>>5440738"ALL UNITS! ASSUME POSITION! UNLEASH THE PISHACAS! DEPLOY THE CANNONS! LET THE MAGICIANS REPORT FROM THE SKY! MOVE! MOVE!" Barnham re-entered the gates with barely a scratch on him after cleaning his face, leaving Zodd to sulk onto his own as he retreated into irrelevancy.
"Lord Barnham! Would it not be wiser to evacuate the citizens away from Ilos?" One of his commanders asked, to which he quickly dismissed.
"Not enough time. I would rather risk losing all here inside than to admit our fortress is a failure in defensive maneuvers!"
"But Milord! He is a hundred times larger than the tallest of our buildings!"
"If he plans to continue towards a straight path towards Wyndham, there is one place he needs to pass through..." Barnham stares at the gigantic mountain preventing their territorial expansion, the one that cornered the poor from outside the gladiator ring... The one where Benny was currently pushing Cindy towards using a wooden cart.
Ganishka's grown was not controlled. Power is meant to be contained through acquisition. A disproportionate increase of his form would be too much for his ego to properly be controlled. As the Kushan lord lost his mind, he would be fragmented into more controllable forms, which is when Griffith would attack him.
But what if Barnham held him in place? Impeding Midlanders from seeing Griffith take in the credit for what he's been doing this entire time? Vlad had already managed to damper his credibility, all he needed was to push it back onto Ilos...
"We need to run away! Barnham won't protect us either way!" Michelle grew more anxious with each passing step, knowing she was powerless to stop the oncoming mayhem as she pushed Bernard to come out of his house.
"But Michelle... This house... This house is all that's left of my family..." Bernard stared at the calluses on his palms, lamenting the fact that the home his children grew up in would forever be destroyed. "Even if I didn't have the conditions to raise them properly, even if these toys bring me no monetary value... Who would be so cruel to throw all of this away?"
He stared at his shed, full of abandoned art projects as Michelle refrained from voicing her thoughts, having already lost her house and family once before...
Yet her terrified mind was once more filled with hope after hearing the magical bagpipes of Benny, providing his sister enough spiritual energy for her to stand up straight and walk a few measly steps to her home as she affably patted his head.
"Remember to stay true to yourself, little bro." Her raspy voice tried to imitate Zhafira's, who she always used to calm him down. "Even if Cindy's gone, you've lived enough with her to not need her in presence! She'll always stay by your side, ok?"
