With the sound of the horn, everyone flew up and out of the stronghold before taking positions in the sky and on land.
The group of Mad Nuts was in a three-point formation, creating a big triangle of thirty people and twenty people inside who were mainly support and long-range.
Almond, Zek, and Karven each handled a point of the triangle with members to both sides for all three of them.
“Getting ready, are we?”
Soon, a voice carried over to them from over a hundred meters away, from none other than the group positioned beside them.
Brian grinned at Almond, who turned his head to Brian after hearing the voice.
“You want to kill me, for what reason?” Almond asked, his tone more curious and less worried.
“Reason?” Brian’s laughter rang in every member of Mad Nuts.
“I can make plenty of reasons to kill someone, but for you, let’s just say I don’t like your guts and look. And you made my friend miss an opportunity.”
Harken had piercing daggers at Almond since the beginning of the conversation.
“I see,” Almond replied with a calm smile, his next words carrying into Crimson River faction’s every member.
“Well then, come and die.”
Almond turned his head forward and commanded, “Forward!”
*Swoosh!*
The triangle formation of fifty members flew forward.
“Huh?” Brian frowned.
The combat area in front of the stronghold was defined by the power of the groups.
At the very front were the strongest groups of people belonging to a myriad of races—the Immortal Kings. Some were from this native planet, but most were from other planets of the second layer who came here to help.
One kilometer behind them were groups of Immortal-rank powerhouses.
And another kilometer behind them, near the stronghold walls, were mixed groups of Mortals, High-Mortals, and a small number of Immortals.
The powerhouses at the frontline would only focus on the most powerful of Griminions and let others pass behind them so other groups could deal with them and ultimately kill them all before they reached the stronghold.
Almond knew that if Brian’s group sneak-attacked them during the tide of Griminions, nobody would notice, and they would even succeed.
In this Grimworld, where laws at every place were different, the ones to make rules at a moment were present powerhouses.
And presently, many people here were not murderers, so Brian’s group attacking others would attract the ire of stronger powerhouses if they noticed, so they had to make it look like accidents and make it such that members of Mad Nuts died while fighting Griminions.
Almond knew this was Brian’s plan as it wasn’t exactly complicated.
But he also had a perfect plan to deal with Brian and his group.
As Almond led his group forward, they were stopped at the Immortal-rank area.
“Hey, what are you all doing coming here at the front? You’ll die.”
“There’s a group behind us that wants to kill us during the chaos of battle,” Almond said frankly as he looked at the muscular man with an elephant head who was the leader of the group that had stopped them.
“So we want to move at the front,” Karven said with a grin.
“So we can kill them in return if they follow us,” Zek said with a smile.
The group of immortals looked at each other and laughed.
“You students of that Academy always pull shits like this. If you want to go further ahead, then we won’t stop you. Convince the Immortal Kings ahead, and you’re good.”
And so, they passed by the Immortal area before they were stopped by a human middle-aged man with a thin beard and wearing a leather long coat with a matching hat and a gemmed black-wooden cross-bow with intricate patterns in his hands.
Almond felt the power of space from this man.
‘He has space elemental mastery, and it’s way higher than mine,’ Almond’s eyes glinted.
“What are you doing here? The tide is coming soon. Go back.”
“No, sir. We will fight here if you don’t mind. Behind you and ahead of the immortals,” Almond said as he made a somber expression. “And I’ll be truthful about the reason.”
The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow in curiosity and said, “Alright, let’s hear it.”
“There’s a faction of the academy that wants to kill us amidst the chaos of battle. They have two Immortals, many High Mortals, and a few Mortals. And as you can see, we are totally not a match for them.”
“So you want to stay here so they can’t make a move on you?” the middle-aged man shook his head. “Is this your first time in Griminion Tide? Even if it isn’t, the frontlines are dangerous. If you are hoping for us to keep an eye on you during battle, then you are naive. It’s going to be intense, and we won’t have such leisure.”
‘Gosh, I know, but I need to be here so I can collect spirits of dangerous Griminions that you all, and also use them to get powerful so I can deal with the annoying shits and also observe everyone’s abilities and powers to cook something for myself and increase my Arance Constitutions. It’s like killing a billion birds with one stone if I stay at the frontlines.’
‘But I need to say it in better language.’
“I know, sir. But I have a specific arsenal of powers that lets me temporarily borrow stats of a target and makes me powerful, and you already know I have space elemental mastery at Mythical rank,” Almond said with a severe expression. “And we don’t need anyone looking after us here. Feel free to ignore us, but I am certain I won’t let anyone of my faction die.”
“Hey, Dave, any problem there?”
A man with demonic horns wearing an obsidian, glassy brown full-body armor with red and glowing blue patterns arrived, the massive wings behind him folding as he stopped beside Dave.
“Well, here’s what happened, Jama.”
Dave’s eyes flickered briefly as he sent the entire conversation that just happened to him.
“Interesting. If you are keen on that, then it’s fine. Don’t blame anyone if your group gets hurt, and feel free to retreat or use your academy’s escape device if you think it’s getting too much.”
Almond cupped his fist. “Thanks, and can I ask a favor?
‘Bro, asking a favor from Immortal Kings is too much.’ Zek wryly smiled as he relayed in the mental chat network of Mad Nuts members.
‘Yeah, and we trust you, but frankly, we are courting death being here,’ Karven said.
‘I told you, if it doesn’t work out in the first few minutes, I will directly teleport all of us back.’
“A favor, eh?” Dave narrowed his eyes.
‘This brat is interesting, Dave. I sense the presence of an Immortal Emperor Prana Art Spirit in him.’
‘He is. And I am getting curious about him, so let’s see what favor he has to ask.’
“What do you want? Depending on the favor, I’ll decide,” Dave said as he rested his crossbow on his shoulder and lit up a cigar. “The Griminions are near. We have two minutes at max.”
“Will you protect us for one minute during the battle when I say it? During that one minute, I’d need to remain in focus to do something. But ultimately, all I ask is one minute of protection and not a second more.”
Dave puffed out smoke as he looked at Almond’s clear and determined eyes.
A second later, he said, “A favor from a Mortal kid, eh? It seems that I’d have to hold onto it for a while before I use it.”
“True, but it’ll be worth the while,” Almond smiled.
Jama laughed while Zek, Karven, and others smiled unnaturally.
“Fine. I’ll give you that one minute of protection.” Dave grinned as he turned around and raised his hand. “Good luck, and make sure you stay alive to return the favor.”
“Boss, are we really positioning ourselves here?” Malin gulped.
Almond turned around to look at everyone and said, “I am going to switch your positions in the next second for the number of times. Let’s see how many of you get the correct answer.”
“What do you mean?”
Just as that member asked, Almond’s eyes flickered as two spirals appeared, both slowly spinning in opposite directions, but these two spirals were inside a square.
‘Drift.’
In the next second, all fifty members felt like the world was spinning and dancing around them.
It only happened for one second, but all of them felt their guts churning and most of them puked and gagged while feeling dizzy.
Karven rubbed his temples, “Damn, what the hell was that?”
“Urgh…” Zek opened his mouth, wanting to throw up. “You…you accessed it. Hyper Plane and that too very easily, but we won’t even be able to react against Griminions at Immortal or higher rank.”
“As for the answer,” Karven said. “I say you changed my positions thirteen times in that second.”
“I don’t know even what the hack happened, let alone my position.”
“Same, man.”
“My hair is weird now…”
“Bitch, I told you not to use that magic serum on snake hairs.”
“Not thirteen times,” Zek said as he looked at Almond. “I think…you changed my position fifteen times.”
“Correct. I changed everyone’s positions fifteen times in that one second. I used multiple assets for this sequence, but when I face an Immortal King griminion, I will become more perceptive and powerful,” Almond said as his eyes glinted sharply. “And by then, I’ll make sure none of us are hit by anything while you all make sure to act according to our plan.”
“Mainly, most of you have the job of providing me with Soul energy, so focus on that and use your Prana on abilities less because your abilities won’t be that useful.”
With Soul energy from others, Almond would be able to refine Prana easily.
Of course, his reserves were great at the moment, but they were bound to run out. However, with his Immortal Emperor-ranked Prana Art that has a refined Prana conversion rate of 1:10, he would just require soul energy from others to make a large amount of refined Prana and dominate his surroundings while improving himself in a multitude of ways.
“Now, let’s just hope that Brian takes the bait and comes here to court death so I can get rid of an annoying fly fast and focus on getting stronger because that’s why I am here,” Almond coldly said as he eyed Brain who was still at the back and talking to others.
“Come on, Brian. Or are you too scared to come here?”
Brian heard Almond’s voice entering his ears and clenched his fist as he grinned while feeling pissed.
“Fuck him. Let’s go, everyone. Once he’s dead, we’ll retreat.”