Her Majesty’s Swarm - Volume 4 - Chapter 10

Fall Gelb

The Nyrnal Empire launched a sudden invasion of the Eastern Trade Union. The Union consolidated its forces to push back. They holed themselves up in fortresses, hired mercenaries, and closed down the highways. Able-bodied common folk volunteered to fight and made their way to the battlefield.

The independence of the Eastern Trade Union hung in the balance.

“It seems to me like you’re having quite a bit of trouble,” Emperor Maximillian said during a war strategy meeting. He looked around at the generals in attendance, all of whom were pale with fear. “Fifty thousand men. That’s the army I gave you to destroy the Eastern Trade Union—an army I honestly thought was needlessly large. Excessive, even. And yet, the Union hasn’t fallen yet. How could this be? Would you care to enlighten me, Marshal Bronberg?”

Having said this, Maximillian turned his eyes on an aging man.

“The reason is twofold, Your Imperial Majesty,” the man answered. “Our men are struggling with both the terrain and the very nature of the enemy forces. Konrad Crevlas, who commanded a mercenary group that fought us during the unification of the south, is their leader.”

“I see,” Maximillian said curtly. “So you’re saying that our generals are incapable of reading a map or winning a battle against an opponent we’ve fought once before. How regrettable.”

With a scoff, Maximillian narrowed his eyes at Marshal Bronberg and continued in a terribly cold voice.

“Now listen to me, Marshal. The Eastern Trade Union’s army is a mere ten thousand. If you fail to defeat a force of that size with fifty thousand men, be aware that you will be hanged for your failures.”

“Y-Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.” Marshal Bronberg nodded hastily, his face drained of energy. “We will do everything in our power to win.”

“And? Did the Arachnea show themselves?” Maximillian asked, switching gears.

“No, not yet,” the marshal said bitterly. “We’ve sent some aerial units to scout the situation, but they never returned. We can only assume the enemy had some way of attacking airborne units.”

Knowing the Arachnea might intervene in the Empire’s takeover, Bronberg and his fellow officers had dispatched troops to conduct a preliminary aerial reconnaissance of the enemy’s forces. As he’d told the emperor, none of the wyverns had made it back.

“So they have a way of holding our wyverns in check,” Maximillian mused. “I suppose our only choice is to send out the lindwyrms, then. Marshal Bronberg, I will place sixty lindwyrms under your command. These should be enough to crush the Eastern Trade Union and the Arachnea.”

“We’re grateful for your assistance, Your Imperial Majesty!”

But what were lindwyrms?

Maximillian spread out a map and placed a few pawns on it. “Let’s hear your proposal. How do you plan on attacking them?”

“Traversing the northern wetlands is extremely difficult. If we attack from Nyrnal’s center, the Phros River will similarly impede our progress. As such, I believe that if we apply pressure on them from the Phros as a diversion, we’ll be able to successfully strike at the Union’s northeastern fortress line.”

By deploying a decoy force and attacking the fortress line where the Union bordered the Popedom, the Empire could avoid marching its troops through the wetlands and catch the enemy off guard.

“You think you can break through?”

“The wyvern unit should be able to handle it if they maneuver skillfully enough. Their fortifications aren’t built to defend against an attack from the sky. A few of them have ballistae, but they’re not optimized for attacking airborne units.”

The fortress line along the northeastern border of the Union had been built to defend the Union’s border with Frantz. Given that the Union wouldn’t expect wyverns to come from that direction, it was the perfect place to strike.

“I very much hope your gamble pays off. You do know what will happen if you fail, yes?” Maximillian said coldly.

“Y-Yes, I’m well aware...”

Maximillian had already beheaded commanders who’d failed him in the past. The emperor wasn’t merely blowing smoke; he was deadly serious.

“Then let us name this plan. We will call it ‘Case Yellow’—or ‘Fall Gelb.’ A simple name should make it harder for the enemy to catch wind of it. After all, we don’t know who might be eavesdropping on us.”

He was not far off. Keralt had already mobilized her adventurers, ordering them to spread out and gather whatever information they could. Some of them were hidden among the soldiers, whereas others used their swift feet to scout the Nyrnal Empire from the outside. Already well aware of this, Maximillian figured someone could be listening in right now.

“I look forward to hearing of your success, Marshal. Because failure will not be tolerated.”

“I understand full well, Your Majesty.”

The contents of this strategy meeting leaked to Keralt’s guild, which reported it to her three days later.

“The enemy will come from the northeast.”

The information spread like wildfire across the Eastern Trade Union. As the Union army fortified its defenses around the river Phros, it also consolidated troops along the fortress line.

The Arachnea, perhaps the very cause of this war, also participated in those preparations.

♱

The Nyrnal army launched its Case Yellow operation.

First, the Empire’s troops attacked the Phros River in a diversion. The Eastern Trade Union sent a vast force to keep them in check. A large-scale battle took place between the Nyrnal forces trying to cross the Phros and the Union soldiers trying to stop them.

The Eastern Trade Union’s mercenaries launched and loaded catapults from the opposite bank while also raining arrows upon imperial soldiers who tried to cross. The river ran red with blood that day, and the Nyrnal forces had to abandon the attack.

A runner hurried into the Union’s primary camp. “I come bearing a message! The attack in the northeast has begun!”

“Finally,” Konrad whispered under his breath.

Even this intense defensive battle had been nothing but a diversion. The Nyrnal Empire’s true aim was to invade via the fortress line to the northeast.

“This unit is to keep the enemy from crossing the Phros!” Konrad shouted. “Even if this is a diversion, the Union’s in danger if we let them on our shores. Put everything you’ve got into keeping those Nyrnal dogs off of our soil!”

“Yes, sir!” The mercenaries’ resounding cry was filled with vigor.

Knowing that they were fighting to keep their bitter enemy, Nyrnal, out of their beloved homeland really upped morale.

“Will the fortress line last, though?”

That was the real problem. Those fortresses were built to guard the border with Frantz, and they were equipped accordingly. They weren’t suited to handle Nyrnal’s army. They had very few ballistae capable of shooting upward, and they were open to attacks from the sky.

One had to wonder if they’d last in a battle against Nyrnal, and the Eastern Trade Union’s higher-ups seemed to share this concern.

“It’s not a question of if the line will hold. It has to,” Konrad said firmly. “If they manage to march in from the north, they’ll have a direct path to Khalkha. And if Khalkha falls, we’ll have to surrender. We can’t let them do that. We’ll show Nyrnal just how stubborn the Eastern Trade Union can be!”

“That’s right! We’ll kick Nyrnal’s asses and drive them out of our land!” the mercenaries cheered.

“That said, where’s the star of the show, the Arachnea’s queen?” Konrad asked, looking around.

“She’s been in a northeastern fortress the whole time,” one merc replied. “She said the enemy would definitely strike there.”

Grevillea, Queen of the Arachnea, had believed Nyrnal would attack the fortresses from the very beginning, since no other point of entry was as accessible. According to her, the northern wetlands made it difficult to utilize their heavy infantry, and the Phros River to the west was too much of an obstacle. This left the northeast fortress line as the only viable way into the Union.

Her predictions were right on the money.

“A commander who can read the enemy’s intentions, eh? Not bad. That’s the kind of ally we need.”

With a smile, Konrad got on his horse and led his mercenary force northeast, toward the fortresses. The decisive battle was about to begin.

♱

My first impression of the place was that it was an unimpressive fortification. Its walls were imposing, but the place didn’t have full cover, and it was completely exposed from above. Its towers were low and didn’t offer a far enough line of sight. They had clearly been built during a budget deficit, making the whole fortress pretty unreliable.

“Sérignan, the enemy’s coming. The Ripper Swarms I sent out to scout ahead report the enemy’s approaching.”

“We are ready any time, Your Majesty.”

Ripper Swarms couldn’t match heavy infantry, so I put their superior mobility to use by having them act as scouts. They stealthily slipped behind enemy lines, hiding in the vicinity to transmit information to me through the collective consciousness.

“The wyverns are the real problem,” I muttered.

Wyverns. In the game, the Gregoria faction used units called wyverns too. They were flying units with relatively high firepower, making them a tricky opponent for the Arachnea, whose meager aerial units were frail.

On top of that, the game’s Marianne faction would shoot all the Arachnea’s aerial units out of the sky, making things even harder. Just remembering it pissed me off. The Gregoria was tricky for us as it was. The hardest faction for us was the Necrophage faction, with their necromancer leaders, but the Gregoria was definitely a close second. The Necrophage sacrificed mobility for superior defense and firepower. They were a definite headache.

“How’s the fort’s reinforcement going?” I asked.

“It is nearly complete,” Sérignan told me. “We’ve set up Eyeball Spires in all of our important positions.”

I’d found the Eastern Trade Union’s fortresses lacking, so I’d decided that we would improve them ourselves. I had informed the Union’s leaders of my intentions, of course, and they’d told us to go ahead. In anticipation of the Nyrnal Empire’s army, we’d added a second layer of walls and built Eyeball Spires. I stationed Toxic Swarms in the Eyeball Spires, allowing them to easily dispatch lightly armored units from a distance.

This gave me an impromptu response against the enemy’s aerial units. I also posted large numbers of Toxic Swarms on the walls, granting them enough elevation to shoot down enemies below. The Genocide Swarms would wait inside the walls for if and when the enemy penetrated the fortress. Should that happen, they would go and cover for the Toxic Swarms.

As the enemy approached the walls, the Toxic Swarms would whittle down their numbers, softening them up so the Genocide Swarms could make short work of them once the fighting began in earnest.

“Do you think the battle will go well?” Sérignan asked me.

“Who’s to say?” I replied with a shrug. “In any case, we have to do this. If the Union falls, it’ll have lasting repercussions on our tactics. Besides...”

I paused, taking in the horizon.

“I like this country.”

Assassins may have come after me, but apart from that, I enjoyed shopping here. Lysa was still bedridden, but hopefully she’d recover soon, and then we’d be able to enjoy the sights in Khalkha again.

I haven’t forgotten my human heart, Sandalphon.

“Huh?!”

Just then, a Ripper Swarm sent me a message that betrayed my expectations.

“They didn’t!”

The Gregoria was ruled by draconic creatures. They had wyverns and dragons to fly through the air, sea serpents and leviathans to dominate the sea, and lindwyrms and behemoths to conquer the land.

Of those units, the lindwyrm was a relatively tricky opponent for a standard unit. Lindwyrms performed like heavy tanks, and their high defenses meant normal attacks wouldn’t dispatch them easily. They could also function like battering rams and had high offensive stats. I had many bitter memories of lindwyrms busting through my defenses.

Right now, there was a force of sixty lindwyrms marching on the fortress lines. The issue was that both lindwyrms and wyverns were sentient creatures capable of acting on their own. They took orders of their own volition, but they would heed their masters without question even if it meant their deaths. Wyverns only had riders so they could be ordered in the heat of battle to take the most effective action in a given scenario. And if wyverns landed, they could independently fight on the ground.

The same could be said of lindwyrms. They didn’t require riders, as they were accompanied on the battlefield by commanders who could issue them orders. The Nyrnal Empire must have used the Gregoria’s heritage to produce dragons, and just like in the game, these dragons obeyed their masters.

But this time, they were not lorded over by dragons of old like in the game. Their current master was Maximillian, but they were just as loyal. It was the same as how the Swarm were loyal to their queen.

“Sérignan, this is really bad,” I said. “They’ll probably break the fortress line easily, and through multiple points at that. We’ll need your strength.”

“Understood, Your Majesty.” She knelt before me. “Order me as you wish. As an Arachnea knight, I will accomplish your will.”

“Good. Then I have something I need you to do.” In my mind’s eye, I helplessly watched the Ripper Swarms’ transmission. “Kill those giant serpents. All sixty of them. They have heavy armor, and they can sweep away anything they run into. Somehow, some way, I need you to stop them all.”

♱

The Empire’s army showed up three hours after the Ripper Swarms’ warning. Since we knew they’d be bringing lindwyrms to the front, I had as many Carrion Cannons as possible arranged along the walls. The lindwyrms had hard scales, but there was still flesh underneath them, and inflicting them with poison would cause continual, residual damage.

As they oozed that chip damage, I’d send in Fire Swarms to bomb them. I could have used them to spew fire on the enemy as well, but the heavy infantry could easily defeat them.

Once the other Swarms weakened and cut down the enemy numbers, Sérignan would swoop in to slay them.

If only that unit would get here in time, I’d bring them into the battle too...

Still, there were sixty lindwyrms. They were among the toughest, most durable standard units in the game; even the Carrion Cannons’ continual poison and the Fire Swarms’ explosions might not be enough to stop them. And once the army reached the walls, bombing wouldn’t be an option anymore.

If there were fewer of them, even just forty, we’d have an easier chance of winning. But sixty was just too many.

“You can count on me, Your Majesty,” Sérignan told me, sounding confident. “I will slay the enemy serpents for you.”

Right. A commander acting timid would have a negative influence on the rest of the battle. I had to believe in our success.

“They’re coming!” a lookout called out from one of the watchtowers.

The nightmare was coming into view. Sixty serpents. They were quadrupedal reptiles with large, winding tails. The enemy was dead set on crushing us right then and there.

“Can we defeat those things?!” Konrad uttered, his eyes widening as he saw the horde of lindwyrms.

His mercenary band had arrived on time. I had them stationed on and inside the walls to aid the Toxic and Genocide Swarms.

“They’re not undefeatable, but you should be prepared for some casualties.”

“Well, don’t worry about that,” Konrad told me. “A mercenary’s always ready to lay down their life.”

I found the man’s tough disposition encouraging in this trying time.

“Can we use battering rams against them?” he asked me. “Maybe we can put a few together with the materials we have here?”

“I never tried it, so I can’t say. But it doesn’t hurt to try. Anything will do so long as it can deal damage.”

At this point, I wasn’t going to be picky with what we used in the fight; our enemy was too troublesome for such trifles.

“Our folks’ll craft a battering ram, then. I just hope we win.”

“We have no choice but to win,” I replied.

If we didn’t, the lindwyrms would push through, and there’d be nothing to stop them from burning Khalkha to ash. I couldn’t let that happen.

♱

The lindwyrms crept ever closer, the embodiment of an approaching catastrophe. To stop them, I had my Swarms attack from atop our unreliable walls.

“Carrion Cannons, open fire!”

My Carrion Cannons fired at the enemy all at once, blasting the lindwyrms with polluted, rotting flesh. It had no visible effect on them, but they were definitely poisoned. By pelting them with poison, we diminished the enemy’s stamina, ensuring they’d be weakened enough for us to defeat by the time they reached the walls.

“Your Majesty, they’ll be in the Fire Swarms’ attack range shortly.”

“Yes, I know, Sérignan.”

As the Carrion Cannons continued blasting the enemy units, we ushered in Fire Swarms to bomb them. I didn’t like using them as cannon fodder, but I wasn’t at liberty to do otherwise. We had to stop those serpents from closing in on us, no matter what.

Forgive me, Fire Swarms.

I projected that thought into the collective consciousness as I sent them the order to self-destruct. The Fire Swarms, which lay hidden underground, blew up with thundering explosions. Sediment went flying through the air, and their blasts shook the lindwyrms. The gigantic serpents faltered, and though it didn’t kill them, they took visible damage.

The suicidal attacks didn’t stop there. A second and third wave followed, each one staggering the lindwyrms. But it wasn’t enough to defeat them. They really were among the toughest units in the game. Fighting them was so irritating.

With all the Fire Swarms dead, the lindwyrms surged toward the walls—our final line of defense. And then...

“Sérignan, you’re up!”

“By your will, Your Majesty!”

Sérignan jumped down the walls, landed with feline delicacy, and charged at the lindwyrms. Noticing the approaching enemy, the lindwyrms began breathing fire at her. But their fire breath was only as strong as the wyverns’, if not weaker, and it did nothing to stop Sérignan.

She lunged at one of the lindwyrms and thrust her longsword into its neck. For a second, it looked like its thick scales would deflect her corrupted holy sword, but Sérignan came out the victor. Her sword sank into its throat, releasing a gushing spray of blood from the reptilian’s neck.

Even though she had wounded that lindwyrm, however, the rest kept storming along, paying no heed to their fallen comrade.

“Sérignan! You think you can do this?!” I shouted, feeling my heart sink.

“I shall try!”

Don’t panic. Sérignan can handle this.

As powerful as they were, lindwyrms were still standard units. They’d always lose in a one-on-one battle with a hero unit. Sérignan would never lose to a lindwyrm. But the problem wasn’t whether she could beat them. It was whether she’d be able to beat them fast enough.

The lindwyrms were already closing in on our walls. It would only be seven or eight minutes before the foremost lindwyrm would make contact with our defenses. But just as that thought crossed my mind...

“I did it, Your Majesty!”

Sérignan had slain one of the lindwyrms, but there were still fifty-nine of them left. The situation was hopeless. Longsword raised, Sérignan slashed at another lindwyrm’s neck. Her attack was initially deflected, but after a few attempts, she was able to rend her target’s flesh. All the while, the rest of the lindwyrms continued their march uninterrupted.

Suddenly, I felt a violent quake beneath my feet. The wall opposite the one I was standing on had been bashed by one of the lindwyrms and was crumbling into shattered stone. The lindwyrms had begun their destructive charge in an attempt to destroy our walls.

Oh, not good. They’re going to break through.

The Toxic Swarms rained stingers upon them, but the dragons’ tough scales rendered their shots mostly useless. The most they could do was chip away at their stamina.

“Are you ready, men?!” a voice rang out over the walls, yanking me out of my pessimism.

“Yes, sir!”

Konrad and his men had built an impromptu battering ram and towed it close to the lindwyrms. Those men were surely about to die. The lindwyrms’ attacks were powerful enough to shake the walls, after all. A human wouldn’t be able to withstand the force of their charge. They’d just turn to red stains on the ground and nothing would be able to stop the lindwyrms then.

I saw that they were doing everything in their power, and it inspired me to do the same, lest I bring shame to my troops. The Arachnea wasn’t a weak enough faction to be chased away by a bunch of stupid snakes, after all!

“Toxic Swarms, open fire!”

At my order, the Toxic Swarms hidden behind the two layers of walls fired their stingers at once. The storm of stingers hit the lindwyrms, and while some of them were deflected, many penetrated the reptilians’ flesh. Those lindwyrms could effortlessly deflect one or two stingers, but not such a dense barrage.

Even then, they stayed on their feet and continued their assault on our walls.

“Haaah!”

Meanwhile, Sérignan downed a third lindwyrm, which had already been weakened by the Carrion Cannons and the Toxic Swarms. It looked like she was killing them fast and faster now. Had the poison finally started debilitating them?

“Let’s go, boys!”

“Kill those stupid lizards!”

Konrad’s men joined in with their battering ram. They bashed it into a lindwyrm, shaking its large form. They didn’t kill it, but they did manage to stall it for a little.

If we can just keep going... If we can just keep hitting them...

“Wyverns incoming!” yelled a lookout.

Oh, no. Not wyverns, not now!

I quickly shifted my attention to the aerial enemies. “Toxic Swarms, focus on the wyverns! Shoot them out of the sky!”

“By your will, Your Majesty!”

If the wyverns were to breathe flames on them from above, Sérignan and Konrad would be in danger. Sadly, the Toxic Swarms were my only units capable of firing into the air. Their stingers zoomed through the sky, but the wyverns deftly dodged them as they dived toward the earth. Several wyverns took direct hits from the stingers and fell to the ground, but a handful managed to get through the barrage.

“Keep shooting!” I cried, cheering the Toxic Swarms on. “Keep Sérignan safe!”

Encouraged by my words, the Toxic Swarms unleashed another intense wave of stingers. Their attacks shot down two-thirds of the wyverns swooping down on us, but the remaining third were nearing the ground. There was no time to shoot another volley.

The wyverns opened their jaws and sprayed the ground with fire, along with the lindwyrms standing over it. A sea of flames swelled up from the earth. The lindwyrms were mostly unaffected, so the majority of the casualties were Toxic Swarms.

Thankfully, Sérignan and Konrad weren’t in the wyverns’ line of fire. But the enemy wyverns were swooping down for a second attack, and my Toxic Swarms readied their stingers once more, even within the flames.

As the fight raged on between heaven and earth, the battle over the fortress was moving along too. Sérignan had killed seven lindwyrms, and her slaying speed just kept picking up. Konrad’s men were using their battering ram to stagger the lindwyrms, but the walls looked like they were on the verge of collapse.

At that moment, the balance was broken when a lindwyrm shook its head wildly and blew the battering ram back.

Humans couldn’t put up a fight against a monster like that, after all.

After knocking Konrad’s battering ram away, the lindwyrms were free to bash down the Arachnea’s palisades, leaving only a final layer of wall.

In that case...

“Toxic Swarms, fall back! Genocide Swarms, forward!” I ordered.

There was only one thing left to do.

“Raaah! Don’t falter, men!” Konrad roared. “Show these monsters what a mercenary’s pride is all about!”

Konrad’s mercenaries managed to pick their battering ram back up and smash it into a lindwyrm’s flank.

“Groooar!” The lindwyrm howled as it took a blow to its relatively unarmored flank.

The creature flailed about, stomping and lashing out at anyone around it.

“Have no fear, men! We’re the One-Eyed Black Wolves! This isn’t enough to do us in!” Konrad shouted, prompting his men to shove their ram into the lindwyrm’s flank a second time.

I had to wonder if they could actually take it out, but just then, the walls crumbled once again. To make things worse, another lindwyrm turned its head toward the mercenaries and blew a jet of flames at the battering ram.

“Blast it! This is as far as we go!” Konrad said.

Yeah... It was close. You were this close to taking it out all on your own.

“Your Majesty, you must evacuate!” Sérignan shouted as she cut down her tenth lindwyrm. “It’s too dangerous!”

She was right. I was standing directly in the lindwyrms’ path. I had to run. I ran across the walls in an attempt to get down, feeling pitiful every step of the way. The only thing I could do right now was run.

But then the ground shook under me. The rumbling threw my body off the walls, sending me in a free fall toward the ground. My crash landing knocked all the air out of my lungs, and pain shot through my body.

I was sure I had died right there and then.

“But...”

As that happened, I saw something amazing. My ace in the hole—the unit I’d had on standby—had made it here in time.

“Now, come forth, Dreadnought Swarm,” I whispered, my lips curling up into a smile despite my aching body. “Crush them all.”

♱

The Dreadnought Swarm was basically a ground-based battleship. It looked like a rhinoceros beetle with countless, centipede-like legs. It was four times the lindwyrm’s size, and it moved thirty times slower from a Genocide Swarm.

But its offensive power was the highest in the game, outmatched only by hero units.

It was too slow to have been of any use in the battles up until now, but this time was different. We were not here to invade, but to defend. That meant a prolonged fight in one spot. Thanks to that, the Dreadnought Swarm had arrived right when we needed it most.

Having descended upon the ideal battlefield, it charged toward the lindwyrms trying to tear through the walls with heavy, rumbling footsteps. The creatures clashed, creating a violent shockwave.

The Dreadnought Swarm bore down on a lindwyrm, pushing it down and threatening to crush it. The lindwyrm struggled for a few moments before blood billowed out of its mouth and it was squashed into a splatter of flesh.

“Your Majesty, I believe we have a chance to win now!” Sérignan exclaimed as she finished off her eleventh lindwyrm.

I managed a nod. “Yeah, I think so too, Sérignan!”

The Dreadnought Swarm slowly approached the lindwyrms. Realizing now wasn’t the time to focus on the walls, the lindwyrms turned their focus to attacking the Dreadnought Swarm. Giant monster clashed with giant monster.

Of course, even the Dreadnought Swarm froze up when it was attacked by nearly fifty lindwyrms at once, but it soon resumed its charge, crushing everything in its path. As the lindwyrms tried to fight back, they were caught beneath the giant insect’s feet and crushed under its weight. A few of them tried to come at it from the flanks. But even within the game, the Dreadnought Swarm had a defense stat high enough to put the lindwyrms to shame, and it wouldn’t die that easily.

“Go, go, Dreadnought Swarm!” I offered support through the collective consciousness. “Crush them all! Bury Nyrnal’s forces!”

A force of wyvern reinforcements joined the battle, plunging down toward the Dreadnought Swarm. Their fiery breath lightly charred its black carapace, but compared to the Dreadnought Swarm’s mighty defense, their flamethrower breath was no more potent than match fire.

“Haaah!”

Sérignan pounced on the lindwyrms crowded around the Dreadnought Swarm. With her help, the lindwyrm numbers were steadily shrinking. Blasts of fire shot at her now and again, but she quickly avoided them and cut down the weakened, poisoned lindwyrms.

Using her unique ability, Sérignan produced threads to swing and leap from one lindwyrm to another, slaughtering them as she went. The Dreadnought Swarm trampled the others underfoot, and soon the great lindwyrm force was reduced to less than twenty.

“I think we won,” I said.

My sigh of relief, however, came too soon.

“One of the enemy’s big lizards is charging at the wall! It’s trying to knock the walls down!”

The remaining lindwyrms made a beeline for the walls. They must’ve realized that trying to fight the Dreadnought Swarm was a reckless endeavor.

“Blast these lizards! Just let that big bug crush you into paste!” Konrad raged as he walloped a lindwyrm with his battering ram.

The creatures ignored him and rushed the remains of the first layer of walls, completely crumbling it to bits. Then they busted through the second layer and finally appeared before us.

“Genocide Swarms, forward! Kill the enemy!”

But I knew a Genocide Swarm couldn’t beat the lindwyrms one-on-one. There was somewhere between ten and twenty of them left, so my Genocide Swarms wouldn’t win easily. Their strong fangs tore into the lindwyrms’ flesh and throats. The lindwyrms shook their heads, trying to force the Genocide Swarms off, but my Swarms held fast.

With the Genocide Swarms chomping on their necks, a few lindwyrms keeled over. But other lindwyrms walked over their corpses and engaged the Genocide Swarms. This time, the lindwyrms breathed fire, killing the Swarms in their path, but they were eventually bitten to death in much the same manner.

One lindwyrm managed to nudge its head just over the breached wall, only for its neck to be bored through by a pair of fangs. It perished. Two more lindwyrms soon stepped over its body. They swept aside the Swarms pursuing them, blew fire from their mouths, and stormed through the Genocide Swarms’ line of defense.

“Sérignan, we’re short on hands here! Can you come over?!” I called out to her.

“Of course!”

She dashed over to us and swung her sword, slaying a rampaging lindwyrm in one blow. After enduring the poison for so long, the lindwyrms had very little stamina left.

“Dreadnought Swarm, take care of any remaining enemies!”

On my order, the Dreadnought Swarm hunted down the surviving lindwyrms. It stomped on them, crushing the reptilians with its hulking weight. There were none left to stop it. Before long, every last lindwyrm was wiped out.

“So the lindwyrms are all dead...”

Sérignan, Konrad, and the Dreadnought Swarm had won us this battle.

“Genocide Swarms, forward! Find and destroy all the remaining enemies!”

The Genocide Swarms chased down the remaining heavy infantry. The Dreadnought Swarm was too slow to efficiently kill any foot soldiers, but the Genocide Swarms could easily catch up.

“You won’t escape, you measly peons!” Sérignan bellowed.

With fluid grace, she made her way across the battlefield, catching up to two fleeing infantrymen and preparing to cut off their heads. My knight was just so reliable.

“The enemy’s falling back, men! Forward!”

“Yes, sir!”

The mercenaries excelled at fighting other humans. They swung their halberds down upon Nyrnal’s fleeing soldiers. They slew one, two, four, and soon eight of them.

“We won,” I breathed when the last of the enemy units had fallen. “A complete victory.”

The enemy had no way of breaking through our defensive line.

We won. Victory is ours. We did it!

My joy rippled through the Swarm, and they clicked their claws together in a gleeful gesture.

“We’ve done it, Your Majesty!” Sérignan said.

“Yes, and it’s all thanks to you,” I told her. “It’s a victory for all of us.”

Upon seeing our combat prowess, Nyrnal’s soldiers had turned tail and fled. It was clear they had no intention of attacking us again.

It’s finally over. We won. We won this war.

At the time, I had no idea that the enemy had left us a terrible parting gift. And in Khalkha, of all places...