Thalion activated the communication circle in his home with so much rage that he lost control of his aura and passive skills several times, causing crimson flames to ignite in the air. The citizens walking down the street in front of his home scattered in shock when a wave of killing intent washed over them. Thankfully, just like last time, the gods appeared before him almost instantly.
"Finally. Took you some time," Nyssa hissed. "I can't remember the last time I had to ask mortals every two days when the leader of the base would return."
"Nah, before we talk about my leveling trip, what the fuck happened here? How could some Integrated Space faction capture my friends without you seeing it coming? No, even worse, didn't you tell them to help that faction?" Thalion was furious with the gods.
"This isn't our fault and is clearly a plot by our enemies. The system has further reduced what we can do, and peering into those lower quadrants has become almost impossible. Additionally, someone must have known that we were about to approach this faction and made them a better counteroffer. That is why we were looking for you, because you can't go there," Solan explained with his typical godly superiority.
"And why exactly shouldn't I go there?" Thalion asked. It took all of his self-control not to shout at the gods, even as his eyes bathed the room in crimson light.
"Because this is clearly the entire point of the plot. The Show is your last opportunity to find allies. If you openly attack this faction, there will be recordings, and your appearance is far from subtle and can easily be interpreted as evil. Over the last few months, your followers have worked hard, and we managed to convince two small D-grade factions to cooperate with you after the third system event." Seeing Thalion's perplexed expression, Solan added a few words of wisdom. "This is how plotting works in the wider universe, and they got us good. You either lose your friends or your future alliances. There is no winning here, and the best course of action is to cut your losses."
Thalion, of course, saw things a bit differently.
"First, I don't care what other factions think, and I definitely won't cut my losses. You'd better tell me who this faction is, because I am one hundred percent going there and killing every single one of them."
"Stupid mortal," Nyssa hissed, clearly losing her patience. "Do you have any idea what the implications are? This isn't only about your reputation, but also about seeing what you're capable of before the third system event. Besides that, you are one of the most famous mortals in the multiverse, and that can backfire tremendously if most people begin to believe that you are evil. There will be bounties on your head and millions of people coming after you, with their entire Paths revolving around cleansing the world of all evil."
There, the gods probably had a point, but Thalion still wasn't going to follow along. It all sounded like future Thalion's problem, and there were only two ways this would end. The Integrated Space faction would release his friends and heavily compensate them, or they would die.
"I don't care about the consequences, and how the public sees me is still to be determined. No matter what, I am not leaving my buddies to die. Now, what faction has captured them?"
For a moment, it looked as though the gods were so angry that they might explode. A moment later, both gods disappeared, only for another elf Thalion had never seen before to appear in their place. The female elf didn't look like she wanted to be here in the first place.
"I am Ferniel, the patron of Ricarda, and I shall inform you of everything about the faction that has dared to mess with our faction. Their race is called the Vhara." With that said, an illusion appeared, depicting a green humanoid figure. Its head was elongated, hairless, and divided by a sharp ridge running down the middle.
They didn't look particularly muscular, but they were quite tall and relatively slim. Their yellow eyes especially stood out, as did the fact that they didn't seem to have any teeth. Their noses were barely there, which kind of reminded Thalion of Lord Voldemort.
"The most common class among the Vhara is the Mage class, but they also have very nimble and agile fighters. The sect that abducted your friends is called the North Tower and is just a small part of the A-grade sect known as the Polaris Conclave. The leader of the North Tower is Ter'tu. According to our information, he has a Mage class that specializes in lightning and crystals.
"The North Tower has a total of thirty-four members who have reached D grade, as well as several thousand E grades. At the outpost you are visiting, all of the D grades will be present, along with at least a few hundred E grades. Furthermore, your friends are most likely being tortured at their main base. You will have to dismantle their defenses first and kill all of the D grades before they can execute your friends. Please don't take my Chosen along. She still needs time to catch up after everything that has been lost." Ferniel ended her explanation with a rather pleading request that Thalion intended to ignore.
They would need every single person for the attack.
"Thanks for the information," Thalion responded coldly before simply leaving. It was probably a bit unfair, but he was still furious. His friends were being tortured right now, so there was no time to dilly-dally. No, it was time for a big meeting and to make plans on how to completely fuck up the sect.
Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for everyone to arrive, as they had all been waiting for Thalion to return. The builders had constructed several large halls in the center of the base that were supposed to be used as storage buildings for materials. Right now, however, one of them served as their war council.
Everyone was there. Lee, Lucan, Maike, a very upset Vorlok, Annie, Lara, Thalassan, Josh, Jack, Althirion, and an uncomfortable-looking Ricarda. The mood was quite sour, but given the circumstances, Thalion even thought it was a bit too calm.
"As it seems, Kaldrek, Evelyn, Kargul, and Jakob have been captured by one of the factions they went to help. On top of that, they are currently being tortured, which is why we need to break them out as quickly as possible. Can someone get me up to speed on what their demands are?" Thalion began the discussion.
"Some utterly ridiculous shit. They want us to join their faction and pay for our followers' transgression by completing a few quests for them, plus handing over D-grade crystals," Maike hissed.
That indeed sounded more like a provocation than anything else.
"Hmm, it looks like this was a trap planned quite a while in advance, with the goal of portraying our faction as evil while also gathering as much information as possible about our skills and powers. No matter what we do today, we're going to pay heavily for it later, but quite frankly, who cares? Since our buddies have been captured, we need to be a bit crazy to get them back. I already kind of have a plan, but I want to hear your ideas first." Thalion said.
It turned out that absolutely no one had an idea except for the most reasonable smith the system had ever seen.
"Okay, hear me out. I know blowing up the base was rather underwhelming last time, but I fixed the design issues, and now it should work as intended," Lucan suggested, which frankly wasn't that bad of an idea since they would likely need an easy way to break through their shields.
"I don't like being pessimistic, but how are we supposed to get the others out before they get killed?" Annie asked.
That indeed was the biggest problem they were facing. What if the enemy simply put a sword to their throats and ordered them to lay down their weapons, threatening to kill the hostages otherwise?
"We definitely need a team that immediately goes to free them the moment an opportunity presents itself. They need to be fast and, if possible, have a way to hide themselves," Althirion added.
"Agreed. Before I share my idea, who wants to do it?" Thalion asked.
They would need a rescue team, and Thalion wouldn't be able to take on that role since all of the enemy's attention would be focused on him.
"Jack and I will do it. We're both fast, and Jack can even hide himself while being able to teleport around," Josh said instantly. This time there wasn't even any of the usual funny bickering between the two, which showed just how serious the situation was.
"Sounds good. Now, onto the plan." Thalion nodded. "Their goal is to portray us as evil, so I thought, why shouldn't we fully lean into it? Today, we're going to kill everyone in that faction without exception and show the multiverse what happens if they ever dare act against us again. As for how we get them out alive, our enemies will likely try to force us into submission by cutting them apart right in front of us. So we'll simply go along with it by claiming that we only came to kill them in the first place because they know the secret of my one weakness. Maybe I'll go into a bit more detail, but if we make it too obvious, the whole strategy won't work. Otherwise, I don't see any way of getting them out alive. If it works, the enemy might even decide to take them away for further questioning."
Those were his honest thoughts. Maybe he would have to offer something more, like the secret of his bloodline or his Transcendence skill, but otherwise there wasn't much he could do. He had made great progress, and with everyone in the room now at D grade, they should be able to fight that Integrated Space faction. At least, this would be their only shot.
"It is vital that, the moment the fight starts, we go all out and create as much chaos as possible. If they hide behind walls, it will be Lucan's job to break them instantly with whatever rocket or bomb is necessary. Oh, and no one here has a fire skill I don't know about, right?"
Thalion didn't plan on holding anything back in this fight, and his passive skill would turn every flame into a conduit for his curse, which would horribly backfire if one of his own people used fire magic. He didn't yet have the ability to focus the radius of his passive skill only forward.
"Ehm... I'm kind of a fire mage," Lara said shyly.
Right. Thalion wasn't even sure when she had joined the inner circle, but he remembered that she had already been with them back in the tutorial. It meant he couldn't rely on his passive skill that allowed him to control all flames around him and automatically change their affinity to his own.
"Well, that settles that. Anything else we need to discuss?" Thalion didn't really have much more to say after sharing his overall plan. Apparently, however, quite a few people still had things on their minds.
"This will be extremely difficult since there are thousands living in the base. Are you sure we can do this? There will definitely be casualties," Ricarda argued, hoping to somehow avoid all the slaughter, a sentiment that no one else seemed to share.
"They are torturing our friends! there's no reason to leave them out of it," Annie argued.
"But what are we going to do if they simply teleport them away? Those D-grade factions can be quite large, and they most likely have a teleportation network. We don't have any way to interrupt it," Ricarda pressed on.
"There are certainly more ways this could go wrong than right, but this is also an Integrated Space faction that greatly underestimates us. Either way, that faction is going to die nonetheless. We can't allow them to play us like that. I think it's best if you split into small groups so things won't become too chaotic and prepare for war."
With those final words, nothing more needed to be said, and Thalion returned to his home. He still needed to decide which form he wanted to use for the coming fight.