Chapter 187 Time For War
After the war council meeting was adjourned, Shiro immediately made her way to the roof of the highest tower and sat there with Yin.
Since they had some free time, Shiro wanted to go out of her way to make some extra defences.
*Tzzz!
Lightning flickered around her as she started to install a series of weapon cores onto the tower.
"What are you making mum?"
"A degraded version of the orbital cannon. Normally, I would have something to launch a core into the atmosphere that would expand into a satellite cannon before creating the 'pointer'. BUT, since I don't have the power to create the satellite yet, I'm going to manually become the pointer while this will become the long distance cannon." Shiro explained.
Once she converts the king's castle into a heavily fortified nanotech fortress, she could be more assured about the outcome of the war.
Spending the night to convert several towers, she saved a few towers to create a defence system for the cannons.
Naturally, the king didn't know any of this. No one could since the spy could be around every corner. She needed to be secretive about this.
Just as she was finished with the final defence, she saw the sky slowly brighten up.
"It's already morning?" Shiro muttered, clearly not expecting it to be sunrise this early. Even though she had been working on the defences for a while, there should still be 2 hours left.
However, it wasn't a sunrise.
Widening her eyes in shock, she saw a giant wave of lightning arrows rushing towards the kingdom.
"Everyone wake the f*ck up! We're under attack!" Shiro shouted out as she used mana to amplify her voice so that everyone could hear it.
Slamming her palms into the roof, Shiro pumped as much mana as she could into the defence systems. She didn't have the time she needed to draw mana from the surroundings so she could only fuel it with her own mana for now.
Resisting the pain she was feeling from her body, she continued to insert an outrageous amount of mana.
"Yin! Take this and point out where the enemy is located." Shiro shouted out while flicking a small device at Yin.
"How do I use this?" Yin asked with a serious face.
"When you see them, throw it at them. Remember, once you throw it, jump into the rift since I don't want to hit you by accident."
"Got it."
Quickly transforming herself back to a phoenix, Yin flew away.
*Kish! Kish! Kish!
While Yin was flying away, several mechanical structures started to extend from the towers and projected a huge barrier over the entire kingdom.
*BOOM!!!!!!
The impact of the attack against the barrier caused a miniature earthquake to hit the kingdom. Those who were still sleeping woke up instantly.
*CRACK! CRACK!
Several fractures could be seen spreading on the surface of the barrier as Shiro twisted her palm.
Following her gesture, the barrier started to rotate, throwing several arrows to the landscape around the kingdom.
*BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!
Every arrow that hit the ground would cause a huge explosion that decimated everything within the blast radius. Looking at the damage, Shiro frowned a little after thinking about the casualties that they could have taken.
Looking down, she could see the soldiers scrambling around in a panic.
"Oh for f*cks sake." She muttered with a roll of her eyes.
Creating a magic circle, she combined it with the defence system.
*BOOM!!!
Shrinking down for a moment, the barrier expanded in an instant and sent the rest of the arrows flying towards the surroundings.
Naturally, this forced the barrier to lose quite a bit of durability and a portion of it shattered apart.
"At least the absorption system seems to be working optimally." She sighed in relief.
If the attack had landed on her barrier without the absorption system, it would have shattered upon impact. But due to the fact that the barrier siphoned mana from the surroundings along with the mana from the attack, it was barely able to hold itself together.
Watching the barrier slowly stitch itself back together, Shiro quickly encased herself in ice to regain some of her mana.
Now that the initial attack had been blocked, it gave the defence systems some time to fully fuel itself rather than Shiro supplying the mana herself.
Feeling a small rumble in her hands, Shiro saw the coordinates that Yin had given her.
"Perfect." She grinned as her eyes became cold.
Redirecting a portion of the mana to the weapon systems, several huge cannons materialised above the towers as support beams stabbed into the ground.
If one was to look at the castle now, they would see huge cannons aiming high into the sky.
*TZZZ!!!!!!
Lightning thrashed around the barrel as a huge amount of ambient mana was being pulled from the surroundings.
*BANG! BANG! BANG!
Naturally as collateral, some parts of the castle were shattered by the lightning but no one was harmed.
Neon circuits could be seen slowly running its way up the barrel as if symbolised how much power is being charged up.
Raising her hand up, Shiro narrowed her eyes and clutched her fist.
*KISH KISH KISH!
Three layered magic circles wrapped around the tip of the barrel.
*BANG!
A single beam of light cut across the sky as the support beams cracked under the pressure.
*BOOM!!!!
Splitting the clouds in half, the beam dyed the sky with an ominous red.
A distant explosion and echo signalled the destruction of the attackers.
*BOOM!!!!!
A heavy gust of wind shortly followed the explosion as Shiro quickly stabilised herself as to not get blown away by the wind.
Smiling in satisfaction, Shiro looked back at the cannons.
The castle towers were heavily damaged due to the force of the recoil even with the support beams help.
However, their job was complete since they were supposed to help her with long ranged units.
Making sure that the defences were back up, Shiro hopped down from the tower and ran towards the council room once more.
"I'm back~" Yin called out as she jumped out of the rift.
"Mn, good job. Follow me, we're going to talk to the king about the next moves." Shiro smiled before flicking a C ranked mana stone at Yin.
Catching the stone in her mouth, Yin smiled happily and followed after Shiro.
*BANG!
Pushing open the door, Shiro saw the generals standing around the table with a serious face.
"Situation?" The king asked.
"Everyone's safe for now. The defences I've installed on the castle managed to hold up. As for the enemy, they've been taken care of." Shiro chuckled.
"Mn, seems like we should attack now. Gather the soldiers and we'll take them on at the borders." The king ordered as Shiro paused in a second.
"Wait, is that it?" She asked with a raised eyebrow
With all that discussion they had previously, she had expected them to have a better battle plan.
However, from what she could tell right now, the plan was just to group up and smash their army into the demon's army.
"Yes, why?"
"… Ok listen up. First, facing against them in a head on collision is a f*cking stupid idea. Right now, we're outnumbered heavily as well as out levelled. (Plus, the spy hasn't been found yet.)
"Therefore, I say hand me the full command of the army. I'll take over and command them from a higher vantage point. We need to use brains rather than brawn." Shiro said in all seriousness.
"Miss Shiro, as much as we trust you, I don't think you'll be able to pull it off. We've managed to push the demon's back through sheer will and tenacity so I'm sure the strong men of this kingdom can pull it off again."
"You idiot, did you not just see mum protect your asses right now? If she didn't put up the barrier, you wouldn't even have a kingdom left." Yin rolled her eyes.
". . ." The general shut up instantly since Yin had a point. However, as a man, he believed in dying in the glory of battle. Hiding and fighting the enemy in a cowardly way was against how he lived his life.
"Mn, just listen up. Follow my commands and I'll lead you through this battle. Of course you can ignore me but that will have a different kind of consequence." Shiro smiled darkly since she had the choice of completely turning them into her pawns without a shred of conscience.
"Very well. I do hope that you can pull this off." The king nodded his head.
"However, allow me to prepare for battle as well. I shall join in." He continued.
"My king! You cannot! You're currently injured and the kingdom still needs you." The generals widened their eyes and kneeled down all at once.
"Che, if the king wants to join let him join. He's one of the most powerful ones here and you want him to stay back?" Shiro rolled her eyes.
"*Cough* You really think differently don't you? I don't even know if you think of me as a king." He chuckled in embarrassment.
"Pft, if they saw what you were up to in the morning I think they might have the same thought process. Since you have the vigour for a morning routine, I'm sure you have the vigour for a battle." Shiro replied with a shrug.
"Er, can you stop mentioning that." The king's face reddened up slightly as he quickly left the room to prepare himself.
"Anyways, gather up your soldiers and meet me at the gates." Shiro ordered.
Leaving no room for discussion, she started to make her way towards Lisandra's room with Yin following just behind her.
"What are you planning to do for the war mum?" Yin asked curiously.
"Mn… just a little guerrilla tactics and trickery." Shiro replied after a short moment of thought.
She needed to prepare a backup plan for the guerrilla tactics since the problem of the spy knowing everything is a big one. Not only that, but the fact that she still didn't know who the spy was gave her headache. She had her ideas but the moment she takes the initiative without solid evidence, her rating for the quest was going to decrease quite substantially.
"Teach! Has the war started?" Lisandra called out from the distance. She was dressed in combat armour, clearly ready for a fight at any moment and the imperium sword hung on her waist.
"Yes it has. Follow me, we're going to meet the main army at the gates." Shiro nodded as she pulled Lisandra into the rift.
Appearing just outside of the gate, Lisandra widened her eyes in disbelief when she saw the destruction around the kingdom.
Large chunks of ground and forest were replaced with deep craters that were still burning from the attack.
Looking back at the fortified castle with a barrier rotating around the kingdom, Lisandra turned to Shiro in absolute shock.
"Did you do all of this teach?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Why? Because aren't you supposed to be an ice mage??? How is this even possible!" She cried out.
"Ah I haven't told you but I have another class. Nanomancer. I can create anything as long as I have the blueprint in my mind." Shiro explained briefly while pointing at her head.
"Don't explain it as if it's just a Sunday picnic!" Lisandra retorted as she had the urge to flip a table.
"Don't worry about it." Shiro smiled lightly and waved her hands.
"I swear, in the time that you have trained me, the most used sentence has got to be don't worry about it." Lisandra replied as she massaged her eyes.
After waiting a short while, they saw the army make their way to the front of the gate.
"Ok listen up!" Shiro shouted out as she used mana to amplify her voice.
"After several years of constant struggle between us and the demons, they have finally had enough. They're going to bring everything they have into this war."
Hearing her words, some of the soldiers became down cast.
"However! I can say that since they're bringing everything they have; it is also a prime opportunity for us to completely decimate them! You see that castle? Under my magic, I have transformed it into an armed fortress that held off against the first wave of attacks easily and had even destroyed the attacking unit.
"As the humans who have stood strong against the demon race, are you going to give up now?! I swear to god if you say yes I'll break you apart first." Shiro finished with a grin.
"NO!!!!!!!!" The army shouted out loud since having a fortress like that point at them was the last thing they wanted. Plus, some of them had even gone to the night raid with Shiro so they knew a little of her prowess.
"Good! We're going to send these demon's back to hell where they belong!
"Each of you follow your captain in command! Captains follow the general! I want this army to split up and move separately. Split yourself into 5 divisions and move out! I'll give you your commands once you're en route to the enemy! Lisandra, you follow me."
Watching the army split themselves evenly into 5 divisions numbering around 20,000 men strong, Shiro smiled in satisfaction. They had several months to know who they were under so finding their higher ups were easy.
"Yin would you mind giving me a lift?" Shiro asked with a smile.
Nodding her head, Yin transformed herself into a phoenix and waited for the duo to hop on before flying upwards.
As the army moved out, Shiro noticed the king and queen within the forefront of the 3rd division.
'So they're in the middle. Convenient.' Shiro thought to herself with a smile.
'Finally, it's time for war.'