Chapter 322 - Surgical Strike

Reivyn looked over the Special Unit as they did a final gear check. The sun was still a few hours away from breaking the horizon in the distance as they prepared to head out on their first mission.

“Wrap up any loose straps,” Reivyn directed. “You don’t want those things swinging around, getting caught on anything, or worse, making noise.”

All straps were pulled tight and rolled up to be secured. There would be no jangling or random bits swinging about. It wouldn’t do to get a strap caught in a bramble or something. Not only would it slow the person down, it could give away their location. Sound carried differently in the night for some reason. Maybe it was that people were more alert. Reivyn didn’t know, but why not do everything in their power to reduce mishaps before they could even begin?

Anything metal was wrapped in leather. It not only muffled any sounds they could make clinking together, but it removed the possibility of glinting off of some stray source of light. The chances of someone seeing such a small reflection of light were small, but they weren’t zero if the metal was left out in the open.

Reivyn and the Special Unit utilized their Camouflage Skills to not only dress appropriately, but to apply paint to any exposed skin. The point wasn’t to make everything black or dark gray as some would assume. The real goal was to break up any patterns. People had the uncanny ability to see faces even where there weren’t any. The camouflage distorted the patterns making eyes subconsciously dismiss what they were seeing.

The Special Unit had spent months training in their subterfuge Skills and abilities under the direction of Reivyn and Teilon on their trek to the combat zone. The Unit had delved the Skill Dungeon in two separate groups, but they hadn’t had the chance to figure out how to use it for anything other than straight combat Skills against the Dragonling.

Everyone had only delved the Dungeon once, after all, as it was only available once a month. The other Dungeon was even more restrictive, only resetting once every two months. Luckily the fortress was positioned perfectly to thwart any advances by the enemy. If they wanted to take the fort, they would need to bypass it first. Even with the numbers the invaders were throwing at the Tier 4 Regions they were attacking wouldn’t be enough to conquer the mountain fortress and have enough forces leftover to make it worth it in a head-on fight.

The sheer cliffs protecting them from being overwhelmed by a numerically superior enemy and the mountain continuing above the fort also put them in a location to spot any such advances. Reivyn and his Mercenary Company would be sitting at this strategic location for a long time, so he wasn’t worried about not getting several more opportunities for himself and his men in the two Dungeons available in the mines.

The Mercenary Company, as a whole, had performed above average in the Skill Dungeon, with the lowest performing squad holding on for fifteen minutes. The Special Unit’s personnel weren’t selected for their superior fighting abilities, so they actually weren’t the best performing squads of the Company. The best squad had been the one led by Corporal Gulley, holding on for twenty-one minutes, beating the previous record held by the elites of the local empire.

The biggest difference between his mercenaries and the soldiers of the local empire was their Stamina. They were able to perform effectively for longer on less Stamina than their counterparts, and it was only getting more pronounced as time wore on.

Reivyn wouldn’t be surprised if their method of training didn’t spread to hundreds of empires by the time the war with the invaders came to an end, like Prince Allik of Vairo had adopted the practice, if it did. Nobody had any inkling of what their objectives were. There was no word from the conquered empires as their teleport circles were compromised, and nobody was traveling to conquered lands on foot just to find out.

The Special Unit completed their final preparations, Teilon verifying nothing was out of place as a final check. He nodded to Reivyn with a thumbs-up gesture. Reivyn acknowledged the nod, Kefira standing next to him with Serilla stoically standing behind them. He let his voice carry without raising it, a trick to his Commanding Shout Skill he had cultivated.

“Alright, everyone line up and follow me,” he ordered. “We don’t need to be able to see where we’re going to teleport to, but it will help the accuracy with the distances involved.”

He turned and led the group of silent mercenaries into the mines, up the stairs, and to the guard station on top of the mountain. His Night Vision Skill allowed him to see in the dark as if it were dawn already, and his Eagle Eye Skill synergized with it, enabling him to extend that vision to the horizon even without activating the actual Eagle Eye Skill. None of that mattered, though, because it was Kefira who needed to see where they were going.

Luckily, Kefira had her own low-light vision Skill. She had unlocked it and developed it a bit during her adventures with Serilla before she had ever met Reivyn. Being much more active with Reivyn in her life than she had anticipated, though, had allowed it to continue to Level Up beyond what she would normally have achieved on her own. If she had never met Reivyn, she wouldn’t have left the capital city for more adventures so soon.

Kefira stared into the distance, concentrating, as she coalesced the Mana through her body. She wove the Spell she had been practicing for weeks and months, supplemented with her research into the various aspects of Space Mana. After only a brief few minutes, Kefira exhaled a deep breath and Cast the Spell.

A shimmering light seemed to split reality in front of them and widened into a tunnel they could easily walk through side-by-side. Without hesitation, Reivyn grabbed Kefira’s hand and led them into the teleport tunnel, the others following wordlessly behind.

The tunnel wasn’t that long, only a few hundred yards, and they quickly reached the other side. It opened into a little glade on the other side of a hill they had identified next to the routine supply lines of the invaders. They hadn’t seen any activity on this side of the hill in the couple of weeks they had been monitoring the enemy. The invaders believed their rear to be safe from enemy infiltration, apparently.

Knowing that such complacency was a killer on the battlefield, Reivyn was happy with his Company Commander who insisted on sending out patrols to the rear of their fort even with their position and the lookouts on top of the mountain. It would be much harder for them to be taken by surprise by an infiltrating unit with their diligence.

I guess my harping on complacency has done its job, Reivyn silently chuckled to himself at the errant thought.

The Special Unit assembled quietly in a semi-circle around Reivyn. He looked them each in the eye and only saw eagerness in their expressions. There was some nervousness, for sure, but he didn’t detect any fear.

“Everything that needed to be said has already been said,” Reivyn whispered. “I have full trust in your abilities. Get to it.”

The Special Unit broke into several smaller groups to carry out their tasks. Despite the elevation of the lookout on top of their mountain, they weren’t able to spot the actual incursion point of the invaders. They still needed to locate it. They only had the supply lines pointing in a direction to show them the way.

The Special Unit’s mission this time was to branch out, map the area as accurately as they could, and locate the enemy encampment containing the teleportation circle. Reivyn suspected it was a similar setup to the one he had found in Drallow.

Reivyn, Teilon, Kefira, and Serilla were going to move deeper into enemy territory. They didn’t have a specific mission on their own, but they still kept their heads on a swivel to avoid giving themselves away. They moved parallel to the supply lines, but always out of sight. Reivyn led them on their trek for almost an hour before he called a halt.

Reivyn led them up another small hill, remaining below the ridge on the opposite side, to stop and wait. Reivyn crawled up to the top with Teilon in tow, and the two worked their way to a spot where they could monitor any enemy movement if there was any. It was still an hour or so before dawn, so they didn’t expect anything, but they needed to know if they stopped right next to some enemy troop that had set up camp on the other side or something.

Luckily, there was nothing going on anywhere that Reivyn could see, so he and Teilon retreated back to where Kefira and Serilla were waiting. They slid the short distance down to join the two girls, and the four of them pulled out some field rations to snack on.

“Now we just wait,” Reivyn said. “Let’s be sure to rotate a scout over the top of the hill every half hour or so. We never saw any of them wandering around up this way before, but that doesn’t mean they don’t, just that we didn’t see it.”

The other three nodded their heads as they chomped on their food. In the field, it was always chow time. One never knew when things would get crazy, so it was always a good idea to top up on calories whenever there was a chance.

The four kept conversation to a minimum, fearing that their voices would carry in the dark to unknown ears in the distance. The sun peeked over the horizon and slowly climbed into the sky. They kept a rotating shift up to keep track of any passing invaders, but they had moved far enough away from the main roads that there was never any trouble.

A couple of hours before noon, Reivyn “saw” the first small grouping of the Special Unit enter his sphere of awareness. He climbed to the top of the hill and signaled to the four mercenaries. They quickly spotted him and made their way over. After following Reivyn to where the others were waiting, they silently handed over their maps.

Each one had drawn their own, covering their interpretation of the terrain and what they had seen. Their maps covered the most direct route to the objective, obviously, as they were the first to return. It would have been strange if a group who had to travel in a roundabout way managed to beat them back.

Reivyn indicated for them to take a rest, and they pulled out their own food to replenish any lost Stamina. From the looks of it, they weren’t particularly weary, a good sign.

Over the next hour, the rest of the Special Unit members made their way to the impromptu camp. Reivyn collected each of the maps from them before using his own Map Making Skill along with his Divine Sense to simultaneously view each of the maps in turn to make the most accurate map using all of theirs as the base.

Along with the map of the terrain leading up to and around the enemy base, a couple of the groups had drawn maps and taken notes of the camp itself from two different directions. Reivyn took the maps and notes, and after reading through them, passed them around to everyone else. For several minutes, Reivyn waited until everyone had an understanding of what they were going to be getting into.

The camp had a basic palisade protecting it from the outside. There were five buildings surrounding the teleport circle, or device, or whatever they were using. A couple looked large enough to be barracks for a couple of platoons’ worth of soldiers, but nothing huge. The others were probably spaces for the officers or on-duty guards.

“Alright, I’m liking the situation we have before us,” Reivyn finally addressed everyone. “They only have a token garrison, relatively. Kefira will make a teleport tunnel directly into their base, and we’ll hit them hard and fast from inside before they know what’s happening.” He turned to face his fiance. “Put the anchor as close to their teleport device as you safely can. If they think the Mana is from their own device, they won’t be alert to our surprise attack.”

Kefira nodded her head.

“I can do that,” she said. “I won’t be able to put the anchor inside their device, but I can put it practically on top of it.”

“Good.” Reivyn turned back to the others. “Here’s the plan: I’ll charge in first. I’ll cut down anyone in my way, but I’m going to be sensing for any Magic that might be communications. I’ll hone in on anything I sense and take it out as quickly as possible. Teilon will cover my back as I do so. The Special Unit will split into your assigned groups and spread out, like this.”

Reivyn drew several lines and symbols on the map to indicate where and what each squad was meant to do. He looked around to ensure everyone understood their assignments. When everyone nodded their heads, he continued.

“The ultimate goal, the Commander’s Intent if you will, is to destroy the teleport device,” Reivyn reiterated. “These steps, here,” he indicated the map, “are to neutralize any call for help or resistance. If we can prevent them from calling for backup, we should be free and clear to take our time to destroy the device safely and teleport back to the fort.

“If they do get a call out, the plan then is for all of you to immediately return to the fort with Kefira. Teilon and I will stay behind to destroy the device, and we’ll make our way back to the fort on foot.

“That’s a last resort option. The two of us are far more likely to succeed and get away than our entire group, and I don’t want to risk all of us getting wiped out by waiting for enemy reinforcements to take us by surprise.”

“Is that necessary, sir?” One of the Mercenaries asked. “Couldn’t Lady Kefira just have the teleport open and ready for us, and we could retreat as needed?”

“And what will we do if they have someone who can lock the Space down?” Reivyn asked back. “You’ve all read the reports of our expedition in Vairo. You know they have high-Level Classers with mysterious abilities and Skill sets. My plan is to avoid that happening by not giving them the chance if they have someone like that, even if the probability is almost zero.”

The mercenaries had thoughtful looks on their faces as they contemplated the information.

“Any other questions?” Reivyn asked, looking around at each of the mercenaries. They all shook their heads. “Then get ready. We strike as soon as we’re ready to go. No need to wait. Take your packs with you. Just use the quick-release to drop them on the other side.”

The mercenaries formed up in their battle groups of four. They unsheathed their personal weapons and stood ready to go. Kefira studied the map intently, gathering the necessary Space Mana for the Spell. Reivyn, Teilon, and Serilla all readied their own weapons. Serilla wasn’t going to participate directly, but she was going to stand by and protect Kefira from anyone suicidal enough to try and attack her.

Kefira nodded her head, took a deep breath, and Cast the Spell. As soon as the teleport tunnel formed, even before it was fully open, Reivyn sprinted through the opening. The distance from their little way stop to the encampment was considerably shorter than the earlier teleport distance, so the tunnel was only about twenty yards long. Reivyn crossed the distance in a blink, Teilon trailing right behind him.

It was almost as if Reivyn had teleported - heh, Reivyn chuckled - with the shifting of the scenery. One moment he was on the side of a hill in the countryside, the next he was dashing through a military encampment. There were two astonished workers next to the teleport device Kefira expertly placed her own anchor next to. Reivyn’s sword slashed as he dashed past, and two headless corpses collapsed to the ground, the heads rolling with the surprised expressions still on their faces.

Reivyn expanded his Divine Sense as much as he could and concentrated on his Magic Prodigy Skill in symphony with it, searching for any sudden bursts of Mana. There were a few low thrums of Mana in some of the nearby buildings, but no blasts or coalescing Mana. Without a clear target, Reivyn decided to simply raid the spots with the low thrums. They might be communication devices on idle, waiting to be used.

Teilon followed in his shadow as Reivyn ran across the open field. The spires of the same type of device the invaders had used in Drallow like Reivyn suspected at his back. The mercenaries streamed out of the tunnel behind them and broke off into their own directions. The sound of metal clashing on metal and shouts of anger and pain reached Reivyn’s ears as he crashed through the door of the first building. Teilon simply phased through the wall next to him.

Reivyn didn’t even take the time to survey the interior of the building. He unleashed his Mana in a wide spray of Plasma Beams at each individual in the room, instantly killing most. Teilon took care of a couple that had survived the first blast of superheated Magic as Reivyn identified where the Mana thrums were coming from. There were some simple devices sitting on a couple of tables in the room, and Reivyn blasted them as well.

The thrum of Mana coming from the building snuffed out, only charred remains evidence of any magical equipment left over.

“The next building over,” Reivyn tilted his head in the direction he indicated. Teilon turned and ran through the wall. Reivyn followed him with the more traditional path, rushing back through the door and toward the other building. The door opened before Reivyn could reach it, but only a dead man fell through the entrance. Reivyn could sense Teilon dashing past from where he had slit the man’s throat from behind as he went to investigate the commotion from outside.

Before Reivyn could follow Teilon inside, he finally sensed a blast of Mana from behind him. He stopped and turned to see where it came from. There was another set of buildings on the other side of the teleport device. Reivyn watched as one of them exploded outward, a man in a black robe radiating power standing in the middle. A hood covered most of his facial features.

It wasn’t a call for help, per se, but Reivyn knew he had to handle the man himself. He tossed an Inspect at the man.

[??? Tier 6 Level 70-100]
[Moderate-Major Threat]

Reivyn launched a series of Spells, ranging across the spectrum of his Affinities. He didn’t do anything fancy as he closed the distance. The robed man lifted his hand, and a Mana barrier sprung up, defending against all of his Spells. Reivyn got the sense that it wasn’t easy for the man based on his body language, but he did successfully defend himself.

The robed man pulled a gleaming sword from whatever storage device he had. He recognized Reivyn’s challenge and ignored the rest of the mayhem surrounding them as the two closed on each other in a clash of blades.

Reivyn’s sword flashed quicker than the naked eye could see, targeting the openings his Transcendent Ability was guiding him toward. The man’s own weapon flashed with equal speed, deflecting the strikes and returning his own ripostes in response. The sound of their swords clashing rang out over the battlefield, drowning out the other sounds with how powerful their blows were.

Reivyn could tell that his Stats being reduced were hindering him a bit in the fight, even though he had reduced the penalty to 20% over the past couple of months, with his increased Regeneration Skill speeding up the process. The other man was obviously also Transcendent with his Swords Skill, or Reivyn’s Ability would have been able to penetrate almost any defense he could put up.

Luckily, the man was nowhere near as Skilled as his sparring partner in the Tier 5 Region, much less as Skilled as the Dragonling. If he had been a master of that caliber, Reivyn would have already been seriously injured in their clash. Thankfully the man was just a regular master.

The two danced around each other, testing and pushing each others’ limits. The man had been holding back a bit as he tested Reivyn, though, as he steadily picked up speed, power, and precision as the fight went on. Reivyn could see a smile tug at the corners of the man’s mouth as he apparently thought he had Reivyn’s measure.

The man’s sword seemed to bend space for a second, and a burning pain erupted in Reivyn’s shoulder. He hadn’t been able to spot the strike in time, and he had been stabbed in his off-hand shoulder. Blood poured out of the deep wound, but it didn’t hinder his ability to fight. Reivyn grit his teeth and redoubled his efforts.

The man easily moved around Reivyn’s assault with his superior Physical Stats and equivalent Skill Level. He had a smile on his face like he was taking things leisurely, but Reivyn could Sense the tenseness in the man’s body. He was attempting to get in Reivyn’s head with mind games while he was actually only marginally beating Reivyn.

Another shimmer of space and pain bloomed in Reivyn’s right thigh. His Iron Will prevented him from stumbling or shifting his stance, though, and he continued to fight at peak efficiency. A slight crease wrinkled the man’s forehead after he noticed he hadn’t worn Reivyn down any with the two successful strikes.

Reivyn sunk into his Skills and started spinning the energy in his core. He kept up his own onslaught against the robed man. His Skill Level was probably a few points higher than the other man’s, and his own grit and determination allowed those few points to bridge the Stat gap for the most part.

Reivyn blocked out everything else that could be distracting, focusing only on the fight and his internal energy. He bided his time and waited for the next shimmering strike from the man. It was obviously his Transcendent Ability, but it couldn’t be used over and over. It had an obvious build up and cooldown for its use.

The moment finally came, and Reivyn activated the Qi in his core. Qi flooded his body and mind, and the world seemed to slow down. With the man seemingly standing still, Reivyn could see that the Transcendent Ability was actually an illusion. He wasn’t moving faster or bending space. He was using a trick to make Reivyn think his sword was where it wasn’t.

With his Stats suffused with the Qi, burning at a prodigious rate, Reivyn leaned his body to the side to avoid the strike as he stabbed forth several times followed by a slash. To anyone watching, it would look like Reivyn had just performed the one slash, but five holes burst open on the man’s chest, blood fountaining out with the vacuum created from the speed of movement, and the man’s head rolled off his neck.

The headless man stood with his sword raised for a couple of seconds, the body not realizing it was dead due to the tremendous Health Pool the man had, before its knees buckled and the body collapsed to the ground.

Reivyn panted as he came out of his intense state of concentration. He looked around and saw that the rest of the mercenaries were standing around, staring at him in awe. None of them had the ability to step in to assist him, fearing they would get in the way more than help. Teilon stood with his arms crossed, a confident smirk on his face. It looked like he had never doubted Reivyn’s ability.

If Reivyn didn’t have the hidden card of flooding his body with Qi, or if the man had taken him more seriously, he wouldn’t have been able to pull off the win, but he would have been able to stall the man long enough for them to complete their mission. He was also confident Kefira would have been able to save his butt once again like she had done a couple times in the past.

Instead of paying attention to him, though, Reivyn spotted Kefira already unraveling the Space Mana suffusing the spires of the teleport device. Instead of destroying the thing outright, she was depriving it of the Mana to make it work. It wouldn’t do them any good for a surprise teleport like the time Reivyn had first run into Aeriella.

“Did any word get sent out?” Reivyn asked Teilon.

Teilon shook his head.

“The people in the other building were caught by surprise. They were more worried about running outside to find out what was going on than sending a message for help. I went ahead and had Kefira destroy the magic devices I found, though.”

“Good man,” Reivyn nodded his head. He surveyed the mercenaries who had calmed down after his fight. “Gather your gear. Let’s destroy this thing and get out of here.”