Chapter 89: Sitting Ducks! Twelve Bloodcrystal Bats Take Flight

Once the Communication Seal took effect, the Northwatch battlefield vanished from the Shattered Marches Channel.

Garrick’s latest public battle update froze halfway through and faded gray.

Inside the sealed area, neither Northwatch nor Black Banner could send Public Channel updates outside anymore.

The Lords who had been waiting for news were confused at first.

Then they began assuming the worst.

[Anonymous Lord: Northwatch is completely cut off now?]

[Anonymous Lord: Garrick was posting a second ago. Why did his message die halfway through?]

No one answered.

People outside could still see public Lord status.

They could still wait for the next Second Regional Ranking refresh.

But they could no longer get a direct report of what was happening inside the battlefield.

A little while later, someone noticed something stranger.

Several Black Banner Lords who had appeared earlier in Garrick Thorne’s public battle line now had gray status markers.

One.

Three.

Seven.

And still climbing.

[Anonymous Lord: Wait.]

[Anonymous Lord: Are these people dead?]

[Anonymous Lord: Wasn’t Northwatch the side that got sealed in?]

[Anonymous Lord: Then who’s killing Black Banner?]

Still no answer.

It was not that Northwatch did not want to speak.

It was not that Black Banner had suddenly decided to go silent together.

The Communication Seal had trapped the public battle information inside Northwatch.

People outside could only watch Lord status markers turn gray one after another.

As for who was chasing whom inside?

They could not see it.

Northern Stone Ridge, Northwatch.

The answer was still buried in fire.

BOOM—!

The first Overload volley ripped open Black Banner’s entire middle-rear formation.

The twenty Rockets never touched the front line already locked in melee with Northwatch.

Mental Guidance drove every impact into the densest rear positions.

Command flags.

Ranged formations.

The second wave preparing to push forward.

Fire swallowed all of them together.

The first layer of explosions had barely torn open the rocky ground when the next wave of shock rolled in from the sides.

The formation packed into the mountain road broke into several pieces at once.

Even Northwatch’s shield soldiers at the front stopped for half a beat.

Not because they had forgotten to fight.

Because they could no longer hear anything else.

A few breaths later, Cassian’s battle reports began collapsing into stacked summaries.

Black Banner Lords.

Heroes.

Troops.

The death records came so fast that the ordinary notifications compressed themselves into a single overview.

When the flood finally folded down, one number mattered most.

That volley had added a little over 2.10 million Kill Points.

The tenfold gains climbed with it.

Cassian glanced at the number once.

For days, the entire Shattered Marches had been arguing over whether the tenfold rule would push every Region into hunting other Lords.

Cassian had never moved for it.

Crystal Bastion was steadier.

More controllable.

This was different.

Black Banner had sealed Northwatch’s roads themselves.

Brought their army inside themselves.

And now they were feeding batches of tenfold Kill Points straight into his firing zone.

A faint smile touched Cassian’s mouth.

"Now that’s tenfold."

As he spoke, all twenty Dwarf Rocketiers behind the side peak sat down.

The first volley had not been a probe.

It had been Overload.

[Dwarf Rocketier ×20]

[Temporarily Combat-Incapacitated]

All twenty launchers went dark.

The Rocketier captain had barely loosened the securing strap on his shoulder when Cassian pushed over the crate they had carried from Forgotten Shrine.

"Drink."

The lid came off.

Twenty bottles of Life Water.

One per Dwarf.

Not one left over.

The pale-green liquid went down, and familiar Life Energy spread through their chests and arms.

[Fountain Recovery Effect: 100 seconds]

It could not erase Overload instantly.

But it could bring the Fountain’s recovery effect to this side peak.

Northwatch’s front line.

"They’re spent?"

"Overload."

The Lord beside Mira had barely finished speaking when he saw all twenty bottles of Life Water distributed without a single one being saved.

The Dwarves who had been unable to lift their launchers were already beginning to show Aether fluctuations again.

He stared for two breaths.

"Something that can pull troops back from Overload on the battlefield..."

"How expensive is recovery like that now?"

Mira did not answer the price question.

She only raised her sword.

"Hold the front."

Below the mountain.

Garrick Thorne had recognized Overload too.

Outside Forgotten Shrine, Black Banner had already paid hundreds of lives to learn what that firepower cost.

So once the first volley ended, he actually steadied.

"Don’t break!"

"They’re spent!"

"Keep pressing Northwatch!"

The Black Banner line, torn apart by the explosions, pushed forward again.

Over the next several minutes, Northwatch was forced back toward the stone ridge.

Black Banner’s second wave filled the center once more.

And behind the side peak—

the first Dwarf stood up.

Then the second.

The fifth.

One by one, the twenty Rocketiers tightened their launcher straps again and began reloading.

Then all twenty launchers rose over the reverse slope.

The first person to notice stopped dead.

"Garrick—"

His voice cracked.

Garrick whipped around.

Twenty new Rockets were already taking shape.

Only then did he understand what that crate of recovery supplies had meant.

Not post-battle treatment.

A second volley.

"How are they back this fast?"

All the color left Garrick’s face.

"Retreat!"

"Get out of the mountains!"

The order had barely left his mouth when Cassian raised his hand for the second time.

"Overload."

BOOM—!

The second wave of fire climbed into the sky.

This time, no one could dismiss it as a one-shot ambush.

Twenty Rockets passed over Northwatch’s front line again and drove toward the thickest surviving Black Banner positions in the middle and rear.

Mental Guidance corrected the impacts at the same time.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM—!

The command line they had barely stitched back together disappeared into fire for the second time.

Ranged positions.

The second wave.

High-grade Troops that still had not fully dispersed.

All of them vanished into the blasts.

After the first volley, people could still tell themselves one thing—

the Rocketiers were spent.

Once the second volley appeared, that belief was gone.

No one knew how much recovery resource Cassian had brought.

No one knew whether there would be a third volley.

That uncertainty was worse than the explosions themselves.

Garrick did not need to give the retreat order a second time.

The people closest to the blast zone were already running downhill.

Left.

Right.

Some were still searching for command flags.

There was only fire where the flags had been.

At Northwatch’s front, one Lord finally shouted:

"They’re retreating!"

"Chase them!"

Several people who had been holding themselves back for far too long surged forward.

Mira raised her sword too.

Then Cassian’s Private Channel lit up.

[Cassian Vale: Northwatch doesn’t pursue.]

Mira stopped.

[Mira Calder: They’re scattered.]

[Cassian Vale: I can see that.]

[Mira Calder: If we don’t chase now, we let them regroup.]

Cassian did not answer immediately.

The second volley had already shattered Black Banner’s formation.

If Northwatch chased into it, they would only mix themselves into the path of the high-mobility forces coming next.

Mira opened the Private Channel again.

[Mira Calder: Northwatch owes you for this.]

[Cassian Vale: Keep your people back first.]

Mira looked down the retreat line.

[Mira Calder: Then who chases?]

Cassian answered immediately this time.

[Cassian Vale: I do.]

Below the mountain.

Once Garrick got out of the Rocketiers’ best firing arc, his first instinct was to look up for an organized aerial pursuit line.

There was only one Aurelia.

As long as Riftward did not have another organized airborne force fast enough to catch them—

"Crystal One."

Cassian looked up.

A dark-gold silhouette rolled out beneath the clouds.

The first Bloodcrystal Bat spread its wings.

Then the second rose from behind the eastern ridge.

The third.

The fourth.

The Crystal Maidens left at the four outer nodes had already begun converging back.

Behind the nearer ridges, more winged shadows climbed at the same time.

Five.

Eight.

Twelve.

The same Bloodcrystal Bat form.

The same Flight capability belonging to Legendary Crystal Maidens.

The Northwatch Lords who had been ready to pursue slowly stopped.

Several simply stared upward.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

"Twelve?"

Another finally managed:

"They’re all Legendary?"

Mira did not answer at once either.

A few days ago, Northwatch had seen only one.

She had chosen not to send anyone after it.

At the time, that had been nothing more than a correct, ordinary boundary decision.

Now twelve winged shadows were rising from different ridges at once.

And higher still—

Aurelia’s lightning was already moving out in front.

Only then did the Black Banner Troops who had escaped the second Rocket volley realize something else.

The twenty launchers that had pinned them down?

They were not even everything this reinforcement force had brought.

Cassian watched the twelve winged silhouettes spread across the retreat routes.

This time, he did not check how far the Second Regional Ranking had climbed.

He did not start sorting through the battle reports either.

He only smiled briefly.

"Forget the combat power for a second."

"Just looking at them..."

"That’s intimidating enough."