Herald of Steel

Energized by the death of the opposing king, Menes’s men slowly but surely pushed back from near the banks of the river all the way to the middle of the battlefield, while they let out fierce battle cries, and taunted demoralizing jeers, all of which turned the Tibians meeker and meeker, their defense turning tepid and soft.

And soon the front echelons of their phalanx unit even ceased to exist, as the doggedly determined Zanzan men thurst, stabbed, and slashed their way forward, inching ever closer to victory.

While at the epicenter of all this, the main place from which all this began, things were in a much worse state for the Tibians

Here, bolstered by Laykash’s act of heroism, his right wing pushed back hard against the opposing side like they had never done before.

And though Tibias’s front few rows held strong because they knew the full story and were among the best of the best troops the country had to offer, a lot of the rear echelons’ men began to leave the formation, thinning out their ranks.

This was because from these confused cavalrymen’s perspective, all they remembered was seeing a wounded man wearing the king’s armor being dragged to the rear.

And focusing on that scene, that was proof enough for many to abandon their ranks or even ride after the wounded man.

“Charge!”

So seeing this, Laykash ordered a general full frontal attack against the thinned lines, and predictably, after a few such strong attacks, the lines snapped, and immediately after initiated a full-fledged rout of Perseus’s left flank.

“Hahaha, the king is dead! So will be his lackeys!”

Laykash’s men cheered at seeing this, as they then jumped on these now defenseless rabbits with spears and swords, ripping the formation to shreds.

And once they finished dying their swords and spears blood red, and making the entire wing flee the battle, a total of 1,000 lay dead beneath them, with another 200 to 300 limping back to their camp wounded and injured.

Among them, many Tibian cavalrymen suffered injuries not only from the enemy but also from their own side, as in the chaotic escape many had gotten crushed and roughly pushed and shoved, causing a few to even fall off their horses and be trampled.

Hence at the end of it all, out of the original 2,000 men-strong formations, there were only seven to eight hundred (700 – 800) who managed to get away relatively unscathed.

And if the numbers were not horrific enough, to make the loss even worse, it was in this wing that resided many of the army’s senior officers and high-level nobles.

Most of whom were now either dead or incapacitated.

Thus it would not be wrong to say that it was one attack Laykash had managed to break the spine of Tibias’s army.

An entire country’s fighting potential crippled from just that one rout.

Laykash could have never imagined he would be able to inflict such pain with only 2,000 men.

And the man was yet to realize that.

Instead right now, with his side of the enemy routed, which meant that his right wing was now free and unchallenged on the battlefield, he focused on taking advantage of it, as this situation enabled him to freely swing around to the left and swiftly hit the center phalanx infantry’s unprotected left flank.

Which was exactly what he did, causing even more casualties as he smashed into them with a charge and started raining javelins on them, all while the allied infantry pushed from the front, creating a pincher attack

And so, a while later, with news of the death of their king, the routing of their left wing, and now being pressured by the enemy’s right cavalry wing, a collapse of the entire army seemed imminent.

“Yes! Charge men! Charge! Victory is ours!”

And observing all this from atop his horse, Menes could not help but let out bellow under bellow of cheering roars, his nose being able to almost smell the victory.

Even now he had trouble believing that he had somehow managed to change the tide of battle, his soldiers managing to push up from the very edge of the river bank all the way to the middle of the battlefield, the place where the battle had started.

‘A few more minutes and that’s it,’ Menes felt this victory had been already sealed in his name.

But you might ask, with all this happening, and with his army about to imminently melt, where was the one person who was proclaimed to be dead, the supreme commander of Tibians?

Well at first Perseus had been with Leosydas, personally using a cloth to press down on the wound and stymie the bleeding.

The man was much more than just a subject to the king, and for a while, Perseus had little state of mind to care about anything else.

Besides, he thought that since they were winning so handily, his being away for a small amount of time would not really matter. ．

‘We have already won. The soldiers will just need to keep pushing and the gates to Zanzan will be open for us.’ Perseus thought to himself, figuring that the low-level commanders themselves would be able to mop up the rest of the battle.

And so the man decided to stay with his best friend all the way until the on-site doctors arrived and finished patching the man up, stabilizing his condition and stopping the bleeding.

It was only then, after being reassured by the doctors the Leosydas will live that Perseus finally breathed a sigh of relief, and afterward bought his focus back to the battlefield.

But when he rejoined the battlefield, imagine his surprise to see the current state of it.

His army that he was sure should have been handily winning up until now was seen being pushed back like they were made of paper, his left flank had been smashed, and all while rumors of his death swirled about among the regular rank and file, with the opposing side even chanting creative, on the spot created songs about it.

For a while Perseus even suspected that he had accidentally joined the wrong side of the battlefield.

But it was what it was.

And seeing the absolute state of it, Perseus immediately got to work trying to rectify this.

His first action was to dispel the myth of his death, and so he quickly got up on his horse and started to run wildly along the battlefield, shouting at his soldiers from behind,

“I’m not dead! I’m not dead!”

“Here I am! Here I am!”

“Your king is alive! Your king is well!”

“Fight men! Do not lose heart!”

Perseus even took off his helmet to show his face to any soldier who cared to look.

But alas.

This tactic’s efficacy was too little too late.

And this was not because the soldiers did not believe him, but simply because it was a matter of the scale of the battlefield.

The battlefield was close to 3 kilometers long, meaning even at full gallop it would take Perseus about 5 minutes to ride end to end.

So imagine trying to make someone listen to you over such a distance with one’s bare voice.

Especially when there was an active battle going on.

There could have been another ten Perseuses running to and fro all across the battlefield shouting out the same thing and the soldiers still would not have been able to hear their king.

Thus soon it became apparent to both sides that Tibias losing this battle was imminent….if something did not change.

And here, seeing things that become dire, Perseus at last decided to play his trump card, or more accurately his only card.

He unleashed his reserve of 20 war elephants, 10 each to either side.

Now, prior to today, Perseus had never used these beasts.

He had heard stories of these beasts’ destructive potential before but most of those were overly embellished stories that were difficult to take seriously.

Like there was one book where he had read that the thundering charge of a horde of such beasts could smash mountains or change the paths of rivers.

Obviously, Perseus had not believed such a claim.

And so he had always been skeptical of their potency, which was why he had held them back in reserves.

The king did not want to use weapons he had never used before right at the start of the battle.

But now that things had gotten to this point, there was little point in hoarding these beasts.

Thus ordering the trainers of these beasts to charge forwards, Perseus maneuvered the six to seven tons mammoth creations of flesh and muscle to hit both the flanks of Meness’s wings simultaneously.

*Trumpet*!

*Trumpet*!

*Temupet*!

And when they were unleashed, these beasts did not attempt to hide their presence for a second, letting out loud, fierce cries as they charged toward their target as dictated by their trainer on top.

But curiously, for Zanzan, its troops initially did not even notice the advent of these beasts on the battlefield.

And this was totally normal.

After all, there was already so much noise, dust, and general chaos in a typical battlefield that one’s senses would be soon overwhelmed.

Who could say that was making that strange sound?

*Rumble*, *Shake*, *Rumble*

And so even the sharpest troops only began to feel something was wrong they felt the ground underneath them shake unnaturally, as their hearts began to produce a sinking feeling.