Godfather's System

198. Augmentation - 39

"How dare you ignore my orders, you commoner dog! I'm ordering you to leave my territory," a shout reached my ear.

"Jackpot," I muttered as the sound reached my ear. It came from my right, a bit over a thousand feet away. I could see about fifty people, split into two groups. I was happy to see that the larger group actually had one of the barons.

It was always good to have one of the higher ranking nobles. I used Concealment as I approached them.

"I'm only following the orders of my own liege, sir," the other scout answered, not yielding to the other noble. I carefully approached them, wanting to see whether I could push them to drag more observers for my eventual trick.

"Do you think you can follow those orders without your head?" the baron asked as he looked at the scout with disdain, but the scout met his gaze with courage. Too bad it died easily when the baron blasted him with his Charisma. "Kneel and stay silent," the baron ordered.

I used the opportunity to radiate a wave of my own Charisma across the area, which summoned the other forces in quick order. Several scouts with Speed arrived first, and a few forces with closer abilities followed.

One of the new arrivals flared his own Charisma against the baron. "How many times I have to tell you, never use your Charisma against my people," the new arrival called. "Do you think I wouldn't dare to declare a blood duel?"

"How many times" the first baron started to answer, but by that time, I had already returned to the cave. I grabbed one of the larger giant beasts and dipped the Ability Stone into its blood to make it look like I had just extracted it.

Then, I focused on my Concealment, trying to limit its effect to somewhere around sixty points, to make it look like I had a variant class of thief rather than the assassin class. After all, I still had a long chase, and I needed an excuse to fail at hiding. Then, I wrapped a mask around my face and pulled a hood to hide my face.

I even added a few cuts to my outfit to look like I had been fighting for long, to give an excuse for my carelessness as I walked out of the cave.

When I walked out, both barons already had their swords drawn, posturing at each other threateningly. The moment I walked out, however, their gazes turned toward me. I made a show of freezing as I caught their presence.

"Stop" one of them startled, his Charisma flaring, but I didn't give them a chance as I started running away. At the same time, I activated the explosive ward at the cave, the deafening noise and blinding flash enough to distract them.

"Catch him!" both barons shouted, but the explosion had been enough for me to put some distance. I displayed enough speed to show that it was a primary stat for my class, even at the risk of putting some distance.

Their scouts with speed followed me slower than I had expected, once again failing to impress me with their lack of discipline. All I needed was to run in a straight line into the nearest forest, and I would have avoid them.

So, I made a strategic 'mistake' and started zigzagging, as if I was trying to use some of the natural objects to avoid the gaze of the high Perception scouts. One benefit of my earlier observation, I had a good idea which one of them had the best Perception. I pulled that disappearing trick in front of him while disguising it as a total accident.

Then, I reversed direction completely, and started rushing toward the border. The maximum velocity I displayed wasn't as high as the other scouts, which allowed them to close in the distance. But, they didn't attack,instead acting as beacons to the several flying carts as I ran toward the outpost filled with Yoentia soldiers.

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Only then, I started using my mana. First, I activated the wards for the communication blockers, which temporarily blocked magical communication not only for the outpost, but also for the scouts and the flying carts that were following me.

Then, just as I passed near a rock, I activated the smoke bombs I had hid and activated my Concealment to its maximum capacity, casting an illusion that sent a fake copy of me toward the outpost.

The scouts and the flying carts could have done the smart thing and not followed the figure to the outpost but I was not above cheating. I hit them with Charisma, fueling their anger and confidence. The scouts continued their chase with artificial ambition.

The outpost, already warned about a possible attack, retaliated with siege weapons. Two of the flying carts fell immediately, their weakness once again a liability. The scouts retreated, their Speed allowing them to escape with little damage.

They weren't as lucky after what followed. A rain of mana bolts, courtesy of me.

[-728 Mana]

It was an expensive magic attack, but it killed four of them, while the rest retreated to tell the tale. Also, I made sure that the scouts that died belonged to the two of the four baronies, deliberately creating an inequality between baronies.

Meanwhile, the soldiers evacuated the falling flying carts, the height not exactly a huge problem. The siege weapons were more of a challenge, but the outpost soldiers lacked the discipline to target them with the correct timing, which allowed the soldiers to retreat without a loss.

Altogether, it was not enough to create a proper border crisis. Pity, I would have assumed it to have been enough.

The communication blocker was still in place, so it wasn't a loss yet. I used Concealment to slip into the outpost, stole a set of armor, and mixed with the soldiers that were responsible for the siege weapons.

And, waited, trusting that their wounded pride would bring the barons here. A gamble, as, at this point, if the Somaton forces did the smart thing and stayed away, all of my preparations would have failed.

As I waited, I used my Charisma on the soldiers of the outpost slowly, pushing their aggression higher. Not to an absurd degree, but enough to keep them hot blooded, so when a small army approached the outpost, they chose to defend the place rather than retreating.

A knight approached under the flag of truce. "Give us the thief and " he started, which was all he was able to say as I hit him with a tight blast of Charisma, enough to freeze him while I launched a mana imbued ballista bolt from the siege weapon.

It wasn't enough to kill him, but his wound was serious. And, he was assaulted under a truce flag. "Attack," I called as I spread my Charisma, using the trick I perfected thanks to Terma, and delivering a combined attack.

Ralum forces were already ready for a fight, so the Charisma-backed shout was enough to trigger it before they could process that the order didn't come from their commander.

The ballista bolts all targeted one of the barons that made the mistake of moving forward to protect the wounded knight. Unprepared for the sudden rain of ballista bolts, he died ignobly.

Amusingly, the moment one of their 'noble' peers died, the other barons immediately retreated to a safe distance, not ready to face the danger. Meanwhile, the commander of the outpost started shouting. "What's going on?! Who gave that order?!"

I retreated quickly, and escaped the outpost. Once I was sufficiently far away, I followed up with two things. I circled around the Somaton forces, ready to to take a couple heads to heat things up in case they chose to retreat in fear.

It turned out to be an unnecessary fear. They had surrounded the outpost while Ralum forces defended, and soon, two flying castles arrived, one for each side, turning the situation into a standoff that I couldn't easily intervene.

The events that followed were surprisingly routine, especially considering the scale of the events. Several flying castles from both sides arrived, their commanders doing their best to de-escalate the situation.

Unfortunately for them, I had visited the armies of both sides. A few Charisma-backed whispers were enough to keep things tense, though, just to be on the safe side, I delivered several sneak attacks to the commanders on both sides.

None of them succeeded, but then again, they weren't supposed to. The lives of a few barons and low-level commanders didn't matter. The presence of an assassin, poking around was enough to keep things heated.

As I poked around, I once again appreciated their preference of living in highly enchanted cities and actual flying castles. Any other place was simply too dangerous especially with people like me poking around.

I stayed in the border region for another day, which was enough to force Somaton to commit quite a bit of their forces. Unfortunately, Zolast informed me that it wasn't enough to make the forces at the breach go back to reinforce the mainland.

A bigger move was needed.

I looked at the sky, filled with flying castles.

They were big enough.

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