The hundred-year war began with great expectations from several parties. People wanted to know the impact of light empire's curtailment of their army, the achievements of notable figures and such. Many people were expecting Michael and Kandrf's squad to earn great meritorious services.

But, as it turned out, the squad was unusually quiet. They took down a fort from the other side in just a span of few days and then laid low. They did not attack other forts. Others from the dark army did not dare to attack that fort in the fear of retaliation. After all, that squad was like a sleeping lion. If such a fort was attacked, they would need more than 10 peak-saints to bring it down. Thus, the dark army treated that fort as non-existent.

The light army was disappointed, to say the least. They were expecting that Kandrif would lead his squad as a special attacking force. But, they did not meddle too much as they did not have the authority to. As for the heirs from the dark empire, they did manage to do pretty well for themselves. In just the first few months, each of the princes from the dark races had taken down 3 or more forts. The forts that they took down were also recaptured. But it did not mean that it was not considered as military merit for them.

After six months, the situation had pretty much stabilized with the light army losing over 20 forts to the dark army. This was a devastating defeat. But, it was during this time that several assassinations started taking place. These assassins were indiscriminate in their methods and seemed to be attacking the dark forts specifically. It was not that they were too powerful, but they were too good at escaping. Not a single one had been captured.

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After about a full year of the war, at a fort in control of the dark empire, people were going around doing their businesses. There were many soldiers that were a part of the fort even before the war had begun. These were regular members of the dark army. Both sides had their soldiers stationed in their forts all the time. These forts served as the border between the two empires after all.

In the evening, when the sun seemed to be going down the horizon, a huge flying bird could be seen several kilometres away from the fort. The bird landed around 50 kilometres away and 10 people jumped from its back. Almost all of them were peak-saints!

They tethered the bird and then began to run towards the fort. Even though they could have moved much faster, they seemed to be moving slowly but quietly. It was as if these people did not want to attract too much attention. All of them were covered in black cloaks and thus none of their features was visible. In around an hour, they reached the fort's boundary. At this point, one of them started using a soul-art that rendered them invisible. They managed to reach the walls of the fort undetected.

The gates were closed off and the walls were quite high. Even peak-saints would find it difficult to jump over the wall without causing a commotion. The group lingered around the gate for a while. After some time, the gates were opened and a group of warriors left the fort on the back of warhorses. They were the patrolling group of the fort. Each fort would send regular patrols for scouting potential enemy movements.

As the patrol-group left, the suspicious group managed to get in without being noticed at all. It seemed that they had planned their timing very well. They got in and made their way to the main building inside. This was the quarter of the fort guardian. They were very fast, swift and quiet. After reaching over to the building in question, they managed to get in after knocking out the guards. The entire operation seemed to be going as if this particular group was an expert in infiltrating heavily guarded military encampments.

They made their way in very fast. Inside the quarters, a man was making love to a woman. Both were dark elves - both clearly in the saint realm. Obscene noises and moaning could be heard from the inside. The building was soundproofed and thus, no sound was escaping outside. As the couple were in saint-realm, their reaction time and perception were extraordinary. As soon as they felt the extra presences, they separated and prepared to take a fighting stance.

At that time, the male who was at the peak-saint-realm and most likely the fort guardian was attacked from all sides by heavy hits. He managed to avoid one attack and block two, but the remaining three managed to hit him in different parts of his body. There was a shockwave from the impact as he felt his bones break. The woman wanted to scream but was suddenly hit at the back of her neck with a chop and lost her consciousness. The last thing she saw was the fort-guardian fighting against many black-cloaked figures. The battle was swift. There was no way that the fort guardian could stand one against many. The attackers were clearly very powerful and trained in combat. Even one-on-one, they would have been a challenge to him. He was taken down in just a few seconds. The interior of the building was already cracked at different places. This was the state of a fully reinforced building. Some commotion was indeed caused but the guards were already taken care of. It would take a few minutes for anyone else to notice the situation. Even if the situation was noticed, it would not matter.

The fort-guardian - the middle-aged dark elf knew that all these attackers were fort-guardian level. The fort could not stand against a force like this. He was prepared to die but was waiting for the attackers to say something. After all, if they were truly trying to kill, he would already be dead. That meant that they must have wanted to get something out of him. They held him down when another one of the black people came over and said:

Do not reisist. If you do, you will feel great amount of pain. You are not going to get any help. It is better to live than be stubborn.

Saying so, the black person started casting a soul-spell. His boundless soul energy entered the fort guardian's body and formed into a nasty seal. It was a sealing magic that would force the dark-elf to do as the seal holder wanted or else his soul would face deep pain.

The person in front of him said:

I command you : You will not tell anyone about what has happened. You will tell everyone that you suffered an assassination attempt but could not identify the assassins. Then, you will spread rumours .............

Each of the commands was branded into the dark elf's soul. The seal could be broken later but not by himself. And he had been instructed to follow some commands that he had to follow. When the dark-elf heard the commands, he was taken by a huge surprise. He knew that a huge plan was blowing and a huge storm would come to the battlefield. But he could only obey.

The people left the building as if they had vanished. Only the fort guardian was left there kneeling naked like the day he was born.

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After the group reached the bird, they took off. Only then did they remove their cloaks. It was quite a peculiar group. There were 10 people in the entire group - 9 of them were in the peak-saint realm. The last one was Michael.

Of the rest, four were guards from the elven kingdom and four from the beast kingdom. Another remaining one was Omar. This was the group that the entire battlefield was thinking of as being stationed at the original starting fort. If anyone knew about this information and told the dark empire, the value of the information would have been sufficient to grant nobility of the highest tier in the empire.

Michael said:

Michael : We have hit our 20th fort this time. We succeeded 14 times, so in total, we have 14 peak-saints and their army for our plan. As long as we can get 20 of them, we can begin the final phase. Omar, send message of this successful raid to Kandrif.

Saying so, Michael began to reminisce about what Kandrif had told him a year ago:

(One year before)

Just after Michael's group managed to conquer their first fort, Kandrif called a meeting. All the important members of the squad were present at the time.

Kandrif : You all know that the light army this time does not have a lot of man-power. We are a very powerful squad, the most powerful in the entire battlefield. So, it is ony natural that we do something more for the empire. Not only will this benefit the empire, but we ourselves will get rewards.

Michael : You can tell us which fort you have in mind next. We can get the army to march anytime.

Kandrif : No, my friend. Even if we take down forts as fast as we can, we can at max handle 10. The marching speed of the army is not fast enough to hold the fort. Even of we kill the fort guardian, the dark empire will send a new one after we are gone. To truly take over a fort, we don't have the required manpower. That is why we are going to do something different! We are going to take down a command centre.

Ashley : You gone mad? You want to take over a command centre. Even with our entire forces, we are too short. Our army is only 2 thousand people, and we only have 11 fort-guardian level experts. The nearest command centre has 38 peak-saints. We will simply die in the expedition.

Kandrif : Of course, if we attack without a plan, we will be doomed. But I have a plan! We will attack the command centre number 3. The CC#3 is the at the edge of the map and borders the neutral empire. The chances of it being attacked are too low. They will expect it the least. They have a total of 26 peak-saints stationed there. Now, we are going to split our squad. Michael, you have to lead the other part. You will take 9 of the experts that you may pick and take care of the forts under the CC#3 jurisdiction.

Michael : Taking care of them will be very easy. This will make sure that they will not get reinforcements. But still, the Command Centre itself is still a problem.

Kandrif : You think I have not thought this through. Take this. This scroll contains a soul-sealing art. This has been obtained from the land of god-beasts after paying a huge amount of treasures. This won't work on people who have solid-stage-soul or afterwards. But below that level, it is the word of god. Using this, you have to get the peak-saints in control. Then, we will attack the CC#3 once we have sufficient strength.

Michael : Hmm, I think I can learn this.

Kandrif : I am sure that you will fail in some cases as well. You have to be discrete about your aim. You must not let anyone else know. Attack and retreat swiftly. Also, once you have succeeded, get the fort-guardians to spread the rumour that the CC#3 has broken the military law and assassinated people who held different opinions. Lead the masses to outrage and make them rebel. When around 20 fort guardians lead their army to storm CC#3, there will be bitter battle. At that time, we will swoop in and destroy the remnants.

After that Kandrif, Michael and the rest had discussed the plan in great details before setting off.

(At present)

Michael had indeed been shocked by the level of planning that Kandrif had done. From what he remembered, Kandrif in his past life had been assassinated by some competitor of the beast-emperor. Had he lived longer, he could have been a boon in the battle against the devils. Michael had decided that he would protect Kandrif. For one, he was a good friend. And two, he was a great strategist - a talent that Michael himself lacked. Michael was not an idiot. But he was not very developed in war strategy. People like Kandrif would be needed in the future battle against the devils.

Thinking as such, he decided to head to the next fort. At that time, he looked at one of the elf guards. The guy was busy raping the unconscious dark elf on the back of the flying bird hundreds of feet in the air!

Michael was truly stunned by how much of perverts Ashley's guards were. It could be said that they were very much like Ragnar. Every fort that they had hit, they got themselves a new plaything. Michael had wanted to take action many times against them. But, there was no way he would win against four of them, even with Omar. Thus, he could only close his eyes and pretend he did not see anything.

The guard looked back at Michael and said:

You also want to try boy? I might give her to you after I am done with her.

Michael : No need. Keep your toys away from me or I will break them.

Elf : Haah. What a stuck up righteous brat.

Michael ignored them for the rest of the trip as he increased the speed of the flying beast. He wanted to get this thing over with so that he could be away from these bastards.

Kandrif was also preparing for his final attack. It will be this battle that will create his legend.