Evan hadn't killed the Sixth Finger of the Demonic Hand, Seith.
After incapacitating him and weakening him with debuffs that limited his power, he handed him over to Yetu so that Yetu could have his fun and as many rematches with Seith as he wanted.
Even then, Evan had given specific instructions not to kill him.
He had also used the Slave Brand to command Seith against taking his own life, which would cause his soul to return to the First Finger.
Even if his soul was destroyed, the death of any 'Node' of the World Formation would alert the First Finger, and if Seith were to die at this juncture, then the First Finger would instantly order Deram, the Fifth Finger, who was currently in the Wild Lands, to begin executing their plan even if they weren't fully prepared.
The issue was that Evan's own plans and the pieces he wanted in play were not all ready yet, so it would be disastrous for him if the First Finger acted prematurely.
That was why he hadn't killed Seith.
However, not killing Seith would only buy him a short amount of ti. The reason was that the First Finger routinely checked on the Demonic Hand's Executives.
When the ti for the next routine check arrived, and Seith failed to report, the First Finger would use his skill to verify his state, and the mont he sees that Seith's fate line has gone dark, he would imdiately give the order to initiate the Disaster.
This was exactly what Evan had told Rizass he intended to do—that he would remove a key elent from their plan, and the First Finger wouldn't realise that key was missing until it was too late.
A third of the Sixth Division's strength was gone. Hundreds of Wildcard Protocol Demons that they had spent a lot of resources and even lost n trying to summon.
That loss was a massive blow to the Demonic Hand, especially considering how much of their available forces they could assign to the ongoing operation.
They could, of course, call in reserve forces as reinforcents, but those reinforcents would need ti to get into position, and the First Finger wasn't going to risk finding out what Evan could do—or how much more damage he could cause—during that ti.
◇ ◇ ◇
The following days were incredibly busy for Evan.
Even with all his experience in planning wars from both his ti in the past and his mories as Prisma, he still needed ti to get everything in order.
He had to coordinate with the forces of several nations, manage the imnse logistical operations that ca with moving over a million troops across the Wild Lands desert regions, determine perfect points to conceal so of those forces until the right ti, and plan the exact timing of their arrivals and entrances into the coming battle.
They couldn't deploy all his forces at once, as doing so would expose their entire hand to the Demonic Hand, which would be unwise.
So units were going to join the fight only after the initial clashes had begun, while others would appear much later, closer to the end.
There were even certain existences that wouldn't need to move at all if everything went as planned.
"Or rather, they would only need to act if things go exactly according to plan…"
When Evan suddenly said this last part aloud, Bianca turned her gaze toward him and asked, "What are you talking about?"
Evan then looked up from the map spread across the desk and said, "No, don't worry about it. I was just thinking about a few parts of the plan and so other forces I haven't told you all about."
He then lifted his gaze to the faces of the leaders of the forces sent by the nations he was working with.
Vice Chief Grand Magus of Kasteblum Joanna, the Second Star of the GEE's Seven Star Generals Kieran, the Second Sword of the GWE's Ten Great Swordsn, Luke, Warlord of Tarse, Isobel, Beast Keeper of the Beast Kingdom Selah, along with a Legend-Class Holy Knight from the Holy Kingdom and a Four-Striped General from the Utrarian Republic.
"All right, everyone, focus back on the drawing board. Our goals are to stop the 'Disaster' and 'Saving Tarse'.
Let's get this planning stage over with."
◇ ◇ ◇
After the eting with his collaborators, Evan moved across Tarse and used his hypersonic speed to sweep through the nation's skies faster than anyone could properly track.
Even if soone sohow caught a glimpse of him, they wouldn't identify him as 'Evan Eris' because he had assud his dragon form for this task.
He spent two days coordinating activities and arranging troop positions to handle the internal unrest that would signal the beginning of the Disaster.
Midway through this, he left Aidos for the Regal Void Expanse, where a brief eting with the Realm Lord, who was present this ti, ended with him receiving an Automation that he imdiately carried into the Wild Lands.
He instructed the Automation to monitor a particular location along the route to the Demonic Hand's designated energy hotspot, a place that served as one of the Fifth Division's stopover encampnts in the desert.
If the Fifth Division intended to head toward the site where they planned to initiate the disaster, they'd certainly pass through that area.
Evan was sure of this because the spot held one of the rare oases in the Wild Lands, small as it was.
'No matter how good Deram and Xolgren are with spatial magic, they're definitely not going to teleport tens of thousands, because that would drain an enormous amount of magic power and leave them far from their best for the inevitable battles that would follow—all unwise decisions they would not make under any circumstance.
I told the automation to report any movents whatsoever, so the mont they act, we act.'
Evan had chosen an automation instead of an organic being because organic beings required food and rest, while the automation needed none of that. It could also remain active for several weeks without losing efficiency to ntal fatigue, making it ideal as a watchman.
The Demonic Hand planned to cause internal unrest across Tarse through Inter-Region wars to pull the attention of both Tarse's Military and the Sandfire Palace that commanded them, but Leviah's intervention over the past year ant that the number of Regions aligned with the Demonic Hand that still possessed their full forces was only about half of what had originally been planned.
Even so, there were still Regions Evan couldn't send Leviah against, so so asure of unrest would still break out, and he took part in the discussions planning on how to handle those situations without causing civilian casualties.
Evan also travelled around the Wild Lands and set up nodes for a World Isolation Barrier, using a direct copy of the node formation the Demonic Hand had used in Lacertilia to expand the barrier until it covered the entire city and strengthened it to the point where a Level 800 was needed to break through it.
A fitting way to give the Demonic Hand a taste of their own dicine, using their own plan against them.
'Bet they're never gonna see that coming.'
The nodes that had been left behind when Dandeyr appeared and brought an abrupt end to Kethryllia's plans to eliminate Evan and David had been studied by the Beast Kingdom and Kasteblum's Mages, and they managed to grasp a portion of the otherworld technology used in creating them.
Now, Evan placed those sa nodes throughout the Wild Lands because he intended to deploy a World Isolation Barrier around the desert if Xolgren used his Trump Card summon, giving him the ans to trap that being within the Wild Lands long enough for him to use his own last resort, the country-wide summoning circle.
As for confronting Xolgren's summon directly? Evan might be a little crazy, but he sure as hell wasn't suicidal.
Why would he choose to fight an existence with the title of 'World Conqueror' by himself?
He didn't want any of Aidos' Transcendents dying either, so if any of them showed even the slightest intent to fight, he'd decided he'd knock them out right there and then, even if doing so ant revealing his full power before the plan was ready.
He didn't want any of Aidos' Transcendents dying either, so if any of them showed even the tiniest bit of an intent to fight…
"I'd knock them out there and then, even if it ans revealing my full power earlier than planned."
Evan muttered those words to himself, taking a deep breath as he pushed himself up from his desk and walked out to the balcony, sending a scanning pulse of magic power across the continent to locate the Transcendents.
'Altrishia is in the Beast Kingdom? Doing what?'
He frowned as he sensed the Dragon Lord's presence, already reaching for his phone to call Kolvar and tell him to get her off the continent, when he noticed her moving away on her own.
'Good. For my plans to work, none of the Transcendents should be within detectable range.
Rathal is still in Hydran's cave in Duscon. Kolvar would head to the Volcano dungeon until the battle starts, and Altrishia should remain on her islands.'
He went over those details again in his mind, dragging a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh before raising his eyes to the stars scattered across the night sky.
As the cool desert night breeze moved around him, he muttered quietly.
"Should be about ti…"
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