Annihilation of the Aikamad Tribe (1)
The Aikamad Tribe liked to call themselves experts at the night raid.
In the wars that had raged for the past fifty years to unify the fractured grasslands, the Aikamad had always been among the tribes that handled night attacks best.
It was not because of brilliant strategy. Not because of valiant warriors. No such variables were involved.
It was simply because their shamans were far superior to everyone else's.
The shamans of the Aikamad Tribe—who could layer enhancement magic, pain-immunity magic, fear-reduction magic, and even night-vision magic over ten thousand Aikamad warriors—were without exaggeration among the finest on the grasslands.
That confidence showed itself in their preparations against night raids as well.
If we fight at night, our tribe has the advantage anyway.
With that thought, they had been relatively lax about defenses against night attacks. After all, their scouts possessed the ability to detect the signs of an enemy night raid. And throughout history, a night raid that was discovered left the attackers at a crushing disadvantage.
Thus, even knowing the Southern Army had crossed the border, they could sleep soundly at night.
"The Southern Army bastards know full well how strong we are at night raids."
"Besides, without shamans those fools won't even be able to attack properly after dark. If they stupidly come at us at night, we'll only be grateful."
Their night combat prowess was already famous throughout the West. The Aikamad were a tribe skilled at hiding in the veil of night and raiding enemy cities. Using their shamans' power to strike and burn cities in the dead of night was one of their specialties.
And like all people, the Aikamad never imagined that they themselves would one day fall victim to their own specialty.
"Enemy spotted ahead! Looks like the Southern Army bastards!"
Even upon hearing those words, the barbarian settlement did not fall into chaos.
"Whoa—they're actually coming?"
"Looks like the southern dogs have lost their minds. Wake the shamans and prepare the cavalry!"
The reason they did not panic was simple. Several kilometers still lay between the Southern Army and the settlement. For a warrior people like the Aikamad, there would be more than enough time to finish preparations before the enemy arrived.
"Cavalry to the front! The moment the shamans finish their spells, we charge! Show them the terror of Aikamad warriors who know no fear of death!"
"Yes!"
As a formerly nomadic people, they fielded an overwhelmingly large cavalry force—a scale the settled peoples of the Empire could never match. Once the Aikamad cavalry began their charge, they were invincible.
With that conviction, the moment every man seized his weapon and swung up into the saddle—
Fweeeeeee—!
A bone-chilling whistle cut the air, and the things the Southern Army had hidden in the veil of night revealed themselves.
The horizon painted itself with fire.
"...!"
They had no time to do anything at all. A hundred shells that tore through the night sky slammed into the very heart of the settlement and detonated in massive explosions. There was no room for any response.
The ground heaved. The world shook. A ringing filled their ears as if their eardrums had burst, and black smoke choked every direction.
KABOOM—!
Five shells that landed square in the middle of the Aikamad cavalry crushed the warriors preparing to charge in a single blow. Those heavy horses were flung into the air like sheets of paper; the shock scattered the warriors' bodies to pieces.
"Guhhh...!"
The men who barely managed to keep their wits looked around, still unable to grasp what had happened. The proud cavalry that had been raising its spirits for the charge only thirty seconds earlier was no longer there.
Crushed earth and a parade ground soaked in blood. Chunks of horses and men flung in every direction. Everything was unreal.
"What in the world just..."
And so their brains were slow to accept the truth: that the comrades who had been laughing and shouting moments before had simply vanished; that the proud Aikamad cavalry had suffered near-total annihilation without accomplishing a single thing.
Fortunately for them, the barbarian cavalry had no need to think deeply.
Because once more, fire flashed near the horizon.
"...Huh?"
Before they could accept the situation, merciless destructive power crashed down upon the settlement a second time.
The firepower unleashed by the artillery of two divisions was tremendous. A total of one hundred field guns smashed everything in sight.
Stone buildings were torn apart by the shelling. The wooden outer walls of the settlement were riddled with holes. Bombardment after bombardment fell wherever the barbarians had gathered, and the shamans' quarters had long since ceased to exist.
With the shamans who erased fear crushed to paste by the barrage, the Aikamad settlement fell into chaos. It was all the worse because they had always gone to war by erasing the emotion of fear itself.
The Imperial army stood on the battlefield by overcoming fear. But the Aikamad warriors, who had fought by simply deleting fear as a means of raising morale, did not know how to confront it.
"Eek—save me!"
"Mama, Mamaaa...!"
"Where... is this...?"
The sight of robust bare-chested warriors trembling in confusion like children was almost grotesque—all the more so when one remembered that these were the same bastards who had crossed the Imperial border whenever the mood struck them, smashing and plundering the western territories.
Five shells fell upon the building where the warriors had taken shelter. In the wreckage exploded by the blast, no trace of humanity remained. The fates of the men who stood blankly with broken minds and of those who turned their backs to flee desperately were not much different.
Of course, a few still clung somehow to their sanity—mostly the tribe's elders and older warriors. They shouted orders, desperately trying to impose some order on the chaos.
"Get a grip! If we're going to die like this, we might as well fight and die! All of you, charge!"
Three minutes after the shelling began, barbarian warriors began to pour out through the settlement's main gate. It was a disorderly, haphazard rush, but the momentum itself was formidable—the final thrashing of men who had realized that standing still meant death. An enemy who charges with nothing left to lose is always desperate.
"If they want death, then death is what we shall give them."
In answer, the Southern Army infantry began to advance as well. Beyond the artillery batteries belching flame with force enough to tear the dark night asunder, the ranks moved forward in neat order, step by measured step.
Fweeeee—!
A flare exploded once more—this time above the heads of the barbarian warriors pouring out like a swarm of ants.
Once again the scenes that had played out across countless fiefs along the western border were replaying. The only difference this time was one: there were no shamans left to keep the barbarian warriors from feeling fear.
"Open fire!"
Before the mounted machine guns and the infantry's simultaneous rifle volleys, a massacre unfolded once more. Even the barbarians who had once charged through a hail of fire could not casually charge this time. Before an irresistible death, even the cavalry that had dominated the great grasslands were powerless.
Bullets flying and striking at dozens of times the speed of a cavalry charge. Shells that came crashing down whenever one almost forgot about them, shattering everything nearby.
Heavy infantry that crushed aura users in direct close combat. The plain before the great grasslands, filled only with gunfire and screams, had become a horrific mess.
"Advance slowly while applying pressure."
The barbarians' morale had already plummeted through the floor and then some. The guns must have been so terrifying that some were even trying to run back into the settlement where shells were still falling in real time. Of course those ones were soon swallowed by the black powder smoke and vanished.
A few cried out in surrender. But it was already far too late.
"Did they accept the westerners' surrenders when they invaded the western border?"
"No, sir."
"Then neither shall we accept theirs. Show them clearly how terrifying an enemy the Empire can be."
Trapped by the bombardment and pushed further and further back, the natives found themselves blocked by the outer walls of their own settlement. And there was no easier target than an enemy whose retreat was cut off.
"Leave not a single one of them alive!"
Beneath the bright light of the flares, the grasslands were dyed red. The corpses piled beneath the settlement's outer walls only grew, and among them were those who tried to hide and shoot arrows. But enemies with ranged weapons simply became the shooters' top-priority targets.
It did not take long for the barbarians who had charged out in a fit of rage to be annihilated all at once. By the time the ones who had swarmed out like ants were all dead, the interior of the village was already a wasteland.
"Clean up the battlefield."
Toward that wasteland, infantry units in neat ranks began to advance—dealing with the living enemies among the corpses, attacking everything in sight.
"It appears the enemy is attempting to flee."
In the distance, enemies could be seen running toward the settlement's rear gate. But there was no need to bother pursuing them.
"Leave them. They won't get far anyway."
Because waiting for them there was an even more terrifying unit.