body and still needs her: to process most of the variables and dictate her choices. Without that voice, Selthia remains terrifyingly powerful, yes, but she is also entirely alone, likely profoundly frightened, and completely unsure of how to deploy the massive assets she commands."

He carefully tucked the encrypted scrolls away.

"It mirrors exactly how I felt the first days without Mooshito, blind, lost, like missing a part of my mind. That is precisely why I suspected this outcome... Because I intimately understand exactly how that absence feels."

For a brief, unguarded moment, a complex emotion flashed across his features. It looked almost like genuine compassion for his enemy.

Then he pushed the feeling aside for now...

Ren still needed to choose not to initiate the ambush just yet.

His Vanguard unit still maintained a significant tactical advantage by allowing the corrupted mutants to strike the initial blow. To let them crash blindly against Yano’s Darkness dragon and grind down their own numbers before he intervened and showed Selthia where he really was.

Patience still heavily favored his position in the north, provided the capital’s defensive grid wasn’t buckling under the pressure, so he would need to keep an eye on their messages.

And while Ren patiently held his ground, the brutal conflict in the southern hemisphere was already in full swing.

♢♢♢♢

The specialized detachment that had split off and sprinted south the moment they breached the tree line was actively exploiting the chaotic situation the mutants and Guardian Dragon made there.

Hikari and Umi were stationed among them, tasked with weaving the optical illusions for this specific squad. Their projections were notably lower in quality compared to the flawless mirages crafted by elite specialists like Ren and Min in the north, but they functioned well enough.

Furthermore, they received unique assistance: Yang had sculpted several crude, clunky golems that served as a physical foundation for Umi’s coral glass, significantly making it cheaper, easier and anchoring the illusion.

These stone constructs occupied the broad back of Mayo’s massive avian cloud beast, providing realistic volume and mass to the projected image. To any scout observing from a distance, it appeared exactly as if Ren, his close friends, and the three girls were currently waiting in the southern sky for the perfect moment to strike, while in reality, they were crouched a quarter of a world away in the northern wilderness.

Mayo, thoroughly bored by the extended waiting period, had started holding full conversations with the ten lifeless golems.

"You are clearly the handsome one," she informed the final golem Yang had molded, gently patting its crude stone and glass head. Then another... "And you are the brilliant one. And you..." She squinted at the very first construct Yang had thrown together as a test but was good enough to use, a lopsided, half-hollow head figure that barely met the minimum structural requirements to serve as a decoy. "You are definitely the one that looks closer to Min..."

She proceeded to tell them jokes, laughing loudly at her own punchlines, and casually asked the chunks of rock for their tactical opinions, which, naturally, they failed to provide.

Matilda stood nearby, watching the entire spectacle unfold, slowly shaking her head and releasing a heavy sigh born from the infinite patience required to share too many guard rotations with Mayo.

"At the very least, they don’t respond by constantly scolding me," Mayo pointed out defensively.

"They don’t respond to you at all," Matilda noted dryly.

"Exactly! That means I get to do all the talking and vent all my frustrations... It is literally the perfect company!"

♢♢♢♢

The shadow dragon guarding Yino possessed a distinctly different physiology compared to its counterpart in Yano.

It was not geographically adjacent to Water affinity; its closest neighbor was Fire. That crucial environmental factor fundamentally altered its nature. Its ethereal composition was not heavy, dense, and viscous like Yano’s guardian; it was wildly erratic, volatile, and furious.

It weaponized tendrils of shadow that constantly shifted form over an incredibly wide radius, rendering its attacks nearly impossible to predict.

Furthermore, it actively deployed shadow constructs, similar to the wooden soldiers utilized by the late forest dragon from Yano, though these were vastly more problematic due to their almost intangible nature, making them incredibly difficult to strike, even if they were fewer in number.

This was the terrifying entity the southern Vanguard was currently engaging... all while simultaneously fending off the corrupted horde.

The mutants launched their assaults in highly coordinated waves.

At least five corrupted beasts charged simultaneously, bombarding the dragon with concentrated blasts of water, fire, and wind; relying on the most ethereal affinities they possessed to inflict damage on a guardian who barely possessed a solid physical form beneath the swirling shadows and in its core.

Before the human vanguard meddle the mutants had this system...

Following a brief, intense skirmish, the injured mutants would rapidly retreat to heal, allowing a fresh line of corrupted beasts to seamlessly take their place. It was an efficient relay cycle, meticulously engineered to gradually wear the guardian down without suffering losses thanks to their fast regeneration.

But Lin was currently ruining that flawless rhythm.

The now Lightning Kicks master and her fused dual beast blurred across the battlefield, ruthlessly brutalizing the mutant lines, deliberately shattering their timing precisely when they attempted to fall back from the dragon’s lethal shadow range.

Any mutant that suffered even a single second of delay thanks to one of Lin’s devastating thunder kicks, was now a more heavily wounded mutant the dragon’s shadows inevitably caught and tore to shreds.

She was actively transforming the corruption’s orderly retreat into a chaotic bloodbath, and she was not alone...