"So, there's no sure way in the capital?" Reign asked Raigon and the others who simply nodded at him.
"All of the entrances, including the hidden ones, are well-known to the royal family and there is no way that they would leave any of it unguarded," Raigon said as he pointed at a couple of spots on the map that was showing the capital of Riplas.
"With them now knowing that we have you amongst our ranks, they will be even warier and will definitely do anything in their power to make sure we can't surprise them with an attack."
"Doing a full-on frontal assault is also not something we can really pull off since they will definitely use the civilians in order to make us stop our attacks in fear of hurting them."
"You're sure they will use the civilians?" One man asked from the side as Raigon nodded.
"Trust me, my father would have done it even before I found out he was part of this scheme, when it comes to the kingdom, he and some of the others believe that the royal family and the kingdom have to survive no matter what, even if it meant sacrificing thousands of people to achieve it."
"They will, without a shred of doubt, use the people to make us falter in our attacks and attack back at that very moment."
"Some of you might be able to ignore it and fight on, but I'm not going to slaughter innocent people in order to liberate the kingdom, I, of course, understand that sacrifices must be made, but not like this."
"I agree, charging the capital and slaughtering thousands of innocent people is not the way, I get sick from the very thought of doing so." Reign added to the side as Raigon nodded at him gratefully in response.
"We know, everybody here knows that doing that is wrong and that we need to find a different way to attack them, we just need to figure out how to do so," Eisenhorn said before putting his hand on his forehead and staring at the map.
He was the protector of the realm, killing innocent people was definitely not something he would do. But the problem was the fact that they had no idea how else to attack the capital, after all, the enemy had the home court advantage, and everything they knew about the capital, the royal family did as well, and more.
"Walk me through this, what kind of defenses does the capital have?" Reign suddenly asked Raigon who started narrating and showing him everything.
"Defensive array, auxiliary support array for the defensive one, another, 2 more here, and the final support array here."
"Then there are the combat arrays which will increase the power of everyone present, but they were useful up to Tier II, every being above it would not gain any increase in power, of course, that was before we found out that the queen was a scheming alien that had arrived here since god knows when."
"We have several other arrays that will buff specific parts of a person, and there are a couple of defensive formations that had been placed here ever since the kingdom was founded, at their maximum output, they can summon avatars of powerful monsters to help during battle, from what I have known, the avatars are only Tier I, but the formations need monster cores to be activated, and I have no idea what would happen if one was to put a monster core of a Tier II or Tier III being in them."
"Wait, the formations have been there ever since the kingdom was founded, who placed them there?"
"That's the thing, nobody knows, hell, nobody even knows just how powerful the founder was, the man simply founded the kingdom, got a couple of kids, and left when they were of age."
"From what I know, there had been nobody powerful enough to go against the founder back then, and that was why the kingdom was able to get such a good position in this area."
"The formations had only been used once before, and that was when the kingdom was in great peril decades ago and was close to collapsing."
"It was the formations that helped the kingdom win and continue existing, but ever since then, no situation was grave enough to use them, especially since the active range of the monsters was only about 2 miles around the capital, not nearly far enough to help out during battles that were being fought at the frontlines."
"The defensive array is also a troublesome one since it was powerful enough to withstand the attacks of Tier II beings, with the capital being in the enemy hand, they have at the very least attempted to improve it."
"I have no idea how long the queen had planned this, so there is no saying just what kind of powers and information she has."
"Perhaps she is even able to change the arrays and make them more powerful, in which case, we won't fare well in battle since the enemy might be able to outpower us thanks to them." Raigon rubbed his forehead in frustration as he thought of all the possible scenarios.
All the things that might go right, and all the things that might go wrong.
"So, we can't sneak in, and we definitely can't attack them straight on, right?" Reign asked the group as they all nodded their heads.
"Well, why not attack from above then?" Reign suddenly asked them.
"Huh?"
"I mean, with Raigon's ability, shouldn't it be a relatively simple job to get us all wings like the ones he has and allow us to attack the capital from above?"
"Unfortunately, no." Raigon shook his head with a sad expression.
"I tried before, but using my Creation ability on others is much more difficult compared to myself."
"I can at max create 3 pairs of wings, and even then, controlling them is much harder than controlling the ones on me."
"The speed with which we would be flying wouldn't be fast enough to get to the capital without being noticed, and then they would turn on the arrays, and that would be that."
"Damn it." Reign said as he clicked his tongue in frustration.
He knew that the battle they would go through was going to be an extremely difficult one.
He had almost died when fighting against the leader of the demons, and that was only the first step of the challenge. The second one asked of him to deal with the mastermind behind the invasion, which Reign suspected was the queen.
She was definitely no slouch and fighting her would not be any easier compared to fighting the demon leader. For now, Aethion was in charge of trying to get as much information as he could from the demon in order to find out more about the enemy he was about to face.
The task was not easy, and even Aethion was having some difficulty when it came to forcing the demon to comply with his demands and give information. He could always use more extreme methods to force him, but that would damage the already damaged soul, and the information might not be worth it.
The risk was simply too large to ignore, which meant that Aethion was stuck with slowly torturing the demon and making him scream in pain until the latter relented and gave them the information they wanted to know.
"Hey, are there any monsters that can fly around here?" Reign asked as the others all shook their heads.
"Really, none, not even in the mountain range?" Reign asked as the group suddenly stared at him in wonder.
"How the hell did I forget about that?!" Raigon suddenly palmed his head before sitting down.
"We haven't really come across any monsters that are capable of flight inside the mountain range, but we never really went too far in since it was too dangerous, there is no saying what kinds of monsters are there."
"Even if there turned out to be none that can fly, there might be some with weird abilities that could help us sneak in."
"You didn't think of it because there was no need to do so, our strength was not enough to deal with the enemy without Reign, it is only now when he is here that we can fully focus on dealing with the enemy and create plans to help us do so," Eisenhorn said in an attempt to cheer Raigon up a bit.
The latter smiled slightly before nodding at Eisenhorn and staring at the others.
"Alright, first things first, get some rest, especially you Reign, you're not in the best shape right now, and we will need you in your best later."
"We will leave for the mountain range the next day, once we do, nobody is allowed to wander off or get too far away from the group, otherwise, you will die, I can almost guarantee that."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺