If the demon flying at the forefront noticed what happened behind, it would have been able to escape. Although Andrea could easily shoot down a floating balloon from the air during previous live-fire drills, she noticed that it was much harder to predict the movements of a living being.

Once she pulled the trigger, the bullet would dart toward a definite position. She could not control the situation if the target left that position on its own. Thus, if a living being became aware of the danger and suddenly decided to change its path, her bullet would most likely miss the target.

She never missed a close target and always knew the result shortly after an attack was launched. Now, however, she needed to wait patiently for the result as the bullet had to travel five kilometers to hit its target.

She could determine which side a coin would land on when it was tossed onto a table, but she could not glue them down to ensure the result. If someone suddenly tapped the table or flicked the coin with a finger as it landed, it could still cause the coin to flip to the opposite side. Thus, she would not feel surprised if the demon escaped.

If it did try to escape, the Flight Squad would swoop down to take care of it.

Fortunately, the demon did not notice anything unusual.

It was not because the demon was not vigilant enough. By flying hundreds of meters above the ground, it could hardly hear anything except the wind whistling. Additionally, as it flew facing the wind, this whistling would be further amplified. When they had started to prepare this combat plan, Lightning had concluded from repeated testing that as long as the demon was flying 10 meters ahead of the target, it would not hear anything when a bullet went through the target behind it.

That was why Andrea chose to shoot down the demon flying at the end of the row first.

The big bullet left an opening in its belly and completely destroyed its inner organs. After they fell out of its body, it could not even make a scream.

Given that, the demon flying in the front did not notice anything abnormal and thus missed its only opportunity to escape.

After a dozen seconds, another bullet came from above and shot into its chest, pa.s.sing through its body before breaking the spine of the mount below.

The devilbeast who flew in the middle carrying a pack on its back now noticed something was wrong, but it was not intelligent enough to understand the current situation. Driven by its instincts for survival, it turned around and flew toward Taquila.

Andrea locked onto it.

She foretold the coin's face for the third time.

In the late afternoon, the Ark rose from the ground again.

According to the map drawn by the Exploration Group, the sniper team had safely arrived at their resting place below a cave which had naturally collapsed.

"There are dried bird beak mushrooms?" asked Amy with great surprise.

"I stored them here," said Maggie as she dug out several gla.s.s bottles under a stone. "We even have barbecue seasonings here!"

"Do you prepare these things at all your bases?" asked Amy.

"Of course," Lightning replied proudly. "This place is poorly-equipped compared to the other bases. If we were at Forest Pavilion now, we'd be able to hold a banquet with the amount of food we've stored there!"

"Forest Pavilion?" Sharon asked whilst intrigued, "Where's it at?"

"It's near the Impa.s.sable Mountain Range in a big tree that's as large as a castle," said Maggie while drawing an invisible outline in the air. "We asked Leaf to build a roof and a sunning ground to dry our jerky."

"I'm afraid that only His Majesty Roland can tolerate you stealing his salt and spices." Countess Spear rubbed her forehead. "I estimate that these seasonings cost several gold royals. If you do this to any other lord, he'll definitely throw you into a boiling wok."

Chief Butler of Sleeping Island nodded in agreement

"I didn't steal them!" Maggie retorted. "I just picked them up from the ground."

"You picked them up?" Spear asked doubtfully.

"They leaked from the buckets in the kitchen. I just collected them," said Lightning.

"And I didn't take them without paying," Lightning added. "In the Fjords, any explorer can earn lots of money by drawing maps, and I've drawn many maps for His Majesty."

"Well, His Majesty would never blame you even if you ransacked the kitchen." Sylvie interrupted in a weak voice. "Collecting some spices from the kitchen is nothing. I've seen Nightingale sneak into the kitchen six times a week to take all the dried fish. She has even broken into His Majesty's study to steal... "

Everybody looked grave now.

"To steal what?"

Sylvie realized that she had spilled the beans. "Ah, no, nothing... I'm just starving. Let's get ready to cook!"

After that, Andrea said something to quickly dispel everybody's curiosity.

"By the way... Do you really want to pry into Nightingale's private life?"

All the witches immediately gave up the thought and began to find something to occupy themselves.

Sharon went to make a fire with her electric sparks. Amy swiftly chopped mushrooms. Phyllis and Ashes caught a boar for dinner. Spear Pa.s.si remained as she still felt sick... After a while, the tantalizing smell of food spread throughout the cave.

Unlike a banquet in the castle, there were not many dishes in this dinner, but their food tonight was delicious enough for a meal in the wilderness. Most of the time, when in the wild, they could only eat pancakes and jerky.

Ashes fried the boar's belly and sprinkled the grease from the pork onto the frizzled mushroom and meat. Seeing that, everyone's mouth kept watering.

In the end, they ate up the whole boar.

After their stomachs were full, the witches quickly fell asleep, except for the Extraordinary and the G.o.d's Punishment Witch. They were more energetic than the others and would keep watch during the night.

"I'll be on watch for the first half of the night," said Ashes as she added some wood to the fire. "Her Highness Tilly told me that you are more vulnerable to the effects of lack of sleep, although your sleep time is shorter than ours."

"That's true. Sleep deprivation will make it hard for us to control our bodies," Phyllis admitted. "But it's still early, I'll go to sleep later."

Ashes nodded and stopped talking. She was not talkative. Even in front of Tilly, she was mostly just a good listener.

Now, all was quiet except for the sputtering fire and the breathing noises of the witches.

"They're so close," whispered Phyllis whilst looking at the sleeping girls beside her. "I've never seen such a tight-knit team like them, even in the Taquila age."

Ashes looked to the side and saw Lightning lay sprawling on an animal skin and Maggie lay huddled up on her belly. The little girl's white hair tumbled down and covered both of them like a quilt which looked very warm.

She could not help but smile. "She wasn't like that in the beginning. Before we took her in, she had lived alone as a pigeon for several years. Back then, she almost lost the ability to speak, not to mention being close to someone. At that time, she would be alarmed by even the littlest rattling."

"Just, I don't know how long such intimacy between them will last..." Phyllis dropped her eyelids. "I hope this time the Battle of Divine Will will be different."

"Why do you say that?" asked Ashes with her eyebrows raised. She did not want to make this conversation sound like an interrogation, but she just could not suppress the question. "Faced with a common enemy, we'll all stick together, won't we?"

"Yes, we will," said Phyllis with a sigh. "But the war is also going to change the witches. Haven't you noticed that magic power affects more than just our ability?"