255 Chapter Two Hundred and Fifty-Five – The Flank Attack (1/2)

-They decided to come out to meet us. Impressive,- Brother Ancientaxe /murmured.

There were literally hundreds of drakes and dragons in the sky. Their main job seemed to be to pace us, as none wanted to get to close and pay homage to King Gravity.

On the ground were tens of thousands of giants, ogres, and more drac-bloods, forming a line about a hundred meters deep that stretched on for literally miles. More of them were gathering in and forming up as we watched, obviously following the Wake in the sky.

Everything within a quarter mile of that line was basically in the range of hundreds to thousands of rocks and javelins. It was pretty impressive, and set in just a location for us to hit as it became morning.

Oddly enough, the stuff up in the sky didn't worry us at all. The only major threat was the massed fire from the ground, which would be equal to an AoE effect. Saturate the area around us with enough stuff, and there simply was no way to dodge it all. Soak the damage or get pounded into mush.

There was no cover to speak of, especially against dragons watching us from all directions. The forces to the flanks were slowly advancing, intending to encircle us and cut us off, gradually drawing tight a circle from which we wouldn't be able to escape, and kill us with tons of thrown rocks.

Basic snare tactics. We could easily outrace the ends of it if we desired, but that would cause a break in the Wake. Really, what we wanted to do was simply get into the thick of them... it was the safest place to be, and stay with them as they tried to retreat and open up fire zones from multiple angles, so they instead killed one another if they threw. They'd try to retreat in a circle and open up multiple fire angles, but if they did that, we could simply run and keep advancing.

Newcomers were gathering into a layered second line of advance, so if we pierced the first one, then we'd come under fire again. And they'd make a third one as soon as they could.

This was great, actually. They were taking us seriously, and mobilizing all these giants meant we had their attention.

Going stealth was possible, but unlikely with the dragons having their eyes on us all the time, and so many of them fixated on us. The odds were that she had lines of giants extended out for miles, collapsing on all sides, and technically, it might be too late to retreat.

But, that was the thing. We could expand the Wake at any time, we could leave it here... it actually wasn't all that critical. What was critical was bringing down the Obelisk. Expanding the Wake would just speed up the effect.

It was, after all, just a diversion.

Very pointedly, we could see the largest of the dragons in the distance, never getting closer than a mile to us. My eyes flicked that way almost irresistibly, for there was definitely a Hag riding on its back, and when I upped my Mask of Clarity, she was indeed very familiar.

Heya, Hagmom. Fancy meeting you here...

If the number of half-dragon Hags on the other dragons nearby, swapping in and out occasionally with us, were any sign, that mount was basically her chosen mate, a Mire Dragon Wyrm, if its size meant anything.

And despite its size, it wasn't coming in to challenge us. Word might have come with how fast her sister Empress had died, and the greenhag's daughters. Enough to make a paranoid, bloodthirsty, but very, very old Empress hesitant.

How old was she now? It wouldn't surprise me if a hundred thousand years had passed for her here, or even more. She'd probably had dragon lovers grow old and die. No maximum age for Hags, they just kept going, getting infinitely closer to 'middle age'.

You get that old, fear of death is hard to overcome... But an Exemplar would have the mental capacity to do so, and at the same time, not be as arrogant as she thought. After all, we were just short-lived ants, what we had done was a fluke that could be undone with the accelerated time here...

Or maybe it couldn't. Did she realize that time was going to synch up in this Shard of the Zonering? That space was going to revert to normal behind the Wake?

”Clockwise,” AA judged, and without a moment's thought, Briggs and I bolted after him.

She probably thought she was clever, moving forces out of sight of us to complete the encirclement, but our abrupt turning, and leaving the Wake behind, caught her off guard for a moment. A couple arrogant drakes who couldn't get out of the way in time plummeted down in our paths, we separated, and they died before they could stagger to their broken feet.

The others retreated, and tried to keep up with us, but only some of the dragons were fast enough in the air to do so. They did clearly parallel us, indicating our positions to the giants who were moving in the distance; I could read their movements by the vibrations in the ground, as could Briggs.

Unfortunately for them, this entire zone was marsh and swamp, occasionally cut by rivers, lakes, and small hills. That made for copious amounts of cover in the form of water, if not the many choked stands of swamp trees and reeds and rushes towering far above our heads. Olympian native life, yo, us be small widdle things...

They probably wouldn't believe how fast we could swim, either...

However, there was no reason not to make an opportunity of this. AA's Helices could really screw up visual sight, and there was no reason not to mess with them. Running under a set of trees over the shallow water, Briggs and I split off while AA continued ahead, zigzagging lazily and making the spotters work to keep line of sight on him. Naturally, they couldn't clearly make out if I or Briggs was still with them.

So, when the four Mire dragons beat their wings and found out they couldn't create enough lift, there was a bit of surprise on their parts. Screaming, clawing at the air, they fell from the skies.

Briggs and I rose up from the water, ready to greet them. They howled and screamed and beat at the air, then splashed down.