Chapter 210 - 209 Strategizing With Mrazivý

"How were you able to cause such a devastating attack? Wait did you already use that unique skill of yours that boosts all of your stats for a short amount of time?"

Mrazivý looked a bit worried that Marcus had already gone all out in the first fight, thus making him unfit to participate in any others.

Of course, if she was thinking logically, she would have realized that Marcus' stats would not be as high if he had used his soul bust unique skill just a couple of hours ago.

Nevertheless, in frantic situations people often do not thinking logically and Mrazivý began to panic slightly thinking Marcus would be useless.

"Calm down Mraz, I did not use my soul burst unique skill. In fact, I actually cannot use it right now since it had not been two months since the last time. I used a different ability to cause that attack and after resting for around a day, I should be able to do it again"

Mrazivý's panic stopped all at once when she heard what Marcus had just said, and thought, 'He can unleash that kind of power daily.'

It seemed almost unfathomable to Mrazivý that such power could be used by Marcus even with the restriction of once a day.

That was just not the kind of power one would expect from a level thirty-eight, heck not even a level forty-eight should be able to use that kind of power.

"You really never cease to surprise me. So how where you able to cause that massive blast of light and darkness."

However, as Mrazivý said this out loud she suddenly remembered the huge pillar of light and darkness that had descended just a day before Marcus left, and that it turned out that he had the egg of an incredibly strong mythic grade magical beast.

As Marcus was about to answer her question Mrazivý suddenly went wide eyed and said, "Has it hatched yet?"

Marcus stopping his train of thought, was caught off guard by Mrazivý's question. He was kind of hoping to keep Roxene a secret, but Mrazivý already knew of her existence, so it was not that big of a deal.

'Roxene did you want to come out and say hello to my friend. Other than you and Lilia she is the person I trust most in this world. But I understand if you want to stay hidden, I will just tell her you have not hatched yet.'

There was brief awkward silence as Mrazivý waited for Marcus to reply to her and Marcus waited for Roxene's answer.

Luckily it was not too long before Roxene responded to him telepathically and said, 'You can go ahead and take me out since she already knows a bit about me, but make sure you do not show me to any of her party members, I do not want more people than necessary to know about me when I am still this low level.'

Nodding his head Marcus brought forth Roxene from his companion storage and sat her down on her lap.

Roxene then looked towards Mrazivý and said to her telepathically, 'Nice to see you again, though I was still trapped inside that egg last time.'

Mrazivý stared intently at Roxene who was sitting in Marcus' lap and like some before her, was instantly captivated by Roxene's cuteness.

She got up and approached and said, "She is adorable! Can I pet her."

It seem that even the normally tough and collected Mrazivý could find herself enthralled in the cuteness of Roxene's puppy like form and was hovering over her as she waited for Marcus' permission to pet Roxene.

However, this decision was not really up to Marcus, and like all those that had come before her Roxene growled at Mrazivý and said, 'Touch me and you lose your hand.'

Roxene was pretty picky about those who touched her and the only ones who she let pet her so far were Marcus, and Lilia but only after around a couple of days of feeding her fresh cuts of puff cow meat.

Mrazivý instinctively feeling the pressure that Roxene was putting off pulled back her hand and looked disheartenedly at the little wolf pup that refused to be pet.

"Okay now that, that is out of the way, let us get back to talking strategy, it is only a matter of time before the demon comes back and we need to be ready."

Getting things back on track, Marcus began discussing how they were going to fight the demon next time and hopefully keep it from escaping when a different idea came to Marcus' mind.

"Why don't we bring the fight to the demon. It took some pretty hefty injuries in that last fight, from me and Veunlux, not to mention that its army lost around fifty percent of its strength."

Unfortunately, Mrazivý squashed this idea and said, "We already suggested that before but the beasts that live here refused to leave the area unprotected, saying something about how it was their duty."

Nevertheless, Marcus did not want to give up this avenue just yet and decided he would personally ask the leader of the beasts at a later time.

"Very well, how about waiting at the natural choke point of the tunnel's exit that they have to come out of, we can just bombard it with spells and abilities."

Mrazivý just shrugged her shoulders at this suggestion and said, "The beasts had actually been doing that from the start and they told us at first it worked, but eventually the demon found away around that strategy by splitting its forces between two different entrances. He has a weaker force go through one and the main force go through the other. The only problem is the beasts do not have enough fighting power to block two entrances effectively and it turns into a game of chance. If they congregate their power at the wrong tunnel the demon and his forces slip in and make it harder for the beasts to regroup. We had been here only two days when this happened last and the casualties that day were incredibly high. After that the beasts have just been waiting, putting their all into defense, but the demon's forces always seem to replenish after each battle and slowly we are being overwhelmed as more beasts die or become crippled."

After talking it out some more all Marcus could think was things seemed impossible. The demon has an unending army of monsters and beasts that it controls and strengthens with some type of dark aura, and the intelligent beasts have no recourse but to wait and slowly be killed.

However, he quickly realized something game changing, 'Why does the demon not just wait and build up an overwhelming force that can break through. He attacks pretty much every day with a similarly strong army. So, it is either cruel and wants to watch the beasts suffer by prolonging the battle, or there is only a certain amount of troops it can control at once.'

As Marcus thought about this for a bit longer, he began to believe that it had to be true. 

If the demon could command and endlessly big army, it would have no need to whittle down the beast's strength overtime or risk its own life by participating in the battle.

The only problem was that even knowing this did not help much because no matter how much of the demon's army of corrupted beasts and monsters was destroyed, it could always just find more and come back at full strength.

'The only way to win is with a primitive strike while the demon is still recovering from my surprise attack.'

However, this plan would require the cooperation of the beasts since Marcus was not certain he could handle the demon on his own even if he snuck around and tried another surprise attack.

There was also the problem of keeping the demon from running away again since its escape skills seemed to be top notch.

'Got to keep it pinned down somehow.'

As plans began forming in his head Marcus began bouncing off ideas with Mrazivý and the two of them came up with what they thought would be a decent plan.

"The only problems will be if you can get the beasts to agree to it and it puts you at a lot of risk. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a better plan, since just sticking it out and waiting to lose is pretty much the only other option." Mrazivý said with conflicted expression on her face.

Smiling confidently Marcus said, "It should work out, and even if the beasts do not back me up, I have thought up a backup plan, though it is quite a bit riskier."

With their meeting now over Marcus made sure to take on his guise as Irene again before the two of them exited Mrazivý's tent and saw that her party members were standing a bit away waiting for them to come back out.