267 Chapter 267: Guerilla Warfare (2/2)
The ninja dude tilted his head. ”How, exactly?”
”Simple.” Ji Xuan's grin grew wider. ”We give them an invitation they can't refuse. We'll lure them to our remaining forces by giving them the chance to finish this once and for all. Since there aren't many of us left, they'll take the bait. This will probably be our last chance to crush them before we lose our numerical superiority.”
”Why would they take the bait?” the ninja dude asked, bewildered. ”They have been avoiding confrontation with our full force all this while, so I hardly think they will…”
”Oh, no…they will. Trust me.” Ji Xuan's eyes gleamed malevolently. ”Because I'll be using myself as bait. They'll only have this one time to destroy me and my schemes once and for all.”
The ninja dude hesitated for a moment. ”Are you sure about this?”
”Yeah…sometimes, the greatest success only comes about if you're bold enough to take the risk. It's high time I step out of hiding and start doing things personally.”
The ninja dude suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. If only Ji Xuan was brave enough to do this from the start, then they wouldn't have lost so many of his comrades. Unfortunately, he was their client, and it was never a good idea to talk back and hack off someone who was paying you your salary.
Instead, he nodded obediently.
”I'll start strategizing and deploying,” he said.
*
”This is definitely a trap.”
”Gee, you think?” Lilith glared at me, sarcasm dripping from her every word. ”Of course it's a trap. Why else would Ji Xuan reveal himself now, of all times?”
”Because he's an idiot.”
Even though I knew that was the truth, I was also aware that he wasn't bluffing. I never thought we would be able to whittle their numbers down to a little over fifteen. We had taken out so many of those ninja dudes that I had lost count long ago.
That said, Ji Xuan wasn't a complete moron. He knew exactly how to bait the enemy toward himself. By gathering all of his forces in one place and presenting himself, he was essentially inviting us to finish this war once and for all. As long as we could eliminate him, his whole organization would fall apart and we would win a decisive victory without needing to worry about being hunted again. However, at the expense of rendering himself vulnerable to enemy attack, he was able to force us to fight in a place of his own choosing, and on his terms.
Except that I had no plans of fighting on his terms. If the guy thought he could lure me, of all people, into a trap, he had another thing coming. I was the one who essentially led his poor forces on a merry trip with my guerilla tactics and cornered him to this point, where he became desperate enough to stake everything on a last stand.
Honestly, the smart thing to do was to leave him be. He and his Assassin cronies would be forced to wait for someone who would never show up, staying high-strung and on guard until the end of the Spiritual Road training camp. I had no idea how long more it would go on, but it felt as if I had been here for months.
I wanted to go home already.
But I refused to give Ji Xuan and his lackeys the satisfaction of defeating me. Actually, I wanted to troll him.
”Let them wait. We're not stupid enough to walk into a trap.”
”…yeah.” Lilith didn't look satisfied, but she understood the wisdom of my decision. It sucked for her, especially since she wanted to at least get a punch in on the guy who made her life in the Spiritual Road so miserable, but fortunately common sense prevailed over her desire for revenge. ”Let's go.”
”Don't worry,” I assured her with a grin. ”Just imagine how furious that bastard will be when we never show up.”
That earned a giggle from Lilith, and she nodded with a smile. ”I would love to see the look on his face when he realizes we won't be biting.”
”Exactly.”
After spending so long launching guerilla strikes on Ji Xuan's forces, I saw no reason to alter my tactics and throw away my advantage by agreeing to his dumb ”finish this once and for all” bullshit. Not when his forces still outnumbered us almost eight to one. Lilith and I probably could manage against fifteen, but there was still a huge risk involved. I would estimate our chances of victory to be about thirty percent. Forty, at most.
There were too many things that could go wrong, and I wasn't about to risk our necks for a slim chance of victory, however tempting it was to finish things once and for all. We could end up paying the price for being too impatient and overconfident. I had seen others succumb when they underestimated their opponent and walked right into a trap.
Of course, both Lilith and I could just summon our Soul Beasts and walk right into it, but even with overwhelming firepower on our side, we couldn't just blow the fifteen Assassins and Ji Xuan away. They were definitely aware of what kind of magic and summons we possessed, and they surely would have some sort of countermeasure prepared. If they were confident enough to lure us summoners into an ambush, then they most certainly had some way of dealing with our Soul Beasts. There was a possibility they were idiots who completely underestimated the power of our Soul Beasts, or that it never occurred to them, but like I said, it never paid to look down on the enemy. If they turned out to only be pretending to be stupid, then Lilith and I would be the morons walking into our own demise because of our arrogance and overconfidence.
”Besides,” I added, remembering something when I caught sight of Lilith's wistful expression. ”We have more than enough blood tokens between the both of us.”
To emphasize my point, I scooped a bunch of blood tokens out from my pocket. Each of us had at least thirty blood tokens by now. The thing was that the Assassins we had subdued had also been collecting blood tokens of their own, having banded together to take out other students and groups in the Spiritual Road. It was only natural – their goal was to dominate the Spiritual Road and place the entire space under their control. At least that was Ji Xuan's goal, anyway. In any case, in order to achieve that vision, they had gone around crushing other students and groups in an organized effort. Thanks to that, whenever Lilith and I defeated them, we ended up obtaining the blood tokens that our fallen opponents in turn plundered from others.
”Yeah. If I get too greedy, I might end up losing everything instead.” Lilith counted her own blood tokens, and nodded. I could see her suppressing the temptation to take the risk to acquire more of them. Honestly, if she still insisted on going to fight those guys, I would have just left her to do it alone. I wasn't obligated to participate in stupidity.
Fortunately, Lilith was intelligent enough to know when to hold back, and where her limits were.
”Let's go,” I told her, and the two of us turned away from Ji Xuan's position to disappear deeper into the forest.