12 The best strategy is to become strong enough to not need any

"What an intense aura, Is this really coming from someone who is miles away from us?" Marcellus said as his breathing got heavier.

Yahiko had the same question in his mind but he was too distracted by the overwhelming sensation that had taken over his very being.

"Let me tell you something even more interesting. I had not factored distance into this but now that I think about it, this aura has not stopped even for a moment since the first time I felt it. and It has grown about three times in magnitude compared to 10 days ago." Davidson said enthusiastically.

He smiled at Kim, "Your princess is really something Mr. Kim,"

Kim smirked a little like a proud father. even though he could not feel the aura, he knew it was something amazing on the other hand the boys were speechless. Marcellus had realized that he could not generate any aura after continuously using it for about 20 hours. To think that someone was generating this much aura and for 10 days was insane.

"So this is what a high-level god can do," Yahiko thought as he remembered the god he fought back in Japan, "compared to this, that guy was a complete joke."

"But Mr. Davidson," Kim said as he forced stopped his persisting smile smirk, " I don't think it's a good thing that the aura has been acting up all this time. The awakened use their aura when they fight."

"I know," Davidson confidently said, "but just the fact that she is emanating this much aura means that she is fine. if the aura got any weaker it would mean she is reaching her limit but it just keeps growing. she is with a very malicious group of people so I don't expect her to be having a comfortable time but she has not been harmed, that much is certain."

Kim convinced himself off of Davidson's words.

Davidson noticed the two boys still uncomfortable at exposure to Ivanna's aura so he put each of his index fingers on both of their foreheads.

"I know this is the first time you have experienced this kind of aura but fortunately this aura comes from our god. the energy you sense is the parent energy of the one that runs inside us. it is in no way harmful to us so get used to it and accept it. If you let it, the exposure to our parent energy can enhance our own aura." he said in a hypnotic voice as he released a small amount of aura through his fingers. As the boys concentrated on that aura, it calmed them down. They began breathing normally.

Ji Won who had been on standby all this time spoke, "It seems they have installed a few wireless cameras and motion sensors in the vicinity. The men are moving carefully avoiding being detected but I think they can't go any further. We are using our own devices to locate their security system, but the converse is also possible."

Davidson decided to be safe than sorry, "Ok have your men stay where they are. We will reach the outskirts in an hour. but we will enter the territory at night."

"Night? why?" Yahiko asked.

"Mr. Kim's men have night vision accessories with them, I have the ability to see anything regardless of whether it's day or night and if it really comes to fighting at close quarters Marcellus does not need to see what his opponent is doing because of his fighting experience and your defensive fusion is amazing so you will be fine too. In short, as long as their angel class followers are not too skilled, the dark will give us the advantage over them."

Yahiko and Marcellus listened happily as Davidson praised their ability, but Davidson knew the young ones would be too full of themselves.

"That does not mean you can carelessly do what you want. you have been stronger than the average angel class followers from the moment you awakened because of your large mana pool. The angels we are facing are weaker than you guys in terms of mana but in a battle, there are many variables at play, deception, misdirection, and strategies, things like these matter. McCoy is a god at the top fifty, which makes him almost stronger than the three of us combined as we are right now so the success of this depends on whether Miss Ivanna will be in condition to hold her own against him."

The boys nodded.

Kim scratched his head as he felt the need to mention this, "Mr. Davidson, Ivanna seems to have been resisting them all this time on her own. will she be in any condition to join you guys in a battle?"

Davidson seemed nervous as he said, "to be honest that's the loophole of this operation. If she ends up not being able to join us in the battle we might end up losing. I'm confident about taking on their angels but McCoy will be different. and there might be another one that we know nothing about."

"another one?" asked Marcellus.

Davidson took a long breath thinking back to when he researched Mccoy, "when I checked on him, he had three angel class followers. it might be a coincidence but almost every member of that clan has a criminal record, they are a disgusting bunch. that was information from a month ago. he had not found his pacifier at that time so we are going in with the assumption that they have 4 awakened as their main force, it will be bad for us if they have found their pacifier too."

"How strong are these pacifiers anyway?" Marcellus asked again.

"They are the most mysterious among the awakened. Their powers are inconsistent. Some clans have pacifiers as weak as their regular followers but for some clans, their pacifiers are so strong that make it seem like they have two gods in their clan. if we have to talk about the worst-case scenario for us, We might have to take on two god-level awakened."

Davidson turned towards Kim, " I think we will be relying on miss Ivanna a lot after all. It has only been 10 days since she awakened and she is not exactly in a situation to learn to control her powers so I need to know, does she know basic combat? I assumed she did because all the heirs of royal families are trained in martial arts from childhood. I hope the same is the case for her."

Kim's face lightened up a little, everyone could see a faint grin on his face, "I think I gave you the wrong idea by constantly worrying about her, she is not exactly a helpless delicate princess from the fairy tales. Dangun clan has 15 royal guards who are at rank 3, 7 at rank 2, and 3 at rank 1 but none of them is any match for the princess at combat skills."

Davidson laughed heartily, "You keep raising my expectations of her by saying such things, Mr. Kim,"

"That is nothing, I lack the words to appropriately describe how great she is," Kim said. it was certain that he was the biggest fanboy of Ivanna.

Marcellus and Yahiko were looking at them in confusion again.

"Marcellus this might interest you," Davidson immediately turned to face Marcellus, "Every royal family has royal guards who undergo harsh training from their childhood with the sole purpose of guarding the royal family. In short, they are fighting prodigies."

"When the guards reach a certain level, they are categorized into three ranks based on their skills. The families with large numbers of ranked guards boast great military power. As for how strong they are; a rank two fighter could enter an Olympic event and win multiple gold medals. The rank one fighters are even greater than that." Davidson explained as he also knew about this.

"And you are saying that Ivanna is as strong as the rank 1?" Marcellus felt like he was about to lose his mind. that was definitely not how he had pictured Ivanna in his head.

Kim smiled with pride looking at Marcellus.

They spent the rest of their travel discussing more of their strategy.

************************************************************************************

9:00 pm, About four miles away from the Mccoy's hideout

A very thick mist covered the entire area around Mccoy's hiding place. Davidson and the group had not accounted for that. it was impossible to navigate even with the night vision goggles. the drone that hovered above the hideout was transmitting the image to the group. The tallest cliff was still visible, they could see a dim light coming from the opening.

"Damn, what is this mist? is it really possible for a river of that size to create this much mist?" Kim complained clenching his fist.

"So much for the strategy of using the night vision to our advantage." Marcellus sighed.

"Does that even matter? it still can't stop us three right?" Yahiko said unzipping his favorite jacket.

Davidson had been silent all this time staring at the direction of their hideout.

"I need to learn to use my ability over the distance. I can't see anything past half a mile." He gave himself a reminder.

"It's inconvenient, if I focus too much on trying to see, I won't be able to fight an angel class follower." He showed worry.

"Regardless of that we have to make a move now," Kim suggested.

The 50 men had made a perimeter around the hideout. they are about 2 miles closer to the main hideout and ready to move at command.

"We will enter the mist now, don't channel your aura until the next mile." Davidson instructed the boys and turned towards Kim, "your men are not to fight the angel class, tell them to run away if their opponent is anything other than a normal follower."

Kim nodded as the group of 7 finally entered the mist. Ji won and two other men had joined them. Ji won was a rank one guard and the rest of the two were rank 2.

Nobody spoke as they all followed Davidson. the mist felt thicker and thicker as they kept walking towards the hideout. After walking for about ten minutes Davidson stopped and so did the rest behind him. he had been feeling uneasiness ever since they entered the mist. to erase his curiosity he channeled his aura to see what it really was, as the black aura slowly started radiating from his body Marcellus looked at him in confusion. Davidson focused his aura for about a few seconds, and looked around. the look on his face changed.

"This is not a natural mist, someone on McCoy's clan has the ability to create mists, The mist has traces of aura in it." he alerted everyone. Kim and his men panicked at first then they unsheathed their swords.

"Then they probably know we are here," Kim said.

"I'm sure they found out the moment we entered this mist," Davidson replied.

Ji won had been having trouble breathing since they entered the mist. he had not mentioned it but it had become quite unbearable now. suddenly his radio started making a sound. A panicked voice of a man came from it, "Sir, there's a problem." "what is it?" Jiwon took the radio transmitter in his hand and asked.

"All our men have been fainting. including me, only seven others remain and I don't think we are doing fine either." from his voice it was clear that he was also having trouble breathing.

Kim finally realized the same thing was happening to him too. It was not exhaustion after all. They all looked at each other.

"This mist is toxic," Davidson finally realized, "regular humans cannot stand it, we need to get you guys out of here as fast as possible."

But the three men along with Kim got on their knees right at that moment, they had gotten weak because of the mist.

"you two, carry them and run back," Davidson commanded.

"hold on a sec there, old man," Yahiko calmly said as he walked forward, he stopped as he walked past Davidson who intently followed him with his eyes as he walked, "didn't you say that they already know that we are here?"

"yes" Davidson replied wondering what Yahiko was doing.

"Then it's a drag to run away after coming all the way here, isn't it? stealth and crap like that is not my thing anyway." He said as a sly grin appeared on his face.

He stretched back both of his arms as he channeled a large amount of aura into them. he bent one knee forward. As the aura continued to channel his jacket fluttered like wings behind him.

"You are not gonna-" Marcellus watched in shock realizing what he was about to do.

Yahiko smiled like a kid about to pull a prank on someone and said, "You might want to close your ears."

Everyone else stared in awe as Yahiko finally brought together his arms with great strength and clapped. A large explosion shook the entire area as a huge shockwave formed and blew the mist away in an instant. Everyone had closed their ears to brace themselves from the sound that seemed to tear through their ears. Davidson had immediately used his aura to shield the 4 men, if not for that they would have been heavily injured.

The sound echoed through mountains, through the canyons, and reached the sky. The trees in the close vicinity were unrooted, the birds flew away and some were even injured.

The mist was completely obliterated. Even though it was dark, they could tell that the mist was gone. Kim and his men looked around in awe.

Davidson wanted to scold Yahiko but he noticed Kim and the other three were now breathing normally.

He fixed his suit and faced Yahiko who was pridefully looking around to check the destruction he had caused, of course, he could not see much because of the dark, "you have grown up to be such a troublemaker Yahiko."

Marcellus could not help but be amazed at the raw power Yahiko just demonstrated. "what a beast" he thought and got irritated as he realized he was praising him.

Davidson looked ahead in front of him using his ability. He was right, the enemy was already aware of their presence. A swarm of about a hundred men was charging at them from about a mile away.

"It's the enemy," He alerted everyone.

"How many?" asked Marcellus as he wore a smile of excitement on his face.

"about a hundred,"

"any angel class among them?"

"none"

Before they knew Yahiko was already running at them, "I will leave the small fries to you guys" he shouted as he picked up his pace.

"Wait!! you idiot," Marcellus screamed and ran after him.

Davidson looked with a horrified look on his face and then turned towards Kim and his men. They smiled back at him nervously. suddenly a couple of bright lights were aimed at them from the direction of the hideout. it was bright enough to reach a couple of miles.

As Mccoy's followers were charging they saw Yahiko charging back at them at an incredible speed. he was leaving a dust trail thrice his size behind him. the men got nervous just as he approached the distance of about ten meters in front of them but he arched his body for a short moment and jumped with an insane amount of strength. the impact of the jump made a few men lose their balance.

Marcellus was was just behind Yahiko as he jumped. The propulsion was so strong that it looked like Yahiko was flying as the propulsion shot his body straight towards the cliff where McCoy was keeping Ivanna. Yahiko covered a distance of about 2.5 miles with that jump. Marcellus got irritated at this amazing feat so he imitated the jump as another number of the Mccoy's followers got blasted a few meters away from the impact.

Marcellus could barely cover the three-fourth distance that Yahiko did and landed on the san Fransisco river. "damn it!! how is that idiot so strong," He shouted and jumped for the second time as he flew past a few more of Mccoy's followers who were running towards where Davidson and Kim were.

As he was flying towards the entrance of the largest cliff, He suddenly realized that Ivanna's aura had gotten way more intense than before, he also recognized Yahiko's aura and there were several other auras that seemed weaker than the aura of Yahiko. One of them was greater than Yahiko, he suspected that to be Mccoy.

"I followed him like an idiot but can we really stand up against Mccoy? There are other followers too, should we wait for Mr. Davidson after all? But he will be busy handling those normal followers all by himself." he thought.

He had already jumped so he decided not to think anymore. As he landed, he saw Yahiko standing a bit further into the entrance. He was not moving and had his eyes wide and jaws dropped.

"What did he see?"

Marcellus walked towards him as he came closer to the edge of the entrance. The cave was wide and had another large opening below. the opening was lit with very bright light from above. At this point, the aura from Ivanna was so intense he felt like he was breathing in her aura. At the center of the opening, there was a large black spherical glass. around the glass, several men laid on the ground seemingly passed out. three men sat on the ground struggling to catch their breath as they looked severely exhausted, it looked like they were aware of the intruders but they were too tired to even lift their head to look at the two. further away closer to the wall was a chair that looked more like a throne that was carved out of stones, in it lied a mean-looking man. A tall one with long blonde hair, his eyes were red and had several red marks on his skin. He seemed tired as well and extremely annoyed.

The man slowly caught his breath and he stood as his aura flared up. he was intently looking inside the glass, he was so immersed that he did not even realize he had unwelcomed visitors.

As Marcellus looked around, the stone walls that seemed to have perfectly carved into smooth surfaces had been dealt some damages. "A battle must have happened here" Marcellus confirmed to himself.

The angry man pointed his hands at the glass and a green aura formed around his palm. when the gathered aura reached its peak he shot it towards the glass. The aura was very intense, Marcellus realized it was way greater than his own. he instinctively wrapped himself with aura when the green aura collided with the glass and diverged. unlike the aura, he and Marcellus had been using this aura did not have much physical force to them but as the aura got deflected to the walls he realized that the walls were being corroded on contact with the energy. it was dangerous.

He looked at the glass, surprisingly the aura that instantly melted the rocks had not even left any scars on the glass.

"You bitch," The angry man exploded in anger as his breath grew heavy, "it has been 10 days already, just how much aura do you possess to be able to maintain a barrier this strong for so long?"

"What? there is someone in there?" Marcellus asked Yahiko who hadn't spoken for the whole minute. Even now he showed no response, it was almost like he was frozen. He was looking inside the glass all along without blinking. As Marcellus looked in there himself, he realized that the glass was semi-transparent.

"Wait a minute," he spoke in his mind as he realized the intense aura he had been sensing all along was coming from inside the glass. As he looked more his eyes went wide. It was not a glass, it was a big ball of pure aura perfectly formed to look like a big black crystal ball, and inside it was a very dignified feminine figure.

A pair of eyes stared at Yahiko and Marcellus from inside the glass, which caused their own aura to flare up.

"So you guys are here," said the voice from inside the glass. The female voice that echoed throughout the walls sounded enchanting. It was a voice that Marcellus knew very well. The black aura from the glass suddenly started dissipating and the feminine figure glowing in the dark aura finally came to the clear view.

"Ivanna," whispered Marcellus as he and Yahiko laid their eyes upon the most beautiful being they had ever seen.