The Magician of Sound

After hanging up the call, Sanders glanced back at Kai.

"General..." He wanted to say he heard it all, but stopped, fully knowing Sanders also understood it.

"As you have heard. We have an emergency because of 'that' appearance. Don't ask me about this matter as my position is not high enough to tell you this military secret. I can only tell you one thing. You need to treat this as a battle between humans. A strategy versus strategy. I will change the reserve army as a special roaming unit to help the other armies while fighting the flying beasts."

He sent something with his communication device. "The message contains all the code used in the military. I don't know if they could decipher our communication or not, but try to use them as much as possible."

"Understood." Kai wanted to ask a few more questions but decided to hold it for the time being. One of his questions was about the usage of radio. And by the looks of it, he could use the radio for this battle with a restriction. Firstly, he could only talk to the general and commanders as to prevent aggroing the magical beasts. Second, there were too many codes to remember, so he needed to start memorizing it.

Sanders nodded and turned back as he assembled a few people by a single call. "I have a few jobs for all of you. First, check every student in the area and our surroundings, including Guatemala to Panama. Second, inform the bases from Colombia and Venezuela to prepare for an attack against the Magical Beasts horde. Third, tell the other commanders to prepare to abandon the base at any notice. I will explain the details in the meeting tonight and make sure to maintain the army's morale."

Those people left as soon as they received the order. On the other hand, the general came back to him, forgetting one last thing. "I want you to be careful against this opponent. If something happens, you and the others will retreat first by using the base helicopters to Colombia.

"Thanks to your hearing ability, we could somehow prepare for this and have some hope to hold them back. Besides, I want you and your group on the battlefield as I fear they might come from behind.

"Currently, we have two reinforcements coming from the west and the north. The west is your rescue squad focusing on escorting you or any other students around the area. Meanwhile, the one in the north is coming from Graham Family targeting the back of our enemy right now."

"I heard that we couldn't be careless in dealing with our opponent, but how about sending their army to ambush the flying beasts instead?" Kai asked. Considering they were coming from the Pacific Ocean, the Graham Family should be able to ambush the army from South Carolina.

"This..." He did not say it was a good plan or a bad plan because of a certain reason. Not knowing if he could disclose it or not, he only patted Kai's shoulders twice before saying, "Just ask where everything started to Michelle's grandfather or my father. They will surely tell you if you are qualified. After all, you are a Zodiac and have a big reputation... or at least, in the bureau."

Kai looked down, pondered for a moment, and sighed. "I understand. I will only focus on this battle right now though I wish some kind of clue on how powerful my opponents are to make a better judgment."

"Hmm..." He pondered for a moment, thinking about what he could say or not. In the end, he could only say, "Just think about fighting an S magical beast with human intelligence."

"That's... quite dangerous." Kai narrowed his eyes. Though he never fought an S rank magical beasts, he heard it would need many elites just to defeat it. The last record even said they needed three S rank magicians, and one of them almost died. Along with them, they also brought an army close to ten thousand just to clear the area around because a single roar from an S rank magical beasts would bring many magical beasts nearby.

According to the record, even after killing the S rank magical beast, they were still in pursuit of more than a hundred thousand magical beasts from the magical beasts on the ground and in the sky.

In fact, Michelle might be called to fight this magical beast sooner or later, considering she was one of the S rank magicians. He would surely not leave her alone, so he was planning to accompany her. 

Kai felt this chance was precious to grasp the behavior of magical beasts. He even remembered about his new magic, Resonant Beam. The lack of tests in living magical beasts restricted his ability to the fullest.

The first thing that came to his mind when making this magic was whether he could create a resonance with magical beasts, allowing him to kill them from inside. Just like how he used a sound wave at 19 Hz to vibrate human eyeballs, he should be able to shake magical beasts' brains as long as he found the right frequency.

Knowing his mission in this battle, Kai took a deep breath before recalling something. "Sea Creatures... That's right. They are sea creatures."

"Hmm?" He tilted his head, looked at him, and patted his shoulder. "Anyway, I need to go. We will have a meeting with many people tonight, but I am not planning to let you join because I want to keep our morale high. Please understand."

"Don't worry. I know by bringing me there will pummel their morale. After all, no matter how many flowery words you say, it is hard to convince someone to leave their lives on the hand of an unknown student." Kai nodded understandingly.

"Thanks." When he was about to leave, he remembered another thing. "Don't tell anyone about this, including Michelle. As for Pisces, Evan Young... With his computer skill, I am sure he can look it up. Just don't mention anything to him before the battle. In fact, I want you to battle without hoping for anything."

"Understood." He nodded.

After getting the confirmation from Kai, he finally left, not returning and telling him he forgot to say another thing again.

Meanwhile, Kai crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and tapped his forehead a few times. 'They are sea creatures... Unlike the ground magical beasts, not many of them can stay on the land. In fact, the beasts will probably either be crabs, snails, turtles, and the like. There is too much that humanity does not know about sea creatures that restrict me in this, but I should not be emphasized in that. Just like I don't know about them, they are also unaware of my hearing ability. I will use this hearing ability to counter their every move while testing my power. Still, the reinforcement... I think I will fight without putting the reinforcement in my plan.'

"Why are you putting on such a dark face? It's enough for my element to be dark, not you." Michelle had finished her business in the middle army, so she came to check on him.

Kai didn't show a look of surprise as he pondered for a few seconds before saying, "No. Just trust me, okay?"

She frowned. 

"I always trust you. I always want to be a hero on the battlefield, and you approve of that, so I know you won't send me to my death."

Kai closed his eyes and smiled before thinking of his plan for tomorrow.

"Are you still going to be here?"

"Yeah. Let me be here for a while." Kai nodded and watched her leave. In the meantime, he started looking at the battlefield in the worst case possible. He was confident in teleporting fifty people to Colombia if he released all of his power and Tasha's space magic. By that time, he would require to sacrifice close to four thousand people.

He might not be a hero or something, but it would certainly leave a bad taste if he abandoned that many people. Then he slowly cracked open the other possibilities.

As if he was too absorbed with his thought, he did not notice that the bright sky had turned dark. Michelle and the others were waiting for him in the base, not wanting to disturb him at the moment after seeing how serious he was.

Kai shook his head, walked to the base, and laid down on his bed. Michelle asked about what happened, but he refused to answer since he promised Sanders. He rolled around his base while memorizing the military codes.

...

The next day, Kai woke up early, only to find his group woke up earlier than him.

As the one who had been beside him for a long time, Tasha noticed a change of his expression and asked. "Looking at your expression, do you have a change of plan?" 

"Yeah. Sister, I want you to save your magic power from the start." He smiled at her with his blurry eyes before turning to the others. "Michelle also needs to conserve your magic power. On the other hand, Teacher should use all of your power to get rid of as many monsters as possible. Evan might need to watch out for himself in this battle."

Kai thought with how they positioned themselves, if the enemy were truly intelligent, they would surely attack the left army with their numeric advantage. In other words, if they could chip a portion of their number, the battle would not be as dangerous anymore.

"!!!" On the other hand, the others had a trace of surprise on their face and realized whatever was bothering his mind, it would surely be bad.

"Leave the middle army to me." Michelle and Tasha answered at the same time.

"As long as the magical beasts act with their instinct, I can take care of myself." Evan nodded, assuring him. Different from him, Sanae could only complain. "Sigh... maybe I should leave this group or at least take a break like Ayaka."