Chapter 337 - Following the Script

Reivyn studied the map with his Divine Sense. He was sitting on the outside of the circle of the officer’s meeting among the allied forces for their area of the conflict. They were positioned just south of the very center of the long frontlines, though they weren’t the central point of contention among the fighters.

As Reivyn wasn’t one of the commanders, just being a wild card with his Party to defend against unexpected attacks or seize rare opportunities, he wasn’t among the officers peering directly over the map. His captain was one of the many officer afforded that luxury, but Reivyn was sitting with the lieutenants and aides. Most of them didn’t know who he was, and since he wasn’t wearing an official uniform with rank insignia, everyone who didn’t know him assumed he was just another junior officer.

His placement was perfectly fine to him. He didn’t need to peer directly over the map. His Divine Sense gave him a better view than anyone else present. He was basically able to view the thing from any angle or distance at will.

The allied officers were subordinate to the regional commander, one of the generals from the local empire. Reivyn idly noted that the man’s rank was actually below that of the commanding general of the fortress they had been stationed at, indicating the locals did, in fact, understand the strategic importance of its location, even after the frontlines had moved beyond their ability to easily spy upon what was going on. The mountain peak was still visible in the distance, but the cliffs and fortress itself were now below the horizon.

It had been a grueling couple of weeks of almost non-stop fighting to push the invaders so far. Every step had been contested, retaken by the invaders, and pushed past once more. It was a stair-step strategy that whittled the invader’s forces down while reducing as much death among the allied forces as they could.

That was starting to equal out, though, as most of the lower Tier Classers among the invaders had died off in the previous fighting. They were now almost exclusively fighting against equally Leveled and equipped soldiers, and they fought much smarter than the human shields they used to bog down the allied forces.

They were still maniacs that didn’t care as much about their life or death as anyone on the allied side, but they weren’t as willing to throw their lives away at the drop of a hat. They had a certain level of expectation when it came to their treatment from the higher ups, having a higher number tattoo on their foreheads.

The whole Tier 6 empire and the way they treated their people was completely bonkers to Reivyn, though. The enemy soldiers retreated with discipline and only attacked when they had an advantage, but they still fought with careless disregard. Reivyn had seen enemy soldiers ignore opportunities to switch out with their compatriots when they were heavily wounded, only to succumb to their HP drain when they could have received simple First Aid treatment and lived.

Reivyn was sure he would never understand their thought processes.

Reivyn ignored the words of the officers in their discussion. He focused his attention on all the little marking littering the map, feeling for the pulse of the conflict. His Rhythm of War Skill was seeing steady improvement the longer the battles dragged on, and he felt as if he was on the cusp of understanding the enemy strategy just from grasping the flow of combat so far.

The enemy still “controlled” a huge portion of the empire. Relatively, the amount of land the allied forces had retaken was only a sliver of what the invaders had conquered. They were probably down maybe 10%. That meant the efficiency of their Providence drain was still pretty high, all things considered.

Reivyn traced the points of conflict, recreating the timeline in his head. The clashes of the Elders versus the robed powerhouse were documented as well. The chaotic tangle of battles and skirmishes told a story. Following the flow of the battle, Reivyn pierced through the chaos to see a slow, methodical retreat in the enemy’s overall strategy. They appeared to be off balance, putting up a losing struggle through tenacity, when the pieces painted a different picture.

The enemy knew they weren’t going to conquer the entire Region. They knew they were going to be pushed out, eventually. They knew they had a window of opportunity to complete their mission. Everything pointed towards the drain on Providence being their number one goal with the story painted in black and white as long as one could sift through the debris.

Whether the enemy stole a piece of Providence from this local empire or not, Reivyn didn’t care. His goal was to repel the invaders for the sake of those living here. If their Providence took a hit, they would live through hard times, but at least they would live.

He still didn’t know what the use of Providence could be for the enemy. He could only speculate based on what it had done to him when he had unknowingly absorbed some from the Dungeon near Willowan. It had fundamentally changed his body, rebuilding his meridians to be able to handle Divine Mana. That could be the goal of the invaders, but not necessarily. It was very likely to do with rebuilding or modifying someone’s body, though.

Either way, the enemy forces were stringing the allies along, reaping the Providence and accomplishing their goal, all while convincing the allies they were on the back foot.

Reivyn sighed as he refocused his attention on the conversation of the officers in the tent.

“...will buckle with the right pressure in the right place,” the general was saying, pointing to a point on the map. Reivyn reviewed the entire frontlines with that point as the focus and realized it was a feint. “The main forces will be focusing their main thrust here, driving into and through the enemy lines, effectively cutting off a large portion of their army from the rest of it. The commanders further north will then be able to encircle the enemy and defeat them in detail while we coordinate to hold their attention here.”

It looks that way on paper, Reivyn shook his head, but the pulse shows differently. Yes, they’ll be able to destroy a decent portion of the enemy forces, but it seems like they’re not paying attention to the ebb and flow. Those positions that will be destroyed are filled with the last remnants of the lower Tier Classers of the enemy. I can’t tell be 100% certain, but that’s what the record on the map is showing.

The enemy is luring us to overextend to clinch this small “victory,” and that will give them time to hunker down while we consolidate and recover. It’s like pruning. They’re a dead branch, and we’re the clippers. The actual plant will be healthier for it in the long run. Sure, if it was only about conquering the lands, it would be a devastating strike, but that’s not what they’re doing.

It seems like high command either doesn’t believe in the hypothesis of them stealing Providence, or they don’t care.

It might seem like it was a move Reivyn should get behind, as he also didn’t care about the local Providence over the local population, but that still wouldn’t make it the right move. Sure they would destroy a pocket of the enemy, but it would only add another 3 to 5% recovered geography. The vast majority of affected civilians would still be in enemy controlled territory, and their occupation would last longer.

The right move would be to attack their goal directly. They should ignore the low hanging fruit and concentrate their forces on liberating conquered land, reducing the amount of land the enemy could pressure. That would cause them to be reactive, instead. As it were, the allies were still playing to their hand.

The meeting soon wrapped up with the officers receiving their orders. Reivyn fell in with the group of mercenary officers as they exited the tent and headed toward the edge of the camp. They walked in silence until they reached their mercenary guards escorting them back to their position on the frontlines.

After walking a ways away into the dwindling dusk evening, out of range of hearing, the captain gave Reivyn a sideways glance.

“You don’t agree with the high command’s assessment, sir?” He asked.

Reivyn shook his head.

“It’s not that,” he replied. “Everything they’ve said is correct, they’re just focused on the wrong objective.”

“What should we do, then?” The captain asked, scrunching up his face in confusion.

“Nothing. Follow orders.” Captain Caivel looked at Reivyn in surprise. Reivyn chuckled. “This isn’t our war, Captain. We’re here to assist them, so that’s what we’ll do. If this was Wispan, you bet I would be protesting this strategy, but I would also have a voice with the high command in Wispan. They would listen to me.

“Out here, I’m just a lowly ‘junior’ officer with a bit more experience fighting people than the others. They’ll listen to what I have to say, but they’ll still make their own decisions, and if we head off to do our own thing, all we’ll do is make things worse.

“Even if we’re able to convince a whole host of other allied forces that our strategy is right, it’ll still only splinter our fighting power. No, the best option is to follow orders, even if we know they’re suboptimal.”

Reivyn halted, the captain stopping with him, and stared Captain Caivel in the eye. He placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

“This is an important lesson to learn, captain. Even if the reasons are different, the lesson is the same: Follow the orders of your commanders, always. Either they know something you don’t know, or there’s something else going on. In this instance, that’s unlikely, but if you get an order you don’t understand from me, you can be sure there’s a reason.”

“Yes, sir,” the captain nodded his head.

Captain Caivel had performed above and beyond Reivyn’s expectations, showing he had a solid head on his shoulders and understood what he was about with commanding the company. The question about what they should do in light of Reivyn’s opinion showed loyalty, but it also showed that he was possibly going down the route of “knowing better,” and that could lead to ruin in the future.

It was possible for someone to ignore an order and accomplish a game-changing miracle by following their own intuition, but it was incredibly unlikely. More often than not, doing something like that would just get a bunch of people killed and result in a failed mission. The risk to reward wasn’t worth it, unless the commanders were truly incompetent.

“Come on, let’s get back to our camp and get some hot chow in our bellies,” Reivyn resumed walking with a smile, the others following along.

—

Reivyn stood with his Party, his father standing by his side, and watched the battle. It was similar to all the other bloody fights leading up to this point, though there were far fewer bodies being left behind and trampled on. The chaff had been culled from the wheat, and the two forces duked it out with minimal casualties.

There was still a lot of blood. People were still getting slashed by swords and stuck by spears, but they had the Health Points to take it and survive the battle. The battles would need to last longer and/or be more intense to see the same number of deaths as previously. At least in their neck of the conflict, all of the lower Tier Classers had died, and many of the lower Leveled higher Tier Classers were gone, too.

The mercenary company trudged forward under a hail of arrows and spells, meeting the likewise disciplined March of the enemy invaders. They exchanged blows, switching out soldiers to conserve Stamina and Health. It was a contest of who had the higher resource pools, and how long one could effectively fight with their depleted reserves. The mercenaries came out ahead in any individual contest, but more and more, the enemy would swap out whole platoons for fresh soldiers to engage with the mercenaries, effectively negating their advantage.

Reivyn could tell it was a delaying tactic, because the enemy had enough soldiers, still, to throw more fresh troops at strategic locations to wear down the allies, but they didn’t do so. Everything appeared to be going exactly as planned by the high command, as the mercenary company and allies around them “prevented” this section of invaders from reinforcing the point of main conflict.

There was no dismay or panic in the moves of the enemy officers. That should have been a dead giveaway to the allied commanders. If they were truly worried about reaching their destination to reinforce their brothers in arms, then they would see the enemy forces scrambling to come up with a solution to disengage and maneuver around the blockade. They would see franticness that just didn’t exist here.

Instead, the enemy was treating this battle exactly the same as all the previous ones, just another slow drive further away from the original frontlines as they fought to keep their positions.

CRACK!

A sudden, booming crack drew Reivyn’s attention away from the mercenary company in front of him. He looked to the north, toward where the main push was happening beyond where he could see from where they were positioned.

Four black shadows raced along the ground, three dogging the one, as they weaved in and out between the soldiers fighting. Another group of shadows chased after them from further away, though they didn’t attempt to close the distance. Instead projectiles and spells were flung from that group toward the one shadow being chased.

Occasionally, the three chasers would close in on the one and a furious exchange of blows would ensue, the chasing never slowing as they continued to move down the line of combatants.

In only a few seconds, the shadows flashed past the mercenary company and Reivyn and his Party. The wind from their passing and their attacks assaulted everyone present, threatening to knock them all off balance, and the fighting stalled for a short moment as everyone regained their footing. Even Refix had to take a step back to maintain perfect balance.

Spells and arrows flew through the sky, aiming for the fleeing shadow whenever he wasn’t close to any allied soldiers, and Reivyn could feel a bit of the heat from the fiery orbs flung from the hands of the Imperial Elder Mages.

In just a few short moments, the shadows were gone from the conflict, and the fighting resumed as if nothing had happened.

“90% chance the Space Mages are waiting further down that way for the robed powerhouse,” Reivyn leaned over and quietly said to his father. “They’re just happen to be where and when they’re needed to teleport the powerhouse away from the Elders chasing them, getting away by the skin of their teeth. How much you want to bet?”

Refix gave Reivyn a sideways glance.

“Nobody would take that bet,” he guffawed. “Everything looks exactly as you described it, so why would I bet against you now?”

The two men chuckled.

“Ahh, heads up,” Reivyn called to his Party. “Looks like there’s a group sneaking around back there looking for an opportunity to flank.”

The Party unsheathed their weapons and followed Reivyn forward, preparing to enter the fight once again. When they engaged in fighting, there were still just as many dead soldiers left in their wake as before. Hopefully they would be able to eventually make a difference. It was still too early for them to commit to attacking the enemy directly in fear one of their elite Parties would pop up somewhere else and cause devastation.

Eventually, the enemy would run out of soldiers, regardless of whether they had the allied forces following their script. Maybe Reivyn and his Party could accelerate that timeline a bit.