Chapter 428: Chapter 428 – Tars War – Storm Queen – (1/3)
Selphira finally reached the range where she felt most comfortable using her devastating attacks.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t launch them earlier or at greater distance than the novices she was about to face, (after four hundred years of experience, her range surpassed that of any other tar present), but rather a matter of pure efficiency.
Launching mana at long distances was considerably more costly than using it in the imdiate vicinity, and besides, she had a powerful beast that required proximity for maximum effectiveness: her Gold 2 White Serpent.
It wasn’t the most powerful beast or the most defensive she had, those titles belonged to the other creature in her arsenal, but it was the one that moved fastest and created the most “waves” of destruction when deployed appropriately.
That’s why Selphira preferred using it to overwhelm this kind of soldier formations when they were densely grouped.
And for this tactic, she didn’t use the serpent’s natural body. It was a large target, so even if fairly resistant… in the end it would receive too much unnecessary damage if exposed directly to concentrated enemy fire.
Instead, she always gave it ice armor.
The armor was a way to expand even further the damage area, adding spikes and angular forms specifically designed to deflect attacks. While the armor remained intact, the creature received almost as much defensive resistance as her turtle, but beca a terrible threat to entire armies.
First of all, attacking it directly could backfire because attacks could ricochet and harm their own people around them.
Charged attacks in such proximity were also a bad idea since they couldn’t be charged in ti, and the few that managed it sent ice fragnts flying in all directions like shrapnel.
For all the above reasons…
Many people began summoning their Silver-rank beasts to send them into direct attack…
But found themselves with the sa problematic situation.
They could hardly damage ice reinforced with power and mana density greater than their forms, and many large beasts ended up being thrown back by the impact force when overwheld by the enormous armored creature, crushing the very soldiers they were trying to protect.
Selphira wasn’t on her first rodeo or even her tenth. She was a true veteran of more conflicts than any of these soldiers would ever manage to experience.
The accumulated wisdom of centuries showed in her every movent, every decision, every application of power. She had fought in wars when most of these soldiers’ grandfathers hadn’t even been born, had perfected techniques through trial and error across all that ti.
She was unstoppable.
Even if her idea of attacking the castle and angering Kharzan hadn’t worked and the coward continued in the middle of his army, Selphira was determined to reach him.
And perhaps she could have tried to go directly toward where Kharzan was, in a straight line through all this soldiers, but reality was that not all enemies had Silver-rank creatures or large beasts she could ignore.
Gold creatures dispersed in various parts of the march were capable of weakening her armor. Many were fast, others flew, and those with specialized fire or wood attacks… ice armor couldn’t resist them as well as other elental types.
But Selphira wanted to at least reach the height of the opened wall through the soldiers and make her own ice wall… just that, before avoiding their flow and getting ahead to search for Kharzan from one of the march’s sides.
Besides…
If she wanted the wall she would help create to be ‘respected’ for a while, she first had to make them ‘respect’ her by creating a bit of chaos and fear.
And despite conservation thods and efficiency, she had to consider her energy expenditure carefully.
The serpent’s armor wasn’t very costly for her, but regenerating it wasn’t free either. Continuing through the middle of all soldiers wasn’t a good idea since she would arrive with little mana for her battle against Kharzan.
Still, she could afford to create the wall, since the power she was showing was already sufficient and relatively cheap.
It was enough that none of the Silver juniors could stop her.
And in the case of Gold ranks… her serpent wasn’t alone. It had its tar mounted on its head, and that tar had much power of her own too.
Black marks and tattoos from her turtle coursed through Selphira’s body like circuits of power. So physical characteristics also manifested, skin that had beco slightly scaly in certain areas, eyes that shone with the depth of black oceans.
The White Serpent’s wind power in the vicinity allowed her to manipulate and freeze her black beast’s water at great speed, creating attack combinations that were impossible to counter for tars of lesser experience.
Four centuries of practice had taught her to blend the abilities of her creatures so seamlessly that observers often couldn’t tell where one beast’s power ended and another’s began.
♢♢♢♢
After finally freezing a problematic Royal Crimson Eagle, (the Gold 1 evolution of the red eagle), that had been harassing her flanks with fire attacks, Selphira reached the place she had been seeking.
It was the perfect position at the height of the wall section they had opened and expanded for easy access to the city area. This was Dravenholm jurisdiction and her own Ashenway family territory… she had to make clear who the owner was here.
Hundreds of years of territorial control wouldn’t be surrendered to upstart Goldcrests and their abyssal allies.
Selphira was going to help them raise the new frontier wall again, but bigger and more majestic…
Separating at least 5,000 troops from the Goldcrest rear, and surely delaying them several hours to deal with the dense mana from her high-level beasts.
‘It’s ti to rise.’
Her body began to glow with intensity that made the air itself distort around her.
Every tar near her who had desperately tried to stop her advance imdiately felt how power accumulated to levels that transcended anything they had experienced before.
They had tried everything, coordinated attacks, ambushes, attempts to surround her, bombardnts from multiple directions, but the damned “immortal old woman” didn’t seem affected by anything they could throw at her.
Yet none of their conventional tactics had even slowed her advance. It was like trying to stop a natural disaster with conventional ans… impressive in intent, aningless in effect.
And now she seed ready for a large-scale attack that promised to completely redefine the battlefield.
The realization hit all present soldiers simultaneously: whatever Selphira was preparing, they didn’t want to be near when she released it.
Everyone ran as far from her as they could, abandoning defensive positions, leaving equipnt, forgetting formations in their haste to put distance between themselves and what would clearly be a demonstration of power they didn’t want to feel firsthand.
Experienced soldiers who had faced abyssal incursions, who had stood their ground against overwhelming odds… all of them recognized when they were facing sothing beyond their ability to resist.
From her elevated position, Selphira observed how troops scattered like ants before an approaching storm.
And smiled.
It was exactly the reaction she had anticipated.
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