Extra's Sign In System: The Hero's an Idiot!

Chapter 244: Chapter 244: What the Map Shows

Chapter 244: What the Map Shows

It was day eight of forty-three.

The city of Bastion Seven was enduring.

Outside the primary Vanguard distribution center, Sella picked up a piece of white chalk. She wiped away a seven on the heavy slate board. She wrote an eight in its place.

Down in the outer fields, Lyra Voltaire knelt in the dark mud, testing the runic mana density of the seeded ground. In the industrial sector, Cole Rust swung his heavy hammer, forging his eighteenth Star-Iron cradle.

The survival machine was running.

Draven stood in the underground Meditatory Chambers beneath the villa. He had not slept. He activated his interface, running his morning sweep of the continent.

[The Omniscient Cartographer’s World Map]

A massive, glowing blue map expanded across the dark stone room.

Draven scanned the immediate perimeter of Bastion Seven. The borders were quiet. The Capital blockade fleet remained anchored in the distant southern waters.

He shifted the projection, dragging the map hundreds of miles to the north.

He found them immediately.

It was not a raiding party. It was a military column.

Thousands of harsh, jagged red dots flooded the northern projection. They were converging on Bastion Six from three separate directions. Draven checked the topographical scale. Based on their current speed, the column would reach Lord Commander Gunther Stillbane’s walls in roughly nine days.

Draven zoomed in on the vanguard of the enemy force.

Two massive, suffocating pillars of corruption anchored the flanks. They were Elder-tier signatures, identical to the devastating readings he had seen on the fog line weeks ago.

But it was the center of the column that caught his attention.

A single red marker pulsed erratically. It was not a stable dot. It flared and contracted, violently shifting its mana frequency every few seconds. The System mapping function refused to name it.

Draven recognized the unstable fluctuation. He had seen that exact instability once before, in the readings off Morvath the Hollow at the gorge.

It was an Embryo-tier Cultist, caught mid-transformation. The Church of the Eternal Eclipse was marching an incomplete abomination to the front lines.

Draven stepped back from the map.

He worked out the strategic logic in three seconds. The realization tasted like ash.

It was his fault.

High Pontiff Malakor was not attacking a strong city. He was attacking the one Bastion that had given everything away.

Gunther had bled his siege reserves dry to feed Helion’s people. He had sent his last eleven pallets of winter seed stock to be planted in foreign dirt. Bastion Six had cut its own garrison to a two-thirds ration. The central plaza was still scorched from the Cult invasion.

Malakor was hitting the weakest link in the alliance. And he was doing it to send a very loud message to the neutral Bastions. This is what happens when you help Bastion Seven.

Draven tapped his communication earpiece. He dialed a secure Vanguard frequency.

A blue holographic projection flickered to life in the chamber.

Gunther Stillbane materialized. The heavy earth mage looked terrible. His face was gaunt, his massive shoulders slumped under the weight of his armor.

"You look like a corpse, Draven," Gunther rumbled.

"You have three columns of Cultists nine days from your southern gate," Draven said bluntly.

"I know!" Gunther replied.

Draven narrowed his eyes. "How long have you known?"

"My border scouts picked up the vanguard two days ago," Gunther said.

"And you said nothing?"

"Man, I already know what you finna say next," Gunther sighed, shaking his head. "You finna tell me you coming with us. Nah. I’m telling you right now, stay your ass exactly where you at."

Gunther pointed a thick, holographic finger at him.

"Y’all got thirty-five days of food left in that city," Gunther warned, his voice low and heavy. "You got hunger damn near breathing down your neck. I ain’t send my last sacks of seed your way just for you to hand ’em back to me covered in blood. So hold that wall, Draven. I’mma hold mine."

Gunther severed the connection. The blue light died.

Draven stood alone in the dark chamber.

He looked at the map. He ran the logistics in his head.

He had to coordinate Sogaar’s smuggling routes every six hours to avoid Capital patrols.

He had to manage the World Tree sap distribution to keep Halvers and the engineering crews from collapsing. He had to track Nyx Vespera, who was currently embedded deep inside Bastion One.

Lord Commander Helion could not leave the bunker. If Helion stepped off the wall, the Capital Hawks would launch their strike fleet. Cole was pinned to his anvil. Lyra was pinned to the fields.

Draven looked at his own hands.

The trap had finally closed on him. He had spent months warning Helion that a ruler who could not leave his city was a trapped man. Now, the Ghost Protocol had chained Draven to the exact same wall.

He could not leave Bastion Seven.

Draven tapped his earpiece again. He opened a squad-wide frequency.

"Armory," Draven ordered. "Five minutes."

Aegon, Reina, Lucien, Bram, Natalie, and Estella filed into the underground staging room. They wore their heavy Vanguard armor. They looked exhausted from the rations, but their eyes were sharp.

"A Cult column is marching on Bastion Six," Draven briefed them, projecting the map onto the stone wall. "They will arrive in nine days. I cannot leave this city. Lord Commander Helion cannot leave. Cole and Lyra are tethered to the harvest."

Draven turned to face the six Level 100 combatants.

"You are deploying immediately," Draven said.

Estella blinked. It was the fourteenth instance, but she did not hide her surprise. She had asked to be taught thirteen times, and he had refused her every single time. Now, he was throwing her into a siege on a foreign wall.

Draven walked up to Aegon Logcheville.

"You have command," Draven stated.

Aegon froze. The Crucible Warlord stared at him. "Me?"

"Actual authority, Aegon," Draven confirmed, his voice hard. "You are leading a Vanguard force four hundred miles from anyone who can help you. You make the calls. You hold the line."

Aegon swallowed hard. He looked at the map, then gave a firm, heavy nod. Lady Elara’s son was finally taking the reins of a real war.

Draven did not give them a clinical, multi-phase operational breakdown. He could not.

He pulled a smooth, modified silver communication crystal from his coat. He handed it directly to Aegon.

"I cannot give you a battle plan," Draven admitted openly. "Because I do not know what is in the middle of that column. The Cult is marching an Embryo-tier mutation to the front lines. It is unstable."

Aegon gripped the crystal.

"I am giving you my eyes," Draven said. "This crystal is linked to my interface. I will feed you live geographical data through the uplink. I will tell you where they are. You have to figure out how to kill them."

Draven was taking remote command. He was using the cheat to guide them from afar. It was a massive strategic advantage.

He knew it was still not enough.

ROAR.

A heavy, vibrating sound echoed from the courtyard above. Astraxion was waiting. The Void Dragon would provide their aerial transport and heavy fire support.

"Move out!" Draven ordered.

Dawn broke over the freezing stone of Bastion Seven.

Draven stood on the highest parapet of the outer wall. He watched the massive, neon-purple silhouette of the Void Dragon rise into the gray sky, carrying six of his most lethal fighters toward the northern horizon.

He opened his map interface.

He watched the six blue dots slowly moving toward the thousands of jagged red signatures.

He could see every single movement on the continent. He possessed flawless information.

And for the first time since he had woken up in this world, he could do nothing but watch.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!