Chapter 517 - 517: The Campaign Against the Big Yōkai Army

The daimyō, minus his nose and ears and half out of his mind, fled south from the north toward Kyoto.

It was over three hundred kilometres. Wounded and terrified, he'd only made it twenty-odd kilometres before he collapsed on the road, utterly spent, and passed out. Fortunately, a travelling merchant found him.

The merchant took one look at the man's clothes and knew he was a daimyō.

Travelling merchants were well-informed, and this one already knew the Mulberry Leaf Domain had been wiped out by the Big Yōkai. He immediately took the daimyō and hurried to Kyoto.

When the half-mad daimyō was brought before the Son of Heaven, the Son of Heaven was in the throne hall watching a dance.

A dozen or so dancing girls, faces thickly whitened and teeth lacquered black, were dancing with fans.

The Son of Heaven and his ministers were watching with great amusement.

Until the half-mad daimyō burst into the throne hall, shoved the dancers aside, and screamed like a lunatic:

"The Big Yōkai have destroyed a domain! The Big Yōkai have destroyed a whole domain!!"

The court was in an uproar. How could a daimyō conduct himself like this? And where were his nose and ears?

The ministers hurriedly pressed him for answers. The daimyō got out what he knew in broken fragments, then passed out.

The Son of Heaven, who'd been happily watching the dance a moment ago, now looked terrified.

A Big Yōkai over six metres tall. That was the biggest to appear in nearly a century!

The largest Big Yōkai in recorded history had stood only four metres tall, and it had taken a thousand elite spearmen forming a pike wall on open ground just to kill it.

Now there was a horror six metres tall, and it could command the other Big Yōkai. What were they supposed to do?

As the Son of Heaven panicked, one of his ministers stepped forward and said:

"Don't panic, Son of Heaven. First send scouts to see what's happening in the Mulberry Leaf Domain!

"The Mulberry Leaf daimyō has lost his mind. His word can't be fully trusted. He may be exaggerating!"

The Son of Heaven said quickly, "Yes, yes, yes! Send someone to scout it out first, scout it out!"

A dozen or so mounted samurai, each with three horses, galloped out through Kyoto's walls and headed north toward the Mulberry Leaf Domain.

Changing horses but never resting, the ten riders made the round trip in a day and a half and brought the news back to Kyoto.

Only, ten riders went out, and half a rider came back.

The samurai who returned was in a pitiful state. Both his legs had been bitten off, the stumps seared shut with fire. He'd been chained to his saddle, and his nose and ears had been gouged off.

The moment he saw the walls, he couldn't hold on any longer and fell from his horse.

The samurai guarding the walls rushed down and dragged him off the horse.

The wretched samurai gasped in a terrified voice:

"The Giant Yōkai is real!! He commands nearly five hundred Big Yōkai, and they've eaten the Mulberry Leaf Domain until there's not a living soul left!!

"Now the Giant Yōkai is leading his demon army toward Kyoto! They're going to devour every last person in Kyoto!!"

With those words, the samurai breathed his last.

When the news reached the Son of Heaven's hall, he panicked even worse.

"The Giant Yōkai truly exists, and he commands nearly five hundred Big Yōkai! What are We to do? WHAT ARE WE TO DO!!"

The Big Yōkai were extremely strong, and ordinary people struggled to deal with them.

Fortunately, most of these monsters acted alone, and a dozen or twenty people, or a hundred at most, could still kill one with spears.

But now one Giant Yōkai was leading five hundred Big Yōkai, all massed together on the attack. Quantity had become a whole new quality. Fifty thousand men might struggle to handle a horde like that!

The Son of Heaven was terrified out of his wits. This dreadful demon army was marching south right now, driving straight for Kyoto!

Would Kyoto go the way of the Mulberry Leaf Domain? Would it be devoured down to the last person?!

Just then, an extremely burly man stepped forward. He was the realm's great general.

The great general said, "Have no fear, Son of Heaven. Give me ten thousand armoured samurai and thirty thousand auxiliaries, and I will march north and do battle with the demon army!

"I will stop the demon army outside Kyoto! I will cut off every last one of their heads and offer them up at the Yōkai-Slaying Festival come spring!"

When the Son of Heaven heard that someone was actually stepping up, he hurriedly asked:

"Great general, are you certain of victory?"

The great general thumped his chest.

"I'll swear a pledge on my life. If I fail, I will commit seppuku to atone!"

"Excellent, excellent, excellent!!"

The Son of Heaven was overjoyed. He ran over and clasped the great general's hands.

"Someone! Bestow Our palanquin upon the great general. Let the great general ride north in Our own palanquin and crush every last Big Yōkai!!"

And so the great general marched north with ten thousand samurai from Kyoto and thirty thousand auxiliaries to attack the demon army.

The two sides met a hundred kilometres north of Kyoto. The great general's scouts reported that the demon army was moving south and that battle was imminent.

The great general knew this would be a meeting engagement. Looking around, he saw flat ground, mostly dry fields, the perfect place for one.

So he gave the order for his troops to form up in pike squares.

All ten thousand samurai carried six-metre pikes, made specifically for hunting Big Yōkai.

The pikemen formed three ranks, and their densely packed pikes made a forest of spears that the Big Yōkai would have a hard time getting near.

When the fighting started, all they had to do was push forward in their pike formation, and every Big Yōkai would die!

That was the theory. Reality had other plans.

Once the great general's troops had formed their pike squares, they waited quietly for the Big Yōkai to arrive. Before long, the Big Yōkai army came marching down from the north.

It was a demon host. Every Big Yōkai wore heavy armour stripped from the samurai of the Mulberry Leaf Domain.

An ordinary man could only wear one layer of armour, but the Big Yōkai were so massive that they hung four or five layers of plates on themselves. Add a height of over two metres, and every one of them was a heavily armoured warrior!

Besides armour, these Big Yōkai could use weapons too!

They carried doors torn from the houses of the Mulberry Leaf Domain as shields, and in their other hands they held clubs, sledgehammers, or great blades.

Compared to the bestial things they used to be, these Big Yōkai looked more like an army!

The instant this demon army of giants appeared, the ten thousand pikemen were thrown into alarm.

They'd thought they'd be facing naked monsters. They never imagined five hundred giant, heavily armoured warriors!

When the great general saw his men starting to waver, he shouted:

"Hold your ground, all of you! Don't panic! There are only five hundred of them, and there are forty thousand of us! We could bury them alive with our bodies alone!

"Raise your pikes! Level your pikes at them and send these damned demons back to hell!

"For the honour of the samurai! For the Son of Heaven!!"

The pikemen let out a war cry, and their shaky morale steadied.

But it hadn't been steady for long when the Big Yōkai began their attack.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!"

The horde of Big Yōkai let out all kinds of twisted, eerie laughter as they advanced step by step toward the human lines.

When they got within ten-odd metres of the samurai pike wall, they didn't attack right away. Instead, they began pulling human body parts out from behind their shields, off their weapons, and from all over their bodies!

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