In the enemy's fortress, our people were imprisoned. They sat sorrowfully in their cells. Suddenly, my voice rang within their minds.
"Do you hear me, citizens of the Sky Gryphon Peristylium? It's your ancient Guardians here" I called.
"The Guardians? The Guardians have awakened?" murmurs rang amongst the prisoners.
"Ssh! Don't make a ruckus. We'll soon get you out of there but everything in phases. First things first, we'll assign Protective Gear to you. We've granted the fabric the ability to rotate layers of thread and thus alter its physical appearance. Don it and utilize your settings to alter it to the design of your current clothes to escape the enemy's notice" I instructed everyone as Ciella and I busily assigned the four thousand units of Protective Gear to our people via the Gemini System.
Next, I activated the Taurus System and integrated the Gemini System into it. Then I integrated the Leo System.
"What are you doing?" Ciella asked.
"When I integrate the Leo and Gemini Systems into the Taurus System, the Taurus System transforms into an Advanced Stat. Monitoring System. With this, I'm monitoring the Stats of all our Villagers in captivity in an attempt to determine whether or not some Debilitating Stats have been inflicted on them. When their Stats are normal, they are most likely at rest. Stats like 'Fatigue' would imply that they are probably being put through cruel labour. Stats like 'Fear' would imply that the enemy is attempting to intimidate them through oppression. With the Taurus System, I can track our Villagers' Stats and will be notified if there are sudden changes to their Stats. In a sense, the enemy might also be capable of doing something similar since our people are being forced to serve under them. The difference though is where our people's loyalties lie" I informed Ciella.
"In that case, all we need to do is cure any Debilitating Stat inflicted upon them once and they'll be totally immune to it. The Phoenix Tears ingested by their ancestors is now in a sense, a Bloodline Limit so it would be encoded into their genes. It is possible for that ability to be passed down through generations. The only drawback is the immunity does not function against unfamiliar debuffs unless they have been cured at least once" Ciella noted.
"True" I agreed.
In our various lands, we suddenly received a message.
"Congratulations on making it back to the Mainlands and getting your various factories up and running. What is a human being? A beast or a man, a soul or a body, an 'animal with Wisdom' or a 'Man with Instinct'. Is he one or the other or is he both? One thing I know for sure, he is one of the few animals that can plan and utilize tools. What is a Messenger? An 'Individual' or 'the Embodiment Of the Message'? Your next skill has finally arrived. It's time for a special set of Missions called 'Infiltration via Cryptography!' You might need tons of breweries to effectively pull this off" my Dad said with a laugh and cut the line.
Mitsuki and Arlene thought deeply about the message and accessed their skills list. The next skill read 'Saggitarius'.
"I see. The Archer that's also a Centaur huh?" Mitsuki asked Arlene.
"Exactly, a centaur is a mythical creature with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a horse. When San's Dad speaks of 'Wisdom', he's probably referring to the 'Human' part of Sagittarius. When he speaks of 'Instinct', he's probably referring to the 'beastly' part of Sagittarius. A human is a fusion of body, soul and spirit. The first is a physical or material existence and the latter two are a spiritual existence. The soul is a blend of both body and spirit in that it is an amalgamation of experiences gathered from both existences" Arlene explained.
"A fusion of Wisdom and Instinct huh? What about the part regarding Archery?" Mitsuki asked.
"In ancient times, one of the earliest and most common ways of sending Coded Messages aside from lighting Signal Flares or attaching the message to a Bird Of Prey was to attach it to an Arrow and fire it to a person who would relay the message in like manner depending on how far the destination of the Message was. The Message was you could say transmitted in chains of Archery Shots. The Arrow carried the message so in a sense, the Arrow became the Message. That's what San's Dad meant when he asked 'is a Messenger an 'Individual' or 'the Embodiment Of The Message'?'" Arlene explained.
Mitsuki and Arlene read the Sagittarius System's notification.
"The Sagittarius System allows you to infiltrate an enemy's camp through anyone in the camp directly or indirectly affiliated to you. Through this person, you can gather info about the enemy. The person in question must be willing to help you of their own volition or you will not really have their loyalty and your plan will eventually backfire. As Guardians of your Clan, you possess the ability to fuse psyches with your people through an 'Awakening' Stat that grants you the ability to experience what they experience from a first person perspective" the notification read.
Arlene and Mitsuki had already assigned Four Thousand Units of Protective Gear to the captives, one unit per person. They monitored the captives to ensure they had donned the gear and were protected. They also monitored their stats in order to deduce how the enemy was dealing with them.
Meanwhile, Keiran and Concordia had just finished studying the Sagittarius functionality.
"I'm going to try it out Concordia" Keiran said seriously.
"I see. Once you infiltrate the enemy's fortress, a map of the enemy's fortress will be generated and accessible by us from now on. You intend to have me act as a sort of coordinator from the outside right?" Concordia asked.
"Exactly" Keiran said.
Keiran lay on the ground and shut his eyes. In the next instant, he was seeing through the eyes of one of the Villagers who had granted him approval to utilize the 'Awakening'. He greeted his people. They were out in the fortress being forced to construct giant burial grounds for the Weaver Of Calamity's Army. Keiran shook his head.
"I understand the Ancient Egyptians' belief in the afterlife as their motivation for constructing Pyramids for Royalty. What would an immortal Basilisk and even worse, the Weaver Of Calamity need such huge numbers of burial grounds for?" Keiran wondered.
"For now, it's best I gather a bit of info regarding this fortress" Keiran thought and began to question the captives he was working with.
He discovered that after the battle against the Basilisk that occurred four hundred years ago, the Basilisk's siblings had attempted to attack the Village many times but were turned away due to the people's immunity to the Basilisk's stare and venom. The Basilisk was one of six siblings called 'The Tails Of The Weaver Of Calamity' and they were actually the underdogs. The real masterminds were 'The Heads Of The Weaver Of Calamity' and no one knew what these 'Heads' were like or had even seen them. Keiran knew that these heads had three forms from the tales his parents had told him concerning the battle against Zanböngfar. One head resembled a Lion's, the second, an Eagle's, and the third, a Dragon's. He also knew that these heads were probably indicative of the fusion between the Dreamweaver and the Weaver Of Calamity and were now probably the points through which his father could flow his positive energy into Zanböngfar's and weigh down Zanböngfar's negative energy. However, due to the ability of his father to now weigh down Zanböngfar's negativity, the Heads were now at perpetual odds with one another unlike when they were united under Zanböngfar.
"Apparently, their goals seem unclear but we have some idea regarding their organizational hierarchy. Now, I must learn more about their resources" Keiran thought to himself.
He learnt from the captives that the Weaver Of Calamity's Army was quite huge and was composed mostly of Wraiths and Giga-Wraiths. Wraiths were malevolent spirits that possessed the capacity to drain humans of their positive emotions leaving in their wake fear and malice and turning Dreams into the Nightmares that fuelled Zanfar's strength. Most of the Omnicron that served in the army prior to the battle against Zanböngfar defected, forsook their bloodlust and were transformed into Jumen-Orkan. Jumen-Orkan were mythical unicorn-like creatures surrounded in flame and possessing great strength, unlike the gentle unicorn. They belonged to the class of Gamma Knightmare, a class of frightfully powerful Nightmares that retained a sense of persona. Some Giga-Wraiths also defected and were transformed into Nova-Wraiths so though the army wasn't as strong as it was in the time of Zanböngfar, it was still quite formidable. The Weaver Of Calamity was attempting to make up for his losses by attacking the tribes that had been aided by the Guardians in the past and were now immune to its venom. The aim was to cripple their resources, gradually wipe them out and thus guarantee its own victory.
"Very interesting. Thanks for the info and I'm glad to have learnt a bit of your schemes O foolish Weaver Of Calamity. I shall ensure you eat of the same dish" Keiran said with a smirk.
"It's about time I did some exploring of my own" Keiran thought to himself and activated the camouflage functionality of the Protective Gear his 'vessel' had been assigned.
He instructed the rest of the prisoners to keep their Gear active at all times but to avoid utilizing the camouflage functionality until truly necessary.