Chapter 201: Situation At Oresfall III
Chapter 201: Situation At Oresfall III
Because true assassination was not just about hiding in the shadows and maintaining perfect stealth. Stealthiness was just a single tool.
Assassination was basically just killing a specific target efficiently, and that was basically it.
Whether the assassin died in the process, or got caught after the job was done, it did not matter. At the end of the day, a dead target was still considered a highly successful assassination.
And with these magical rifles, which could rapidly shoot multiple bullets with a single magazine, they had so much raw destructive power and so much lethal range, that the loud sound and the fact that their location was getting revealed did not matter much.
The assassins, who were absolute experts in their field, all understood that perfectly.
The team of two hundred cloaked assassins just stood there in the dark forest with their rifles tightly gripped in their hands.
The five kids walked up to them.
"So," Octavia asked quietly. "What is the plan?"
The person who stepped forward to speak with them was Jack. He was technically their designated leader even though he was weaker than a lot of the assassins in the squad. Thanks to Adrian’s promise and Lorcan’s permission, he was the one who talked for the group now.
Jack looked at the five teenagers.
"We will handle the mages." Jack explained the strategy. "And we will assassinate however many we can. Since they only have around twenty mages, we outnumber them by a massive margin. We have two hundred guns here."
Jack tapped the wooden stock of his rifle.
"So they are not going to survive this." Jack smirked. "But we are also not going to kill them right away. Mages are incredibly important for Lord Adrian, so we will be capturing them alive."
He pulled a magazine from his pouch which didn’t look any different from the regular ones.
"So we will be using a different kind of bullet." Jack said. "Lord Adrian provided us with a decent sized batch to test out, and it is only available for our squad. We will be using them tonight because now is the perfect time."
Jack looked at the direction where his scouts had told him that the enemy army was coming from.
"You guys can lead the direct charge against the knights." Jack offered. "But we will wait and see exactly how they plan on fighting first. If they all clump together in a tight formation, we can just shoot and take care of them easily. But if they split out and attack from multiple different directions, then I will leave the close combat to you guys."
Octavia shook her head.
"We will join you in the tree line." Octavia said. "And we will disrupt their plans before they can even think about attacking the city walls."
She drew her dual swords.
"We will attack them first." Octavia stated coldly. "There is no need to sit here and wait for them to launch the first strike. The citizens inside don’t even have to know that there is a threat right outside their town."
She looked at her squad.
"That is exactly the kind of place that Lord Adrian wants Oresfall to be." Octavia said proudly. "A safe haven for everyone. And we, as the sworn protectors of this place, must ensure that the citizens do not even have to think or worry about dangers."
"So let’s just team up right now and take care of our enemies."
A few kilometers away from Oresfall’s towering defensive walls, the Ironhold army walked at a pretty slow, but steady pace through the dark forest.
At the very front of the formation marched the heavily armored knights. In the protected middle sat the fragile mages, and marching closely behind them were the seven hundred regular foot soldiers.
At the very front of the mage group walked two people who looked entirely different from the regular magic users. They wore pristine, expensive silk robes and carried themselves with a lot of grace.
These two were Prince Valerian and Princess Isolde of the Ironhold Kingdom.
Isolde casually walked at a steady pace as she followed safely behind the vanguard of knights. She looked over at her brother with a sly smirk.
"If we get this raid right," Isolde whispered to him. "Don’t you think that Father will give us a much higher political evaluation back at the palace? Pulling this off will probably increase our chances to the throne so much that one of us might just end up becoming the future King or Queen."
Valerian looked at her and grinned wickedly.
"You are not wrong, sister." Valerian agreed. "But we must make sure that we get this operation right. I have received reliable spy reports that the Lord of this territory already has a really huge standing army."
Valerian frowned slightly.
"And there is also news that he has been freely distributing knight manuals to his regular soldiers." Valerian added. "So he might already have a few hundred sworn knights. Maybe even a thousand."
The Prince scoffed.
"But I would say that based on the standard estimates of how long it actually takes for our own soldiers to train and rank up," Valerian reasoned confidently. "He probably only has around six or seven hundred fresh, inexperienced knights. And that is the best case scenario for him."
Isolde just laughed a soft, mocking laugh.
"Little brother, you are overthinking this way too much." Isolde said.
She smiled and patted him reassuringly on the back.
"Valerian, listen to me." Isolde instructed. "Our main goal is not to fight his army head on. The knights and the regular soldiers will march forward and distract them at the gates."
She pointed toward the general direction of Oresfall.
"And while all the soldiers of Oresfall are completely busy fighting our vanguard, or busy preparing to hold the wall..." Isolde smirked. "We strike from behind. We will use our magic to climb over their stone walls and just throw all sorts of destructive fire spells directly onto their expensive buildings."