Moling (7)
Lü Bu, who had hurled herself alone into the midst of the Shanyue horde, dodged and parried with movements that bordered on the divine as she shouted.
"Hey! At that speed, you really think you can so much as graze a single hair on my head?!"
"You wretched woman! Shut your mouth this instant!"
"Then by all means, make me!"
What was more astonishing still was that, even with her mouth running without pause, she never slackened her pace of slaughter. With every blink of an eye, another Shanyue neck went flying — a spectacle that felt downright unreal.
Martial might that had, quite literally, transcended the human.
Few had ever dared close the distance with Lü Bu, a woman who made a point of teaching, firsthand, that coming near her meant dying. ...Right. Few — but that didn't mean nobody ever came charging like a lunatic.
"You think we'd be scared of a woman acting like that?!"
"Die──!!"
And this was exactly one of those moments.
The will to survive — something every living creature carries. The Shanyue, though, seemed to have tossed that basic urge out onto the roadside, because they hurled themselves at her like madmen.
At the sight of enemies showing not a shred of intimidation even after witnessing her martial arts, Lü Bu let out a single laugh.
"Puhah! I'll give you bastards this much — you've got guts!"
"...!"
"Problem is, you're way too slow!"
Swish!
Lü Bu swept the Sky Piercer Halberd in one enormous arc, cutting down in a single stroke the Shanyue who had been leaping at her from every direction. Then, resting the halberd across her shoulder, she muttered flatly.
"What good is fearlessness without the skill to back it up?"
"You wench...!"
"Not coming at me anymore?"
Having sized up exactly what the Shanyue were worth, Lü Bu planted herself dead center in the enemy formation and refused to budge an inch. She rapped her own neck with her fingers as she spoke.
"Kill me right here, and you win."
"...Everyone, attack──!!"
KRAAAGH─!
GYAAAGH─!
That's not a battlefield over there anymore — that's a windstorm of blood.
It was a sight that lived up to the literal meaning of Match for Ten Thousand: a single person holding ten thousand at bay.
The trouble was exactly that. There was a limit to how many Lü Bu could kill in one stroke.
Picture rampaging through a game battle with a cheat character. Say every single swing of your weapon takes out enemies. In an ordinary game the enemy count stays small enough that it hardly matters — but what happens in one of those odd games where battles swell into the hundreds and thousands? Obviously, victory takes an eternity. The memory of mindlessly clicking a mouse for over ten minutes straight was, in its own way, deeply instructive.
Honestly, the way to beat a force that leans on one commander's martial might — Lü Bu's being the prime example — is dead simple. Flood it with soldiers, or flood it with commanders: pin down the one figure causing all the trouble, and the rest collapse into a headless rabble on the spot.
You could see it plainly in the Chu–Han Contention, when Han and Chu tore the realm apart. With Xiang Yu at its head, the army of Chu was invincible — yet, in a bitter paradox, the army of Chu without Xiang Yu knew nothing but defeat wherever it marched. It wasn't that Chu lacked capable commanders besides him back then... it was just that their opponents had to be Han Xin, the "Peerless Genius of the Age," and Zhang Liang of "Divine Calculation, Demonic Schemes" — about the worst draws imaginable. That was precisely why Xiang Yu stood out all the more. Mountains of military doctrine and sweeping grand strategy? Crush it all under sheer overwhelming force, and there was nothing left to discuss. ...Though even Xiang Yu, personality issues and all, kept winning the battles while losing the war.
"That's it! Keep coming! I'll kill every last one of you!"
"You're the one who's going to die──!"
Whoa, that's savage. So that's what madness looks like.
I watched Lü Bu repaint herself in fresh crimson with perfect calm, then turned my head. Even with her single-handedly tying down a huge share of the Shanyue, their numbers still overflowed. That's simply what a figure in the hundreds of thousands means.
"Keep your heads in the fight! The moment you let your focus slip, you'll go down — and take the comrade beside you with you!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
When Seo Hwang's ringing voice rang out, the shield-bearing infantry answered with a hearty roar.
"Shield wall formation!"
The instant the command left the general's lips, the front-line infantry moved as though they shared a single body, snapping into formation. Square shields that looked crushingly heavy even at a glance stood planted in front, spears thrust out through the narrow gaps between them. It was the formation ordinarily used to check a cavalry charge, but it proved every bit as effective against an infantry one.
"GRAAAAH! Die─!"
"I'll tear you limb from limb!!"
...Especially against lunatics charging like that, it would be all the more effective.
Did those guys seriously get high before coming out here? I seemed to recall hearing that Five Minerals Powder — a narcotic, technically — had first spread outward from the Jiangdong region. The truth was anyone's guess, but one thing was certain: we were facing an army that did not fear death.
CRASH─!
At last the Shanyue and our lines collided in earnest, and the din was tremendous.
"Don't give ground! If the line buckles, our comrades are finished!"
"You filthy vermin!"
The Shanyue pressed forward behind their staggering numbers, while our side desperately held the formation and endured.
CRASH─!
CRASH─!
"G-General-in-Chief! Right now the right and left flanks... Aah! The rear as well...!"
"I know."
Common sense says no commander would cram hundreds of thousands of soldiers into a single direction. There wouldn't even be room for it.
I looked at Sun Quan, who stood there utterly at sea, and spoke.
"Stay calm. When the one on top panics, everyone below starts to waver."
"Y-yes, sir!!"
At my level admonition, Sun Quan pulled herself together at once.
Having watched her, I turned my head again and put a question to Liu Bei, who stood nearby.
"Is any part of the line being pushed back right now?"
"Nothing so far, from what I can see."
If Liu Bei said so, it could be trusted. In the original history, after all, she was the brilliant commander who kept Cao Cao tangled by the ankle to the very end.
"Good."
I nodded once, then went on.
"Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun. I'll detach a portion of my own troops to each of you."
"......"
"Watch how the battle develops, and wherever the line starts to give way, go reinforce it."
"My lord."
At that moment Zhao Yun, who had been silently absorbing my orders, lifted her eyes — blue as the sea — to me.
"Will you be all right without an escort?"
On a battlefield like this, nothing mattered more than the safety of the commander-in-chief, so the question was entirely fair.
"Ah, that?"
At her question I gave a small smile and gently stroked Seo Yeo's head.
"I've got her right here. Nothing to worry about."
"...Understood."
Perhaps she had only asked on the off chance, for the moment she heard my answer, Zhao Yun quietly withdrew.
Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun. Laid out like that, it did feel like a small shame that Zhang Fei wasn't among them. But what could I do? When you're carrying a child, rest comes first.
Huang Zhong was off on campaign at Cao Cao's side at the moment, and Ma Chao had briefly vanished from sight on our pint-sized strategist's orders. I suspected that was exactly what Zhuge Liang was aiming for: wait until the fighting turned ferocious and everyone had worn themselves thin, then come crashing in. Those Shanyue, maddened as if on drugs, wouldn't collapse from a single cavalry charge. Still, it would surely deal them a heavy blow.
"Fighting like this takes me back to the old days!"
Right in the thick of the battle, Sun Jian, commanding the right flank, let out a hearty laugh.
"Ce, listen here! This was back before anyone called me the Tiger of Jiangdong..."
"You're telling that story now?!"
Sun Ce, her whole body lacquered in blood as though she had already felled a dozen men, rounded on her own father.
"......"
Sun Jian looked a touch stung by that.
The life of a father is a hard one.
"Lord Sun?"
"...With my daughter showing off like that, how could I possibly afford to lose?!"
As if to hide his embarrassment, Sun Jian drew his weapon — the Ancient Scimitar.
"Children of Jiangdong! Let them see with their own eyes what strength we carry─!"
ROOOAAR──!!
At Sun Jian's ringing command, the Jiangdong soldiers answered with a thunderous roar. In the original history, this was the force that even Dong Zhuo — the man who swapped emperors on a whim — had never managed to bring to heel. Such a headache as an enemy; as an ally, what a comfort.
"Do you know how many Shanyue I've cut down?! You're no different from those bastards!"
"Then I shall tear you limb from limb and settle the grudge of my people!"
I turned my eyes from the spectacle of Sun Jian locking blades with a hulking Shanyue chieftain — and no sooner had I looked away than I caught Zhou Yu shouting at the top of her lungs.
"Bofu! Behind you!"
"I know!"
Sun Ce swept her sword in one wide arc, and the Shanyue who had been marking her from behind collapsed where he stood, eyes still wide open.
Over there, square formation or not, it had already dissolved into a bare-knuckle free-for-all.
Well, the Jiangdong soldiers under Sun Jian and Sun Ce had crossed blades with the Shanyue more times than they could count, so nothing about it surprised me.
Back to back with Zhou Yu, Sun Ce wore a grin of pure battle-joy.
"Shall we bet on who kills more?"
"...That bet again?"
At Sun Ce's words, Zhou Yu heaved a deep sigh.
"I've never won it once, you know."
"Aw, come on — if I can't beat you at this, how am I ever going to beat you at anything?"
Too clever a friend for her own good, Sun Ce cackled.
"Anyway — counting starts now!"
"I never agreed to any bet!"
"Cheapskate!"
With that exchange settled, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu shot forward together into the enemy line.
With faces like theirs, even that turned into a scene fit for a painting — no surprise there.
The certified beauties of the official histories, after all. ...Though in this world, I suppose I ought to say beauties.
The two strikingly handsome women — each one suspiciously popular with other women, no less — churned the battlefield into a froth.