Chapter 117 Planning
Chapter 117 Planning
Planning
"Thankfully though, it's just an insignificant fragment of him, so while it will be difficult, it's not impossible to beat it," Han said, though his tone grew empty at the last part.
"... so again, why is the mission still in progress in that case?" Titus asked again, and everyone had a varying expression, none of them good.
"... We can't break its scales." Zephyr was the one who spoke this time. The Dragon looked too tired to even feel angry.
Titus blinked.
"And there's no other way to break past its scales and damage it?" He asked with exasperation.
"As far as we can tell, it's immune to true damage. At least, true damage any of us can inflict. Mental attacks don't work. No one here can deal soul damage if that would even work, and it's surprisingly smart, enough to cover any possible weak spots it has. Like its eyes. Oh, and that's if we even manage to get close since you know, it has complete control over ice." Felicia mentioned without humor.
At this, Titus frowned. The lineup here wasn't bad by any means. He knew what his siblings were capable of, and Zephyr was one of the strongest dragons in the entire army. Not to mention Aisha, who used Fate itself as a weapon.
He couldn't say much for the ones he didn't know, but they were certainly not weak if they had the qualifications to stay in this place. Still, Titus was a bit curious.
"Hold on, you guys already seem to have extensive info on what we're facing." He stated,
the underlying meaning was how they had attained such information.
Curtis said simply.
"We decided to probe it ourselves." His expression didn't change, but his eyes grew darker.
"There were 12 of us initially." Titus shuddered.
Then again, why should he be so surprised? After what he witnessed when his master fought the members of his Cohort, he could confidently say that every single one of them was a calamity, and judging from what he saw, sir Lenax possessed the most raw strength of anyone there, the only other person capable of matching him being sir Silver. And that was just in his physical stats alone.
Titus did not doubt in his mind that no one here would even be able to force him to use his abilities, so a clone causing so much trouble wasn't all that surprising.
"Judging by how you guys haven't lost all hope or decided to throw everything we have at him in one desperate attempt to achieve our objective, I'm guessing there's a plan of sorts?" He asked, and everyone turned serious and looked at him intently.
If it was before, such a thing would have made him nervous, being stared at by so many people who, for the longest time, he had no choice but to look up to.
But currently, he now understood that his position as the Disciple of the most powerful entity within the Primordial Expanse placed him in a unique spot that was very hard to compare to, and he was simply too tired to care about feeling nervous.
Lastly, he had an idea of why they were looking at him.
"Your sword. What are its effects again?" Felicia enquired, and Titus nodded, having expected a similar question.
He stared at the tattoo of the shattered sword on his hand and thought about it. Due to only being able to use a fragment of Veylthar's power currently, there weren't a lot of things it could do.
But the few things it COULD do were very... potent, to say the least.
"Well, there are two abilities I have access to at the moment," Titus said and calmly materialised the Incandescent Sword. The moment it appeared, the Mana in the tent started to move with a bit more excitement.
"The first skill is Soul Cutter. The use is simple enough, I can ignore conventional defenses to deal with soul damage. The second skill is more defensive, so it doesn't apply much to this equation." Then he thought for a moment and lightly sliced the air in front of him.
Everyone watched on with some amazement as the blade effortlessly passed through the air... and space, leaving a small rift that closed soon after.
"It's also... sharp." He said simply and put the blade away. Everyone stared at him for a moment before the wolf Demihuman chuckled. Your adventure continues at empire
"Well, I guess that issue has been settled." He said, and everyone shared his sentiment.
"Okay, we have our method of damaging the clone, but there's still the issue of its abilities." Han pointed out.
"What are its abilities?" Titus asked.
"Complete control over ice. Temperature Manipulation, size Manipulation, clone creation, yes the clone can create clones, Frost gaze, that's what we call it, its dragon breath, its flight is also a factor, right, and that entire place it's in is no different from its Domain." Felicia listed again without any humor, and the atmosphere just became depressing.
"I think the strategy is pretty simple." The Centaur woman spoke for the first time, and everyone looked at her with curiosity. And she smiled.
"Well, do everything in our power to let Titus deal as much damage with his sword as possible." There were some chuckles.
"Crude, inefficient, and very correct." Felicia smiled slightly before looking at Aisha.
"What do you reckon?" Hearing this, Aisha seemed to become dazed for a moment, and then she sighed.
"Well, we have three possible paths. Well, technically, two since the third is doomed to fail. Basically, it's just whether or not we decide to take the soldiers with us or we go ourselves." Hearing this, everyone looked at her curiously.
"What's the difference between the two?" Titus asked.
Aisha was silent for a moment before knocking on the table lightly.
"Well, the former has a higher chance of success, but the casualties will be staggering, and the latter is the opposite." She explained and everyone went silent for a moment as each person weighed the pros and cons.
"I have a suggestion." Titus raised his hand and everyone turned to him.
"I'm against sending all the soldiers, but I also recognise that going in with just us isn't very smart. So why don't we gather the best soldiers we have at our disposal along with ourselves to handle it?" Hearing this, everyone turned to Aisha whose eyes lost focus.
"Oh. That is quite viable." She nodded, seemingly having seen a new path she hadn't seen before.
"So are we all in agreement?" Curtis asked and after a few moments, everyone expressed their agreement.
"Then it's settled." The Wolf Demihuman said and they all nodded.
"Now to plan in detail," Han mumbled and everyone came closer.
Everyone started to discuss what they could do in detail. Titus was also asking a lot of questions, like how smart the clone was, the frequency of abilities it used, and so on.
It wasn't too fruitful because again, they had only gone to probe and see what exactly they were dealing with, which alone made them lose 4 leaders.
Also, Felicia with her all-seeing eye let her know that the clone hadn't shown them everything it had by a long shot, and there were very few weaknesses for them to exploit.
If there was one saving grace though, it was that Zephyr was confident in being able to contain Lenax for a few minutes on his own if he went all out, and with the help of the others, this time could be increased. Though by how much, that was left to be seen.
The biggest issue was getting Titus close enough to do damage.
Again, the clone was smart enough to protect any potential weak spots it had, like its eyes. And with its control over ice, it wasn't an exaggeration to assume that it was very perceptive when it came to sensing energy, and the energy in Veylthar was very potent. Meaning that the moment Titus revealed the blade, the clone would instantly be on guard against him, and either do everything in its power to kill him immediately, or avoid him entirely and deal with the others first.
This meant that the group had to ensure that Titus had a clear-cut opportunity to deal damage, and not any light damage either, but actual substantial hits.
This was definitely an issue, because effectively tying down the clone was not something anyone here could do. At least, not for long enough to give Titus the chance to deal effective damage.
However, Felicia raised a suggestion.
"Why can't we simply create something related to binding? We have the greatest Fate User in the Primordial Expanse here, so things related to binding shouldn't be hard for her to come up with, and with all our abilities, we should at least be able to develop effective 'chains' that we can use to tie down the clone long enough for Titus to deal damage." Hearing this, everyone considered it for a moment.
Indeed, there was no specific time limit on the mission, so they could take the time to create a powerful binding tool. Not to mention that their soldiers all had a myriad of abilities that could help in creating such a thing.
"I second that idea." Aisha said with a small smile and the others soon joined in.