Chapter 211 - 210 Preparing To Defeat The Demon
After exiting the tent Mrazivý went over to her party to discuss the plan she and Marcus had come up with, and Marcus looked out and saw some familiar faces waiting for him.
While he had been catching up with and then discussing strategy with Mrazivý. Lilia along with her beast companion's and Blitz had made their way over and were waiting for Marcus.
Going up to them Marcus began telling Lilia his plan and as he got further into the details Lilia began looking at him with concern.
"Marcus please do not do that, there has to be a better way, what if you get yourself killed."
Putting on his best comforting smile, Marcus patted Lilia on the head and said, "I am pretty tough to kill so do not worry, I promise I will come back and get you once it is done."
After making sure that Lilia was not too worried about him, Marcus looked towards Mrazivý who had just finished up explaining the plan to her party members.
The two of them then went to talk to the intelligent beasts leader heading towards the hill where the tree of wisdom was situated.
Sitting under the tree Marcus could see the winged unicorn laying down and deeply sleeping, most certainly needing rest after fighting the powerful demon day after day.
Veunlux noticing Marcus and Mrazivý approaching, lifted its head and looked towards them a tinge of concern in its eyes.
"What is it that you need from me Mrazivý and Irene?"
Veunlux got right to the point not wanting to beat around the bush in anyway as he waited for Marcus' and Mrazivý's reply.
Answering first, Mrazivý who had been here longer said, "Great leader of the beasts, we have come up with a new plan to deal with the demon. During the last confrontation with the aid of Irene, we were able to drive the demon and its forces away before the light returned and left them weakened. I know that you refused before but going after the demon while it is not at full strength is the only way to save all of you. At our current rate the only thing that awaits every one of you intelligent beasts is death."
Hearing this Veunlux grimaced and took a number of moments to think about the proposal before saying, "I really wish we could, but our duty is to protect this area, if we leave there is too much to lose. If the demon were to attack while we were gone, they would ravage our home which is the only place we can belong. Not only that but those that are too weak to fight would be ambushed and slaughtered, the risk is just too great."
However, even after Veunlux's refusal Marcus was not ready to give up and began to elaborate on his plan.
"What if I could make sure that the demon would not attack while you and your forces engaged the demon, and that I could make sure the weak were protected."
Veunlux surprised to hear what Marcus had said, Looked at him and said, "How might you do that, I admit that you are strong but how do you intend to protect us while also attacking the demon."
A smile then crept onto Marcus' face as he could tell he had grabbed the interest of the winged unicorn.
"You have a number of crippled members of your community that are currently unfit to fight. I will heal them all back up to their peak condition, then you should have enough to leave here for defense, and I will even leave my own beast companion Roxene here as added security."
Marcus then popped out Roxene from his companion storage and Veunlux actually reared back when he saw Roxene.
Normally Roxene would retract her aura but right now she was allowing her high-grade bloodline to be felt, and the power of it was even effecting Veunlux.
Veunlux was still astounded to see Roxene, but he soon got himself back under control after a minute, and looked at her closely before saying, "To think that such a powerful beast would actually exist. Even though you appear to still be young, your strength is already near as powerful as I am."
Marcus seeing that Veunlux was getting closer to agreeing to a preemptive strike on the demon, decided to tell him the final part of his plan.
"However, that is not all I have to offer. I have the ability to become ethereal and invisible as you already know. With this ability I can avoid most forms of detection and can keep an eye on the demon's army. Of course, I will need to be careful since I have in the past dealt with creatures that can sense me, but I am confident that I can keep tabs on the demon's army and keep you updated on their movements through my connection with Roxene."
After listing to the details of Marcus plan Veunlux was definitely being close to being won over but there was just one thing left on its mind.
"How do you plan to keep the demon from simply running away. As you have seen it has some type of ability to transport itself across space and escape. Will it not just run away if we come to attack it."
Nodding his head Marcus agreed with what Veunlux was saying but he had already though about this.
"That is true if the demon noticed all of you attacking and he thought he would lose, it is almost certain that it would flee. That is why I will serve as bait to distract him before you all arrive. After what I just did to it the demon will certainly want me dead, so I will attack it before any of you arrive and draw its attention towards me. I can then fight the demon until all of you arrive and this time, I will keep it from escaping."
Marcus now knew that as long as he was perpetually pressuring the demon it would not be able to use its teleportation ability since last time it had to cut its own arm off to activate it.
Except Veunlux looked at Marcus like he was crazy and said, "Will that not mean that you plan to fight the demon for several minutes before we arrive. You certainly showed tremendous strength in your earlier fight but offering yourself as a distraction is likely to get you killed. The demon is not going to sit idly by and fight with you but call in his army as well. Do you think you can hold them off for several minutes before we arrive?"
Nodding his head Marcus said, "Yes I do, if I just need to distract them, I can do that for a few minutes. I have a number of tricks up my sleeve."
Once he had finished mulling over the plan Marcus and Mrazivý had presented Veunlux looked seriously at Marcus and said, "Very well, if you can truly heal those that have been crippled, I will agree to your plan."
With their discussion finished Marcus and Mrazivý left as Veunlux had laid back down to rest and went and found Findlyier who showed Marcus to where the crippled intelligent beasts were.
In total there were one hundred and thirty-four beasts with various injures, from missing limbs, shredded wings, and in some sever cases missing organs.
'This is going to hurt.'
After telling all of the beasts not to resist what he was about to do and that he was going to be healing them, Marcus gritted his teeth and went back into his ghost form.
Floating over to the first beast which was a gryphon that was missing both of its eyes, Marcus activated his possession ability and took over the gryphon.
Feelings of pain immediately assaulted Marcus' body as entered the gryphon, but he bared with it and within just over four seconds his high-speed regeneration along with casting a healing spell had fixed its eyes.
Continuing this process over and over, Marcus moved as fast as he could to heal all of the beasts using his regeneration and healing magic, and on the last beast, he finished with only around ten seconds left before his possession ability reach its limit.
Having finished up the healing Marcus simply floated in the air trying to catch himself after having experienced all of the beasts pain.
'At least that was still nothing compared to the time I first took over Irene's body, but it still hurt like hell. Hopefully I will not have to use this trick too often.'
Taking a good thirty minutes to get himself together, Marcus once again reappeared and all of the beasts he had just help began showering him with their thanks.
Of course, Marcus had only helped them to add to the beasts overall fighting force, and with the addition of over one hundred beasts level thirty or above that would become a major boon.