A discussion began after that as they tried to figure out what would be the best way to go forward now that they had a target. It was obvious that they needed to go there in order to solve the mystery of their enemy’s intentions, but the exact way they would do that was up for debate.

The main point of discussion was whether or not they could afford to expose the “resistance members”, considering it might be possible to infiltrate that place and learn what they needed without even alerting the Inishie, let alone the “nuclear option” of attacking that area with both resistance members and a team from the alliance.

Elise and Nalia mostly simply acted as communication to allow Amara and the bears to decide things themselves. The two still made some comments when they had things to say, but most of their attention was taken up by something else.

‘Testing, testing… Can you hear me?’ Elise said after pausing their connection for a second in order to do something.

‘Yes.’ Nina replied.

‘Yes I can-’ Nalia stopped herself in the middle of her reply ‘Wait, did I just hear Nina?’

‘You did?! And… I’m also hearing you! How is that…?’ The rabbit girl replied.

‘Hehe, so it worked.’ Elise spoke ‘I was already pretty close to making a proper mental network with all of us, so I thought that having the two of you spend some time together would help with taking that final step. And I was right.’

‘Ahh, I see… Well, that will definitely make things more convenient.’ Nalia said.

‘Yeah, and I’m sure it was getting annoying having to act as a relay between us, right?’ Nina asked.

‘A little bit, yeah.’ Elise admitted.

The trio couldn’t really talk among themselves too much at the time, given that they were still acting as a linking point for the current discussion, but Elise had just wanted to test whether or not her attempt would work.

And while they didn’t have much input in the general planning discussion, there was one part of the exchanges between Amara and the bears that the three of them were quite interested in: The information regarding the Inishie. The owl-woman herself was unaware of it (along with the rest of the alliance) because the two bearkin had only discovered that recently and it was difficult to safely transmit information while deep behind enemy lines, so they were planning to learn a bit more before passing it on to be given to their contacts in the alliance.

“The Inishie group is pretty secretive, so reliable information on its inner workings is hard to come by.” Nerisha explained “The main piece of concrete information is that they are divided into branches, which act in a sort of cell structure. Each branch is fairly independent, being commanded by a single branch manager with a lot of freedom to act, so even destroying one of them completely won’t hinder the activities of other branches.

“From what I’ve heard, no other information regarding them is reliable because while captured Inishie often give out information about the group as a whole, but a lot of their accounts contradict each other.” She continued “Some of it is because low-level members are often fed misinformation or simply don’t get told anything more than what they need to work on branch operations, and some of it is because higher-level members are instructed to give out fake info when asked.”

She sighed “There are persistent rumors about higher managers that could order around multiple branches, or an inner circle of executives that decide on overall directives for the organization, but if anyone besides their high-rank members knows of anything concrete, then that information is not available for general buyers.”

“I see. Some things begin to make sense.” Elise said “I was wondering how could they be able to remain in secrecy if every member had such a distinct smell, but that is probably only members of a single branch that have those trees around their headquarters.”

“And if it is just one branch acting independently, that would explain why so few members have appeared here despite this organization being very large.” Amara agreed.

Their comments were passed on to the people on the other side and then Nalia put in a comment of her own:

“This also means my spell wouldn’t be able to detect Inishie members from other branches if any of them appeared here.”

‘And you won’t be able to detect other branch members if we run into them in the future… Oh wait, since your spell depends on the forest, you wouldn’t be able to use it after we leave anyway.’ Nina spoke into their shared connection.

‘Yeah.’ The fairy replied, then she spoke out loud “What do you think are the chances of other branch members actually appearing here?”

“I think they would be pretty low.” Himoko replied “Different branches have different areas of action. A branch manager could possibly send out a call asking for reinforcements if needed, but it would probably take some time for help to arrive even if another branch was able to spare someone for it.”

“Not to mention that the branch manager would look incompetent if they had to ask for help, so they’d be unwilling to do it.” Nerisha said.

Then Amara asked “If some of those branches were destroyed, then what they were doing must have been exposed, right? What sorts of operations are known to be done by them? Also, how many members does each branch generally have?”

The questions were forwarded to the bears, to which Nerisha answered:

“The number of members seems to vary a lot between branches, with some of them not even reaching double digits while the biggest ones known about had around a hundred members or so.” Nerisha replied “Their operations are also varied, but they all seem to fall under the umbrella of gaining power. Sometimes political power, sometimes riches, sometimes weapons… That sort of thing. I would guess the organization as a whole wants to control the world from the shadows, but it’s really difficult to say.”

Hearing that response Elise asked a question of her own:

“All of the members we’ve seen thus far were fighters, but do they also have people specifically for dealing with day to day matters and not combat?”

To which Nerisha replied “Yes, but very few from what I’ve gathered. They seem to mostly rely on hiring locals to deal with their day to day business without even knowing about the organization.”

“If that’s the case, then I don’t think controlling the world is their goal.” Elise said after hearing that “If that was the case, they would need many general members to deal with all of the little things that are required to keep their systems running. Hiring locals can work for managing individual branches, but they would definitely want actual members to keep society as a whole running in accordance with their wishes.”

The others admitted that was a good point. The discussion about Inishie wound down quickly after that and the trio mostly faded into the background again as Amara, Nerisha and Himoko discussed what actions their respective groups should take next. There were a lot of factors at play, but things were eventually decided when Himoko shared his analysis of the Inishie movements and Amara recognized the signs that they seemed to be getting close to finishing their ritual preparations.

Considering the terrifying possibility of them burning the forest as a ritual sacrifice the trio agreed that they needed to move fast, so they decided to go all in. The entire wolfkin resistance would be mobilized for an attack on calling point 15, while an elite unit of the alliance (plus Elise) would penetrate into enemy territory to join up with their efforts.

Nalia and Nina were a bit wary of having their contractor take part in such a dangerous action, but relented when Elise reminded them that she could still recall the two to her in case of emergency, and she’d be able to do it faster and faster as she got closer.

Regardless, it was decided that the alliance group would begin their operation on that very same night, two hours before dawn. And at that same time, the wolfkin would spread misinformation to delay the enemy forces before rushing to their shared target, the bears, Nalia and Nina in tow (though they didn’t know about that last one).

With that, the meeting was officially finished and Amara plus the bears rushed to prepare everything.

+0+

Elise and her partners kept in contact as preparations were being done. Nalia and Nina followed the duo of bears around as they used the magical passage again, going to a different area that was actually farther away from their target point than before, however it was necessary because from there they had a relatively safe path to a small cave where they could take another magical passage to reach a better point they couldn’t have gotten to via the previous one.

Said point was close to the camp where most of the wolfkin resistance members were currently stationed, so a quick trip was enough to leave a message to them detailing the plan. Then the group had to stealthily march through a route that came dangerously close to many enemy watchmen before stopping at a safer point where they would wait for the arrival of their wolfkin allies and the start of the operation.

Meanwhile, Amara came back to call Elise after gathering the people who would be part of their group. As it turned out, there were only five people in that group (not counting Elise): Amara herself, Charlotte the deer woman they had met during the defense mission, a male foxkin called Takato who introduced himself as a poison expert, a male birdkin with orange plumage who was called Iornos and was apparently their mobility specialist, and the last member was surprisingly enough, their old friend Hiroka who was just as surprised at the sudden reunion as Elise. Apparently she had just arrived at their base, having been doing some work closer to the frontline.

The group ate a small meal together and talked (Elise got into a really lively discussion with Takato about the poisonous substances one could find in the forest that made the others slightly uncomfortable) before departing to the front lines. While that was going on, a few of the alliance members at the base had went around on Amara’s orders to make some preparations.

When the six actually set off Iornos flew over the rest and used his magic to accelerate them. He didn’t make them as fast as Nalia was capable with her mobility spells, but it was quite clear to Elise that he wasn’t going all out yet. Also, even though Amara could also fly she ran alongside them instead, saying that having another flier around would make it harder and more tiring for him to do his thing.

They headed to a different spot than what Nalia and Nina had used for entry, and given that they had no way of being as stealthy as the two Amara redid the trick they had used to reach the deer village: Having the alliance start an attack as a distraction for their advance.

And Elise’s thoughts about Iornos were proven right when, right before they crossed a treeline that was the last remaining bit of cover they had, the bird asked for them to stop for a moment before flying in a small circle over them twice and flapping his wings strongly.

His magic was fully unleashed at that moment and when the group resumed their movement, the speed at which they were traveling kept increasing far past what they had achieved before, reaching a point where they were going around half again as fast as the maximum Elise and her partners could get with Nalia’s boosts.

The girl felt a bit disappointed that Nalia wasn’t there to see that magic and learn from it, but maybe they’d get a chance for that later. Elise had the leeway to think about those things in that situation because of the formation their group adopted.

Being the only non-combatant, she was on the center. Above was Iornos, obviously. In front was Charlotte, who Elise judged to be on a lower level of strength than Nina in general, but she was capable of consuming magic power to give herself bursts of strength that were too brief for Elise to accurately measure. Combined with the speed at which they were moving, any enemies who tried to stand in their path would experience something akin to being hit by a runaway train as she broke through.

At Elise’s left and right sides were Amara and Hiroka, respectively. The two were using long ranged attacks to hinder any enemies that came close enough to potentially shoot something at them, Amara using very precise bursts of high-pressure wind while Hiroka shot arrows freely. The fox woman could do that because one of the preparations Amara had ordered was to bring them a special quiver with a spatial enchantment that was loaded with literally hundreds of arrows.

Finally, bringing up the rear was Takato, who would occasionally throw small smoke grenades behind them. Those grenades were filled with poisonous smoke, but the poison used was of the painful, debilitating type rather than the lethal type. He had more powerful poisons, but they had to be directly injected.

That was just as well. Hindering pursuers was all that they needed, and having poisons that were concentrated enough to remain lethal even dispersed into smoke was just far too dangerous, not to mention the environmental impacts of spreading that stuff around.

‘Big sisters Dilira and Kumiko have strong opinions about that sort of thing.’ Elise thought idly as their group pierced through enemy territory like an arrow through straw.

She also noted that the number of enemies around remained constant as they went along, which she took to mean that the misinformation tactics from the wolves had borne fruit, confusing their foes enough to delay any attempt at sending reinforcements after the invaders.

In the end, the six of them reached the rendezvous point before the other group. They had eventually managed to shake off all pursuit and were currently by themselves, so their mobility expert landed on the ground and began breathing hard.

“I- I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the same pace when the groups merge.” He spoke after a few moments of that “I didn’t expect that going at full force would tire me out so quickly. I can still help out, but…”

“If that’s the case, we should have Nalia give us a boost instead.” Elise said “She can speed us up enough. You should take a break and save yourself for emergencies.”

Iornos looked at Amara, who nodded in agreement. Any further discussion was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a large number of wolfkin close to them, which would have been quite alarming had they not been accompanied by two bears and a black armor, which revealed them to be their expected allies.

(Elise already knew, since she could tell how close her partners were.)

The two groups exchanged brief greetings and merged together without much preamble, given that they could be discovered at any moment. Nalia briefly opened up a gap in the armor and flew out to sit at Elise’s shoulder while Nina moved to stand by her side. Then the fairy took a few seconds to cast a new movement spell (she had been using one to accelerate her own group) to encompass everyone and they took off.

From there, Calling Point 15 wasn’t far. And the wolfkin spread to take up the outside of the group, making it harder for anyone who spotted them to recognize that they were invaders. Thanks to that they managed to reach their destination without any more incidents.

They had lucked out. It seemed like the Inishie had decided that putting any special protections on their ritual core would draw too much attention, so the only thing there was a small camp with only about two dozen guards.

The concentrated force of their group was enough that such meager resistance was barely enough to slow them down. In less than half a minute their enemies had been rendered unconscious, and the mages of the group approached a certain point within the area of that camp where the flows of magic converged, the actual center of their ritual.

They had discussed it beforehand, so Nerisha was the one to kneel down by it and use her own magic to examine things, given that she was the one most well suited for that task.

One minute passed. Then two minutes. And finally Nerisha’s eyes opened in horror.

“It’s like we feared… This is a ritual intended to use the forest itself as a sacrifice to open a path.” She said.

“Okay, we need to get rid of this.” Amara immediately decided “The best way to dismantle a ritual like this is-”

But she was unable to finish. Nalia interrupted her words with a shout of “Something’s coming!” and then a new group of figures appeared a short distance away from them, having teleported in.

Two of those figures immediately attracted the attention of Elise and her partners. They were the woman who attacked Nina’s village and the elf girl they had fought who used flames. The latter looked a bit different, though, having what looked like a seal of flame on her chest.

They didn’t have time to react to the sudden appearance before the flame-speaker swung her arm and manifested a veritable wall of flames, something far beyond what she had been capable of before, and sent it straight at Elise and the group. Those flames were incredibly hot, but slow enough that they would have been able to avoid them even without Nalia’s quick reapplication of her movement boost, which forced them to retreat.

That was exactly the point. While the flame wall pushed forward, the other woman Elise had recognized showed how strong her defensive magic was by running straight into it and moving forward alongside it. She was holding some sort of steel stake in her hands, which Amara noticed and shouted “No!” as she realized what they were doing.

The attack had forced them away from the center of the ritual, which was where the woman then stopped and pierced the stake into. The steel shone with magical circles, and soon everyone in the area felt an immense flow of magic as the ritual began.

The magic quickly spread through the forest as their group launched every single attack they could at the woman, none of which managed to pierce her defense. And the nightmare had just started. Soon after, they heard a distant explosion sound and saw something fall to their east. Then that something exploded into flames, and they began to hear more and more of those sounds.

‘I see… They’re using incendiary artillery. That way they can set fires all over the forest very quickly without needing to set things up beforehand.’ Elise thought to herself.

That was the worst case scenario, and her mind was filled with a cold calmness as she observed and tried to anticipate what would happen. She was able to feel the pain of the forest, which the ritual fed upon and grew in power, the flow of magic growing stronger.

Everything happened far faster than any of them could react, and yet the horrifying scene in front of them seemed to drag on for ages until the magic suddenly went still.

“It’s over…” Nerisha said in despair.

That stillness was followed by an explosion that produced no light or sound, but which contained enough force to be felt through space itself. Their group had to struggle to stay in place as a wave of motion washed over them.

The Passage had been opened.