The Insider System

Chapter 230: Evading

With his arrow about to hit, Lake moved to the side so the Demon Worshiper couldn't block him and the arrow at the same time. Like he expected they turned towards his arrow with the spell and it disappeared but he was able to land a soft punch into their side. Lake didn't go anywhere near as hard as he could because he had a skill that made unarmed strikes partially pass through armor.

Echoing Strikes (R) Lv.1

Unarmed attacks deal 30% damage when blocked.

He didn't want to actually hurt them because it would make them more wary of chasing after him. Turning Lake went towards the closest building and ran inside. He could feel the amount of people that could see him drop by 90% as soon as he went inside which was pretty good for just walking into a building but he wanted the number to drop even further.

He wanted the only people to see what he was about to do to be him and the person he was fighting. They would be dead so they wouldn't be telling anyone. After that he didn't really care about the conclusions that the people that had been watching up until now ran off and told to their superiors.

Jumping through a window out onto the street, Lake ran across it and into another building. With this stunt he felt the amount of people who were still paying attention drop even further. With this the only people who could still track him or see him had to have some kind of scouting skill he would find hard to get away from but it would happen eventually if he kept up the odd moves.

...

Hearing the sounds of fighting outside Donny got up onto the roof so he could look towards the fortress. Around an hour had passed since he had returned from getting a look at the fortress so he wasn't surprised the fight had kicked back off. Going back downstairs Donny said. "Start getting them up to the roof."

Moving to get the feet of the closest person Donny and one of the others got the first person to the roof. There were only about twelve of them that had the use of both arms and could help carry the wounded up to the roof and since there was only one small staircase leading up to the roof it took a while to get them all up onto the roof.

Once they were up there it took them a few more minutes to get them to where they needed to be for the flying formation to be able to take them all up with them. Donny had designed it to be bowl shaped so he wasn't worried about any of them falling during the flight but he still wanted to make them as secure as possible.

It wasn't good for people in their condition to be moved let alone fly them through the air on an untested formation. He felt like he had done a good job but he hadn't ever made a formation exactly like this before so there was no way to know how stable it would be. For all he knew he was just going to dump them all into the middle of a horde of undead when it failed while they were flying.

He would take them on a longer route than they needed to take to see if it was working correctly before he flew them over the Demon Worshipers to keep that from happening. With everyone ready Donny nodded toward Fendis to signal him to be ready to help him once he activated the formation.

Unsealing it from the circle he had placed it in, Donny nodded towards them for them to activate the formation's wind mana siphon. Feeling the formation start to power up Donny increased his control over the formation to start to grow it outwards under all of them. Once it was large enough Donny lifted them a few inches off the ground.

Looking around to see if it was working like it was supposed to, Donny started to move them upwards slowly. Looking at Fendis and seeing their face looked calm Donny decided they were safe to start going faster. Flying them from over the building to the street Donny looked down. "We're flying."

It seemed what they were doing had caused a few of the wounded to wake up and he was happy to find none of them were freaking out about the situation they were waking up to. Flying them around the building they had been hiding in until now while speeding up he ran a few small maneuvers to test its performance. Once he was happy with the performance of the formation Donny said. "I'm about to head towards the fortress, be on the lookout for incoming attacks."

He knew the Demon Worshipers would try to blow them out of the sky as soon as they saw them. This wouldn't be a problem if they could fly higher but with the barrier they couldn't go as high as they needed to be safe from the people on the street. At their speed the Demon Worshipers would only get one chance to hit them though so he wasn't too worried about any attacks he saw coming.

Passing over a few rows of houses the first spell came flying towards them and Donny dodged to the side. He heard a few of the wounded make sounds like they had opened a wound or two but they could worry about that when they weren't in the air. Passing over another row of buildings Donny was finally at the point where he was earlier but being higher up he was able to see the ground around the fortress.

There was no way to count the amount from this far away but he was able to make out the numbers around the edges and if he was to guess he would say there were at least four thousand around the fortress. He was sure there were still more in the surrounding buildings so if the estimate of five hundred inside was correct they were severely outnumbered.

It was a good thing they were in the metal domain or the walls of the fortress would have crumbled in a few hours. Convinced they had a good chance of winning, Donny started to look for a place to land them. "Incoming!"

Snapping his eyes to the incoming spell Donny tilted them slightly to let the spell pass under them harmlessly. It didn't end there though right after the first one passed someone else yelled while pointing out a spell headed towards them. Donny just sped them up in response to this one since it was coming from the side.

"Another one." Donny took his attention from the fortress since he had found a place to land so he had already spotted this one when they had called it out. It was coming from the front so Donny had to actually lean them out of the way again. Ignoring the groans from the wounded Donny turned sharply again after the first spell passed them to dodge another spell.

It seemed they had gained the attention of the Demon Worshipers by now because the amount of spells that came in the next second outnumbered all the ones they had dodged up until now and it stayed like that even as he got close enough to the fortress that the spells they were dodging started to hit the fortress.

He guessed that made sense; it wasn't like it wasn't a win-win for the Demon Worshipers since they had been bombarding the fortress anyway. Getting them close enough to the flat part of the fortress that they were using to launch spells down at the Demon Worshipers to see the faces of the people Donny could tell they were confused but not hostile and that was all he needed to come in for a landing.

Lowering them as fast as he could while still giving the people in the way the time to move, Donny got them a few inches above the ground before he started dissipating the formation. He hadn't even gotten his foot onto the ground when people from the fortress came towards them with weapons up.

He had expected this so he just let them move in and grab him and the others seemed to understand this was a necessary act of returning to the fortress like this. It would be insane to think they wouldn't be suspected at all. He and the others were taken in a few different ways which he wasn't surprised by either.

If he was them he would want to separate them so they would be easier to deal with if something did end up happening. Once he was in a small room with just his guards someone walked in and asked. "Were you the one flying the formation you arrived on?" Donny knew it had been pretty obvious to anyone looking so he said. "Yes."

"Good, were you also the one who laid it?" Donny nodded before remembering he hadn't been the only one. "Me and one of the others named Fendis. He's wearing a green shirt and brown armor." After he said this the person left the room and returned with Fendis a few minutes later.

"Alright we've confirmed your identities as Fighters guild members." Donny was surprised at the speed but he guessed it made sense they had probably been on it before they had even finished landing. "We need you to come with us to help with the wall." Donny followed the man out while asking. "The wounded we brought with us?"

"The healer is making his rounds, don't worry." Hearing this Donny put it out of his mind and just paid attention to the rings they were passing. His father had always told him to pay attention to where you were no matter what in case you had to run and he had no delusions that this base was impenetrable.