"Now, assuming my university lectures were correct…" I muttered to myself, pulling up my old lecture notes as I waited for the statues to get in formation. "Battle of Hattin, Saladin's forces: 12,000 askar, and 30,000 horse archers…"

Looking across the monitors at Rider's army…

"Hmm, safe to say the numbers aren't one to one here. Not that it matters, really. Jerusalem raised 1,200 knights, 4,000 turcopoles and 15,000 infantry. Now here I sit, facing a scaled down version of the army they faced, true, but with only 500 men. Also, these lunks probably move slower than the knights..."

So then, what were my advantages?

"…Well, he can't set my camp on fire. …Because I don't have one. Also, doubt that a simple fire could melt Caster's statues… I don't have a rear guard to be baited into a suicidal charge. I don't have to worry about securing supplies. I don't have a giant fuck off wooden cross to drag around."

Though, honestly speaking…

"Biggest advantages are that I don't have to worry about morale or my formations breaking on me. Nor am I the one who has to worry about the clock."

Yes, this was Rider's world. His battlefield. His advantage. But also, his weakness. His world, his magical energy consumption.

"The moment this world shatters, the existence of magecraft is likely be revealed. As such, it's highly probable that this world will only come down with either my defeat, or Rider's end. All I need to do is play to the late game."

…My specialty.

"…Dr. Pepper, Pop Tarts, and painkillers" I couldn't help but laugh slightly as I reached for my pill bottle. "The three P's of survival… Oh, how I've missed these kinds of nights."

While I couldn't get an exact count on Rider's army, I was willing to guess it was in the tens of thousands. Which really made me wonder… how long could Rider keep this up. Sure, I doubted all those summons, or any of those summons for that matter, were proper Heroic Spirits, but still. Just the sheer quantity of summons must be quite the upkeep costs…

"…Either he's confident that he can crush my army swiftly, or the priest is waging his command spells in this battle."

…I hope it's the latter. One should only take to the battlefield if they were willing to put everything on the line. Otherwise, they had no business being present.

"…Going for a wide encirclement, personally leading from the center…" I kept a careful eye on Rider's advance as I skimmed though more of my old lecture notes. "History truly does repeat itself, huh? Predictable, but practical in most cases. Perhaps he can't be fault-"

And that's the first volley of arrows. Fucking composite recurve bows… The range on those things was absolutely ridiculous. Didn't even get the statues to raise their shields in time! Luckily, they were aiming for the statues themselves, and not the control units.

…Though, I suppose it was good to know this early that their arrows were basically useless if they hit the statues themselves. I actually wasn't sure as to what kind of firepower they would have, being fired by some kind of spirit.

Not that Rider was stopping his advance, but… was that a look of surprise on your face, Rider? Surely, you didn't think I was coming with a human army, did you?

"Shame we couldn't get them to use bows with this control systems" I sighed as another volley rained down on my formation as the horse archers circled around the sides. "All I got to work with are shields and clubs! Being able to return fire would have been nice…"

Ah well, just protect the control units on the statues. Most of them were in decent places. …Most of them.

"Come on… just come in a bit more…"

…Got him.

"Switch track."

"Playing track: Theme of Suspense."

"A predictable move, Rider" I laughed as entrances to the labyrinth opened up by the circling horse archers. "But I hope you didn't think I'd put the entirety of my forces on display for you!"

Ah, now that was what I liked to see! The beauty of Daedalus: ambushes from any direction! But damn, the horses even made death noises when they got clubbed. Here I thought they'd just fade away, being silent shades. Guess they're no different than the more human kind of spirits, huh...

"That's it. Now, assault group one falls back into the labyrinth… Main body, push forward! Assault group three, rush out! Right wing, close ranks! Left wing, pivot! Keep the control units protected in the middle. Group four-"

Before I could even give the orders for the trap to be sprung, Rider was already having his forces begin to pull back.

"Ok then. Main body, halt! Group one reposition, door seventeen… Group seven, switch to door thirteen. Group three, keep pushing. Return through door seven."

Now to wait and see what Rider does next…


A/N

I'm back!

Also, two parts! Yeah, get used to this for the next little while. Between this fight and the other fight that's close to starting, there's going to be a lot of perspective changing, so the individual parts are going to be smaller. As such, expect 2 or maybe even 3 parts per upload until... well, until I say otherwise, I guess xD

As always, thanks to everyone who made it this far! Hope you're all still enjoying this thing, and I'll see you all next post o7