Read Novel Full Chapter 1252 - Taming the Old World - Stealth
Chapter 1252 - Taming the Old World - Stealth
Yano also possessed an abandoned sector now, one that encompassed nearly three-quarters of its total territory, and in a way, it served as the perfect cover for the initial legs of their march.
The strike force advanced quietly through deserted streets and buildings stripped of their owners, utilizing the towering stone walls as a physical screen within a depopulated zone.
No one could observe them there. There was nothing left to give away their position.
But the city eventually ended.
And beyond those borders, the open plains began.
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The plains presented the primary tactical problem…
It was wide open, completely flat terrain lacking a single tree or large boulder to hide behind. Crossing that expanse on foot with a full strike force meant exposing themselves to the eyes of any mutant scout patrolling for miles around.
Going underground was an equally terrible option; the seismic vibrations of a large group moving beneath the soil traveled incredibly far outside the reinforced bowl of the capital. In a wilderness where subterranean mutants tracked tremors even better than they used their eyesight, digging a tunnel was the equivalent of screaming their exact coordinates.
They could not hide beneath the earth. Therefore, they opted for the next best strategy.
They would simply become invisible in plain sight.
Min eagerly took the vanguard position to serve as the core of the system.
His true specialty was not merely making things explode; it was the art of deception, distraction, and manipulating enemy perception. To cross the exposed plains unseen, the entire group relied heavily on their mana-concealing artifacts and the combined efforts of every Light tamer they had brought along, including Hikari, Larissa, and Ren himself through his Mantis.
Ren's Mantis could not draw much mana while its host was mana exhausted and resting on its back. However, it required almost zero energy to begin with. Its innate capacity for illusions was naturally flawless, a unique talent that did not depend on burning large reserves but on bending ambient light through pure instinct. Even while holding back, the Mantis wove intricate optical distortions that easily deceived the eye.
Working in tandem, they erected a perfect curtain of invisibility.
It was not a solid, opaque wall, since that would have been glaringly obvious as a strange blur moving across the landscape. It was something significantly better and more subtle.
The Light tamers bent the ambient rays around the group, sampling the natural colors of the terrain, taking the dull green of the grass, the light blue of the overcast sky, and the long shadows of the early morning. They projected those exact visuals onto the surface of their illusion, ensuring that anyone looking in their direction would see nothing but more empty plains.
Larissa assisted Min in calculating the precise geometric angles, adjusting the refractive index so the image remained structurally sound from any possible vantage point. Hikari maintained a steady, unwavering brightness, preventing any sudden flickers that might shatter the effect. Ren's Mantis wove the delicate edges together and corrected the final microscopic details, specifically targeting those subtle seams where an illusion typically gives itself away, blurring them until there was no visible transition left.
And Min directed the entire orchestra, wielding that unique blend of raw instinct and sheer audacity that made him so incredibly good at his job.
He was extremely happy to be the heart of the maneuver, as showing off remained his greatest preference.
"Slow the pace on the right flank, my dear minions," he murmured, keeping his stride perfectly steady. "We have a scout sitting at three o'clock, so ensure there are zero flaws on that side but do not halt your advance, just keep walking naturally and I will carry us to victory. Hikari, the shadow projection on the left is half a degree out of phase, fix it before something with decent eyesight notices."
The strike force moved as a single, cohesive unit, looking exactly like a detached piece of the plains slowly drifting forward.
The Silver-rank scout beast monitored the area from a distance.
Yet the creature stared right at the stretch of land they occupied, and even with its eyes active mana perception, it registered nothing out of place aside from a very faint ethereal fluctuation. Thanks to the suppression artifacts, the anomaly felt like nothing more than a passing breeze, prompting the bored beast to turn its head the other way. The optical curtain held firm.
They passed less than a hundred meters from the creature without raising a single suspicion.
The group finally let out a collective breath once they left it far behind.
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They traversed the open expanse exactly like that, moving like ghosts woven from stolen light.
And on the opposite side, the mana rings where the group divided in two parts began.
First came the Iron ring, followed by Bronze, Silver, and Gold, with each successive zone more dangerously congested than the last. Thousands of mutant beasts roamed everywhere, constantly watching and patrolling.
It was a massive network of eyes that Selthia had seeded across the territory to guarantee she would never be taken by surprise again. In those dense sectors, the illusion was no longer sufficient on its own; they had to carefully combine it with physical stealth, their mana-blocking artifacts, and a heavy dose of patience. They waited for the perfect windows of opportunity to slip between the patrols and the subterranean traps that Luna and Liora easily detected with their expert mana vision.
Several hours later, delving deeper into the untamed wilderness, they finally breached the Platinum rings, the most perilous zones of all.
These areas harbored the same corrupted mutants, but of a vastly superior tier and in much greater numbers, actively feeding on the local wild beasts in constant, brutal clashes that stained the rings with violence.
The strike force was forced to navigate carefully around each of those chaotic elemental battles, slipping through the temporary gaps left behind, inching their way between massive predators tearing each other apart with erratic blasts of mana without a single entity noticing their presence.
It was a grueling journey lasting nearly the entire day, stretching from the middle of the dead city all the way to the very edge of the third Platinum ring.
Without a single battle and without a single mistake.
And finally, remaining perfectly concealed very close to the boundary of the ring, the group came to a halt and waited.