Vol 23 14-3: Split up! Battle!(III)
Someone said that carefully.
Six gazes were directed at Tom’s face. He was the longest veteran after all, even surpassing the leader clone Zheng in length. There were some matters he knew the inside details on. As people with prior experience as clone Xuan’s pawns, what they wanted to know the most now was whether they could survive this mission or final battle.
“Ah, team China. It’s been so long since the previous battle with them.” Tom shut his eyes and sighed, seemingly reminiscing something. After a long while, he finally spoke. “We overwhelmingly annihilated team China the last time we met them. Still, some among us died. The team China then was extremely weak. Although they had a strategist then, he was nothing but a mortal’s wisdom as compared to Xuan. Although we don’t know how we let team China’s Zheng manage to flee with his life intact, such a team that was wiped out completely was basically unsalvageable. They would have to slowly gather people and conserve power to develop from the start again. However...”
“Not long after, we managed to glean team China’s situation from a team. According to this team, they encountered a slaver team that had been crippled. They took advantage of that to destroy that slaver team. Before that, they managed to find out about team China. Team China had been the ones who crippled this slaver team, and the slaver team had survived that calamity through a Revival Cross. This showed team China’s power...”
The six pair of eyes widened. They hadn’t been in team Devil long. The shortest example had been that black man who had only encountered two movies. Still, two or three of them had experienced team battles before and heard of this sort of slaver teams. It was a team where only one or two, or a maximum of three, powerhouses gathered. The rest acted as slaves to feed them points. They would rely on the slaves’ points and ranked rewards to enhance themselves. Their power would sharply rise, and they would be able to exchange powerful enhancements or skills, as well as many high tier weapons. Although this reliance on external power prevented them from ever reaching the apex, they would still count as one of the very best in the big leagues. Even some of team Devil would lose if they faced someone from a slaver team.
“Now do you understand, why Zheng would show that calm expression whenever we hear news about team China? That’s because there are some things he can’t let go of, which stops him from taking that last step out of the fourth stage to reach that transcendent and unfeeling true fifth stage. With his power, he’s already far surpassed the peak fourth stage by far...”
Tom sighed, before saying excitedly, “Be it Zheng or Xuan, it really is those of us from China who are the strongest.”
The other six’s mouth twitched. Although there were only one black and one Caucasian, while the rest were Oriental, they were from the rest of Asia and from other continents. Seeing a foreigner praise China left and right made them feel slightly scornful, but they didn’t dare say anything out loud.
Tom chuckled. “Well, I do have one eight Chinese blood flowing through me. Whatever, it’s pointless telling you all this. Anyways, team China isn’t weaker than team Celestial, and is even slightly stronger. Zheng has always treated his original as a fated enemy as well. The original’s strength can’t be lower than the mid fourth stage if leader views him that way. However, I don’t know how long he can last before leader.”
The seven began to discuss clone Zheng’s power, especially how he hadn’t taken action in the previous movie. They were doubtful and uncomprehending, and made quite a few guesses. However, they would only dare discuss it here. In front of clone Zheng, they didn’t have the guts that clone Xuan had, to speak and act like they were courting death. Of course, that was Xuan. Compared to other things he did, like experimenting in his room, him just talking could be considered acting normal.
“Right. Doesn’t the Godseal Board have a surveillance function? What if that man finds out what we’re saying now?” The black youth suddenly swallowed his saliva, asking with a difficult expression.
“The causality points are running low. Zhang Xiaoxue is also secretly conserving a large amount of causality points. Supposedly, it’s to help Xuan fight. I don’t know why Xuan didn’t stop her. Anyways, we won’t be discovered... Probably.” Tom’s face turned slightly green as well.
Everyone shut their mouths for a time. Although they had a large certainty that clone Xuan wouldn’t use the all important causality points on them, no one dared risk it. After all, that man was Chu Xuan... someone terrifying.
At this moment, Tom suddenly turned his head towards the distant other side of team Celestial. Psyche force fluctuations began to scan the surroundings, instantaneously scanning team Celestial’s location. It also faintly began to head towards their own location. However, Tom immediately screened the surroundings, hiding the seven of team Devil from the scan. He didn’t stop there, even screening several unimportant places in the distance. Even if team China’s psyche force user was stronger than him, that person wouldn’t be able to determine team Devil’s location.
“Team China... comes!”
***
“Honglu, that...” Lan beckoned to Honglu as she used the scan. “Is it fine to directly do a scan like this? Wouldn’t this warn them?”
Honglu looked at Lan with some surprise. He only muttered much later, “Looks like the plan needs to be altered slightly. Both enemies and allies being stronger than expected are variables for schemes. It’s just that the former is greatly threatening, while the latter isn’t very much. Ah, when did you become stronger? Why didn’t we know?”
Lan smiled slightly, not deigning to reply. She continued, “I’ve already transmitted the content of the scan to everyone. Several places are being screened. Honglu, team Devil is likely residing there.”
Honglu asked again, and seeing how she didn’t reply, he didn’t continue to pester her. Most of the team had a large improvement after A Nightmare on Elm Street anyways. Her having some improvement in secret was inevitable. The most important thing now was the battle of schemes against team Celestial and team Devil. Honglu recalculated in his head, and he couldn’t come up with any flaws. He then finally nodded to himself.
“Let’s begin the plan. The long range sniper will be Zero. Tengyi will assist you in using the over the horizon sniping. Lan will stay here to maintain the scan and the communications between everyone. As for everyone else... Wangxia, you stay here to protect everyone. I’ll have some things for you to do later. Er, Juntian, stay here as well. You’re not familiar with your ability yet, so you won’t be of much use in a chaotic battle.”
Honglu paused here, considering briefly, “Yanwei will stay as well. I don’t know about your archery skills, but there must be something special about it if you could be cloned into team Devil. You’ll stay here to protect everyone.”
“The rest! We’ll attack together!”
***
“Attacking?” Adam frowned. Several minutes earlier, several psyche force users discovered team China’s location. Several members of this squad were approaching their position, and completely without hiding it.
“Snipers can’t hit them yet. They’re still below the horizon. Psyche force attacks were blocked by the enemy psyche force user. As for other attacking methods... That position is a safe spot. Are they provoking us?”
Adam used his finger to tap the table. “Then we’ll continue to stay here. The enemy numbers few. We can’t exclude the possibility of them being bait. Team Devil has also concealed themselves in the area. Their goal may not be us. We hold the advantage of terrain and unity. All three teams are equal in weather. We don’t need to abandon our current advantages to enter a chaotic battle with them. They’re just squads from team China and team Devil. We are the Angel Alliance.”
Everyone silently listened to Adam. Many subconsciously nodded, while a few frowned as they didn’t stop thinking about something. One of those frowning was team East Sea’s psyche force user, Sora Aoi. She thought for a while before saying, “Adam, is there a possibility team China wants to use a large scale weapon like a nuke?”
‘This is quite possible. But it’s not very threatening to us. Let’s describe it like this. Perhaps to low tier of mid tier teams, angering a country or especially an army is an absolute calamity. However, it no longer constitutes a threat to high tier or top tier teams. Several thousand troops won’t be able to surround such a team. Their manoeuvrability with individual flying equipment far surpasses armies and countries of this era. Jets and tanks won’t be able to single out a dozen or so people from a city of millions. Nukes are even more of a joke. We can immediately leave the blast radius as soon as discover it with a scan. We can even destroy the world as long as we have extremely large scale weapons.”
Adam gestured with his hands. “To us, nukes are just a key to be flexibly used for schemes rather than a deterrence. It can be a huge threat used right, but if you want to use it as a large scale weapon to reverse the tides... I want to say that can only be for low tier and mid tier teams, as well as the idiots in high tier teams.”
Adam stopped here. He considered for a moment before saying, “We’ll stay here for now and wait for team Devil’s reaction. Also, team China and team Devil only sent out squads? Then, their main combat force...”