Doaf glanced in silence towards Arthur while knowing how serious this talk was. "He is acting strange, I admit that. However, that doesn't mean I doubt him."
"Have you spoken to your surviving men?" Arthur noticed how careful Doaf was in selecting his words and that made him know he got the message.
But he didn't believe it.
"I… spoke with some," Doaf said.
"And?"
"What do you want to say?" Doaf directly asked, "I want to hear it from you."
"If you want it this way," Arthur took a deep breath, "from what I learnt, my godfather didn't leave the world behind without proper defenses. In fact I bet he left it with enough defenses to last for a long time, right?"
Doaf didn't answer but nodded for Arthur to continue.
"Many expressed their doubts about what happened. I didn't ask for the entire story, neither will I. But you should."
"Why?" Doaf simply said, "what happened there must be known only to a handful of people."
"I bet it's known to all who stayed alive," Arthur pointed to a certain direction, "and I bet those coming last and got severely wounded are the ones knowing the entire truth."
Doaf gave him a deep glance before turning around. "I'll keep you posted with updates, but…" he paused and took a deep breath in obvious hesitation, "please don't act rashly with assumptions."
"I won't," Arthur calmly said, "that's why I called for you."
Doaf flew fast towards a certain direction while Arthur stayed there watching him.
'Ding! He seems to slightly believe it,' the system said.
"Yeah, I could feel his hesitation already," Arthur slowly muttered, "and that's a bad thing to begin with. What about Amera?"
'No news yet,' Gege said, 'and that old dragon is sleeping like a little baby. He refuses to wake up no matter what I do.'
"Leave him for now," Arthur said, "our top priority is this trap."
'The tree is watching him and his men,' Gege said, 'he didn't move till now.'
"He is waiting," Arthur glanced at the direction of Marcos, "but I bet he won't stay calm forever."
'Ding! You depend on Doaf's actions to stir him up?'
"'If he thought he was about to be exposed then he would be forced to act," Arthur said in agreement, "Doaf's actions are needed to force his hands."
'I'll keep an eye over Doaf as well,' Gege said before the next moment she suddenly shouted: 'Bad news!'
Just before Arthur could say anything, a bird's wing came from Doaf. "They are all dead!" is what was written inside the small piece of paper.
"Damn!" Arthur let the paper burn while asking, "Did the tree know this?"
'She just told me the news,' Gege said, 'In one second the entire group of wounded mages who came last died all of sudden. It's like they were all killed with some sort of trigger or attack.'
"Did she see anyone attacking them?"
'No, she only saw them fall to their death just a moment after being normal.'
Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Someone acted faster than us and is trying desperately to contain the situation and cover up his trail," he muttered before taking a bird's wing and wrote something to Doaf.
"Let's see who is smarter here asshole," he said while watching the bird's wing burn and vanish.
'Ding! Will this work?' the system looked quite suspicious.
"At least it will make Marcos unsettled," Arthur shrugged, "and it's all up on Doaf's next performance to make him believe this or not."
'I'll keep an eye on him.'
"No need," Arthur smiled, "I can already hear everything he is doing from this far."
All of sudden the mages resting all around got stirred up. Like a calm red ant army that got suddenly summoned, they all moved towards one direction.
'Shouldn't we go there and watch?' Gege asked in interest.
"No, we need to stay and defend the array here," Arthur firmly declined, "open my portal and take out all the mechas please."
'Preparing for war?'
"Why not?" Arthur sneered, "who knows what a traitor would do when he feels greatly threatened."
'Ding! plus we lacked the large number of portals you used to have.'
'Alright,' Gege was convinced and the next moment a small portal appeared before mechas started to get out.
And Nara was leading them.
"Your orders," she greeted Arthur by this phrase.
"You act all tough with me, y'know?" Arthur couldn't help but say and she seemed a bit startled with his words. "Never mind," he tried to calm her, "I believe we might have an attack at the array soon."
"From where?" she asked, trying to jump over the last embarrassing moment of her.
"From here," Arthur said and she glanced at him for a short moment. "one of ours?" she asked.
"Not actually but it's one of those we saved before."
"I understand," she nodded and Arthur doubted she understood what was happening here. "I'll deploy my men and be ready."
"Nara," he stopped her," this might be a little harder than before, so prepare your men for this."
"I got it," she firmly said before flying in the air to get a clear view on things around.
'Ding! To damage any array you should aim at the main pillars of it,' the system said, 'Ding! but as this array is quite complicated and without any obvious pillars to it, the only way to destroy it will be through its core.'
"I know that already,"Arthur slowly said, "plus I intend to use the traps here to get some of them if they decide to come."
'What about Amera?' Gege asked, 'shouldn't we summon her back?'
"No, she is the main threat to that bastard," Arthur said, "the real threat isn't coming from Doaf or me, or even this array. It's coming from what Amera is doing."
'You want him to go after her,' Gege realized, 'then why take the mecha here?'
"To fool him," Arthur slowly said, "Amera can be saved and she isn't really doing anything. But risking the array here is something I don't want to see."
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