Chapter 3 – Story 74: The Humiliation of Sunomuta 14 – Yell (Beginning)
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“They did it! They fucking did it!!!” Hiakis loudly cheered after spotting the trebuchets going up in fierce flames.
The veterans have wonderfully lived up to my expectations. I fear they have suffered substantial losses. And while I feel deep respect and gratitude for my many comrades who lost their lives to become a cornerstone of our victory, I’ll focus on the joy of having obtained victory for now.
However, Hiakis soon noticed that something was odd.
Anyone would fly into panic if they saw their own headquarters going up in flames. Yet, the zoan are still continuing their siege without showing the slightest hint of agitation. On top of that, it sounds as though the battle noise has become even louder.
No, that’s not all. Even though the enemy headquarters has fallen, I can’t hear a single shout of victory from my men in front. Something is off about this.
With those thoughts plaguing him, Hiakis gave in to his own curiosity and started to ride towards the front. As he came closer to the enemy headquarters, the density of soldiers increased. Because of that, he had to dismount his horse halfway. On foot Hiakis weaved his way through the crowd as if having to proceed through a densely packed street on market day. Soon he ran into a messenger coming from the front after having left his horse behind in the same way.
“Just what happened!? What’s going on with the enemy? Didn’t we take down the revolting slaves’ boss!?” Hiakis questioned the man with such a force that it seemed as though he’d grab the messenger by the collar any moment.
The messenger answered with a frantic look, “They ran away!”
“WUUUTT!?” For an instant Hiakis couldn’t process what he heard just now. “W-What do you mean? Didn’t we capture their headquarters and burn their siege weapons!?”
“We weren’t the ones who set the trebuchets on fire! They did it themselves during their escape!”
“So, where did they go!?”
The answer to his question baffled Hiakis even more.
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Faced with the staunch attack by the veteran unit, Souma’s group abandoned the headquarters and withdrew. On that occasion they set the trebuchets on fire to hinder the enemy pursuit and make them unusable for the enemy’s side. What Hiakis had seen was the smoke and fires of that.
And the destination of Souma’s group was the bridge leading over the river in their back.
Many people were under the impression that Souma and his army fought with their backs to the wall. But, Souma hadn’t burned down the bridge in the first place. He had secured himself and his men a path of retreat.
Even so, the reason why further people thought that he fought with his back against the wall lies with the bridge itself. The bridge had been built sturdily and broad enough to allow big ryuu to pass through as a vital trade choke-point between Jeboa and Holmea.
However, Souma’s army numbered 7,000 soldiers in total. Even a bridge like the one described above would be way too narrow for such a big army to pass through in a short period of time. And even assuming several thousand soldiers swarmed the bridge in an attempt to retreat, the bridge would become completely clogged up instead.
Because of that, many people adopted common sense in their thinking and disregarded the bridge as a possible path of retreat.
Moreover, the pretense of having constructed a fortress in front of the bridge was also part of Souma’s plan to make their enemy believe that they’d be fighting while secluding themselves inside that fortress. But, in reality, only 400-500 soldiers were present in the fortress right before the retreat. If Souma had included that small number in his plans from the very start, it wouldn’t be impossible to withdraw to the opposite shore in a short period of time by using the bridge.
“Hurry! But, don’t panic!” Souma ordered loudly while crossing the river himself.
Thereupon, the elves and dwarves, who had been crossing together with him, took up a 凹 formation in the vicinity of the bridge. Everything was playing out as Souma had assumed.
Hannibal, a rare genius of a strategist, had carved his name into Earth’s military history with the 「Battle of Cannae」. Inspired by this great military achievement of having encircled and eliminated an enemy far superior in numbers, many generals had launched encirclements against large enemy armies, just to fail miserably. Many of those failures stemmed from the enemy breaking through their ranks in the center. Because those generals had their army forcibly separated, despite being the ones doing the encircling, on top of having less soldiers than their opponents to begin with, the central part would become unable to stop the enemy advance after getting thinned out, and suffer a breakthrough. And once the army was split into parts, each part would be crushed individually.
Not to mention that the enemy soldiers, who had been in the central portion of the encirclement, merely numbered less than 500 this time. Moreover, Souma, as the enemy commander, was also present among those 500.
As such, Hiakis’s decision to have the veterans break through the enemy headquarters wasn’t wrong by any account. If Souma had been in his shoes, he’d have done the same. Anyone would have aimed to break through the center. And anyone would have considered this to be the very best move. Everything was speaking for doing just that. And one would be compelled to believe so.
In such a case――
“We’re going to transform this option, which is supposed to be the very best, into the worst one!” Souma widely swung his arms at the veterans of the Black Wall pursuing them across the bridge. “Begin the attack! Don’t let the enemy cross the bridge!”
As soon as Souma finished speaking, arrows and stones were hurled at the approaching enemy.
The veterans had no choice but to traverse the straight path of the bridge which didn’t offer any places to hide or run. In contrast to that, Souma’s group was able to concentrate their attacks on a single point in their current 凹 formation.
As might be expected, the veterans fell like flies to the onslaught of arrows and stones flying at them from the sides and front.
The one especially standing out among all the attackers was the sole zoan archer Fagul Gulshata Shahata. In the past, Gulshata had received training in archery from the elven war archers, allowing him to become so skilled that he had exceeded his self-taught archery skills from five years ago by leaps and bounds. But even then, he fell behind in skill when compared to the elven archers who were natural-born archery masters. But, only in the aspect of arrow penetration force, Gulshata exceeded the elven archers.
But that was no wonder. He possessed an Elven Bow. Gulshata had one of these bows, which were rare even among the elven war archers, because Souma had bestowed one upon him. Eladia, who produced the Elven Bows, had presented the first one she finished to Souma. But, Souma would have no use for that bow since his blessing made it impossible for him to harm others. And just keeping the Elven Bow, the weapon which could rightfully be called the strongest weapon of that era, as decoration would be too much of a waste.
Accordingly, Souma gave his Elven Bow to Gulshata, who had served him as a guard with Shyemul since the very beginning, as an expression of his gratitude. Gulshata felt a deep debt of gratitude towards Souma, who had given him a chance to fight and a meaning to his life which had been thus far filled with nothing but contempt in the zoan village. From the very start, Gulshata had intended to devote his entire life to Souma, with or without rewards, but he was extremely delighted by this present. You could even say he was moved to tears.
It was unnecessary to mention just how much this moment of receiving the Elven Bow from Souma was inspiring Gulshata. The bowstring ceaselessly rang as Gulshata shot one arrow after the other at the veterans.
By the way, Souma had obtained Eladia’s permission before he passed his Elven Bow to Eladia. She had readily consented to his request, but although Souma was baffled by her smiling awfully brightly at that time, he quickly learned the reason for it. After all, the Elven Bow, which Souma had been given, was made as if it had been ordered by Gulshata.
Influenced by Gulshata’s strenuous efforts with his Elven Bow, the elven war archers and dwarven combat engineers got pumped as well. All of them fervently shot arrows and threw stones at each enemy that tried to cross the bridge. And because of their hard struggle, the veterans couldn’t get across the bridge.
However, they wouldn’t be veterans if this was enough to stop them.
“Turtle formation! Get across the bridge no matter what it takes!”
The turtle formation emphasized defense. The heavy spear infantry would bunch up and form a shield wall, not only at the front, but also above and on the sides. It slowed down the unit’s movement speed, but it possessed a high defensive power against ranged weapons. It was a formation mainly used for the sake of persisting in enemy fortresses during a downpour of enemy projectiles.
The veterans, who had transformed into a turtle as the formation’s name suggested, kept moving forward within a storm of arrows and stones flying at them.
‘At this rate, we’re going to cross the bridge.’ Just as the veterans started to believe this, a huge shadow blocked their path.
Dinosaurians.
They numbered less than a hundred, but all of them boasted bodies far superior to humans in all physical attributes. Every single one of them was a matchless, mighty warrior. Their fangs were audibly grinding due to the fighting spirit apparently overflowing inside them.
The one standing in front of that group was, of course, Jahangil, the mightiest even amidst the dinosaurians. He spread his huge arms widely and introduced himself alongside a fervent joy that was gushing out from deep inside him.
“My name is Jahangil Hesam Jalji. I am the Dragon General as a pure descendant of dragons!”
For a Tyranno like Jahangil, battle was the sole purpose in life. The reason why such a battle maniac had stayed put until now was Souma’s earnest persuasion that he and his brethren would be their trump card. And one he had been told that he was an ace in the sleeve, he couldn’t protest.
Patiently suppressing his desire of wanting to rush out on the frontline to trample down all the enemies in his path, Jahangil had kept enduring until this very moment. And at long last his turn had finally come.
Moreover, as rear guard he had the crucial task of stopping the enemy pursuit on the big stage which was also the final tactical move of this battle. It was impossible for Jahangil to not be excited by this.
“Look at me! Get to know me! I am Dragon General Jahangil.”
With his fighting spirit ablaze in an unusually intense manner, he hurled his beloved, chained iron balls at the veteran soldiers.
Hurling the iron balls sounded neutral, but in reality, those iron balls were as big as human heads. If you added Jahangil’s superhuman strength on top of it, it’d be more appropriate to talk about shooting a cannon.
The iron balls pulverized the Black Wall’s prized shield wall and blew away the veterans who had hidden behind those shields, just to keep penetrating deep into the turtle formation. In front of the veterans, who were dumbfounded by the ridiculous force behind those balls, Jahangil powerfully swung his hands which were holding onto the thick chains that were connected to the iron balls. The chains swung left and right like huge, winding snakes, mowing down the veterans near them.
But, Jahangil’s fearsome attack didn’t stop at that. Jahangil roared a war cry before plunging into the opening created by his earlier attack and amply exhibiting his fury.
Each time he swung an arm, a veteran flew through the air like a pebble while spraying his blood all over. One after the other got knocked down into the river. Several veterans tried to hold onto Jahangil’s legs with a do-or-die attitude, but all of them were trampled underfoot and died on the bridge as they violently coughed blood.
As might be expected, even the veterans of the Black Wall faltered due to this gruesome scenes.
“What the hell is this monster!? He might be called a dinosaurians, but there should be a limit to everything!!”
In the first place, humans had to use big numbers and combined attacks with long-handled weapons to defeat dinosaurians which were much tougher than them. But, even if they wanted to launch themselves at Jahangil in a group, they were limited to three at a time on top of the bridge. With such a small number they had absolutely no prospect in being able to take down a monster like a dinosaurian.
The veterans didn’t fear death, if it was for the sake of the Black Wall. But, they did fear dying in vain. And challenging Jahangil under these circumstances was nothing more than dying in vain.
Jahangil got carried away by the veterans gradually retreating, crossed the bridge, and tried to attack the opposite bank.
“Dad! We were told to stop the enemy on the bridge, weren’t we!?” Palsharl, Jahangil’s third son, held his father back.
Usually Jahangil wouldn’t lend an ear to his sons’ words, but only at this time, he stopped right then and there. And then, after restlessly looking around him and confirming his own location, he suddenly whirled around, showing his back to the enemy.
Even the veterans hadn’t expected this to occur. This was a golden chance to attack Jahangil, but they merely saw him off as he heavily trudged back across the bridge.
After a short while, the veterans came back to their senses and rushed towards his back with their swords in hand. But Meflazard, Niyusharl, and Palsharl blocked their way. The three brothers stabbed, slashed, and crushed their respective targets to death with their favorite weapons.
Yet, Jahangil took absolutely no notice of his sons’ exploits. Once he had returned to the middle of the bridge, Jahangil, seemingly having thought of something, puffed out his chest towards the general area where Souma was.
And after breathing out roughly through his nose, he yelled, “I am a match for thousands!”
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