ALL NOVEL Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Fresh Memories
"I see..." Milo's rigid expression softened slightly.
He had likely figured out the truth of it all.
"So, you were marked by the Wings of Darkness, they're hunting you down now, you ran into their scout and had to take them out immediately, but they'll soon notice something's wrong and find you. Since you can't handle that group alone, you came to drag me into this mess, right?"
Milo asked the short-haired young woman before him with half-closed eyes. Having her intentions exposed so plainly clearly made her uncomfortable.
"Whatever, there's no shame in running to save your life. How many of them are coming?" At this point, Milo couldn't be bothered to pursue the matter further. He waved his hand dismissively and asked about the difficulty of this impromptu team mission.
While Milo had put on an interrogative front earlier, he was actually relieved inside. As long as she hadn't recognized him as the infamous Milo and wasn't trying to capture him, everything else was fine. As for the Wings of Darkness hunters, they weren't really a problem.
After all, as the main star of the Voice of Celestials, he was naturally at odds with the Wings of Darkness. Milo was more than happy to cause them some trouble.
Of course, if the pursuers turned out to be too powerful to handle, Milo wouldn't hesitate to betray this employer and hand her over to protect his identity. After all, they barely knew each other, and there's no shame in running to save one's life.
"Four War Chariots and twelve Knights," Eureka said with a sigh of relief.
"What? Are you serious? What exactly did you do?" Milo asked in disbelief, feeling things were getting absurd. Three questions in quick succession?
The standard composition for a Tier 3 squad of the Wings of Darkness was one War Chariot and three Knights. Even their top configuration at Tier 3 only consisted of two War Chariots and six Knights. What had this person done to make the hunters double even their maximum standard deployment?
"About that..." Eureka's expression was complicated, and even now, recalling everything, she still resented her luck.
"I initially just stumbled into an assassination scene, then the Wings of Darkness assassins said they had to kill me to silence me. When I ran, they kept chasing, so what could I do? I had to kill them in self-defense." Eureka sighed, feeling increasingly frustrated as she continued. "Then the local branch sent people after me because of the deaths. I barely managed to survive while fighting back, even broke my weapons. Before I could catch my breath, new hunters showed up. It's just..."
Eureka was practically fuming at this point, her chest heaving enough to turn the plains into rolling hills. "Did I offend Fate itself or something? How can my luck be this bad?"
Disconnected from the main battlefield, getting her weapon broken while running away, and then within a few days, facing double the maximum pursuit force - were the Wings of Darkness trying to force her to tear off her mask, demolish several branches, and end her vacation early?
Do you know you're playing with fire?! (Thunderous voice)
"Alright, you can stop there." Milo stopped her emotional outburst with an odd expression, internally marveling at what kind of unlucky creature she must be.
The Wings of Darkness never had strict requirements about silencing witnesses. After all, in this chaotic territory, they were one of the biggest powers. So what if a regular Tier 3 mission was discovered? Who would dare to seek revenge?
Impossible. All this talk about silencing witnesses was clearly just some trigger-happy executioners getting excited and looking to cut someone down, only to run into a tough opponent who turned the tables on them.
Looking at his employer's situation - taking him along to flip over double the maximum pursuit force and likely facing the Wings of Darkness head-on afterward, plus the ability to counter-kill their top configuration...
Milo inwardly clicked his tongue in amazement. This was like some classic storyline where a world-class genius beats up the guard dog of the minion watching the front door of the villain's lair.
He wasn't nervous anymore. Though he couldn't understand why she'd bother coming from the Imperial Capital to this wasteland of chaos, considering her ability to counter-kill six Tier 2s and two Tier 3s, plus the potential shown at her age, this "Wings of Darkness" mission might be high-risk, but they had a high-level player and whale leading the team.
"Not too bad, the situation isn't that serious," Milo nodded, then asked, "If you launch a surprise attack at the start, how many can you take down?"
"Two. Any more would affect my combat rhythm afterward," Eureka said after recalling her Tier 3 combat capabilities and calculating the energy consumption.
The Wings of Darkness's encirclement style was like a chess game, using containment to reduce the opponent's options until checkmate.
While Tier 3 didn't have the monstrous characteristics of Tier 4's ability to link with heaven and earth for nearly perpetual energy, natural energy recovery during battle was still possible. Geniuses already had superior recovery rates, and with the early-game rhythm focusing on dodging, energy often overflowed. It was better to use an initial burst to reduce enemy numbers.
Eureka meant that using just her Tier 3 abilities, she could fully recover her energy bar before the battle intensity escalated. More wasn't impossible, but wasn't worth it. After all, the late game determined sustain.
"I see. Then if you were to hold off three War Chariots plus some Knights, how many could you handle and for how long?" Milo thought and asked again.
"Two to three, but then I couldn't do the opening burst," Eureka pondered.
"That's fine, I can take out one War Chariot in advance," Milo paused, then added, "With good luck, maybe add a Knight, without affecting normal combat power."
As he spoke, reminiscence appeared in Milo's eyes. He'd played two-versus-many missions before, but his previous teammate had better synergy. One charged soul blast would stun everyone and break their defenses, then he'd add a layer of lightning paralysis. Basically one opening move could clear all the Tier 2 fodder and take out one or two unfortunate Tier 3s.
Then the survivors would find that in the time it took to pick up an eraser, the situation had changed from overwhelming numbers to two demon lords staring down at poor, weak, helpless you.
...Though there was no chance for such cooperation anymore.
While reminiscing, Milo couldn't help but smile wryly. Distance really does make the heart grow fonder - if this was half a month ago when he was still in the Imperial Capital, he wouldn't have had such thoughts at all.
After all, back then he was always being squeezed by her, exhausting his energy. Every meeting meant a pile of things to handle, heavy workload while watching her leisurely enjoying life on the side. Those days only seemed beautiful through the filter of memory.
End of Chapter