Chapter 170 - Alpha, Beta, Gamma

"Very well, I will allocate one full day for you three to finalize the squadron compositions." Emperor Nicholas said with a resounding nod. With that, the meeting was adjourned. Everyone went outside the room with some feelings of being tense deep inside despite the Operation Liberation's preparations going smoothly.

"There is no other alternative or result, we have to win." The Specter said as she walked out. "Clearly, victory is the end goal here, I do not need to tell you all what would happen if we lost, right?" Ignis Silva uttered out while fixing his glasses with his other hand. "You yourself are an ill omen for the mission, Ignis, I wish you had just kept quiet all the freaking time. Tch." Faust Keisuke blurted out as he clicked his tongue.

The Commander and Gavin were now walking back to where the Khalil family's manor was. "By the way, Gavin, why did you not include yourself in the ones who gets to decide who goes to what team?" Luken asked his friend. "I was choosing who gets to decide in terms of strength and rank.. And seeing that only you, Ignis Silva, and Fen Kaori are the only ones possessing the rank of 'SS', it would only be fitting for you three to choose, besides, as annoying as Ignis is, he still has the brains for it." The Serpent Summoner replied back while patting Luken on the shoulder. "By the way, I do not intend on making decisions for you, I can offer advices every now and then, but it is entirely up to you." 

They both noticed someone creeping up on them. "Who goes there?!" Luken shouted. "Relax. It is me. I did not want to be loud as it is the dead of night already." Fen Kaori revealed himself. "I wanted to ask if it would be fine for me and Ignis to come over tomorrow the Gavin's place so we could discuss squadron formations." The Allcaster said with a timid voice.

"Sure. I have no problem with that." The Serpent Summoner accepted his request. "Man…being left alone in a room with Ignis is going to be so fucking awful." Luken said while scratching his head. "I am surprised you can stand him, Fen." The Commander glanced at the Fen Kaori. "I do not need to, I believe. It is just that I kind of disassociate whenever he goes on these rants and tangents." 

His answer made Gavin and Luken laugh out loud, but they were quickly hushed down by Fen telling them to be quiet. "Did I say anything funny?" the Allcaster was clueless. "Hah. N-No, do not mind us." The Serpent Summoner replied. "You have got to try that tomorrow, Luken." He said, still chuckling. "Definitely, thanks, Fen, does an hour after twelve work for you?" Luken asked him. "Sure." The curtains closed as the day ended.

It was six o'clock in the evening the very next day already. Yin Sohaya could now activate his decay aura for up to thirty seconds without any interruptions so far. "Oh! That is a new record, Yin, I remember when you could only use it for five or ten seconds it felt like, now you are capable of doing it for almost a minute." Suna said as she applauded the white haired Slayer's determination.

Zachary's close quarters combat also got better over the months, with the help of Suna and Yin, he was not a threat with his scythe at close range, imbued with his azure flames. "Is your weapon not heavy at all, sir?" A child asked walked up to Zachary Lancaster and asked him about his scythe. "Hm?" he glared at the kid. "I-I am a C Rank Slayer here for training, sir." The poor kid was intimidated by the B Rank Fire Slayer's gaze. 

"It is lighter than it looks." Zach handed it t the kid for him to hold, he got caught off balance and fell to the floor, but not before Zach could swoop in and save him from getting wounded by the scythe before he was about to fall. "Maybe it is. My bad, sorry." 

The kid ran back to his group and waved goodbye to the Six Blades members. Meanwhile in the other room, the three highest ranked Slayers in the Corps were finalizing everything up already. Fen Kaori arranged the paper works and compiled it. "I assume that we are finished here, but just to make sure of it, let us run over the list one last time." The Allcaster said. Both Luken Regalia and Ignis Silva nodded in unison.

Gavin knocked on the door. "I brought some tea. May I come in?" He asked beforehand. "Y-Yeah." Luken answered him. As they took a sip from their respective cups while waiting for Fen to finish the papers up, Ignis finally opened his mouth. "Such an excellently brewed tea, as expected from the Khalil family's matriarch." He said out loud. Luken noticed that he was oddly much more quiet today than normal. The Commander did not make the effort of pointing it out, however. He just assumed that Ignis was taking it seriously since it might actually be the last mission of the Slayer Corps. 

Ignis called for Gavin once more. "The squadron composition and formation are complete. We plan to reveal it to the other Slayers tomorrow." He said as Fen and him walked outside to go their respective ways, but not before both of them thanking Gavin Khalil for being a good host. "The tea was phenomenal." The Inferno Garden leader said. "Thank you, I will make sure to relay that to my mother." "Please do." 

The Commander and the Serpent Summoner met up with the other Six Blades members as they all sat in a circle. One by one, Gavin handed out the papers indicating what squad they would belong to. "We currently have a concrete list formed by the SS Rank Slayers, Luken Regalia, the Commander, Ignis Silva, the leader of the Inferno Garden, as well as Fen Kaori, also known as the 'Allcaster', as you can see, it is divided into three parts, each one to be led by one of those three.

Luken cleared his throat and spoke up. "The entirety of the Slayer Corps will be divided into three, just like what Gavin said – Team Alpha, Team Beta, and Team Gamma. We did not really get too creative with the names, as you can see, heh. Anyway, Team Alpha will be led by me, yours truly, Luken Regalia!" he exclaimed proudly. 

Gavin glared at him with dead eyes. "To continue my explanation, Alpha shall be the team with the most 'bruisers' during the mission, I am referring to the Slayers who excel or specialize at close quarters combat such as Yin Sohaya, Suna Izanami, and Hector Incendium. The second team, which is Team Beta, will have Slayers who are not particularly fixated on just one fighting style, they can excel at both spellcasting as well as brawling in close range, most notably would be Vale Ashford, Zachary Lancaster, and Kai Xin. As you can guess, it will be led by Ignis Silva, the third and last team is Team Gamma, which are mostly comprised of Spellcasters and Summoners, it shall be led by the Allcaster, Fen Kaori, along with Gavin Khalil." The Commander exhaled as he finished explaining how the teams are structured.

"This composition seems oddly too simple and generic, does it not, Commander?" Suna pointed it out. "We have been using this for quite some time, right?" She asked. 

Gavin answered her question. "Correct, we also used this during our investigation regarding the hives as well, Operation Phoenix followed this structure pretty loosely. It works, thus we shall keep on using it. Whatever tactic that brings in results, that is the one that we shall employ during our siege against the main hive." The Serpent Summoner said.

"To be honest, this is going to a war of stamina and living for as long as we can, when it comes down to it. There is no knowing how many Angels we might come across on the way there. Chances are, we are going to have to leave some in order to deal with them, if we do not do that, the looming risk of being hit from both sides will be a dangerous thing which might occur." Gavin added.

The young core trio of the Six Blades looked down, they were obviously worried about who would be left behind and how the mission would be affected by it, as well as the morale and overall strength of what would be left at the main hive itself. "What is stopping us from pummeling every single Angel that comes our way, by doing that, we preserve the original number of our squadrons and we will not need to leave a soul behind!?" Yin voiced out his concerns. 

"Because, Yin boy, these Angels might buy enough time for their other brethren to inform the Vessel that we are coming. We cannot risk that." Luken said with a disheartened voice.