Chapter 102: Mad Shrike (III)

You might actually have a bit of a talent for war.

The brain responsible for commanding this meat grinder was nearly fried, yet the unhelpful specter floating right behind him—you—still had the leisure to point fingers, secretly feeling rather smug that your past self wasn’t nearly as adaptable as your current one.

A siege of this magnitude was never settled overnight. From the blistering noon until the heavy fall of night, the front line had been forced to retreat three separate times. The mercenaries fighting in the blood-soaked trenches hadn’t collapsed yet, but the commanding brain orchestrating their survival was already struggling to keep its gears turning.

Clearly, the Doctor of the past hadn’t yet adapted to the brutal rhythm of large-scale warfare. He was still trying to pursue an absolute, flawless victory. He was entirely unwilling to trade precision for efficiency, unable to harden his heart enough to treat his operators as expendable chess pieces.

This stubborn approach didn’t necessarily save more lives, but the required computational load on his mind increased exponentially. You watched helplessly as he began to slip. One mistake. Two. Three. The errors compounded, coming faster and faster.

A command performance that anyone else would still hail as a tactical miracle was, in both your eyes and his, gradually becoming stained with unnecessary blood.

Shadow Fiends who never received their evacuation orders before being overrun and slaughtered. Defenders whose delicate spellcasting rhythm was shattered by a surprise flanking maneuver. Nameless half-bloods pierced straight through the chest by splashing, jagged shell fragments…

They were all outside the grand plan. They were dead because of his computational oversights. And their blood was just as hot, just as red, as his own.

As a phantom lingering over his shoulder, watching this tragedy unfold was fine. After all, everything playing out before you was already etched into history. You had experienced countless battles since waking up in that sarcophagus, both large and small; though you hadn’t faced a meat grinder quite this tragic in your new life, you had long expected the reality of your past to look exactly like this.

…More, these fatal, agonizing mistakes weren’t being made by you. You even had the luxury of mentally pressuring him, crossing your arms and thinking, ‘Hey, if your APM is dropping this hard, pass the controller to me!’

“Fifth Squad, fall back together to the secondary defensive line! Casters in the rear-right, lay down suppressing fire!” The past you barked, his voice so raspy and torn he could barely force the words out.

A timid tactical advisor who had been silently cowering behind him carefully approached. The Sarkaz man was holding a battered iron bowl of water in both hands, having protected it with his life through the trenches just to keep it uncontaminated by the choking gunpowder in the air.

Conquering a group of unruly Sarkaz was actually quite simple: all it took was a war. A war brutal enough to prove your absolute capability.

The suspension bridge effect was the fastest, most efficient way to tame these hardened mercenaries. Death was like a frayed noose, slowly tightening around the neck of every single soul on this battlefield. Yet, as long as that raspy voice spoke, a certain Sarkaz or a pinned-down squad on the verge of total suffocation could suddenly catch a brief, desperate breath of life.

Once. Twice. If every single time that voice rang out over the comms it was accompanied by the sheer ecstasy and relief of surviving certain doom, then everyone could be conditioned. Just like Pavlov’s dogs.

The moment their bodies heard your voice, they uncontrollably secreted adrenaline. Their frayed nerves pulled taut, instantly prepared for a breakout, accompanied by the intoxicating high of finally breaking through the water’s surface to breathe again.

Commonly known as: getting a rush just from hearing the commander speak.

Looking at it from this twisted angle, it was entirely understandable why you had stumbled across highly questionable “study materials” specifically labeled [Contains AI-Synthesized Doctor’s Voice ASMR] while surfing the Rhodes Island internal intranet… though thinking about degenerate memes in the middle of a historical bloodbath was a bit too bizarre, even for you.

The past you took the bowl of water, took a shallow, agonizing sip, and shoved it back. “…Drink the rest yourself.”

The metallic stench of blood in the air was nauseatingly thick; even the supposedly clean water carried a salty, viscous aftertaste.

“Special operations team, hold your positions. A fresh wave of Gargoyles is inbound. Prepare your anti-air arts and shoot them down before they cross the perimeter.”

You looked down over his shoulder. A static-laced message from Kal’tsit popped up on the terminal: “Doctor… we couldn’t hold the choke point. Another battalion of Casters has broken through. They are heading your way.”

‘I’ve got it. I can hold them off.’

He swallowed hard, tasting the distinct, rusty tang of blood pooling in the back of his throat.

You shook your head. If this were a round of Defense Protocols on the simulator, Kal’tsit would be that one random teammate who let eight hundred hounds slip through the blue box while frantically spamming the ‘Sorry’emote. Theresa, on the other hand, would be the silent griefer who leaked an entire wave of Heavy Defenders without saying a single word, leaving a massive, lethal’surprise’ for your lane. Each had their own unique playstyle, and each brought their own flavor of high blood pressure.

The front line retreated inch by bloody inch, and the past you was adapting at a terrifying speed. When you watched him command several aides to strip the most vital computers and communication drives, only to deliberately rig the entire command center with explosives as bait for a massive counterattack, you couldn’t help but slow-clap for him.

“Everyone evacuate the structure! Use earth and stone Arts to seal the main path! Blow them all to hell!”

The Wither Casters, who posed the greatest existential threat to the defensive line, were finally wiped out in a blinding flash of detonating Originium. The enemy mercenaries began to panic. Their formation broke. The grueling war of attrition gradually shifted from a desperate siege to a pursuit, and finally, to a one-sided annihilation.

With this ruthless, crazed drive, he finally possessed a bit of that terrifying mastermind aura.

If there were no weapons, he weaponized the terrain. If there were no trenches, he carved them out with high explosives. If central communication was lost, he stood at the absolute front of the vanguard. From the bloody dusk until the morning star finally pierced the smoke-choked sky, the fires of war burned down to their embers.

The last few squads of hidden enemy elites, realizing they couldn’t escape the tightening encirclement and were destined for the interrogation camps, launched a final, suicidal charge straight toward the command unit.

Their desperate charge was devastatingly effective. For the garrison forces, who were equally exhausted with dulled blades and depleted Arts, the sudden impact of these elites who had been selfishly conserving their strength was completely overwhelming.

The past you, whose brain had been redlining for nearly eighteen hours straight, completely failed to anticipate this. He simply couldn’t fathom that there were “elites” out there who could genuinely watch their own comrades die in droves for a whole night without ever intervening, just to save their strength for one final strike.

In the gaming common sense from your hometown, you never even considered the tactical option of “sacrificing the entire raid group just to preserve the DPS for a final hit.”

“Squads One and Three, cast your Arts! Shadow Fiend Team B12, intercept their vanguard!”

Shock didn’t stop his mind from instantly calculating a counter. He quickly found a way to lock the elites down with layers of crowd control: slow their advance, paralyze their frontline, weaken their armor, and finally use a flanking strike to shatter their charge vector.

You knew exactly who he needed to use. The young Bloodbrood girl standing right in the path of the charge was the absolute most suitable candidate to anchor that flank. But perhaps the prolonged, agonizing command had dulled his ruthless edge. Perhaps sheer exhaustion had made him sentimental.

“Gargoyle Group B3, block them!”

If the Bloodbrood girl had blocked them, she would have successfully stopped the elite assassins in their tracks—but she would have instantly lost her right arm and half her chest in the process. She had already sacrificed her left arm earlier in the night, strictly following his commands.

He had made a mistake. A sentimental, fatal mistake.

Theoretically, the Gargoyles could also block the charge, though the simulation in his head warned that one or two enemies might slip through the cracks. Theoretically, stray crossfire would be enough to clean up those stragglers.

But cold calculation cannot replace the sheer, burning will of a dying man. This war was about to teach him one final, brutal lesson.

A surviving enemy mercenary, who theoretically should have bled out three steps in front of the defensive line, suddenly let out a guttural, blood-curdling howl at the very brink of death.

“—FOR THE SARKAZ!!!”

The mercenary’s body violently swelled, his flesh twisting and tearing as the volatile Originium strapped to his chest went critical.

At that exact, critical millisecond, someone rushed forward from the periphery. They tackled the past you hard, throwing their entire body weight against him to shield him from the blinding explosion and the lethal spray of jagged Originium shards.

Amidst the deafening roar of the blast, hot blood splattered across the corner of his eye. It was exactly as hot as he had imagined.

The past you blinked with immense difficulty, his ears ringing with a high-pitched whine. It took a long, agonizing moment for his concussed brain to process exactly who had just protected him with their life.

It was the timid tactical advisor. The same man he had internally mocked. The coward who had screamed for a retreat the very second he saw enemy Arts light up at the beginning of the siege.

The Sarkaz man’s expression was entirely distorted by unimaginable pain. There was absolutely none of the peaceful relief or gentle heroism you saw in TV dramas. His dying, bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the Doctor, and a wet, gurgling “he-he” sound rattled from his ruined throat.

You understood that desperate gaze perfectly.

He was saying: I want to live. Please, save me.

Only then did the surrounding operators finally react, the camp instantly plunging into a chaotic, screaming mess. Several medics rushed forward, working together to heave the heavy body of the dying Sarkaz off the commander. The advisor’s back was completely shredded, riddled with glowing Originium shards from the explosion that made his dying body nearly twice as heavy.

Amidst the dizzying chaos, someone reached out with trembling hands to help the Doctor up, frantically checking his clothes and skin to see if he had been infected by the blast.

[Rhodes’s Note:

Enjoying the operation so far, Doctor?

(This daily grind literally pays the landship’s rent! 🙇‍♂️):

Massive thanks for reading and supporting the operation!]