Major Thompson watched the battle progress with a steady gaze. His orders were firm, sometimes loud, but never panicked.
From the beginning to this point, he hadn’t once lost his cool once. Even when the scorpion suddenly appeared, he’d been calm.
Now that the ants had appeared, this hadn’t changed.
They were a real threat if not taken care of properly, but the thing about Citadels is that for one to stand for so long, they have to be ready for all sorts of scenarios.
The ants swarm is something they’d long been aware of. However, they never made a move to interact with it simply because there was no reason to. It was too far away to be a threat, and the gains from attacking them were too limited in comparison to the losses.
In short, it wasn’t worth it.
But now, they had been forced to confront the swarm, and it was a situation they had been prepared for.
"Activate the thinners." He ordered promptly, and one of the Handlers nodded before pressing a button on his computer.
Back on the battlefield, Fredrick perked up as he felt the Mana in the air shift. Within the wall, several magic circles suddenly activated, and a faint ripple passed through the air. Yet nothing seemed to happen.
Fredrick was a bit confused, but the next moment, he noticed the ants started acting strange.
One moment, all of them were charging forward like an unstoppable tide, but in the next moment, they’d suddenly slowed down, and their movements became sluggish as they reacted to attacks slower. They looked drunk, essentially.
Fredrick was confused for a moment, but then he got a message through his helmet, and he quickly understood why.
Ants had terrible vision by default. Sure, they had eyes, but they weren’t the best. Hence, they developed the ability to smell pheromones and sense things with their antennas.
After Mana appeared and creatures evolved, a vast majority of ants developed the ability to sense things through Mana. It wasn’t quite the same as Mana sense since this was an inherent skill they possessed, and it applied to all their senses as well. Not to mention, it wasn’t something they could inherently control.
Which could be detrimental under the right conditions.
The Magic Circles that activated in the walls had a pretty simple effect. They absorbed a large amount of Ambient Mana temporarily, so for a certain period, the Mana in the air would be reduced by a significant amount.
By doing this, they had effectively made the ants blind.
’Hm, but that also means that we can’t replenish our Mana pools that well under these conditions.’ Fredrick thought as he tried to absorb some of the Mana in the air and found it lacking. Moreover, the range of his Mana sense had reduced quite a bit too, so he couldn’t ’see’ as far as before.
’Well, it’s of no consequence.’ He thought as he extended his spear once more.
They’d just have to kill the remaining ants quickly.
"Sir, The Asset has been taken in to begin the training." Major Thompson briefly glanced at the Female handler, Sarah, who had decided to commit to informing him of things related to Osho.
"That’s alright, did he request anything?" He asked, already having a feeling for the answer based on her facial expression.
"Well, yes. He made it abundantly clear that he intends to use us just as much as we want to use him, so he made several requests after looking through certain items we had." Hearing this, Major Thompson raised a brow.
Sarah handed him a tablet and he read through it, and when he saw the things listed, his brows furrowed slightly.
Requested Sky-Affinity Materials:
1. Arcblessed Zephyr Crystals
Type: Solid | Refined Mineral
Affinity: Pure Sky Element
Grade: High-Affinity (Refined Core Shards)
Type: Liquid | Naturally Formed Mana Condensate
Affinity: Sky + Storm variant
Grade: Mid-Tier, Potent
Type: Organic | Alchemical Herb
Affinity: Sky (Directional Wind Signature)
Grade: Low-Tier Support
Quantity: 8 Leaves (Fresh or Vacuum-Sealed within 3 hrs of harvest)
4. Aether-Forged Plume
Type: Artifact Remnant | Beast-Shed Feather
Quantity: 1 (Intact, not chipped or dulled)
Besides these, there were also requests for several essential tools, like mortars, burners, and so on.
"... Did he say what he needs these for?" Thompson asked, and Sarah hesitated for a moment before answering.
"He said he intends to make a Tonic for his beast. He didn’t give any more details besides that." Hearing this, Thompson’s frown deepened.
’But we are already giving him tonics? Is he not satisfied with what we are giving him? Or does he have other plans? Moreover, from what I’m seeing, it seems like he intends to create it himself. Why is that? Even if he’s learning how to create them, surely he can’t do it better than the trained and verified Alchemists in our ranks.’ At this moment, Thompson was very much tempted to just write off the request as a childish attempt to gain things he didn’t know how to use, and that he should just give the kid something else that would actually be useful. After all, none of these things he’d requested were cheap. In fact, they were exceptionally difficult to acquire.
However, he thought back to their conversation, and no matter how he looked at it, Osho didn’t seem like the type of person to do something impulsively, at least not something that was too risky.
What he didn’t know was that Osho was indeed quite impulsive, as a result of his not-so-subtle ADHD. But it was controlled enough to make it seem like he wasn’t.
The Major fell silent for a while. He was still observing the battle, but his attention jad been split into two parts.
After a while, he smiled slightly. He was a bit curious to see what exactky Osho intended to do.
"Approve it." Hearing him give the go-ahead, Sarah hesitated for a moment, but in the end, her protest died on her lips and she just nodded.
Turning his attention back to the screen displaying the battle, his eyes widened slightly as he saw Fredrick rejoin the battle after the ants had been disoriented by the Mana Dampening Formation.
On the battlefield, Fredrick decided to let loose a little bit.
He hopped on the makeshift wall, his feet not being at risk of slipping as he held himself down using Mana, and he begun to run across it while his Spear began to move like a hurricane.
No, literally. He summoned numerous water droplets that swirled around his body, mostly congregating around his spear and moving with it whenever he attacked, resembling a hurricane.
His movements were swift and destructive. He’d use the shaft or butt of his spear to deal heavy blunt damage on the exoskeletons of the ants before quickly finishing them off with a thrust from his spear, the swirling water droplets making the spearhead shaper and more powerful.
He moved across the wall with a staggering grace, dancing through the mass of creatures that were too disoriented to properly defend against his attacks.
His movements were controlled and wasted little energy as he killed everything that moved. Not to mention, Hydro was supporting him. Sometimes, if an ant tried to enter his blindspot, a spear of water would impale it and send it flying, or maybe a water shield would appear to protect him from a stray attack.
It was swift and efficient, and as a result, Fredrick started to contribute heavily to stop the ants from proceeding any further.
Their numbers were immense, but in the end, they were just big insects with limited intelligence. Strong, yes, but still limited.
They didn’t have a tamer, they never received any sort of training to hone their skills to a level above what their race dictated. They acted based on instinct alone, and perhaps the will of a stronger beast, but that was all they were in the end. Beasts.
One could be immensely powerful, or have large amounts of untapped potential, but without the mind to truly make use of such strength or potential, there was only so much they could do.
However, Fredrick was keenly aware of the fact that these ants were just a small part of a larger puzzle. They weren’t smart, and they simply acted based on the will of a beast stronger than them.
The same didn’t apply to the Skyblight Harbinger.
It was strong, but it was also intelligent. It knew how to strategize, it was injured and knew that it needed to hang back and heal itself while simultaneously sending forth its army to gradually weaken the impenetrable defense rected by the humans.
It was patient, but also ruthless. Its army was simply a means to an end, a method to achieve its goal. It was injured, but it would heal in time, and when it did, it would come for them.
But the humans would be prepared.
Because no matter how smart it was, it was only a few days old as far as they were concerned.