Phoenix (2)
"Wow, what the hell did that guy eat growing up to get that big?"
Two armies stood locked in confrontation across an open plain. As the General-in-Chief's army under Pang Tong glared across the field at the host of Vine Armor Soldiers led by Oldolgol, one woman muttered playfully to herself.
The one who answered was none other than Pang Tong.
"Th-the General-in-Chief said he's a man who chews up the vicious beasts of the Nanman and eats them raw..."
"Aha. So that's how he stopped being human."
Gan Ning, a strand or two of chestnut hair sticking loose, bobbed her head in understanding.
"And there you have it — the reason they tell you not to eat just anything you scavenge."
"……"
Even the ancients had known enough to cook their meat over a fire — this brute, apparently, didn't even bother with that much. It was suddenly very easy to understand how he'd ended up with a body closer to beast than man.
Oldolgol, so proud of his enormous frame, realized the woman before him was mocking him and lumbered a step forward.
"All, you do, is, flap, your, mouth."
"Hm?"
"If, you're, a general, then, come, out."
At the sight of Oldolgol chopping every sentence into staccato pieces, Gan Ning narrowed her eyes ever so slightly.
"Can't even talk straight. So you really are sick in the head, huh?"
"……"
Oldolgol's face twisted into something vicious at the jab.
"Eep..."
When the already fearsome giant contorted his features into something even more terrifying, Pang Tong trembled like a leaf.
"Wh-what are we supposed to do if you provoke him...?"
"Haha! Relax, will you? Little strategist, ma'am."
Having had a good laugh at Pang Tong's shivering, Gan Ning spun her twin halberds in a flourish and strode forward.
"The boss did give me orders, after all."
No matter what happened, protect the little strategist and follow her plan — that had been the command. Shielding the brains of any battlefield force went without saying, but somehow she didn't think that was the whole reason.
"……"
It was the gaze of someone watching a child who might die at any moment. Seen a certain way, it was only natural he'd think like that.
After all, the girl was forever wearing the expression of a woman about to die, wedged as she was between a sly little imp whose thoughts were impossible to read and a ferocious little imp whose glare could hold its own against a tiger's.
She did her level best to smother her presence by hiding away in out-of-the-way corners — and the problem was that she stood out all the more for it.
Was this what it felt like, watching some small, skittish animal?
The end result: the little strategist was currently ringed by security so airtight that even Gan Ning herself, sneaking in for a midnight ambush, wouldn't have been able to lay a finger on her.
Mounted atop armored horses with round shields raised, they held their escort formation without a waver. What more was there to say?
These were the very soldiers who normally served as the General-in-Chief's personal guard. In other words, he treasured the little strategist enough to spare the elite troops who guarded him day and night.
By his own account, Seo Yeo and Lü Bu alone would have been plenty. Honestly, the effortless way the man charmed women was enough to draw genuine admiration.
As for the escort itself — handpicked by the Peerless Under Heaven, who so rarely showed any enthusiasm for drilling troops, after being run through a merciless regimen — they deserved to be called elite among elites without qualification.
And apparently even that wasn't enough to set his mind at ease, because he'd packed in a whole crowd of other generals on top — Gan Ning included...
Short of an actual lightning bolt dropping out of a clear sky, nothing was going to happen to her.
"Anyway, keep your eyes on me. This is just the appetizer."
Dismounting at a measured distance, Gan Ning trudged forward until she stood directly in front of Oldolgol.
Come face to face with a monstrous frame standing a full zhang and two chi tall — nearly nine feet — she let out a low whistle.
"Damn, are you even human? You're not actually a beast in disguise, are you?"
"...You, don't, ride, horses?"
"Horses?"
Gan Ning shrugged at the question.
"I could ride if I felt like it. Just don't see the point."
"……"
"Seeing as I'd be hopping right back off in no time anyway."
Gan Ning tapped her own shoulder twice with the shaft of her halberd and grinned.
"Fighting on my own two feet has always suited me better."
"……"
At that, Oldolgol fell silent.
Because his plan — just as Gan Ning had implied — had been to wring the neck of her horse the instant the fight began.
Who on earth enjoys letting a fish already in hand slip away?
No one alive could stand against his strength, and even the sharpest blade left no mark on him. Once he closed in, the victory was his. All that remained, then, was a single question — whether he would take the enemy commander's head, or fail to.
Gan Ning dipped her body low.
"Enough chatter. Come at me already. Weren't you the strongest in all the Nanman?"
"……"
"You sure love to stall, huh. What's the matter, too big to get moving?"
"UROOOOOH—!!"
Oldolgol, finally unable to swallow another word of her taunting, swung his colossal axe.
SHWOONG—!
The great axe, forged to match Oldolgol's enormous bulk, tore through the air with a ferocious shriek.
"Well, well. Look at all that confidence."
At an attack so disarmingly straightforward, Gan Ning gave a hollow laugh and slipped lightly to the side.
BOOM—!
The blow, laden with monstrous force, blasted the very ground apart and sent dirt and dust spraying in every direction. At this point the thing deserved to be called not an axe but one enormous cudgel.
"His strength alone is something else."
Had even the Match for Ten Thousand generals she'd once crossed blades with packed this kind of power? A body barely any different in size from her own, yet producing strength to rival those monsters — it was nothing short of astonishing.
Of course, the savage standing in front of her was otherwise nothing special.
"But your movements are way too big!"
Unlike Guan Yu, who had left not a single opening even while unleashing blows of that magnitude, Oldolgol was — there was no kinder way to put it — a walking collection of holes.
Legs. Waist. Neck. Great gaping openings she was free to pick from as she pleased.
"Let's see what sort of reaction we get."
Gan Ning swung her halberd for the calf Oldolgol had left uncovered by armor—
KAGAGAGAK—!!
—and the blade skidded off with a screech like steel grinding on steel.
"Huh?"
Eyes blown wide as saucers, Gan Ning caught Oldolgol squaring his stance again and instantly threw herself into a backflip, putting distance between them.
KWAANG—!
Barely had she retreated when a savage blow came crashing down on the very spot she'd just vacated.
"...This guy really isn't human, is he?"
Recalling the sensation from moments before, Gan Ning muttered under her breath. No, seriously — she had cut bare flesh with her halberd. How did it make the sound of scraping an iron plate?
She'd heard the tales, of immortals riding the clouds and sorcerers transforming into every beast under heaven, but never once of a man that spear and sword could not touch.
"...Surprised?"
Oldolgol, having blasted the ground apart yet again, put on a face brimming with triumph.
"Such, tiny, blades, cannot, even, scratch, me."
"Can't, you, talk, any, faster?"
"……"
Having thrown his own speech pattern right back at him, Gan Ning continued in a breezy, unbothered voice.
"What, are you advertising the fact that you're an idiot who can't even string a sentence together? Why do you talk like that?"
"I—!! AM NOT—!! AN IDIOT—!!"
"...Sounds about right to me."
Had his wits withered away as the price of that iron hide and monstrous strength? Watching Oldolgol come barreling like an enraged bull, Gan Ning scratched her head.
'...If blades won't work, I suppose I'll just have to beat him into submission.'
One small problem: that beast was not the sort to crumple after a few hits. It wasn't that she couldn't win — it was obvious the whole affair would simply drag on far too long.
'Well, the little strategist did tell me to give him a taste and then pull out...'
BAM—!
Evading the attack that came in on such a guileless path, Gan Ning swung the halberds in both hands at once and slammed them into Oldolgol's belly.
THUD!
"Ugh!"
A strike that would have shattered an ordinary soldier's bones on the spot. But Oldolgol gave back just a single step, planted on the ground as immovable as a boulder.
Gan Ning studied him, then spoke.
"Wow. The deeper I dig into this one, the more surprising he gets."
Calling him the finest general of the Nanman had apparently been no exaggeration. If a beast like that came plowing forward, common infantry wouldn't hold for even a heartbeat.
"That's enough. I'm hungry — let's fight some other time."
"...You, dare, to, flee?!"
"If it stings that much, come chase me and find out."
Gan Ning sprang backward in a single bound, landed neatly in the saddle with an acrobat's grace, and wheeled her horse around at once.
"U-uaaah... W-we're withdrawing for now!"
Watching it all unfold, Pang Tong went rigid with fright and began scurrying away as fast as her legs would carry her.
"……"
The soldiers nearby honestly couldn't tell whether their tiny little strategist was falling back according to plan, or whether she'd genuinely been scared out of her wits and was fleeing before the battle had even properly begun.
If even their own side, briefed on the plan beforehand, couldn't tell the difference, one could only imagine what the enemy made of it.
"Chase, them, down!"
Oldolgol, his temper already boiled to the very brim by Gan Ning's baiting, set off in pursuit of the retreating enemy.
Thirty thousand Vine Armor Soldiers in all. The crack corps of the Nanman army — the ones who turned aside spear and blade, the ones even arrows could not touch — came thundering down upon their foes.
───Trample every last one of them!!
───PHROOOO!
It was just then that the General-in-Chief's main force clashed head-on with King Mulu's war elephants.
───WAAAAAH!!
───Drive back the enemy!!
And in yet another quarter of the field, still another battle was about to begin.