Boom. Boom. Cannon fire. Volleys of musket fire. The clankering of steel.
The dim evening light.
Hikari stood just behind the frontlines.
She could hear the sounds of the battle happening all around her.
Her full wyvern skin armour.
Her claymore strapped to her back.
Short sword and hand cannon on her belt.
Her arsenal of throwing weapons strapped onto her body.
The RazenHeir army moved in a sparse skirmishing formation.
A river was right up ahead.
Hikari could see the grey flesh of the cultists positions on the other side.
Boom. The RazenHeir cannons fired.
Not as a volley.
Like the skirmishers, they were placed very far apart.
A cannon hit the wall of a cannon position.
The flesh was lit with RazenHeir flame.
The enemy returned fire.
It was difficult to hit the individual RazenHeir riflemen in the dim evening light.
They waited until the river forts burned.
Groups of engineers pushed forward floating platforms.
As they approached the river, volleys of musket bullets hit the front armour of the platform.
The engineers threw themselves flat on the ground to avoid the bullets.
The RazenHeir line returns fire.
Small sparks of RazenHeir flame.
The sides exchanged more volleys.
A musket shot blew off a splinter which stabbed a rifleman in the eye.
His buddy drags him away.
Small RazenHeir flames flared across the river. The struck cultist riflemen rolled on the floor to douse the flames. They could not.
Some rushed to the river and jumped.
They drowned all the same.
The first floating platforms reached the river. Five RazenHeir scouts on each platform.
A thin formation of knights lines up behind.
The engineers pushed the platform. A scout hurled a grapple onto the other bank and pulled.
The rest keep their heads low. Their supporting units continued firing volleys onto the other bank.
The scouts reached the other bank.
They immediately fanned out, using the trees as cover.
Hikari watched as one scout took a musket bullet straight to his chest, causing him to fall backwards into the river.
The other scouts glanced at him and pressed on, knowing there was little they could do for him.
The second wave of platforms reached the other bank.
Several squads of riflemen fanged out behind the scouts.
There were sparse exchanges of rifle fire.
The RazenHeir command sitting on his horse beside Hikari gave a signal.
The entire formation advanced a block.
Hikari marched forward along with the cannons.
She could see constant sparks of muzzle flare on the other bank as small skirmishes broke out.
A row of knights boarded the platforms.
As they were in the middle of the river, Hikari suddenly clutched her claymore.
She hears a silent horn.
The scoutmaster looks at her.
She returns the look.
He understands and barks orders to the signaller.
The RazenHeir knights in the formation draw their swords.
Flesh abominations unburied themselves in the thick of the RazenHeir formation.
The knights that were alerted drew their enchanted swords ignited with RazenHeir flame.
They thrust their blades into the abominations and quickly backed off.
The riflemen and scouts loaded their enchanted ammo and fired.
The flames consume the flesh abominations before their slow lumbering bodies could catch the nimble RazenHeir troops.
The RazenHeir formation is scattered. But the individual troops are intact.
The river crossing continues.
The RazenHeir formation was half way across.
Another sound of the eerie horn.
Hikari was ready to charge.
The RazenHeir commander stops her.
Tall pillars of vines shot out of the ground on the other river bank.
The RazenHeir formation fired their enchanted shots.
The vines swung about wildly as they were ignited, sending the RazenHeir troops on the other bank flying.
Flesh golems emerged and charged towards the bank.
A volley of musket fire from the other bank pelted the RazenHeir positions.
Fire!
The cannons were rolled back into position and fired straight at the golems.
The RazenHeir lines fired their muskets.
RazenHeir flames flared. The golems' flesh burned.
The river bank was illuminated by the lumbering torches of RazenHeir flame as the evening light dimmed.
The golems thrashed around. The RazenHeir troops scatter.
The vines on their back wilted.
The loud sound of a horn. The maniacal screams of cultists charging.
Many of them had deformed flesh.
The RazenHeir troops fired their muskets but did not have the numbers to stop the sheer mass of cultists.
The scout master turns to Hikari and nods.
She bent her knees and charged.
A skip and a hop, she passed the river line.
Her glaives rips right into the center of the cultist horde.
The hundreds of cultists in their bare flesh and tightly packed formation were sawed apart.
Their soft flesh and wooden shields could do nothing against the whirling steel.
The RazenHeir knights behind her hacked away at the thinned out cultist horde.
She dives past the horde.
The shaman behind the lines abandoned their mana objects and tried to flee into the dark.
They were splattered under her boots crashing down on them.
It was dark.
This was her time to cause havoc.
She dove deeper into the cultists lines.
The sound of her heavy footsteps masked by the sound of cannon fire.
She rips into the backlines. Ambushing units and shaman.
A kick from her boots, she knocked down a cannon post.
Bolts of aether fire homed in on her. She blocked them with her mana barrier.
Assassins surround her.
She released her daggers and widened her whirling steel's area to the maximum.
In the dark, the cultists could use their phasing to dodge one or two swings, but they were eventually hit and brutally cut in half.
Keeping the distance now puts them at a disadvantage.
One by one, they charged the giantess, only to be cut down by her short sword.
The assassins retreated.
Hikari retrieved her blades and continued.