Chapter 193: Protecting The Queen

***Caddock***

“My Lord, the Tangled have cut off the southern fort and overrun the eastern one. We’re currently devoting every man we have to scouring them from the countryside but the rate that they are reproducing behind the frontlines is untenable.” The scout said, standing rigid.

“Frederick’s monster come back to bite us in the ass, I suppose.” Caddock said. “Amazing how much more loyal a dog is when you don’t kick it. That fucking moron.”

“William Oh must be some kind of tactical genius because-“ The scout began, his mouth snapping shut as Caddock glanced up at him.

“It doesn’t take a tactical genius to bring a better weapon to a fight than the other guy,” Caddock mused, looking down at his map. “That being said, every weapon has a weakness…”

***William Oh***

“They’ve deployed nukers in flying palanquins to do strafing runs over and around the forts. It’s killing a large fraction of me and slowing down our numbers drastically.” Anna said, her expression vacant.

Pawns were passing over the map, held up by Anna to represent the flying nukers.

“Can you fly, Anna?”

Anna shook her head.

“I can make wings big enough, and I’m more than strong enough to get airborne, but the balance eludes me. I always wind up spiraling out of control and smashing into the ground.”

“You need tailfeathers.” Will said, glancing over at Anna. “Or maybe…ankle-feathers?”

“Oh!” Anna said, eyes widening. “Bee is gonna try it. She’s the best at shapeshifting.”

Anna’s expression twitched.

“She got blown up. But she thinks that it could work if she got some practice.”

That takes time. And they’re watching the ground with an eagle eye to prevent us from taking the sky from them.

“Tell Travis to make an extra-strong illusory flying Bee already high in the sky. Have it dive onto one of the flying bombers and rip them up. If we can disrupt their search pattern, a couple more Bees could take the opportunity to join the fight in the air.”

It would be best for us if they thought we already had flight-capable Tangled, too. Make them hesitant to send out their Nukers, which would allow Brianna to reproduce faster.

Will had to admit, even though he was aware of the paladin’s raw numbers, he was still surprised at the manpower Caddock had access to.

If I had just charged straight in…Will thought, studying the hundred or so Nukers criss-crossing the skies above the forts.

He might’ve taken out an outsized number of Caddocks people, but he would’ve eventually been worn down by sheer numbers.

The fact that they were bringing this much firepower to bear on Brianna meant they weren’t directing it elsewhere.

They were forcing Caddock’s hand, depleting his resources just to prevent their Tangled problem from growing rapidly out of control.

Food was going to become a problem soon.

Brianna’s copies were created at whatever level of satiation the original had, So there was a soft-cap on the number they could make before they started starving and/or dyign of thirst. It was a big number, but Caddock was crushing that number down as best he could, and the copies were slowly growing more and more hungry as they continued splitting off a copy of a copy of a copy who hadn’t eaten in days.

Their Resistance was outstanding, but they were bound to start seeing a performance decrease by the end of the week.

We’re three days in. By the end of the week, I’ll have my Hammer of God ready to go.

Will turned his attention to his Phantom hand. He’d capped the speed of its rise while in the atmosphere to prevent the bag of arrowheads from falling apart on the way up.

Will had no way of telling where the atmosphere ended, or if it ended at all, although his discussions of light with Ghoul seemed to imply that was the case, and there was some boundary between the sun and the atmosphere which caused light to bend.

It’s about two hundred miles up. Will thought, consulting his map, using the legend on the corner to eyeball the height of the bag.

The thought of a boundary between atmosphere and non-atmosphere gave Will pause.

If his Hammer of God increased the mass and speed of a projectile over time, and it took several minutes or even hours for the arrowheads to arrive at their targets…

Would the arrowheads eventually be moving fast enough to be torn apart by the air itself?

Will would’ve never thought of it if he hadn’t moved himself so fast that flying through the air felt like slamming his face through an endless solid brick wall.

At a certain speed, the air just couldn’t get out of the way fast enough.

And these would be going even faster.

…Let’s stop moving the Phantom Hand upwards. If this turns out to be a success, two hundred miles is plenty of distance to create a powerful impact. And even if it fails miserably, at top speed Phantom Hand can make it back to me in less than an hour instead of days.

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By the evening, The ‘fake Bee’ gambit paid off, and the flying Nukers were disrupted long enough to get Bee to retreat to some isolated locations at the edge of the map, where the tiny shapeshifter grew wings and launched herself into the air.

Will watched the Bishop pieces at the corners of the map raise into the air, Wobbly at first, but eventually getting their air-legs. In response, the palanquins of Nukers began to carry a dozen or so Climbers in order to have enough firepower to shoot down Tangled attacking from the sky.

This meant they couldn’t field as many palanquins, and their vision grew gaps, at the hundred or so groups making passes over the sky shrank down to only a dozen or so.

On the other hand, each of them were flying fortresses capable of knocking dozens of Bees out of the air in a matter of seconds.

That’s fine, I just wanted to keep pressure on them and create gaps in their vision.

“Are you going to sleep?” Anna asked.

“Eh?” Will asked, glancing up at her. “I don’t need to sleep. My Resistance is high enough that I won’t need to for another couple weeks, at least.”

Anna’s eyes went vacant for a moment before she glanced at him. “Loth says you should get some sleep. Even though our bodies can stay awake for weeks, our minds gradually lose brainpower, which accelerates after a few days awake. You’ll start being less careful and making mistakes.”

Will wanted to argue, but it made too much sense to disagree with.

Loth got some sleep the night before so…

“…Have Loth take command while I take a nap.”

“She’s on it,” Anna said, one of her copies already creating a little nook in the sandstone cavern for Will to curl up in, lining it with blankets and pillows.