Chapter 4631: The Art of the Lure

Lure it away... that was the plan.

That was...

...the whole plan!

—

Going back a day earlier, Rean had just finished explaining that they intended to make the Godly Apex come after them rather than chase it themselves. Naturally, that announcement had left Tobao, Arcis, and Kachia rather concerned. Deliberately attracting the attention of a Godly Apex was already dangerous enough. Making one pursue them across the Celestial Plane sounded like an excellent way to get themselves killed.

"Come after us? What exactly do you mean by that?" Arcis asked, unable to hide his concern.

Roan took over the explanation. "As we all know, flying without the aid of wings or similar natural abilities consumes an enormous amount of energy. Tobao, you’re a Late Stage Law God. How long can you maintain flight before your energy is completely depleted?"

Tobao looked somewhat confused by the question, but he answered anyway. "After my last breakthrough into the Late Stage, I can maintain flight for almost seven minutes."

Roan nodded. "Exactly. The restrictions imposed by the Celestial Plane are so severe that even doing something we would normally consider trivial can become extremely costly if it exceeds what the laws allow. If you attempt something you shouldn’t be capable of doing with your natural abilities, the laws will make you pay the price. According to what Zandal told me, even a Peak Stage Law God would be lucky to remain airborne for ten minutes."

Tobao and the others exchanged puzzled glances. They still weren’t sure where Roan was going with this explanation.

"But what does that have to do with anything?" Tobao asked. "We’re talking about a Godly Apex that can fly naturally. Those restrictions shouldn’t affect it in the same way."

"They will," Roan replied confidently. "Realistically speaking, we don’t have much of a chance of killing it in a straightforward battle. At most, we might force it to retreat, and even that is very unlikely to happen. But if that’s all we accomplish, why bother dealing with it in the first place? We could simply leave it alone and continue our journey."

He paused briefly before continuing, his expression growing more serious. "Of course, we’re not going to ignore it. Our plan is to kill the Godly Apex, both to test our own strength and, more importantly, to determine whether we can bring one down by any means necessary."

—

And that was how they had arrived at their current situation.

As everyone knew, a Godly Apex still lacked true intelligence. Godly Tyrants, the next level of Godly Creatures, could sometimes possess sentience, although most of them didn’t either. Only at the Godly Colossus Level would Sentience become a norm for Godly Creatures.

Regardless, there was little reason to worry about this particular Moth carefully analyzing their strategy. It would react to what it perceived rather than consider the possibility that its prey was deliberately leading it into a trap.

Their plan was to severely impair its natural ability to fly, forcing it to rely on Godly Energy to maintain its flight. Naturally, even creatures capable of flying on their own could use Godly Energy to increase their speed further. However, their energy consumption would never approach that of a race that couldn’t fly naturally and had to rely entirely on energy to remain airborne.

Now that they had practically crippled one of the Moth’s wings, the first major objective had been accomplished. The creature could no longer depend on its natural flight as efficiently as before and had to compensate with Godly Energy to maintain its pursuit. Well, not entirely. Even with a wing becoming useless, the other wing still provided some assistance, allowing the Moth to remain airborne at a lower energy cost than if it had lost both completely.

That wasn’t a problem, though. They had anticipated as much when designing the strategy.

*Bang! Bang! Bang! Kabrum! Kabrum! Boom! Boom!*

The Godly Apex Moth continued charging toward the airplane, only to be met with a constant barrage of ranged attacks from the twins’ group. Yet, they weren’t even trying to hit the creature directly. Instead, they aimed at the path it intended to take, forcing it to dodge repeatedly and preventing it from moving in a straight line.

With its damaged wing slowing it down so drastically, the Moth couldn’t close the distance. The airplane was simply too fast for it to catch up under those conditions.

Of course, that was also because Rean had pushed the Celestial Thrusters close to their maximum sustainable speed. He could make the airplane go a little faster, but doing so would accelerate the damage to the thrusters beyond the rate at which he was already struggling to repair them. He needed the airplane to remain functional for the remainder of the plan, not merely for the next few minutes.

As expected, being repeatedly harassed only made the Godly Apex Moth angrier. Without intelligence to recognize that its prey was deliberately manipulating its behavior, it continued the pursuit without hesitation. However, that wasn’t the real trick behind their strategy.

The most important part of the plan was to avoid injuring the Moth any further.

That was another reason they aimed their ranged attacks at its intended path instead of its body. They wanted to force it to dodge while keeping it at a relatively consistent distance from the airplane. Every attack was meant to obstruct its advance, not inflict damage.

As long as they didn’t cause any additional injuries, the Moth wouldn’t perceive the situation as genuinely dangerous. One of its wings had been badly damaged, certainly, but most of its body remained intact, and its overall strength hadn’t diminished nearly enough to make it feel any danger. From its perspective, its prey was merely being troublesome.

Unless it sensed that its life was in danger, the Moth had no reason to abandon the pursuit.

And that was the real trick.

They needed to make Rean’s airplane appear to be something the Godly Apex could easily destroy while ensuring that it never felt threatened enough to retreat. Even Godly Creatures would flee when faced with a genuine threat to their lives, and a Godly Apex was no exception. If the Moth realized that its prey could seriously injure or kill it, the entire plan would fall apart.

Therefore, the group had to maintain a delicate balance. They needed to keep the Moth frustrated enough to continue chasing them, but not so threatened that it decided to give up.

With that in mind, the airplane continued flying without stopping. Everyone except Rean concentrated on firing ranged attacks at carefully chosen locations to delay the Moth. They had plenty of Godly Predator and Godly Horror Crystals with them, which they used to replenish their energy as the pursuit continued. After all, maintaining such a relentless barrage wasn’t cheap, even if they were careful not to hit their target directly.

Meanwhile, Roan relied on Celis to estimate how long their opponent could sustain the chase. Based on the fact that a Peak Stage Law God could maintain flight for roughly ten minutes, Celis estimated that a Middle Stage Godly Apex should be capable of sustaining its flight for at least three times as long.

Roan, however, had no intention of staking their lives on an estimate that might be too optimistic.

Thirty minutes was already a considerable amount of time, but the Moth was relatively small for a Godly Creature, and its remaining wing still provided some assistance. Those factors made it difficult to determine exactly how much energy it could conserve while flying. If they stopped too early, the creature might still have enough energy to pursue them indefinitely—or at least long enough to ruin everything.

Consequently, they had designed the entire strategy around one requirement: the airplane had to keep fleeing for a full hour.

Could Rean’s Celestial Thrusters withstand that kind of punishment?

He wasn’t pushing them to their absolute limits, but they were undoubtedly operating far beyond their safety range. Every additional minute increased the risk of a malfunction, and even Rean couldn’t guarantee that the thrusters would remain in perfect condition throughout the journey. Still, he had given everyone his word that he could keep the airplane flying for the required hour.

"Trust in me, but above all, trust in Mark! My baby will not let us down!"

Those had been his exact words, and an almost ridiculous amount of affection for his airplane. He continued treating Mark as though it were a living creature that could understand his encouragement.

Fortunately, having a Godly Apex pursuing them so closely came with an unexpected advantage: it frightened away every other Godly Creature in the surrounding area.

The other creatures could sense the Moth’s presence from a considerable distance, and none of them wanted to end up anywhere near its path. Even those that might normally have attacked kept their distance. As a result, nothing else interfered with their journey, allowing Rean to focus on keeping the airplane operational.

He continued piloting Mark while simultaneously working on the Celestial Thrusters, replacing damaged runes even as the airplane raced through the air. It was an exhausting task, but he couldn’t afford to leave the damage unattended. A single critical failure at the wrong moment could jeopardize the entire operation.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of maintaining their exhausting pace, Celis began to see the results they had been waiting for.

"Tobao, Arcis, get ready," he warned them. "Your time to act is almost here."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.