"BREAK THEM!" Clio roared, his voice carrying above the din like a war drum. His axe came down biting into the collarbone of an Oizen soldier with a sickening crunch. The man's scream turned to a wet gasp, eyes wide with horror as blood sprayed across Clio's shield. The weapon stuck fast, lodged deep in bone.
Snarling, Clio wrenched at the haft, but it wouldn't budge. With a roar of frustration, he slammed his boot into the man's chest. Bone cracked as the soldier was hurled backward, the axe tearing free in a fountain of blood. The corpse collapsed limply into the mud, twitching once before lying still.
Around him, the battlefield was a storm of slaughter. Steel clashed in endless rhythm, men screamed their last breaths, and the ground was slick with gore. Bodies lay strewn across the churned earth, trampled by boots a until they were barely recognizable as men. Yet amid the chaos, one truth stood out, the fight was tipping in their favor. The Oizen infantry, half-trained and poorly armed, were being ground down beneath their steel.
And yet, the collapse that should have come never arrived.
Nearly two hours of ceaseless killing, and still the enemy clung to the field. They wavered, staggered, and died in droves, but they did not break. They held on like drowning men clinging to driftwood, refusing to surrender even as their comrades fell all around them.
"Why the fuck won't they die?" Clio growled through clenched teeth. Another Oizen thrust at him, clumsy and desperate. Clio batted the spear aside with his shield and drove his axe deep into the man's chest. The soldier's breath left him in a rattling gasp as he crumpled to the ground.
Frustration burned hotter in Clio's gut with every passing moment. This was supposed to have been a rout, not a grinding slaughter. His eyes swept the field,Oizen bodies piled high, yet their line still wavered in stubborn defiance. Too long. Far too long.
"REFORM THE LINE AND PUSH!" he bellowed, voice raw with rage and command. Spittle and blood flecked his tangled beard as he strode through the press. At once, Alpheo's soldiers obeyed, snapping into formation. Shields slammed together in a wall of iron, a fortress advancing step by step.
"On my mark!" he roared, hefting his shield, raising his axe high above his head. His men stood ready, faces blackened with blood and dirt, armor caked in gore, their eyes wild and blazing.
"NOW!"
The line moved forth like a tidal wave. Shields crashed, axes and swords rose and fell, and the Oizen ranks buckled under the unrelenting force. Screams tore the air as flesh was split and bones shattered.
Clio's men were transformed, their frenzy consuming them. Their voices rang out, savage and cruel, as they hacked their way forward.
"You'll rot in the mud, bastards!" one soldier spat, his mace bashing a man's skull.
"Your head is mine!" another bellowed, grinning through bloodied teeth as he tore his sword from an enemy's belly.
Some no longer taunted, but simply screamed, raw, primal howls as they charged, gore dripping from their weapons. They looked less like men and more like fiends dredged from nightmare, faces hidden beneath streaks of blood and dirt, armor soaked crimson, eyes blazing with madness. The sight alone was enough to shatter weaker spirits. And it worked. The Oizen recruits, already faltering, began to tremble.
And then—movement.
From the corner of his eye, Clio noticed one of his comrades turn suddenly. The man's blood-smeared face twisted into a grin of wild relief. His arm shot skyward, waving frantically toward the horizon.
"Reinforcements!" he shouted over the carnage, voice cracking with joy. "They're coming! Help is on the way!"
Clio's heart leapt at the words. He spun around, blood still dripping from his axe, and saw it for himself: a line of long spears gleaming in the sun. Their polished heads caught the light like shards of fire, a wall of death surging forward, dust boiling up behind them.
"Help has arrived!" Clio roared too, his voice joining with the other. His answer to the sight was blood. He whirled back to the front and cleaved through an Oizen soldier, the axe splitting through collar and chest in one brutal stroke. The man collapsed in the mud, choking on his own blood. "Push them back!" Clio bellowed, his throat raw. "We've got them now!"
The Oizen commanders shrieked orders, their voices breaking as they tried to hold their faltering lines. Men stumbled forward, battered shields raised, spears trembling in their grip. The ragged formation lurched like a wounded beast trying to block Asag's charge.
Then the sky hissed.
A storm of javelins cut the air, a deadly rain cast by the last reserves in Asag's ranks. The volley fell with merciless precision. Points tore through shields, punched through leather and flesh. Soldiers screamed as steel skewered throats, bellies, and legs. Some collapsed instantly, twitching, while others stumbled backward with shafts jutting from their bodies. Even those whose shields caught the missiles found them useless—wood splintered, iron bent, the sheer force of the throws knocking men to their knees.
The Oizen ranks, already thin, broke open like rotting cloth. And before they could breathe, Asag's spearmen hit them.
It was not a clash, it was an execution.
The spears surged forward in unison, their rhythm merciless, every thrust puncturing flesh or armor. The Oizen line crumpled like paper against a wall of iron. Men shrieked as they were impaled, bodies lifted and shoved aside by the relentless advance. Others tried to hack through the shafts, but the reach was too great; they could not get close enough before the next spearhead found them. And when the formation split, Asag's hammer-men and swordsmen poured through the flanks, smashing skulls, hacking limbs, leaving nothing standing.
It became a slaughter.
Those trapped at the front died on the points of spears. Those in the middle were crushed, suffocated, trampled by their own comrades. And in the rear, panic bloomed like fire. Eyes wide, one soldier dropped his shield and ran. Then another. And another. In an instant, discipline collapsed. Fear, sharper than steel, cut through the Oizen host.
"Run!" someone screamed.
The rout spread like a disease. Men hurled down their weapons, banners toppled, commanders turned their horses to flee before the tide swallowed them whole. Soldiers shoved each other aside in blind desperation, trampling allies beneath their boots as they scattered. What had been an army only moments ago dissolved into a mob of fugitives.
It was the moment Clio had been waiting for. Victory, at last.
A grin split his gore-streaked face, his teeth flashing white beneath the blood. He threw back his head and let out a primal scream, a sound torn straight from the heart of war itself.
"PURSUE THEM!" His voice cracked from hours of shouting, but the command was unmistakable.
His men roared in answer, voices hoarse and exultant.
The mercenaries surged almost immediately and the younger ones, drunk on victory, howled like mad dogs, yet even they obeyed. The line moved forward again, not as a mob but as a pack, relentless, hungry, controlled.
Clio led them, his strides long and savage, axe dripping red. Bloodlust had burned away the last of his nerves; the rhythm of killing came as naturally to him now as breathing. Each swing of his axe was smoother, heavier, more certain. He felt invincible.
Ahead of him, an Oizen stumbled, too slow to flee. Clio's axe caught him between the shoulders, the blade splitting spine. The man dropped like a sack of meat, kicked aside as Clio pressed on without missing a step. Around him, his men cut down stragglers, their war cries mingling with the desperate shrieks of the fleeing.
The enemy was broken. Shattered. Gone.
The field belonged to them.
The battle was won.