novelraw Chapter 244 244: Brilliant Madness
Chapter 244 244: Brilliant Madness
It was a really crazy idea.
When Tatehan stepped back mentally and actually looked at the plan from the outside, he could see just how many moving parts there were, how many things could go wrong and how many assumptions they were making that might not hold up under the pressure of reality.
First, they were banking on the battle commander's cooperation.
A man who had sat in an interrogation room, endured brutal questioning, and still declared that he would rather die than betray the Obscuron.
Well, he had later given them information but that was because of the intense unbearable torture he had been given.
Now, that same man was now supposed to willingly drive a disguised vehicle up to the edge of the Obscuron's territory, activate a scanning device, and play his role in a plan designed to undermine the very organization he had sworn his life to.
The idea that fear of death would be enough to flip him completely was not guaranteed. People who were truly fanatical about a cause did not always respond to threats the way rational people did.
He might panic at the last moment. He might deliberately sabotage the vehicle. He might find a way to signal the Obscuron's forces the moment he was out of sight.
Second, the disguise itself was a massive gamble. Painting a vehicle with the Obscuron's logo and hoping that his border patrols would accept it at face value was the kind of plan that relied heavily on luck.
What if they had a specific identification protocol? A code that vehicles were supposed to transmit automatically when approaching the barrier?
What if they recognized the model of the vehicle as something that did not belong to their fleet? One wrong detail, one inconsistency in the disguise, and the whole thing would fall apart before it even started.
Third, finding someone with super speed was not as simple as putting up a notice board. You needed someone who was not only fast enough to make the plan work but also brave enough, or maybe reckless enough, to volunteer for a mission that involved getting within meters of the most heavily defended territory on Mars.
And fourth, the explosion. Rigging a vehicle with explosives, timing the detonation perfectly, making sure the blast was large enough to create a convincing distraction but not so large that it took out the super speed person and the device along with it: that was its own logistical nightmare.
Any one of these elements failing would mean mission failure. And mission failure in this context probably meant death.
So yes. It was absolutely crazy.
But as Tatehan stood there, his mind still buzzing with the details, he could not shake the feeling that it was also brilliant.
Genuinely, unexpectedly brilliant.
Not in the way that carefully planned military operations were brilliant, where every variable was accounted for and every contingency was addressed.
But brilliant in the way that only truly audacious ideas could be, because it was so unusual, so unexpected, so far outside the kind of tactical playbook that the Obscuron would anticipate, that it just might work.
The Obscuron was expecting attacks. He was expecting raids, assaults and coordinated military strikes from the alliance.
He was basically expecting a war or something like that.
He was not expecting someone to walk up to his front door using one of his own officers as a delivery driver.
How had Tatehan even thought of it? He genuinely could not trace the exact chain of reasoning that had led him to the idea. One moment he had been staring at the map, frustrated and stuck, and then the pieces had just sort of assembled themselves in his mind, connecting in a way that felt almost accidental.
A notification suddenly flickered across his retina, the familiar glow of the System cutting through his thoughts.
[Congratulations on devising a high-risk strategic infiltration plan!]
[Congratulations on demonstrating creative tactical thinking!]
[You have gained Knowledge Points!]
[HOST STATUS]
Name: Tatehan
Level: 14
Species: Human (Enhanced)
Knowledge: 234/500 [+6]
Repair Points: 60/100
[ABILITIES]
• Gravity Manipulation - Level 13
• Regeneration (Partial) - Level 9
• Enhanced Durability - Level 4
• Heightened Perception - Level 6
• Phase Shift - Level 3
• Force Multiplication - Level 3
[INVENTORY:]
[Tri-Edge Shadow Chakram]
[Serrated Heavy Chakram]
[Backpack]
[Armor]
[Novels]
[Shadow-Forged Blade]
[Kinetic Absorption Armor]
[Devastator Hand Cannon]
[Core from the Destroyed Fortress]
Tatehan dismissed the notification with a thought, his gaze drifting back to the map. Six more Knowledge Points.
Nice!
His thoughts wandered briefly to Torvan. The man had been instrumental in all of this: building the scanner, doing the research and providing the intel that had shaped their understanding of the West. But Tatehan realized, with a small jolt of curiosity, that he had never actually asked Torvan what his ability was.
Everyone on Mars had an ability. That was just how it worked. At some point in your life, you picked up a weapon, and if there was a resonance between you and that object, the System activated and granted you something.
It was as fundamental to life on Mars as breathing.
But Torvan had never mentioned his. And Tatehan had never thought to ask.
He glanced over at the man, who was still studying the holographic map with a furrowed brow, and wondered. What would a tech genius like Torvan have awakened?
Something mechanical, maybe: obviously rather. Something related to his obvious gift for understanding and manipulating machines? Maybe an ability that let him interface directly with technology (this felt kinda impossible in a way), or one that enhanced his cognitive processing when working with complex systems?
And what weapon had he awakened it from? A wrench? A soldering iron? Some kind of specialized tech tool that most people would not even recognize as a weapon?
Tatehan filed the question away for later. There would be time to ask.
His attention shifted again, moving to the question of the super speed user. It was certain there would be someone with that ability out there, maybe many people.
Super speed was not the rarest gift on Mars, not by a long stretch.
He remembered just the other day, walking through one of Waython Hollow's construction districts, watching a group of workers assemble a building.
Back on Earth, a project like that would have taken dozens of workers and weeks of labor. But here, just a handful of people with gravitational abilities had been lifting massive structural beams and placing them with pinpoint precision, the whole thing coming together in a matter of days.
Abilities changed everything. They compressed time, multiplied effort, and made the impossible routine. So finding one person with super speed among the entire population of the alliance's cities was not an unrealistic expectation.
He would just need to ask around.
But before he could think any further down that path, Torvan's voice cut through the room, his tone pointed:
"Since you don't want the other cities in the alliance to know what we're planning, and you intend to use the battle commander who is currently locked up in New Helios: a city that belongs is ruled by Bjorn, a man who is very much part of this alliance and who will definitely notice if his prisoner suddenly goes missing, how exactly are you planning to pull this off without him finding out?"