Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-29461586-20160708163345/@comment-29458028-20160721123748

"No, you can't do a pincer attack unless you only have one target. If we are dealing with two enemies, we need to prevent aid from one of them to the other. The easiest way is to block the paths between both cities, but that's too hard given our current manpower" said Hayden as he examined the situation.

"Send men to be around the further city, but they are to be hidden, and not reveal themselves at all. We aren't going to be conducting a siege or even an ambush. Those hidden men need a lot of siege weaponry, though. Send a vanguard with me, and we'll attack the closer city directly, in the open. Let the messages from the closer city flow to the further one."

Hayden smirked, and continued "you see, once we attack the closer city, the enemy will have three ways. The further city can come and support the closer city. The closer city can withdraw to the further city ... or they do nothing at all. If they move, the city that sent people to the other city will fall. If they do not move, we'll have a harder time, but our siege will prevail. However, this will delay our plans to strike further."

Hayden scratched his chin, and said "I can take a small army. The leaders are to be present at that army. Pretend to invade from the Empire from the start. Except, we need to make it obvious, and invite the diplomats to talk things over peacefully. We don't want to show them how powerful we are ... we need to make them believe we only have the men to take the cities one by one."

"If so, the further city will surely send men to aid what appears to be our main target. And then we'll use guerilla tactics to whittle them down, while our men take the further city. Once that is secured, the nearer city will fall for sure, as we just need to focus firepower on one city."

Looking at Sara, Hayden said "and this is where Sara comes in useful. If our camp has an elf ... who is my personal assistant, and willing to talk about how weak the army is, it pretty much completes the illusion."

---

Al's pupils dilated, as he breathed a bit more heavily, and his hand tightened around his sword, his mind instantly registering the placement of each and every archer with exacting precision. He saw the men as they dodged his explosion, and his mind calculated as necessary.

From Al's left hand, a golden portal opened to its side, and fired a singular golden chain, which impaled one of the dodging archers, Giving it a powerful pull, and leaping, the gap between Al and the archer narrowed at great speed, before they collided, Al's sword cleaving the man into two halves. Pulling on the chain and flipping around, so the chain flew in a vertical arc, the sharp, sword like tips of the chains jammed into the chest of another archer who was ready to loose his bow.

A sharp sideways pull sent the man plouging into his friend, throwing both their aims off, as Al sent fatal current through the chain and electrocuted both enemies until they were charred, before the chain dissapeared as golden sparkle. Al was too slow to prevent the next three readied archers from releasing their bows at him, though, from three directions, aimed for different parts of his body, namely his head, chest, and legs.

Al leapt into the air, performing a backflip and twisting, so the leg targeting arrow passed below him, the head targeting one passed above him, and he cut the last one out of the air with his sword, which he embedded into the ground, pushing off the hilt with both hands.

Al's hands both stretched out sideways, and he tagged the archers who fired the arrows for his legs and head with multiple casts of his shooting stars skill, setting them on fire, causing considerable agony as they burned to death, cremated by solar magic. Al's golden chain appeared in his right hand and wrapped around the hilt of his sword, before he gave it a pull and swept it in the direction of three more readied archers, smashing they bows, which exploded into splinters in their hands.

Soon enough, the sword was back in Al's hands, as he kicked off and performed his charge attack brandishing his blade, golden portals opening along his path, five chains impaling and ripping apart the archer who earlier tried to headshot him. Stabbing his blade into the middle archer before he could draw his sword, Al let go of his own sword and moved backwards, avoiding a pair of quickdraw slashes from the man's friends. Both men tried to attack him, one going for a horizontal attack, the other vertical.

Al twisted out of the way of the vertical attack, grabbing the man performing the horizontal attack by the sword arm, pulling the man's sword up to deflect the vertical blow. Al then proceeded to deliver a nose crushing palm strike to the vertical attacker's face, before firing a chain through it point blank.

The man who had his arm controlled by Al struggled, and pulled Al into the way of three more readied archers, as he himself pulled out a dagger and tried to stab Al point blank. Al's eyes widened, noting he was open, as he kicked the man's leg, and pulled him into the way of the archers, so their arrows silenced that man instead.

A sharp pain caught Al in his left shoulder, as he saw a sword stuck in it. His own sword, to be exact. The archers took the opportunity to attack Al as he was distracted, but the composure of the vampire prevented two arrows from hitting him, as he commandeered the fallen man's sword, and cut the arrows out of the air. The third one went through his right shoulder, causing Al to stagger back.

The man behind Al was left with a plate sized cavity through his stomach, when seven chains in a hexagon burst through his midsection. Al retrieved his own blade, and licked his blood off the weapon, before the arrow in his shoulder carbonized and vaporized, as golden blood sealed up his wounds and repaired his clothing. The three archers were joined by two more, and all fired directly at Al.

"Reflect on. I cannot afford to be injured anymore"

The looks on the faces of the five archers were priceless, when their arrows reflected back at them violently after almost hitting Al. A field seemed to reverse their projectiles back at them with even more speed than they shot them. It didn't give them time to think as the arrows flew clean through the hearts of all five, leaving holes large enough for Al to see what was behind the five elves, before they all collapsed, dead.

The remaining three archers looked at each other and all pulled their swords, charging at Al, two of them holding their blades horizontally, the last one coming in for a stab. Al calculated, and ran straight at them, performing a sliding tackle last minute, gripping his sword with both hands at an angle, as his own chains fired at his legs from a distance, and wrapped around them, pulling him along.

The man coming in for a stab was tackled, and fell down while still moving forward. As Al slid below him, his sword cleaved the man into half, before he kicked off the ground, and the chains around his legs dissapeared, as he backflipped and twisted mid air. Six chains flew out of portals that opened around Al, three impaling each of the two remaining archers through their back.

"Tch, and I thought you could actually stand against me when I went full on after you guys hurt me. Looks like I was wrong" said Al, as he spat at the bifurcated corpse of the man he had tackled.