Chapter 1108 Attack
The Emperor was the first to recover and speak.
"Madam Eloise! The children and elderly have all been housed at the south-east defensive barrier. I think they should be moved, first, just in case the battle spills past the shore!"
The man's terse, yet calm tone was exactly what they needed at the moment. Snapping out of the reverie they had inadvertently entered due to the sudden threat, they all began to move.
They had had enough time that a master planner like Daneel had managed to build scenarios for almost each and every thing that could happen. A completely unheard-of threat appearing was something they had prepared for, so they all knew what they were supposed to do.
The Godnet had been given the duty of distributing defensive resources at its whim if there was only a single threat attacking Angaria at any given time. The job to manage the offense fell to them, so they needed to move quickly.
Some left to give directions to the Hivemind, and others began to shift the massive groups of people who had not been unveiled yet. Still others were in charge of shifting their trump cards so that they would be ready to be deployed in case they began to lose ground, and all at once, Eloise found herself with just the Emperor and the assassins for company.
Walking forward, Fenoras put his hands on the table above which the image of Angaria was floating. The warning light had stopped, but on the image, a red gas could be seen quickly moving towards the eastern shore.
"I see. So far, all the information we managed to obtain was from someone who infiltrated the top echelon of this operation. The only way that he did not know about this is if a Saint directly deployed that force. That makes it tricky: Saints have so many different squadrons under them that even we do not know everything about the secrets of their forces. I recommend that we prepare for the worst. If history is to be believed, there is another possibility, but it is slim. Sometimes, the first wave is split and a small part of it is kept as a backup, so it might be that portion that is attacking… and if so, they will also want to set up a forward base of operations on the land."
The assassin spoke so quickly that her words almost blended with each other, but Eloise's razor-sharp focus allowed her to understand what the reptilian was saying. When she was done, without missing a beat, she, too, turned to the image of Angaria and said, "Begin to withdraw all the elderly and children to the west. Do it as quickly as possible, with those nearest to the east leaving first. For now, do not deploy any offensive measures saved for the second and third wave."
"Affirmative."
The cold tone of the Godnet was almost reassuring. A simple spell to zoom in made it so that she could see all of the people being moved from the East to the West, but the pace was too slow.
As the seconds passed and that murderous mist began to come closer and closer to Angaria, it felt as if her stomach was in knots. They were, after all, the oldest and the youngest Angarians so they could not be expected to move quickly, but if something didn't change, a few of them would still be present a few hundred kilometers from the East when the fighting started.
This was a large distance that should not worry her, but still, she sent a message to the commanders who were overseeing the evacuation to tell them to speed it up. The original plan had been to build floor-sized teleportation formations all over Angaria so that they could shift around the people in simply the time it took to take a breath, but this plan had been discarded as both the Energy required for something like that and the signs given off by such large formations made it so that it was not feasible.
So, they had had to settle for smaller formations that could each fit a thousand individuals. Mages were at hand to quickly teleport over each batch to this formation so that the people wouldn't even have to walk, but this threat was moving so quickly that she wished that they had implemented even faster methods.
She had made the Godnet put up a countdown, and when it said that 20 seconds were still left for the threat to come into the domain of the Godnet, the sovereigns slowly began to reappear one by one as they had finished with their duties.
They all waited with bated breath, together, to find out what from this enemy would take. Each second that ticked by made the tension that they felt multiply, until almost all of them had tightened their fists so much that veins started to bulge on top of them.
When the timer finally hit zero, Eloise shouted "analysis!"
She knew that the Godnet would tell them anyway, but she just couldn't control herself.
It took a couple more nailbiting seconds for the Godnet to give a reply, but when it did, almost everyone who was present near the throne felt their minds go blank for an instant.
"Threat detected. Warning! Warning! Enemy force has launched an attack! Attack has been sent through a special teleportation formation! Attack has reached the shore! Attack has been identified to be nonphysical! Defensive barriers are being overrun! Special defensive barriers have been deployed! Rate of success: 98%. A portion of the attack has entered the borders of Angaria!"
It seemed that all her thoughts from before had prepared her for the worst, as she managed to slam her hands down on the table and shout a command just a second after the Godnet stopped its notifications.
"Create new special barriers in its path by burning Energy!"
They all watched as the Godnet lit up in the sky just like when it had empowered the Heroes of the Order. There was a difference, though, as before, it had used the Energy already set aside for the task. It had had the time to absorb the Energy and work with it to send it to the Heroes when needed, but now, it would have to choose a faster, but much less efficient method.
The orbs of light coalesced, and some of the sovereigns breathed a sigh of relief when the new barriers that formed stopped the small amount of mist that had made it into the continent.
Normal barriers were best when it came to devastating, but straightforward attacks. Special barriers were just those that had been created with much more detail to sift through even each and every particle in the air to render any subterfuge being employed by an attack moot, so they needed more time and Energy to be set up.
Clearly, the attack by this new threat was special, but on the surface, it looked like it had been thwarted just in time.
Only…when the sovereigns who hadn't zoomed in their vision spotted the expressions on the faces of those who had, they realized that something was very, very wrong.
This led to them looking for the reason, too, and just when they all found it, Eloise banged her fist on the table and screamed, "NO!"
While she slumped forward and began to shake her head vehemently, the Godnet's voice was heard again in the air.
"4, 956 Angarians who breathed in the contaminated air have perished. 3, 489 Angarians are at risk of death. Medical personnel have been dispatched."
The first blow had been struck, but they didn't even know how it had happened.
"WHAT HAPPENED?"
Shouting out the question on everyone's mind, Eloise looked up with an expression that spelled murder.
"Data is being gathered and analyzed. Analysis complete. Attack was in the form of previously unseen particles that were proficient in disguising themselves as dust. As such, there was a delay in them being identified. When inhaled, the particles had the capability of spontaneously combusting all Energy in a living being unless stopped. Human-level beings are incapable of resistance. Scanning database to identify identity of attacking squadron. Identity found. Name of Squadron: Tenebrous Knights."
Eloise knew these two words all too well, and right away, she remembered the first attack of the man who had belonged to this order of soldiers.
He had massacred a village, even going so far as to kill infants. History had repeated itself now, but Eloise was not prepared to let it continue to do so.
So many had died, so it seemed foolish to hold back. Taking in a breath, she made the decision that she would massacre these knights and return the favor, no matter what it took.
However…just as she opened her mouth to give the command, a voice spoke in her mind, and hearing it, Eloise almost fainted from the wave of relief that passed through her entire body.
"Relax. I'm back…and I've got this."