Yasaka POV
It really was a wonderful sight, seeing so many of my people gathered together for a common goal. So long that had been conflicts and infighting because we're all so different. Only in the past few centuries had we... "calmed down, so to speak.
As the world became more connected, it seems like every race in the world set down their weapons and opted for a more peaceful existence. Perhaps it was the flow of the world that none of us could go against.
Now, she looked from side to side and saw tens of thousands of Youkai of all backgrounds and different looks and shapes, all donned in armor and carrying similar equipment as they waited patiently for orders.
"Lady Yasaka."
"Aki Sōjōbō." I greeted one of my generals, a powerful and older Tengu from the clan of their namesake.
Next to him, a human in knightly armor politely bowed his head in greeting. "A messenger from the Pendragon family."
"Tidings to you, Lady Yasaka, ruler of the Youkai." He spoke very politely and methodically. Was this the charm of a knight then? I admit I liked it a little; it had a different flavor compared to the politeness that my own people threw upon me. "I bring word from her Majesty that we are to begin our campaign."
"Ah, so Artoria decided to mount her attack then." I nodded in understanding as we discussed it beforehand. She said that she intended to begin tomorrow, but there must be a reason for her to start early. "Thank you for the heads up. Will you stay and watch so you can report back, or will you return immediately?"
"If possible, I wish to keep her Majesty abreast of the happenings on this side." The knight requested.
I nodded, not needing to issue any orders. He was shown a good place to spectate without getting involved, as that would be impolite from my position since he was a messenger.
Thanks to Vivian's help, we were able to pick out the perfect routes to begin our assault. This far out from the Winter Court's seat of power, their authority waned ever so slightly, such that even the Winter's chill couldn't be easily seen.
From what Vivian relayed, apparently, they use the areas around her as their proverbial breadbasket.
Funny enough, they don't need to eat.
When asking Vivian about this, she said something along the lines of 'Of course you need tea and biscuits for a proper tea party!'.
Reading between the lines there wasn't difficult.
Regardless, we would sweep this region and move north to meet back up with Wilhelm and Nurarihyon.
Artoria had the pleasure of hitting their supplies while we... well, we currently surrounded a not-so-small forest area.
A place that seemingly was in perpetual Winter as it were.
Not, but a few dozen feet in front of my armies was there a thick layer of snow on the ground despite the surrounding regions being rather warm.
We were waiting.
Truthfully, I didn't agree with this course of action, but I couldn't just completely override the wills of my subordinates.
We knew that there was a stronghold of enemies inside, yet they insisted on sending a scouting party and giving anyone inside the opportunity to surrender as we did before. Personally, I would have preferred just burning this place completely down.
Unfortunately, there was a way things should be done.
However, all of that went right into the garbage when we all saw several objects fly out of the forest and land onto the edge of the snow.
They were heads, the heads of our people sent inside.
The ground shook as a variety of monstrous roars resounded from the forest. Trees shook and were knocked down as large hulking monstrosities pushed their way through the thick foliage.
Trolls?
At least some variety. I knew that Wilhelm encountered a type of troll in the Norse realms, and I recall seeing something similar to this creature when the East was attacked.
Regardless, I was now pissed.
These trolls looked chained, spikes in their bodies as if they were treated as domestic animals, with their 'owners' following not far behind.
Elves?
They certainly looked like elves with very dark skin and white hair.
Many of them were wearing clothing and armor very similar to the Wild Hunt that attacked us not long ago.
"It seems we're going with my first suggestion, General." I spoke calmly despite my anger.
"So, it would seem, Lady Yasaka." He responded, clenching his jaw, obviously just as angry as I was. "Archers!" He shouted as the soldiers shifted; a row of archers stepped forward, wielding iron-tipped arrows. "Release!"
Thousands of arrows covered the sky, the distance carefully measured as they fell upon the elves and trolls that stood out the furthest.
There was obviously no more need for communication or 'waiting' for them to make a move.
It was the first time truly testing the effects of Iron in combat for us, and I have to say, the effects were pleasant.
I saw one Elf snarl and hiss and cry out in an unknown language just from the arrow piercing his shoulder.
The Trolls looked clearly distressed as the Elves tried their best to release them from their chains, presumedly to be properly utilized as war beasts.
The several hundred monstrous beasts they somewhat charged in unison, a few falling rather quickly with dozens of arrows sticking from their bodies.
The Elves stayed back, plenty of them raising up their own bows, arrows nocked and ready to fire.
"Shields!" My general called out.
"Shields! Shields!!" The cries repeated, revibrating down the lines of our soldiers.
About half of the front line took out a particular little wand, courtesy of Medea and Wilhelm's efforts these past months.
I smiled faintly as translucent magical shielding enveloped everyone.
The arrows from the elves collided with the shields, unable to penetrate. The monstrous trolls collided with them, the shields holding strong as my soldiers, trained for such fighting, used the opportunity to stab with spears through their end, felling the monsters before they could cause any substantial damage.
The months spent training with the Ancient Greek heroes and conquerors paid off significantly as they adopted a rather useful fighting style.
It wasn't perfect; a few shields broke here or there, and I held back a sigh as I could see a handful of my people get hurt or die. But this was a war; I couldn't let my heart be swayed in the midst of battle.
I did thoroughly enjoy the expressions of quite a few of the elves that I could see from this distance.
They retreated back to the tree line, using it as cover.
"Oh, that's adorable. They want us to charge in." I spoke openly. "What do you think, General?"
My general smiled along with me. "Second line, forward. Prepare flames!"
Once more, thousands upon thousands of wands – this time tipped with a red glow – pointed outwards towards the Elves and their forest.
"Fire!" My General ordered.
Fireballs of rather large size filled the sky, arcing towards the treeline. Oh, they didn't hit the elves, no.
It started slowly, the flames drifting up to the sky from further in. Gradually, the smoke increased, and the flames became more obvious as the forest ignited.
The newfound cries and confusion from within the forest was music to my ears as the flames rampaged and the fireworks continued to rain down.
Like ants, they flooded out of the forest in a panic, unsure of what to do, only knowing that between them and safety was a rather large army that dwarfed their numbers quite substantially.
They were forced to charge outwards.
"General, let's let our men get their hands a bit dirty." I told him.
"As you command." The General nodded. "Wands away! Spears out!" The General roared, and the orders repeated throughout the thousands of Youkai as they met the haphazard and desperate charge of the Elves. The fairies threw themselves upon the lines of my soldiers, and they were found wanting as spears upon spears pierced through their bodies.
Perhaps only a thousand of these elves in total, and it didn't take much time for them to become corpses on the ground.
A small but welcomed victory, merely a small 'outpost' from what we knew about.
Oh well, it was just a starting point.
"Make sure the bodies are burned, take anything of value, and prepare to march within the hours." I gave the orders again.
My General nodded.
This was far from the last victory we were going to have today. It was simply a question of how much we could take before they began to retaliate and come at us with a true force.
Atop the ashes of the forest that still raged with flames, a flag with a Nine Fox Tails in front of a setting sun was planted.
@***@
Wilhelm POV
The ship moved fast, but by the time we got there, the fighting had already started, and it was rather intense.
The ships flying the Winter motif were at the clear advantage in both number and quality, it seemed. A lot of the presumedly human ships didn't even have things like cannons, while the Fae ships had means of attacking from a distance.
Surprisingly, there were quite a few magicians among the humans with spells flying off.
I can't say I was adept at sea warfare despite how much I loved my ship, but even I knew that a'surprise attack' was something rather hard to pull off. So it was no surprise when both sides noticed our approach.
It's funny because they both treated us like enemies by the way they moved.
I made sure that the flag Yasaka gave me flew upwards, announcing our status. Perhaps they would know, or maybe they wouldn't.
Regardless, they knew we were allies; at least the Fae decided so, and the few ships on the fringe of their formation turned towards us and their cannons fired.
Not Cannon Balls, I noted.
Cannonballs are historically made from iron, so obviously it's not something they'd use.
It fired magic not dissimilar to my own ship, weaker though.
The innate defenses triggered, the ship rocked heavily at the barrage they held firmly, and I waved my hand. "Return fire!"
The ship turned, the side cannon hatches all opened, and the cannons poked through. I wasn't handling it mentally this time below deck; dozens of Youkai lit the proverbial fuses, and our cannons returned fire.
The sheer force caused my ship to rock even more upon the wave as fiery blasts filled the space between our ships, slamming into the Fae ships.
The first few hit protective barriers once more similar to my own, but the barrage whittled away as the first ship took a large hit, the main mast exploding into splinters and falling to the side, landing on another one of their ships and nearly pulling down their own mast as well.
It seems with that, we earned their full attention.
The forward few ships retained their position, clashing with the humans's ships while many more began turning to face towards us.
I actually didn't know if my ship could handle that kind of attention without me focusing on defense. And I didn't really want to damage my ship without a good reason.
"We're going to ram them." I suddenly decided.
Nurarihyon looked at me blankly, then laughed. "I like that plan! Get ready for a brawl, boys; you know the drill. And, eh, no hurting the humans if possible." He spoke, already knowing the situation at this point.
I took out the Staff of Magnus and held it up, a powerful shield overlapping the ship as the wind was called up and propelled us faster towards the oncoming ships.
The enemy ships began to fire on us in full. Hundreds of magical spells hit the barrier, making it difficult to see, and the shockwaves caused large waves to start slamming about, but we pushed forward.
While the onslaught continued, I noticed that they began prepping large-scale spells. It was different than what I was used to; they didn't use magic circles, but something more... innate. However, the accumulation of magical energy and the convergence of multiple casters were enough to notice for someone like me.
I didn't have my authority available at the moment, but that didn't mean I couldn't command the storm.
"Strun Bah Qo!" I bellowed out, calling forth a storm to quickly converge. My dragon words—a type of divine word—still manifested in this Fae realm and answered my calls.
The ocean responded just as one would expect; rampant waves grew with the rolling of the storm clouds.
There was something I wanted to try too; the idea quickly came to me.
The Whirlwind Sprint comprised three words. Wuld—whirlwind; Nah—fury; Kest—tempest. I've used them before, but they've fallen out of favor once I learned Shunpo.
But why did I have to use them to increase my speed?
I chose the third one.
"Kest!" A tempest was called upon, and I focused on an area with the largest gathering of ships.
Rather quickly, a whirlpool formed amidst the tides, pulling and jerking the Fae ships around aggressively.
It caused their magic casting to abruptly cease as all their ships started uncontrollably slamming into each other.
It gave us enough time to come upon their formation, and my ship went full steam again, colliding with the Fae ship in the front.
When two things collide, one side has to give, and it certainly wasn't ours. The woods that made up the ship we rammed into it cracked and shattered even if our ship was forced to a stop, pushing into their own.
But it was enough; half of us jumped onto theirs, immediately engaging them.
Nurarihyon was first, and he practically growled because he noticed, just as we all did, they got up. The same bone-like, skeleton-like armors they were wearing.
The Wild Hunt did more than just ride horses, it seems.
Nurarihyon's sword was quick, decapitating the first enemy before anyone could utter a word.
"Kill!" The Old Youkai roared.
Following suit, a thick bloodlust enveloped the area as all the other Youkai let loose.
"Kill!"
"Kill!"
Many more shouts followed as a gruesome scene unfolded. Several times, I had to remind myself that my comrades were not humans.
Seeing a Youkai bite off the head of one of the Wild Hunt members and eat it was especially jarring for a moment.
I resisted the urge to stop and ask him if it was tasty.
Even one of the Yuuki Onni girls was covered in blood, a stark contrast to her fair complexion and white kimono, but it aligned rather well with the still beating heart she just ripped out of a chest and the malicious grin on her face.
My own sword moved, and I wasted no time in cutting off heads and kicking them into the water.
Maybe I wasn't as ruthless as they were, but I held no hesitation in taking lives in this instance.
However, I noticed something awry; looking up, I saw a ball of green fire falling down from above. I moved out of the way and realized it wasn't an attack.
The green ball of fire hit the deck of the ship, destroying the topmost layer and sinking into the cargo hold below.
It was only a moment later that a figure jumped out, wreathed in the same flames with a malevolent and rather intimidating-looking skeletal armor.
"Hunters, pick your marks!" The figure roared, his voice echoing across the many ships still struggling to remain floating.
I looked down because something appeared on my chest; well, at least it tried to. Like a projection of some sort, a symbol I had no context for. It was magical in nature, and my innate magic resistance squashed it quickly.
But for others, most of those around me each had a strange symbol appear on them somewhere; each symbol looked different.
Balls of green fire slammed down by the dozens as many new figures joined the fray. I think they came from ships further away.
But they were significantly stronger than the trash we had been dealing with thus far.
One landed right next me, and it stared right my way, leveling a sword in my direction. "You have dispelled my mark. A worthy hunt indeed!"
Ah….
They were marking their prey.
He swung his sword in an arc, and something liquidly sprayed everywhere. It hit the deck, the railing, and various other places, and it began to eat away at everything.
Poison?
The sword continued to swing in the air at me. My Aura flared up, taking the splashes of poison that were flung everywhere, but it also began to eat away at my Aura.
I used a quick burst of speed to step back a dozen or so feet and put Mirage away, taking out Greed.
You want to play with poison in front of me?
"...what monstrosity doth thou hold?" The Fae in front of me could apparently recognize the danger of my weapon.
He took a slight step back.
I just smiled at him and moved. Just fast enough that I thought he could respond, his blade came up to block with a bit of effort on his part.
I moved slightly faster; my blade blocked again. A few more times, just ever so slightly picking up the pace until he slowly began to panic.
Being treated like I'm an animal being hunted—who knew that was something to piss me off? I wanted him to feel cornered as death approached him.
I could see it in each of his movements as they got more and more desperate until finally, Greed nicked his arm between his armor.
His arm went limp quickly; it seemed as if he wanted to scream out, but he lost the ability to speak. The flesh holding the point where he got cut was corroded and became necrotic. From below the point, his arm just fell off his body.
I take back what I said; I do have the same ability to be just as gruesome as them.
I put Greed away, promising not to use it on riffraff anymore because that was certainly something that fell under the phrase 'fate worse than death'.
Glancing at the side, Nurarihyon was fighting their leader, I presumed. That Fae had the strongest aura to him, but he was losing handedly to the boss.
Everyone else seemed to be doing well, and the human ships pushed into the Fae Ship's formations, avoiding the whirlpools of mine.
I removed my power, letting them start settling down, but they were rather close now.
I hoped for the next closest ship, blasting a few of the occupants overboard before moving to the next one.
Finally, I could get a proper look at the first ones.
They were Greeks; their method of attack was ramming and boarding enemy ships, so it wasn't strange they were the first to push forward.
I didn't know where they came from, but they were most assuredly from the wrong time period compared to me.
Quickly following them were the Vikings. It was very odd to see both groups fighting side by side like this, but they looked used to it.
"Zeus watches over us!"
"Odin blesses the brave!"
Various war cries and shouts to their gods resounded. I heard Ares mentioned, I heard Thor mentioned, and I heard many others.
I kneeled down and picked up a blade from one of the Fae I killed and threw it, impaling another one of their numbers in the back of the head. He fell over, sword raised up, about to attack one of the Vikings.
The Viking saw it, traced the origin back to me, and I cheerfully waved at him.
With a burst of Shunpo, I was but a few feet away, much to his chagrin.
"Be ye friend or foe?" The Viking raised his sword up.
"My mom was human; does that answer your question?" I returned.
He looked at me for a moment. "Aye."
"That easily?" I looked at him in surprise.
"Of course, these ones are motherless bastards!" He grinned, looking me over. "A boy still, hmm? A good sword arm, a witch then, from what look of things. Come, if you are human and a friend, you are a welcome brother in arms! Fight next to Unnulf Eyjolfsson, the great!"
"The great my hairy ass!" One of the other Vikings snorted, pulling his axe free from the head of a Fae.
They were... unnaturally strong. In that, they seemed... normalish, but they still held strength far beyond a normal human.
I saw one of their numbers cleave someone else completely in half. That kind of strength is neither something a normal human would have nor a feat replicable by them.
"Boy, what's your name, huh?" Unnulf hefted up his own sword, noticeable nicks and dings in it as it had clearly seen a lot of battle.
Actually, almost all the weapons here were worn to the point where most would have abandoned them already.
They quickly took the weapons of the Fae they killed, utilizing those as they pushed forward.
I held my hands up, noting their positions, even the Greek ones who I hadn't directly moved towards just yet.
I calculated it properly, and I let weapons fall from the air, ones I kept stored in my ring. They all landed in front of the human warriors and not just any weapons, but iron specifically.
Many were taken off guard, some didn't care and happily accepted, and there were a plethora more with a whole mix in-between.
They were praying to Odin and the Norse Gods; that wasn't something I could ignore.
I may as well introduce myself.
"Wilhelm Henry Schweinorg, former King of Asgard."
@***@
A/N
If you want to read 10 chapters ahead or support me, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n..co.m / astoryforone
I also have a boosty under the same name if you can't use the above.
Next Looking Glass and Kunou Chapter are up over here.