The Magician of Sound

"The first phase has succeeded." Kai closed his eyes after listening to the sound all over the nest. He smiled after checking that no one alarmed the whole nest or made the situation complicated. 

He checked his timer and still had another fifteen minutes before the first phase actually completed. What made him happy was the fact that all of them had finished and stood by on the first anchor point. 

The tunnel had many branches to go through, so the first phase was to get into those entrances and used it as an anchor point. The same applied to the second phase and so on before they eventually invade the whole nest.

"Ten… No, thirteen… deaths." Kai calculated their casualties according to the number of footsteps. It was only the first step, but they already had thirteen deaths. Had the army not killed almost seven hundred in this step alone, Kai would feel awful. 

After confirming everything, he opened his eyes and looked at Nathan. "General, we have thirteen deaths. On the other hand, each group managed to kill more than one hundred."

Nathan nodded. They sent three hundred people that were separated into five groups consisting of six platoons each, and this kind of result was already one of the best results. Nathan observed Kai's expression and said with a smile. "We will have a team record their names and make a proper burial."

"Permission to start the second phase ten minutes earlier from the schedule," Kai reported while checking the timer. 

"Granted." Nathan nodded with a serious expression before glancing at Via Carman. "Miss Via."

"Yes." Via quickly went outside and created a projection in the sky. It said, 'Change of schedule. Phase 2 will start in 3 minutes.'

Upon noticing the message on the sky, none of the soldiers complained. There was one and only reason. The high command wouldn't change the schedule if the first phase weren't going well. They would send another help if the situation went wrong instead.

The second phase consisted of the other one thousand seven hundred soldiers from the Vanguard group to take care of the next paths before the attacker group went inside. 

"General. I will be joining my teammates and the attacker team. If everything is going according to the plan, the two thousand attackers will invade the nest in an hour." Kai reminded him. 

"Ah, right. You are going with this plan." Nathan thought Kai would wait for a little bit longer, but it seemed he needed some preparation. "I will take the command here. If anything goes wrong, Sherwin can go with the Reserve Army to support. Besides, your teacher is also here." 

"Yes, I'm planning to have my sis… Tasha Carter to teleport and send a message." Kai nodded before putting his communication device in his pocket and put on his coat. 

"Alright." Nathan nodded before glancing at Ria Ross, who seemed to not care about it.

"Want to come with me? I will also join my army… I even have a good idea. How about pairing up with my group?" Mano Yuki walked toward him and said with a smile. 

"That's a good decision. I support it." Nathan agreed without hesitation. "Besides, you and Shirotsuka Sanae are friends from the same squad. It will be good to see both of your performances together."

Kai furrowed his eyebrows. Yuki was one of the commanders in this operation, and it could be said she was very strong that no commanders would actually fight her. He felt there wouldn't be many fights if he paired up with her. 

Instead, Yuki explained why she wanted Kai. "I know you are confused by my suggestion. The reason is pretty simple. The second phase will have Vanguard create a line to explore the entire north and block all the paths from the other parts of this nest. In other words, we, as attackers, need to kill every single beast in the northern part of this nest. I want you to come with me, so we can kill as many as possible." 

Kai pondered for a moment. What she said was true. His plan was to put a perimeter and block the other parts while the attacker cleaned the entire area. That was why the first phase actually finished at a fast pace. They quickly went to their designated spot by choosing the right tunnel without going around blindly. 

If the perimeter had been set, the attackers who had the highest amount of attack power could create a stir and kill the magical beasts like no others. In other words, they didn't really have any specific order or designated place. Instead, they needed to spread around and cleaned the area. 

Yuki wanted to take advantage of Kai's hearing to kill all of them, making sure they left no insect alive. If they succeeded, they would use the same plan over and over again, gradually chipping away their territories and numbers. Before long, this battle would end in their victory. 

"I don't see any problem with that suggestion." Ria supported Yuki's decision. "Besides, when I looked at the map, there were around ten thousand magical beasts alone in the northern area out of their fifty thousand. That's why I want to make a target. Your group needs to kill at least ten percent of it." 

"Teacher… It's almost impossible to do that. You know that they only outnumber us one to five, right? As long as each of us kills five, it will be over." Kai scratched his head. "If I want to make that happen, we can only move at godspeed and kill them in an instant." 

"That's why I am giving you a challenge. What's the point if the challenge is so easy? If I just give you a mission to kill one hundred of them, you will finish it in a matter of minutes." Ria shrugged, not feeling anything wrong with her target. 

"Haha… As expected from a woman blessed by the sword, you have a high expectation for your group." Yuki laughed out loud. "Not that I mind though. I believe you also want to finish this battle as much as possible by having this kind of target for him." 

Ria stared at her mysteriously before closing her eyes and leaning on the back of her chair. She added, "If you fail, expect the same condition as that old man over there. I will let you off by sleeping with that kind of injury before letting others heal you in the next morning."

Ria Ross pointed her finger at Nathan, making them recall his condition in the meeting one day ago. 

Yuki still laughed, but this time she was quite nervous. "I will do my best."

It seemed she was afraid of the thought alone.

She looked at Kai and nodded at him. "Let's go."

Kai let out a long sigh before nodding his head and taking his leave. 

"Your teacher is…" Yuki commented on the outside but didn't finish her words, afraid it would somehow go to Ria.

"It's fine." Kai shrugged. "Although I only trained for one year in the past, her ridiculous training helped me even now. Though the trauma is there, I am still thankful to her. She is the best teacher for me."

"Why don't you say it to her?" Yuki smirked. 

"No, I will refrain myself from doing that." Kai shook his head, slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, we are going with the others and sweep the entire area within six hours."

"It's a long time for us." Yuki nodded. "The narrow tunnels and small space give us an advantage because we don't need to fight more than a hundred of them at a time. This decreases our casualties and improves our speed." 

"Yeah. This is also why we only have six thousand people instead of twenty thousand." Kai nodded. 

"Indeed. In the open field, no matter how advantageous you are, you still need at last a third of their number unless you want to get swarmed." Yuki agreed as she had experienced all kinds of situations. 

Not long after, they met up with Michelle and the others, including Shirotsuka Sanae. "Ya, Sanae. I'm going with you guys. I will be bringing four of my people here." 

After saying those words, she left for a while before coming back with three females and one male. "They are my current teammates. I think it will be better to know them first. Start from Adrian."

"Adrian. I am a vanguard together with Yuki. I can kill or buy time in the front line. Feel free to ask me anything." A brown-haired guy nodded. 

"I'm Mela, and the one beside me is Greta. We are the attacker here. If you want to kill a specific magical beast, ask us, and we will kill it even in the midst of the enemy. Of course, we can go back safely as well unless a thousand swarm us at the same time." A long blue-haired woman smiled and introduced the pink-haired woman beside her. 

"I'm Nita, a Vanguard as well. But knowing you, Kai Carter and Evan Young, I will handle the job of guarding Evan Young. I will make sure no magical beast will hurt him." A short black hair girl puffed her chest. Unlike the others' fully endowed body, she was still lacking. But Kai could see her muscle behind her uniform, backing up her claim. 

"Evan Young, a healer." Evan didn't need any other introductions as he was already famous. The same as Michelle as she only said her own name. "Michelle Graham."

"Kudo Ayaka. Vanguard." After getting her new strength, Ayaka was more suited to be a Vanguard, especially in this mission.

"Tasha Carter. Attacker. I will just support you if there are any magical beasts that would hit you. I doubt it will happen so often though."

"Kai Carter." Kai also introduced his name alone because no way Yuki's teammates didn't know the strategist of this mission.

"Shirotsuka Sanae… I can be either an attacker or a vanguard."

"She is also my best friend," Yuki added with a smile before saying. "We will wait then."

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