Chapter 640 The Final Stage 2
Many of the Heroes were usually those who never paid much import to skills like these, but after seeing the overall performance of the King, they couldn't help but wonder if they were wrong.
They had seen him meticulously plan each and every step so far: from identifying the 'domains' of the monstrosities to saving and redirecting faction members to their factions by disguising himself as one of them, to causing the minor factions to wipe each other out, until the situation had turned into how it was now: with barely a third of the initial participants surviving.
Although these Heroes were typically bored during Legacy Battles, they paid attention, so they could clearly recall how the previous ones were.
By the 20-day mark, the norm was that around a hundred or so Fighters would be eliminated.
By the 25-day mark, around 50 would be left.
And by the 28-30 day mark, only around 20 would remain, among whom the final selection would occur.
All that had been upended single-handedly now.
Marveling at how effectively the King had managed to turn around his enemy to join him, all the Heroes kept their eyes on the place where the converted faction member and the leader of the Unnamed were talking.
They wanted to see what other miracles the King would accomplish, so they all waited with bated breath, which made the Head remark inwardly that this must be the first time on Angaria when two a Warrior had captivated the minds of so many Heroes, and that too, to the extent that they waited eagerly to see what he would do next.
Unaware of all that, Daneel simply waited for a response from the leader of the Unnamed while cognizant of the fact that he was being watched by a lot of Heroes.
A lot of them.
This did cause him to feel an itch in his back, as he didn't trust them one whit.
However, he just tried to focus on controlling Tall.
Indeed, Daneel hadn't made just two of those 'Soul Carriers', as they were called.
He had made three, and the third one…carried a part of his own consciousness.
It was all in preparation for this final stage, so Daneel had whipped it out after choosing his target.
As he was no stranger to having his consciousness split, he had been able to endure easily. With a touch of a Soul Carrier, any individual at the Warrior level or below would immediately have their mind attacked by a momentary Mind Control spell whose purpose would be to put the original consciousness of the body to sleep, allowing the consciousness present in the Carrier to take over.
It had worked seamlessly, so Daneel was now in control of Tall while speaking to the leader of the Unnamed.
The person in front of him had some of the most nondescript features he had ever seen. He had never stood out, unlike Jasper and Ace and the rest who all had some distinctive feature to identify them.
This person would mix in flawlessly no matter what crowd he was standing in, given that that crowd was human. I
Many would think that the man was just plain, and that he hadn't been blessed with great looks.
However, Daneel felt that something was off.
So, he decided to ask the system while the leader continued to ponder on Daneel's statement, even though he hadn't even made his proposition yet.
"System, is the person in front of me using any sort of technique actively? If not, what Fighter Inheritance does he train in?"
[Scanning. Target individual identified. Slight irregularities in elementary particles detected. The irregularities are too slight to even be noticed using elementary vision unless one knows what they are looking for. Scanning list of techniques. High-tier Fighter Technique Inheritance found.
Fighter Inheritance: Bodymorpher
Allows one to change the structure of their bodies at will by manipulating the elementary particles using absorbed Energy to result in transformations. Target is utilizing the Warrior-level version of this Inheritance, which, just like the 'Master of Shadows', allows one to be able to manipulate elementary particles in the Warrior realm itself to lay a solid foundation for when they become Champions. The Inheritance continues to the 'Bodymorpher' Champion Path. At present, target is only changing his face. He has also hardened his vital body parts to avoid fatal injuries. In the Champion realm, Bodymorphers can change their own body into weapons, or soften a body part to endure attacks. Note: only such transformations are possible, but this is considered a formidable High-tier technique because the degree of hardening and softening is high.]
A technique at the same level as mine, huh?
By this point, Daneel had already understood that all these top-level Fighters were definitely using such techniques which could already manipulate the world to some extent. After all, it only made sense: these techniques allowed one to be more powerful than all their peers, and it was usually such people who became leaders.
His guess was that the high-tier techniques that managed to survive from the age of the apocalypse were reserved for such talented individuals to train in. If so, he looked forward to what those three guys' inheritances were.
It looked like the leader had finally made a decision, as he looked at 'Tall' and said, "I think I can already guess what you want to suggest, so I was thinking for so long as I couldn't decide whether to hear it or not. I admit that even I have been pretty pissed off by their attitudes for a long time, so I don't know if I'll be able to resist myself if I do hear your plan. However, this is truly a golden opportunity. Speak your mind."
Smiling inwardly, 'Tall' said, "That's good, leader. The plan is simple. As you must already have guessed, it revolves around us first entering an alliance with both, or at least one of the factions quoting that it is the best method to survive, as you already know that everything changes at the 25-day mark."
A shudder passed through the leader of the Unnamed as he heard this.
Indeed, each and every Legacy battle combatant knew that the last 5 days were the most dangerous, as all Champions would leave behind any rules they had set for themselves. They would actively begin hunting, and unless a combatant was especially careful and managed to hide themselves perfectly, they would be eliminated. Apparently, this was to thin out the herd even further so that only those who deserved it would survive.
This time, there had been no such rules set. The Champions were as deadly as they could be from the start. The only change that could be was…
"That's right, leader. I think that the domains will stop existing for those monstrosities. They will roam the jungle freely, hunting for all of us. At that point, just running and hoping will not be an option. A combined plan is what is required."
The leader raised both his eyebrows when he heard this. He had expected that Tall would be smart, but he couldn't have known that the man would be this calculating.
Seeing him nod, 'Tall' continued.
"So, after the alliance forms, we can assign specific duties to each and every faction that is still present. And then…we will tempt each faction to turn on the others, baiting them by saying that they will have a greater chance to live and be selected in this way. You already know how enticing that is. There will even be perfect opportunities for factions to target others, as we will be moving as a unit. When the time comes and when I have more information, I will also be able to plan more. But, for now, I think we should set out. What do you think, leader?"
The leader was thoroughly impressed by the plan. Indeed, greed was a powerful thing, and he could already see the others turning as soon as they saw an opportunity.
How would those opportunities come to be, though? Well, he would leave that to Tall.
Deciding that he would definitely promote Tall and keep him under him after this was done, the leader gestured for Tall to go ahead, but he was surprised when he saw Tall respectfully give him way.
Humph. So this guy knew his place, after all. Then what better subordinate could there be? A follower who would be content with where he was could be called the perfect subordinate, as there would never be a risk for a backstab to occur.
Smiling to himself, the leader walked out, while Daneel eyed his back like a spider that was eyeing a fly which was haplessly falling into its web.
Only, in this case, the fly didn't even know that it was stuck, and that its end was already near.
So, it was truly an amusing thing to see that fly have lofty ambitions about flying high, which made Daneel smile again and realize just how addicting this feeling of manipulating everything and being in control could be.
…
The Heroes watched the King and the leader of the faction walk out of the cave and head to the same place where they had been before.
There, the two joined the other two factions, quoting that they felt that that would be best when the last 5 days came.
This made many look at the Chief questioningly in order to find out whether they were right about the status of the Champions changing.
The Chief just gave an enigmatic shrug in response, but this was enough confirmation.
The alliance between the three factions was something that had never happened before, but the impending threat resulted in its formation. Even Ace and the leader of the Glorious had been talking about teaming up, with the leader hoping that he could ride the coattails of Ace and his brother to the end even if it meant sacrificing his faction members, and the former wanting to have scapegoats in case severe situations where he would have to flee came to be.
Thus, the existing 5 factions were given individual duties.
They would move in a loose formation, with each faction fulfilling its duty to let the most individuals survive.
There were 5 duties: scouting, vanguard, stalling, advance guard and communicators.
The duties would rotate every 3 hours, just to be fair, as some roles carried more risk than others. Even if the whole group got unlucky, one would only be able to blame their own luck for being in the wrong role.
Scouting was dangerous, but it was nothing compared to the vanguard and the advance guard who defended the back and the front when running away from a threat. And by 'defense', it meant distracting the monstrosities so that the rest could run away.
These two were the most dreaded and dangerous duties, while stalling and communicating were two of the easiest. Those stalling just needed to dig holes, and communicators just traveled to send messages. They kept track of each other by judging relative distances and counting steps, and as all those remaining were high-level Warriors with most of them even being Peak Exalted Warriors, this wasn't too hard to implement.
For the first 5 days, everything was peaceful, and many Heroes had even begun to wonder when he would start.
From the 25th day, though, just like they had expected, the monstrosities started to roam around the battlefield freely.
Not all participants were part of these factions who had made the alliance. There were very few smaller groups and a few stragglers, and most of these started dying off.
The alliance's formation, though, allowed most of them to live, and many even started to praise the leader of the Unnamed who had proposed it. However, the leader eyed 'Tall' every time this happened, as he had been the one to give the base of the plan, and tell him about the duties that could be given.
From the 26th day…the Heroes above finally started to see what they were waiting for.
On the 26th day, the scouting team missed spotting a roaming monstrosity, causing the massacre of the vanguard.
The scouting team was admonished, but they insisted that it was an honest mistake.
On the 27th day, the communicators sent a miscommunication, causing the faction in charge of being the forward guard to go too far ahead.
They were all forced to teleport away by another monstrosity.
Ace had been exasperated, but he had let it go as mistakes did happen in tense situations.
The existing faction members were split apart to fulfill the other duties.
On the 28th day, disaster struck in the form of a random mistake. A faction member tripped, alerting a monstrosity near which the 'stalling' team had been digging some holes so that they could stall it and move forward.
After this, Ace could take no more.
He called for a halt at a relatively safe location and asked the communicators to have all the remaining faction members gather.
And when they did, he looked at them all and burst out with frustration.
"WHY ARE ONLY 2 FACTIONS REMAINING FROM THE 5 THAT SET OUT? WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON? I WANT SOMEONE TO GIVE ME AN ANSWER, OR I'LL MAKE SURE ALL OF YOU HAVE NO FUTURES IN THE SECT!"
With the most innocent expression on his face, 'Tall' stepped out and said, "Whatever do you mean by that, alliance leader? They were all just honest mistakes! Please don't give in to the frustration! Surely, you can't believe that someone is capable of manipulating all of us from the inside, do you?"