With Emile already rushing into the castle's internal, it doesn't take a long time before the main attack group of the 501st Airbornes arrives after mopping up the remaining external resistance. By now, most if not all Sardegnian defenders are holed up inside the castle, using windows and firing positions on the upper floor to retaliate no matter how ineffective it may be. At the same time, the ground floor is heavily fortified with hallways and intersections littered with ambush positions and barricades. Desperate times call for desperate measures, the Sardegnians even bring AT guns and even light howitzers indoors, setting them up like how one would for a hallway machine gun nest. As for what will happen when those guns are fired in an enclosed space... Well, one stuff at a time.
Understandably, even with the added advantage of body armor and squad-level firepower, tackling these heavy emplacements may prove costly for the 501st infantry. And since they can't level the castle with their AFVs or air support, the Ravens are requested to take point, with Emile is already hard at work. Currently, there are two Raven teams on the ground, namely Noble and Blue Teams. Blue Team is tasked with making their way down while Noble will clear the path upward the castle.
Being put at the forefront, Noble Team reins Emile in after he killed and subdued the Sardegnians around his entryway. Together, with the elite of the 501st, the Ravens blast their way further into the castle, using a combination of magic and firepower to eliminate obstacles along the way. That or be like Emile, the man places his shotgun on the magnetic clamps on his back and proceeds to run through walls like a battering ram, emerging behind the enemy positions. Suffice to say, that even with the additional firepower they packed, the Sardegnians are still ruthlessly cut down.
It's not just the Ravens getting the limelight, however. The castle is big, so it's a given that the Ravens can't cover every single spot, thus letting the 501st elite infantry work their magic, literally. These commandos are veterans from the 404th's Storm Trooper units and are trained in not just CQC but also in the magical arts. Advancing in squads, they methodically clean up opposition where the Ravens can't reach. In each squad, a magically adept soldier will be responsible for keeping up a sensor spell with an IFF feature. This allows the squads to basically see through walls, knowing the disposition of the enemy, and thus determine the best course of approach.
In one instance, a shotgun is used to breach a doorway before a flashbang is tossed in, stunning the room's occupants before the commandos rush in, securing the corners of the room while blasting holes into the Sardegnians that try to resist. Those that wisely surrendered, and most certainly will face a trial anyway, are zip-tied for the trailing elements to process. Harder to breach targets do exist though, and they may not go down with just a flashbang. This is where the ability to use magic comes in handy.
Many times have the commandos come across barricaded hallways and clustered rooms with gun muzzles pointing at the entryway. To dismantle these, commando mages step up, using their sensor spells to get the layout of enemy force distribution. Rather than popping out to use a 40mm grenade, these mages conjure ice bolts and wind spheres at the tips of their fingers then sending them homing into the enemy locations. Before the Sardegnians can react to the sight of the magical phenomenon, the bolts and spheres explode in the middle of their formation, sending thorny ice shards and sharp wind blades in a fixed radius. The damaging effects from the guided magical airburst munitions include large punctured wounds, severe lacerations, frostbite, or decapacitation, which are more than enough to flush out an entrenched enemy. Those that survive the initial barrage will then have to face the muzzles of many G1 rifles and then some.
Gradually, the Belkan spearheads grow closer and closer to finishing their goal of attaining control over the castle proper. When pacification of the Sardegnians seems to be in reach, it's a good time as any for the VIP of the day to make an appearance. It's time for the Reich Marshal to come face to face with the elusive Lady Lyssa who is the mastermind of the greatest mess in history.
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Touching down on a secured LZ, the navy white Osprey drops down the rear ramp. Coming out of the VTOL is the Reich Marshal herself, or to be more exact, one of the many temporal clones of her. It's easy to incorporate the clones into Belka's commanding structure, citing that it's quite simply a more advanced version substitute technique that Yggdra taught Yuki was more than enough to assuage any concern the military had. And even then, not many even know that Yuki employs such a method for the temporal clones are indistinguishable from the original.
That said, this opportunity will increase the number of privy individuals by quite a few but not enough to raise any issue if there's any in the first place.
"This is Overseer to Overlord. We're on the ground." The temporal clone, callsign Overseer, reported to Overlord, the current prime Yuki.
Some time ago, Yuki's family took a moment to sit down and talk about how to address the Marshal and her temporal clones. Ultimately settling for using her military callsign and an abbreviation of it. Overlord, for the clone in charge and with the most time available, and Overseers for the clones with less time. Currently, one such Overseer is presented in Auschwitz while the Overlord is still back on the RMS August von Parseval.
"Overlord to Overseer, proceed with current tasking. Prioritize the extraction of HVTs for processing. CASEVAC and Ravens are on-call the moment you request them. Over."
"Overseer, copy all. Out." Cutting the comms link, Overseer Yuki stretches her arms upward before turning to her escort. "Alright boys and girls, let's go meet the head honcho of this Hellhole."
"Right this way, Marshal." Even though an Overseer is placed right under Overlord in terms of time, the military still addresses the clones as Marshal. The reason for this is the temporal hivemind that the Overlord and Overseers are in, making it so that every single Yuki shares the same knowledge pool and thought process. And if a situation crops up on one Overseer's part, the rest of the hivemind can instantly address the issue together. Undoubtedly, this is a very confusing power to have, and it's only through Yuki's former heritage as a Primordial Goddess who specializes in the temporal aspect that she can handle her power. Yuki herself doesn't even know how to explain it for others to understand despite being the most adept at it.
Can she abuse this power and get away with it, yes. Will she abuse it when there's nothing to stop her? Surprisingly no. The power is a fast ticket to divinity but quite frankly, if she goes on a power trip, where's the fun in life? Life is fun when you tackle hardships and challenges and overall just crash everyone's parties with the assets you work hard for rather than just use your heritage wantonly like a kid with godlike cheats. Yuki doesn't mind taking the long way to regain her seat of power, nor does she mind picking up divinities like Victory and War, maybe even Wisdom along the climb.
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Despite being strapped to the machine, her body aching in a nagging pain, Sirin really wants to laugh out loud as she can both see and feel the scientists scampering about, trying to get the contraption to work. Time and time again, they start the mechanism in a vain attempt to create a spatial tunnel to escape, only for the machine to fizzle out with electrical sparks flying everywhere. With each failed attempt, the scientists, other than Mother Cocolia and sister Mash, grow increasingly desperate. A few just give up and abandon the bell tower, some check the machine again, trying to bypass whatever's causing the failures, and a couple grow frightened and blame Sirin of all people. The latter think that they failed because Sirin doesn't want to open the spatial tunnel using her Void-related abilities.
Sirin would have let out a disparaging smirk at those two if not for Mother Cocolia stepping up and putting them in their place. Sirin had never heard someone could be so ruthless and dismantle the wills of two people with just words alone. Unable to stand the verbal abuse, those two scientists pack up and run away from the tower. Though from what Sirin can see, it's not like they can run very far. While Cocolia takes charge of the remaining scientists to try and deactivate the contraption that binds Sirin and her sisters altogether, Sirin, with a bit of a struggle, turns her head to the left. The sight that greets Sirin is a weird-looking aircraft that is flying slowly, and she means very slow, in a clockwise manner around the bell tower they're in. Sirin has good eyesight so despite the distance between them, the young girl can see the foreign figures, soldiers by the look of it, aiming their rifles at their location.
Her instinct keeps pinging her of the potential danger they pose, though it's highly unlikely Sirin would be able to do anything with her exhausted state. Sirin isn't that worried about them though, with her spatial sense, the girl has seen enough to identify these foreign soldiers as rescuers. Whenever they go, these soldiers deal with the Sardegnian ones with ruthless efficiency while rescuing Sirin's fellow captives along the way. Sirin can even see these unknown soldiers giving out relief supplies and first aid to the captives. Just the sight of these prisoners breaking out into tears at the first sign of human warmth is more than enough to give Sirin hope that maybe, just maybe, the Hellish days for her sisters are about to end. During the moments she spends spying on these soldiers, Sirin is able to pick up a few useful pieces of knowledge. For example, these soldiers are from Belka, the antithesis country to Sardegna. Sirin also learns that just now, some very, very important person from Belka has arrived at the castle some time ago and is being escorted up here.
Sirin is curious about this person, she's just about to see if she can focus her senses to search for this VIP but the sudden onslaught of gunfire and explosion from below the bell tower catches her attention. Quickly focusing her spatial sense downward, Sirin is both excited and wary to see these Belkan soldiers are already pushing upward, some of them seem to be way taller and bulkier than the rest. To see them brutally dismantling their opposition, Crusader or not, is thrilling, making it so that Sirin feels a sense of vindicative glee for the first time in her life. Though from what she can see with her normal eyes, the others in the room aren't feeling so great. Most, if not all of them are scared, Mother Cocolia and her sisters included.
At the behest of Lady Lyssa, all the guards are stationed at the bottom and the halfway point up the bell tower. This means that not a single person on the top of the tower has any sort of defensive weapon. It's easy to feel dread when you're about to come face to face with an unknown and powerful enemy without anything to protect yourself. Sirin knows that feeling quite well, it's why when the bonding on her right arm comes loose, she uses it to grab Mother Cocolia's hand as a calming gesture. Though shocked briefly, Mother Cocolia manages to let out a wry smile next.
Moments before the Belkan soldiers breach into the top of the tower, Lady Lyssa emerges from a side room, having changed into a high-class business suit rather than the researcher attire that Sirin has grown hatefully familiar to see. The woman then has the gall to rearrange the furniture and lay out a wine set for her consumption. That said, Sirin nearly bites back a snicker when the wine bottle explodes, splashing the expensive content onto the similarly costly suit Lady Lyssa is wearing! Amid the unpleasant cussing from Lady Lyssa, Sirin is quick to identify the reason why the bottle exploded. It's because of the soldiers aboard the strange-looking aircraft that fired an accurate shot from long range that hit the expensive bottle. Apparently, they weren't too keen on letting Lady Lyssa flex upon the arrival of their boss.
And speaking of that... Sirin may learn of the identity of that VIP soon enough. The guest of the hour has just arrived up top during the commotion.
I wonder if my favourite raven ruined lady lyssa's last shred of dignity?!?
with Emile is already hard at work
With Emile already hard at work?
Thanks for the chapter, Lyssa is not gonna be happy about what happens next
Lyssa: Hehe, I'm in danger
Hell yeah! Finally caught up after so long wooo!
Welcome back!
@Heartbreak117 Yeah
TFTC!
Regarding Patreon, recommend using a different browser, Firefox usually works fine with non video sharing sites, so it should work with Patreon.
If that doesn't help try this: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/allow-right-click/hnafhkjheookmokbkpnfpmemlppjdgoi
On Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/re-enable-right-click/
Don't know for Safari.
Anyways, if you enable it on Patreon, it should work. If not try right click paste.
Otherwise, try asking help center, they might have a solution.
Scratch that, first try copying it to notepad, or a simple text editor (like Notepad++ or smth like that), maybe Grammarly is using a formatting or encoding, which is not compatible w Patreon, and this copy to a simple editor and copying from there should fix it.
@Bersleid I did use the latter nethod kf copying to a notepad. It worked but screwed up my format
Not yet trying the former options, gonna see how they will do later. Thanks mate!