68 Call of Duty (1/2)
The presence of the enemy general sitting atop his gray coated swifthart seemed larger than life as I gazed up at him.
The confident way he sat on his mount, his short-cropped black hair, and the steely-eyed gaze of his amber eyes certainly gave him the vibe of a high ranking officer. And, yet, the most disturbing thing about the man was the warm smile he sent me. It was as if he'd just seen an old friend on the battlefield and was dying to catch up.
”You seem surprised at my arrival, young commander,” he said in a confident baritone voice. ”You're wondering why I left my very secure position to engage you, huh?”
Good guess. So he wasn't just a dumb brute like his physique suggested. Unlike Azuma who had a thin frail form, the enemy general, Jimmy Jonas, was a mountain of a man. He was no Edo, but the barrel-chested warrior with the beefy arms certainly deserved his monicker of Bear Knight.
”Yeah... I mean... we're barely making any ground against your elites,” I answered honestly. ”Good job training them, by the way.”
”Thank you,” he accepted my compliment happily like we weren't enemies about to murder each other. ”Your soldiers are pretty well trained themselves. I'm losing my hard-trained forces each minute we face off.”
That's when I figured out why he was so willing to leave his post. He didn't want any more of his elites dying by our hand. They weren't just pawns to him.
”You... care about your men,” I said in a tone that was half-surprised and half-respect.
More and more I found myself admiring my new opponent. He certainly wasn't like the other Magesong officers I'd faced so far. He carried a kind of honorable spirit I'd seen only with Azuma so far.
”Don't believe what everyone tells you about the Magesong clan. We're not all child murderers and blood sacrificers.” he winked. ”Besides... Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys—”
”—Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will standby you even onto death,” I finished. I knew that line as well. It came from the very same book I tended to quote myself.
Around this time, I began to notice that the battle had come to an abrupt stop. A circle of both Magesong soldiers and Foolhardies had surrounded us. Although it was clear that the gray overwhelmed our midnight blue colors in terms of numbers. Still, I could see my brother, Aura, Edo, and several of my officers among the crowd. Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
Jimmy Jonas chuckled softly, forcing my focus to return to him.
”It's nice to meet a fellow scholar,” he said appreciatively.
Suddenly, Jimmy's swifthart made a series of loud grunting sounds that seemed to me like warning bells meant for its master. In response, Jimmy turned his gaze westward, past the crowd of spectators and much further away.
I took this time to send my vision upward with the help of Fool's Insight which I'd kept activated despite the growing strain on my eyes. My bird's-eye-view sent my sight up to cloud level, and from this vantage point, I surveyed the battle below.
At each corner of the battlefield, the war continued almost monotonously. Neither the left or right armies of both clans made much headway against each other. It was as if their officers had given up on taking control of their respective fronts and were simply waiting for either of the center armies to claim victory. Unlike the other two sides, the center of the field was simply chaos—a jumbled mass of blues and grays fighting for supremacy over that central area.
I zoomed in a little closer and received insight on the lay of the land.
Both armies had broken into each other's frontline with the most concentrated fighting centered between our respective second and third lines. Death and destruction had become a common sight as frenzied soldiers hacked and slashed at each other while magical projectiles launched from both armies bombarded the area in a blanket of arcane power.