Fine," Veylara relented, her tone flat and sharp as she stood in the center of the southern clearing.
"But you will not march alone or with a random scout squad. If you are going into that swamp, you will take a team personally selected by to ensure you have maximum support.
After all, if sothing happens to you, the whole plan will fall apart."
Hearing this Sol raised his brows, but didn’t say anything, he knew she was right, he was too important to have an accident. So, he didn’t object to her arrangents.
The clearing was quiet, filled with groups of one hundred and eighty elite spirit warriors waiting under the dimming sky. Veylara turned to a nearby runner and gave a sharp nod. "Go. Bring Kira and Zeyra here right now."
The runner sprinted off into the dark paths toward the central huts. A few minutes later, the rustle of ferns announced their arrival.
Kira walked out first, her long bow fully strung over her shoulder. Her feline eyes were locked onto Sol with a complex mix of fierce, petty irritation and deep, unrefined relief. But her posture turned into hard discipline the mont she stopped before her mother.
Right behind her ca Zeyra. She wore tight, dark leather gear suited for raw combat, her fingers resting loosely at her sides.
But the mont her dark eyes landed on Sol, that wide, unblinking yandere devotion flared up instantly.
She stepped forward and stood right beside his shoulder, her presence completely anchored to his shadow.
"And you need a dedicated tracker who can sll an enemy through three layers of swamp muck," Veylara continued, gesturing toward a short, compact girl resting near a pile of bone-spears. "Tala! Get up here."
The newly introduced tracker girl stepped into the light with a quick, completely silent bound. Unlike Kira’s athletic, tall fra, Tala was small, frail, and covered from head to toe in dark, mottled lizard-skin leather caked in gray river silt.
Her hair was cropped close to her skull, and her eyes were a strange, pale, milky-grey... the distinct mark of the Blind Cave-Bat spirit.
Her nose twitched constantly, tasting the ambient air of the clearing with a hyper-reactive intensity.
She didn’t carry a spear or a bow; her only weapons were two long, curved bone-needles strapped tightly to her forearms.
"Tala can map a mile of dense undergrowth by the sound of a single falling leaf," Thauren grunted, crossing his massive arms over his gold-scaled chest. "She’ll keep your line from running into a blind ravine when the pivot starts."
"To complete the six-man squad, you take Torin, Bran, and Kael," Veylara finalized, pointing to three broad-shouldered, scar-faced Layer 2 veterans who carried the heavy Wind-Leopard speed traits.
They stepped forward in unison, hitting their chest armor in a silent, disciplined salute. "They will act as your imdiate shield segnt if the periter gets too thick."
Sol looked at his designated squad... Kira, Zeyra, Tala, and the three veteran leopard-warriors. It was a simple, lethal unit.
Kira provided high-precision ranged support, Zeyra handled the raw physical execution and core support, Tala provided tracking sensory loops, and the three veterans provided the muscle needed to burn the enemy infrastructure.
With the teams locked into position, one elders stepped forward, his trembling fingers clutching his ceremonial bone staff as he looked up at the darkened tree canopy.
"The sun has completely vanished, Divine One. The shadows are long, and the dark is hitting its peak. The traditional tribal doctrine dictates that we launch our raids at midnight, when our shadows are hidden. We should unleash the nine hornet teams into the brush right now."
"No," Sol said imdiately, his voice flat and definitive.
The old elder blinked, his mouth dropping open in surprise. "But... the cover of total darkness—"
"The cover of total darkness is exactly what the enemy expects," Sol interrupted, a cold smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as he looked down at the mud. "And don’t forget, the Zerith stalkers are nocturnal by nature.
Their sensory pathways are hyper-tuned to the dark, and their eyes see better in the black than any human spirit warrior.
Right now, because they just launched a midnight raid on our borders yesterday, they are on absolute, full alert.
They expect us to be furious, desperate, and stupid enough to launch a counter-raid into their camps under the cover of midnight.
If we go in there right now, we are marching straight into their prepared sentry lines."
He pointed his thumb toward the eastern treeline where the morning light would eventually break. "We will hold the teams inside the clearing through the dark and release the nine hornet squad at exactly dawn tomorrow morning... at the first crack of grey light."
The captains and spirit warriors listened intently, their heads tilting as the calculation sank into their minds.
"But still, wouldn’t it be too risky to ambush in daylight?" the elder tried to argue.
"Think about it," Sol explained, his silver-crimson eyes gleaming. "By dawn, their night sentries will have been standing in the cold mud for eight hours straight.
They will be exhausted, their core perception will be sluggish, and their minds will be completely relaxed because they’ll think the danger of a Veynar night retaliation has passed.
Their dayti reserves will still be asleep inside their tents, and the morning mist will naturally disrupt their visual lines. That is when they are at their most defenseless.
We hit them when they are transitioning their guard, we burn their tents while they’re still inside their furs, and we draw first blood before they can even rub the sleep out of their eyes."
A heavy, profound silence filled the southern clearing as the utter, ruthless brilliance of the timing shift settled over the elite spirit warriors.
It wasn’t just a physical adjustnt; it was a psychological execution that stripped the alien monsters of their natural environntal advantage.
They already knew that it was Sol who had proposed today’s strategy, but they didn’t think it would be this brilliant.
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