Chương 26: Attack(2)

In the mountains to the northeast of the military base, camped a group of men under the shade of a hill. Most of them were injured and were bandaged, while others looked extremely exhausted. Suddenly, out of nowhere, fireballs started to rain down on them, and in that instant, their faces showed the despair they were feeling..

"RUN! Scatter and do your best to survive! Bring the information to the HQ! Base 001 has a company of very strong mages! Now, RUN!" shouted one of them who looked like their leader.

Hearing this, all of the men scattered in various directions, although.. none were able to make it out.

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(A trip a few hours back in time)

"Sir, is this really alright?" asked Vinay, the one soldier who had a good head on his shoulders, to which a reply came,

"I told you, *sigh * It's fine. These scouts are barely 15 people, and we have 90. Even if they were mages, which in itself is a very very small possibility, do you think they could possibly escape from you guys? Aren't you guys like the best geniuses of the military or something?"

"Sir, that was nothing but Vishal's pride talking. We are indeed mages with strong potential, but the only training we've been through is basic bootcamp. We were not even able to finish that before we were hurriedly pulled out and assembled under your command, so I really do hope you can reconsider."

"OH come on.. *long sigh* Fine, let's do this then. I'll be right behind you guys as you attack ok? Now, shall we get going, Captain Vinay?"

"Very well, Major Alaukik."

Seeing that Vinay was finally satisfied, Alaukik walked forward towards his company, who were gathered in the training ground, waiting for his orders. Over the past week, he had gotten to know better about the various soldiers in his company, and learned some common knowledge about the military as well. He got to know that purely mage companies like his were rare and were usually the important units of various countries. Most countries fought using mostly normal soldiers with comparatively few mage soldiers. So it was a surprise for the majority of the soldiers when their company was assembled and they realised that all of them were mages. But anyways, after getting to know most of his company, he had assigned Vinay as his second-in-command because it seemed that he was really intelligent and had quite a lot of knowledge regarding battle formations and other tactics. He was also the only healer in the entire company. Well, calling him a healer would be a bit of a stretch, what he could actually do was accelerate the body's rate of healing, meaning if a cut originally took one day to heal, Vinay could make it so that it would heal in 1 minute. Of course, there were side-effects to his healing, and that was loss of nutrition in the body of the one getting healed. Apart from him, they had various other types of magic users in the company also. Most of the men were ancient magic users, as Alaukik found out, ancient magic was very popular in the Federation due to their rich heritage. Of course, they also had a few normal magicians.

Standing in front of the company on a makeshift platform made using magic, Alaukik looked towards his soldiers and

"Good afternoon my soldiers! I am sure you are wondering why I have assembled you all here on your day off. The reason is because we have received our very first mission from the General himself! He has asked us to go to the northeastern mountains and capture the group of rebels that the Federation has caught sight of. To be honest, this is just going to be a cat and mouse chase, and so, I'm going to increase the difficulty by a bit here. I won't be taking part in this chase! Instead, I will just follow you guys until you have captured or killed all the rebels. Of course, if you let even one escape, then hehe, just be ready for some exercise. Now, Captain Vinay will debrief you with more details. Captain," saying which, Alaukik gestured for Vinay to take the stage, while he walked off. As he was leaving, he could here Vinay begin the debriefing,

"So, our goal today is to capture this group of rebels. While the Major might have called it a cat and mouse chase, I think we all agree that we are not as strong as the major, and so something easy for him will probably be hard for us. So, I have come up with a proper plan for us to follow and thus capture all of them. It all starts with us finding their base stealthily, and then explodin-"

'Huuh, he's such a worrywart,' thought Alaukik as he teleported back to his tent.

'Now, what should I do? I could just teleport to their base directly and then incapacitate all of them and bring them back, but there's no benefit in doing that is there? Instead, by making them do it by themselves, they can develop team building skills and even learn from the mistakes they're about to commit. Ha! I bet a few of them will forget that magic cannot be cast by multiple people on the same object, since it cancels out the change to be made in the eidos. Ooh, that's gonna be fun to watch. But still, they should all be fine. Heck, with the magic they wield, if they fail, they're in for some punishment. Most of them wield various types of ancient magic, which mainly falls into four categories, Vayu(wind) type, Agni(fire) type, Varuna(water) type and then Prithvi(earth) type. Apparently they can communicate with spirits of these elements and use them to cast different kinds of spells. Then there's that Vishal, the one who was so outspoken on the first day. He's descended from some ascetic family that practises Surya (sun) type magic, in which he can communicate with light spirits, casting light magic. Then there's Vinay, who can heal the members. There's also other normal magicians that can cast data fortification on various members and also cast various other types of magic. So they should be fine. Anyways, the attack will begin in another half an hour. Well, all I have to do is teleport them to the last captured location of the rebels and then I'll just watch I guess.'

[Vinay's POV]

Excitement. Fear. Anxiety. But most of all, a sense of calmness flooded Vinay. A feeling that said, it's all right, everything will be fine. Believe in yourself. You have done everything you could do. You cannot be defeated today. And as Vinay looked around and towards his fellow soldiers, he saw that they also felt the same mix of emotions. He knew that this was everyone's first time in a proper battle, and that their adrenaline was already starting to race through. And so,

"Listen up everyone!" and as they all looked at him, he continued, "Remember to always follow the plan. Our first goal is to use fire magic and blow stuff around their base to get them out of their hideout alright? And after that?" he asked the soldiers.

"We direct them a bit more using ranged magic like fireballs, ice lances and earth walls to separate them from their base and disrupt any formations they might have. Then we take them down one by one, each of their members being targeted by 5 of ours. The remaining fifteen loot their base for any valuable information," came a voice from behind the soldiers. It was Usman, another soldier who sided with Alaukik on the first day.

Nodding his head at Usman, Vinay replied,

"Good. Since everyone is clear on the plan. Let's begin! Operation Separate and Strike (SAS) begins now!"