“That man is the Shade?”
Honglu was sitting at the crown of a tree. In the distance, at the limits of what he could see through his telescope, was a squad of Urgals advancing continuously. Among this squad, there was a weak and thin man dressed in a dark-red coloured long robes. He was continuously emitting a black aura, and seemed to be saying something to the Urgals.（
(Based on the movie, this Shade possesses great power. He even summoned a giant bat about ten metres in length at the end of the movie. I can’t beat him. Cheng Xiao’s Nanto Suicho Ken is quite impressive, so I’ll leave this fellow to him.)
Honglu’s heart silently calculated. When the Urgals entered the forest, he turned his telescope towards the even more distant mountainside. There were over a hundred soldiers and Urgals guarding checkpoints there. All the main exits of the forest had similar soldiers guarding it. The main characters had no path of retreat except for the very steep mountain road.
(Seriously speaking, what Xuan did this time was very irritating. He transferred all the main combatants away and the remainder are all non-combat personnel or those with weaker strength. Even Cheng Xiao is supposed to be of the medical personnel category. What is Xuan thinking? Even if Heng or Zero go over, they can’t provide much help. Zheng, Yingkong and Xuan already possess great combat power. If the combat power already isn't enough, adding on Heng and Zero won’t increase it much. Unless…)
“Unless Xuan wants to abandon us? He plans to let the weak ones among us die out?”
After abandoning some impossibilities, Honglu suddenly reached this conclusion. According to the procedure for speculating, after all the impossibilities had been removed, what was left would be the correct answer regardless of how unlikely it was.
“No, it can’t be. We’re already at this stage and are approaching the final battle. Even if it’s a single familiar team member, they can become a useful chess piece in the final battle. If Xuan really wanted to abandon us, his intelligence is just that. Instead of abandoning us, the likelier possibility is… he wants us to get used to death, or the feeling of personally fighting.”
As the second brain of team China, Honglu also had his own thoughts regarding the final battle. Although he had some misgivings about the schemes for the final battle, he was almost done thinking through the pattern for the final battle. It was almost the same as what Xuan visualized. The sole way to beat team Devil… was for the soldiers to battle, and the kings to fight each other!
(If so, even for us members who aren’t suitable for battle, we need to bear ample responsibility. It would be logical and natural for us to die in the final battle. Ahhh, I didn’t expect to die so soon after being revived. But Xuan’s scheme really is good. As long as team China becomes the strongest team and defeats team Devil, it wouldn’t be impossible to revive once again when our team leader Zheng rises to the apex of power amongst the teams, if the box theory holds true.) Honglu sighed and accepted this conclusion quite helplessly. Although he had a lot of unspoken criticism towards Xuan’s thinking, he couldn’t deny that this method of doing things was correct. As long as they could win the final battle, any sacrifice no matter how big it was was worth it. Otherwise, if the team was wiped, any amount of kindness would merely be a joke.
“Alright, then I should start my battle. For Level 5 magic, My Ice Storm is currently my strongest spell and Fireball’s might isn’t so bad either. However, its uses per day is too few. Summon Monster is still the best…”
Honglu wasn’t an ordinary team member. Since he had already decided to fight, he would naturally plan out the spells he could use as well as the number of enemy soldiers. He would consider everything, as he didn’t have the brute force Zheng did. Thus, he would properly calculate out both sides power, and approach his job from the safest possible angle. That was his goal.
There were about a hundred soldiers surrounding the forest. About forty percent were Urgals. The humans were reserve troops. In truth, three humans couldn’t match up to a single Urgal in combat power. Thus, the forty Urgals could completely match a combat force of two hundred humans.
“Separately, there are three checkpoints under guard and two scattered squads of ten men total patrolling. The three checkpoints aren’t far off from one another and can support each other. If they discover the target or are attacked, they can immediately join forces. So…” Honglu silently thought as he pinched his hair. All the plans were slowly forming in his mind. When he finished pondering, he stood up and silently recited an incantation. Together with hand gestures, incantations and some materials for using magic being scattered, a Celestial Dog suddenly appeared on the ground. This was a Level 1 summoning magic. Based on Honglu’s current standard of enhancement, he could use it twelve times a day. This was much stronger than the Weave magic in Dungeons and Dragons.
(No, this Celestial Dog is too weak. It’s speed and degree of stability all won’t do. It also can’t let loose its legs and run in the forest. It’ll be too unlucky if it gets shot by an arrow and dies for nothing. I’ll go with the Fiendish Monstrous Spider then.)
The Fiendish Monstrous Spider was Level 4 magic. Honglu could only use it five times a day, but this Fiendish Monstrous Spider was indeed much stronger than the Celestial Dog. Not even mentioning its movement speed for now, it could jump about and stick on the trees to get around. It was the best mode of transport in this forest, and the combat power of the two metre long spider was extremely shocking. Exchanging one of the five magic uses to summon one spider was worth it.
(Level 3 Fireball can be used seven times. For Level 4, I can use Ice Storm four times after summoning one spider. I can use the Level 5 Dominate Person three times. The power of Level 2 spells aren’t too great and Invisibility’s duration is only thirty seconds, although it can be used nine times. Then, the Level 1 spell to summon Celestial Dogs can be used eleven more times… It’s enough! It’s definitely possible to beat these Urgals!)
When he had decided on his plan, he began to consecutively summon Celestial Dogs. These summoning magics of the Weave were very different from those of Liu Yu. Psyche force was merely the stabilizer for the discharge of spells and wasn’t something that couldn't be done without. In other words, consecutively summoning eleven Celestial Dogs didn’t make him feel any exhaustion, only that he could no longer use Level 1 magic that day.
“Then… go!”
A short while later. At a simple and crude sentry tower at the fringe of the forest, a few rank-and-file human soldiers were messily leaning on the wall, looking around their surroundings and conversing. One of the soldiers murmured, “Why did the capital transfer so many Urgals over? Do we need to do things on such a large scale just for a few farmers?”
“Hush! Are you tired of living, talking about those Urgals behind their back?” A rank-and-file soldier that looked slightly senior in age scolded softly. He carefully looked left and right, before saying, “Don’t say anything bad about them. Don’t even discuss them. Those Urgals are too violent, so beware of them randomly getting angry and killing you. Your life isn’t equal to one of theirs…”
The previous soldier was slightly frightened and hurriedly gave some thanks before shutting up. He then only listened to the gossip of the others while they ate. Suddenly, his ears seemed to pick up on some faintly discernible sound. When he turned his head over, he saw several giant dogs in the thicket eyeing his area menacingly. And in the distance from where the dogs were, there was a little boy silently looking over. He didn’t know what the boy was doing, only that his two hands were interlocking continuously into gestures.
“There’s someone, huh?” The soldier was shocked, and was about to start shouting when his mind suddenly felt hazy. He was already calling out subconsciously, “I see the three farmers, they're over there!” He was already shouting at the top of his voice and pointing at the thicket. The boy standing there previously had already disappeared without a trace, with only the silhouettes of those giant dogs still faintly noticeable.
The racket still woke the soldiers with a start. They could still vaguely make out the direction the giant dogs went. Then, the Urgals were startled into coming out as well. After clarifying the situation, the Urgals immediately followed the obvious trails in the thicket. As for the human soldiers, they hesitated for a long while before rushing into the forest after the Urgals.
(The effect of Dominate Person isn’t bad. There happens to be three uses of Dominate Person and three camps. My luck is good. Then, I’ll proceed in accordance with the objective.)
Honglu’s objective was a valley. The valley only had one entrance, with the other three sides being cliffs or steep slopes. He happened to be able to use the Fiendish Monstrous Spider’s special characteristics to scale the steep slope. This place would become the burial ground of over a hundred soldiers.
Although the plan was thorough and Honglu had the power to carry it through, he had forgotten something important, that was his age and experience. He wasn't Zheng, or even Heng or the rest. As a tactician, and one with a young age and without much combat power, he had always been protected by the team. He didn’t possess a true experience of killing.
After several tens of minutes of running about in all directions, Honglu finally lured out the majority of the soldiers in the three camps. At the same time, the little boy felt extremely frightened, as if his heart was about to jump out. Over a hundred soldiers were behind him chasing him nonstop, and several arrows would whizz past next to him occasionally from the thicket. All these various things broke this little boy out of his cool and composed outer shell.
(This, this is battle? Zheng and the rest… have they experienced countless battles like this before?)