Chapter 1315 - Taming the Old World - Intimidate

Chapter 1315: Chapter 1315 - Taming the Old World - Intimidate

It was not breaking out of here today. And it was not breaking out tomorrow.

They still had a decent window.

Ren saw it as tight in the heat of the moment, yet it remained wide enough to finish winning the northern front, sweep today’s board clean, and bring the entire Vanguard home to rest before the prisoner finished loading its gun.

Ren slowly pulled his fingers away from the warm metal, his earlier panic completely distilled into cold calculation.

The situation was grim, no question about it. The current iteration of the prison had hit its structural ceiling, the monster inside was winding up for a knockout punch, and the nature of their doomsday clock had changed from a repairable erosion bar into a hard deadline.

Even so, it was not a five-minute crisis...

It did not require Ren to gamble the entire war right now by trying to force an emergency upgrade on a half-empty tank while his left arm was still encased in crystal.

It required what he did best: sticking to the sequence religiously.

First, let the northern strike team finish off the last Light Guardian and leave Selthia empty-handed.

Second, get a proper night’s sleep to clear the fatigue from their meridians and a full day of rest to recover mana.

Then, with all seven elemental cores in their possession and their bodies at peak condition, they would come back here, use all their resources properly, and forge a complete, seven-pointed cage that would choke off every single element in the enemy’s hand, snuffing out the purple dragon’s charge long before it reached the firing line.

Order and discipline... Every step in its proper turn.

"Still, this changes our timetable for the rest of the week," Ren murmured to the empty cavern, casting one last look at the quiet steel dome. "Arturo and Julius need to hear about this right away."

Turning his back on the vault, Ren launched himself up toward the sky, leaving the ancient entity sitting in the dark as it quietly hoarded the strength to tear its cage apart.

The incessant scratching beneath the capital had finally stopped.

And somehow, as Ren flew back toward the command post with a brand-new forty-eight-hour clock ticking behind his eyes, that heavy silence felt like the worst piece of news he had received all day.

Two days, give or take a few hours.

He had two days to wrap up a war on the surface, and two days to build an unbreakable lock before the thing in the basement decided it was done waiting.

????

Ren dropped out of the sky and landed squarely in the central courtyard of Yano’s castle.

After running like lightning and scaring many a maid and some soldiers...

He gave Arturo and Julius a rapid-fire debrief on the situation beneath Yino, stripping the explanation down to the bare minimum.

There was simply no time for a full strategic breakdown.

The mutant vanguard was already bleeding into the horizon; Ren could feel the dirty wave of corrupted ether creeping toward the city’s defensive perimeter.

"The wall surrounding the vault entrance has reached its maximum elasticity," Ren summarized, speaking quickly as they walked toward the ramparts. "The purple dragon realized that digging is pointless, so it stopped. It is currently hoarding energy inside its core to blow the weakened wall wide open in a single strike. Based on the intake rate, we have roughly two days before it reaches critical mass, though the exact timeline is now impossible to predict; we at least know the minimum base time. We will map the logistics out later... Right now, we have company."

Arturo gave a stiff nod, filing the grim new variable away with the abject efficiency of a strategist who desperately needed to work that intelligence but lacked the luxury of time and maybe even the mental energy for processing the emotional weight of it right now.

Julius simply ground his jaw, the muscles along his cheek ticking in silence.

The three of them stepped out onto the parapet to survey the incoming enemy tide.

????

Exactly as Ren had anticipated, the Witch’s forces were establishing a wide, cautious perimeter around the capital.

However, the vanguard first consisted exclusively of the six Diamond titans.

The colossal mutants were distributing themselves along the outer rim of the battlefield, deliberately keeping a shorter distance from the city’s walls. The two hundred Platinums and the sprawling pack of thousands of lower-tier beasts behind them were still roughly fifteen minutes away, quickly moving their feet across the dirt but still behind the heavy hitters in speed.

Six isolated Diamonds...

Standing alone in the open plains, temporarily unsupported by the bulk of their army.

It was a glaring tactical window.

"Would it be worth the investment," Ren murmured, thinking out loud as he leaned over the stone parapet, "for Liora and me to fly out there and incinerate one of them right now, before the rest of the horde arrives to back them up?"

Arturo ran the arithmetic instantly, as he always did.

"That entirely depends on the mana bill," Arturo replied, never taking his eyes off the distant titans.

"If securing the kill burns less than ten percent of your total remaining reserves, it is a profitable trade. Dropping one of her prized titans right out of the gate would terrify Selthia. It would likely convince her that a genuine assault is almost suicidal, effectively securing the city without us having to fight a prolonged siege, purely off the threat of your presence. But if the execution costs you more than ten percent..."

He slowly shook his head.

"Then it is a bad investment. You are better off saving your fuel for absolute emergencies and hoarding the rest for the fixing the dome one last time tonight, just like you originally planned. We cannot afford to bankrupt you in case Selthia decides to call our bluff and force a real brawl."

Ren weighed the margin in his head.

He calculated the required output and decided the math worked in their favor; he could keep the expenditure within Arturo’s recommended threshold.

"I will take the shot," Ren decided, stepping back from the ledge. "I just need Liora and Julius to come with me."