Leifor's Seas.
A Gra Vakian destroyer of the Lichsten class was tailing a corsair sailboat that had kidnapped a group of civilians from the occupied territories with the intention of selling them as slaves.
Although the destroyer could easily sink the corsair with one of its three 127mm cannons or with any of its 24 25mm anti-aircraft guns, they couldn't do so because they had to rescue the slaves who were natives belonging to the farthest and less protected Gra Valkian colonies due to the lack of infrastructure to send troops or dockyards.
It didn't seem to be a difficult task, but the corsair captain threatened to sink his own ship with all the captives inside by detonating their magical gem stores. So, even though the Lichsten-class destroyer could easily catch up with them, it had to keep its distance to avoid the ship exploding. Normally, they might risk getting closer and boarding, thinking the threats were empty, but this situation had occurred twice before, and on both occasions, the corsair captain had chosen to immolate himself and his crew, so the threats were very real.
"Captain Ralph, the corsairs are about to enter Muans' waters. Entering with a warship would be seen as a provocation." One of his subordinates said.
"We can't let them escape. If we catch them, we can find out where their bases are." The captain replied as he continued to watch the wooden vessel.
"Sir, we've received a message via radio. It's not an imperial frequency." One of the radio operators reported.
"It seems the Muans found out about our presence faster than we thought. Put the message through."
After the operator connected and disconnected some cables and adjusted the frequency, he transmitted it on the bridge.
"This is the captain of La-Shikibe, Larok, you are entering Mu Republic's territorial waters without authorization. Turn back immediately, or you will be considered hostile."
La-Shikibe.
On a Muan destroyer weighing 987 tons and measuring 83 meters in length, armed with three 102mm cannons, two 37mm anti-aircraft guns, and two torpedo tubes, the Muan Captain was approaching the location of the pursuit to intercept both ships.
Captain Larok, a middle-aged human showing signs of baldness, watched as the corsair vessel approached. "What do you think they've brought us this time?" He asked someone standing beside him, a demi-human with porcupine-like attributes who was dressed formally.
"I just hope it's not a waste of time like the previous cargo. Our advancements in biology, anatomy, and other fields are already quite advanced with regular humans and demi-humans. We've even exhausted the knowledge we can extract from the elves, except for the Silvan elves."
"However, Mirishial specifically prohibited us from using those types of elves. It was 200 years ago when they warned us not to do it, or they would turn Otaheit into glass using core magic." The captain nodded.
"Captain! We have a message from the Gra Valkians. They claim to be pursuing a slave ship that attacked their shores and that they have the right to retrieve the slaves and punish those who abducted them."
"Hmph, it seems that if we allow the corsairs to dock in our ports, we'll begin a diplomatic crisis with the Gra Valkians..." The captain pondered, knowing that a conflict was looming, but trying to initiate it when they were unprepared wasn't the best course of action.
"Tell the Gra Valkians that we will board the ship to investigate." said the porcupine-like individual. "Let's see if this cargo is worth starting a conflict or not.
Corsair ship.
Captain pirate Harluk was sweating when he was informed that a Muan boat was going to oversee the cargo. He immediately began organizing those he had captured, arranging them so that the Muan envoy could see the best specimens.
"You didn't need to come in person, sir." He said, quite nervously, as he received the porcupine-like envoy. "I am well-known in the Third Civilization for delivering quality products, and-"
"You're not in the Third Civilization, pirate. Show me what you have so I can decide whether it's worth defending you or not," The envoy said, getting straight to the point.
"O-of course, sir, this way." Descending into the ship, men and women were separated in different cells.
He observed the captured people: demi-human canines, felines, some humans, and an elven family. As he inspected the merchandise, some looked at him defiantly, some with sadness, and others pleading.
"The classic feline girls never cease to be popular; I'm sure your buyers will be very-" The captain tried to promote his cargo but was interrupted by the Muan envoy.
"Is this all you have?" The Muan seemed uninterested in everything presented.
"S-sir?" He asked, somewhat confused.
"I asked if this is all you have."
"Y-yes, sir, we brought the maximum capacity of slaves we could-"
"I'm not talking about quantity." He interrupted again. "I mean the variety of species or demi-human races. Everything you have is too common."
"Oh, I see. Are you looking for something exotic? W-well... I do have some half-fish demi-humans in my crew." He tried to convince the Muan to protect them.
"Quite interesting, but not enough to start a diplomatic conflict to protect you."
"Please, wait! This cargo is very valuable, and-"
"Nothing here is of use to us. We're done." The envoy said, turning to leave.
"I said wait!" The corsair captain pulled out a pistol to aim it at the envoy. "You're going to tell the captain of your ship to defend us, or I'll shoot!"
"... If you choose to threaten me with a pistol instead of blowing up the ship, it means you had no intention of doing it, right? You're not one of our corsairs, are you?"
"No... our intention was to sell the slaves to Parlpadia. We took advantage of the fact that pirates here are crazy enough to immolate themselves before being captured and decided to play that card to get away with it."
"That explains it; otherwise, you wouldn't have tried to sell me such boring specimens."
"Tell your ship to defend us!" The corsair captain was losing patience.
"... Do you know why our pirates prefer to sink their ships rather than be captured?" the Muan asked.
"Because they don't want people to know that you're behind the attacks and that you're still buying slaves, even though it's prohibited?"
"Everyone knows we finance them; it's an open secret." He cracked his neck slightly.
"... So why do they do it?"
He simply shrugged, indicating that he didn't really know. "Maybe they're just too committed or afraid of what we would do to them if they failed. I don't know, but what I do know is that if you pull the trigger, you'll end up much worse than surrendering to the Gra Valkans."
"You're savages!" A human woman said to both of them. "When our emperor finds out about this, he'll destroy both of you!"
This caught the attention of the Muan envoy, who approached the woman's cell. "You... are a resident of the Gra Valkas Empire and not a native of this world?"
"I am! And when everyone finds out that it's you who infiltrates-"
"Are there more Gra Valkians here?" He asked, interrupting her.
"Tsk, fuck you you asshole!." She spat at him through the cell.
The porcupine-like envoy simply wiped the spit from his face without flinching. "Change of plans, we'll take all the human captives to see if anyone else is a Gra Valkian."
"D-does this mean we're under Mu's protection?" Asked the corsair captain, lowering his weapon.
"It does... if you hadn't threatened me." The envoy said before firing some 25cm-long spines from his body into the corsair captain's abdomen.
"A-agh!" Screaming in pain, he dropped the weapon and sat down heavily. "Help!"
Trying to call his crew, the Muan approached him. "No one will help you." He said before firing another sharp needle into the captain's throat.
Then Muan soldiers entered, waiting for orders.
"Take the humans on the boat." He ordered.
"What should we do with the others?" The soldier asked, looking at the remaining prisoners in their cells.
"We can't allow them to inform Gra Valkas that we're taking their citizens. Blow up the ship with them inside."
Upon hearing this, all the other prisoners began to scream, begging not to do it and to let them escape.
"Please! Don't leave us here!" One cried.
"Please, let my son out of here!" begged an elven woman.
However, the Muan soldiers paid no attention to their pleas and simply took the humans.
"Release me, you fucking pig bastards!" Shouted the Gra Valkian woman, trying to break free. When she emerged on the deck, she saw the pirate sailors lying on the ground, convulsing or extremely weak. Some were vomiting, and others seemed unconscious, with foam coming from their mouths. None of them could move. "What happened here?... What are you going to do to us?..."
"We will extract blood, marrow, run laboratory tests... dissect you to see if there is any difference between the humans of this world and yours." He replied as they placed her on the boat powered by the wind god's tear. Once they had distanced themselves from the ship, it exploded, eliminating everyone who remained on board.
Lichstein-class Destroyer.
The captain watched from a distance as the ship exploded.
"Dammit! What the hell did those Muans do?!" He pounded his fist on the command bridge table with force.
"We have a message from the Muans: We did everything we could to peacefully resolve this situation, but negotiations failed." the radio operator explained.
"These sons of bitches... Send lifeboats to see if there are any survivors!" The captain ordered, but the operator went back to the sea.
"Captain... the Muans have repeated the message, warning us to stay away from their waters."
"To hell with their warnings! That outdated ship won't stop us from searching for even the slightest piece of information!"
La-Shikibe.
"It seems the Gra Valkians are ignoring our warnings." The captain of La-Shikibe observed as the foreign destroyer approached.
"Let them inspect the splinters that the corsair ship has become. We have Gra Valkian specimens on board, and we need to take them to the laboratories in Otaheit for study," said the demi-human porcupine.
"Screw you and all the lunatics from the R.D.D. This is a diplomatic matter, and you have no jurisdiction over it!. This warship is entering the Republic's waters, ignoring the warnings." Responded the captain, who simply wanted to do his job.
"This destroyer won't be able to defeat that ship on its own. All you'll do is jeopardize vital Mu assets."
"Tsk... Fire warning shots! We can't just retreat without taking action."
And so, La-Shikibe fired a couple of shots, and the projectiles landed in the water about 250-400 meters from the target before moving away.
The Gra Valkians couldn't find any survivors to provide them with information.
This would be the first of many clashes they would have with the Muans.
Continent of Grameus.
Hannes kept his head down in the trench as he searched for any opening that would allow him to shoot the demons descending from the sky. His Gra Valkian rifle had its bayonet attached in case any of the demons attacking from the ground managed to breach the trenches.
And that's exactly what happened. One of the demons made it inside and lunged at him, but Hannes managed to drive the bayonet into the creature's throat.
"Livingstone! Report on the situation now!" He ordered.
"We're being overwhelmed by the number of enemies! Johan and his team are dead!" The soldier replied as he tried to keep the demons at bay with his 8mm submachine gun, firing at a rate of 800 rounds per minute.
"What about reinforcements?" Hannes asked, shooting another demon that entered the trench. There was hardly time to breathe.
"They're on their wa-" He tried to say, but was interrupted when blades from a flying demon swiftly severed his neck, decapitating him in an instant.
"Shit!" Hannes went to retrieve his submachine gun and its magazines. Taking cover to reload the weapon, he emerged again to shoot the demons with it.
His men were under increasing pressure, with more and more demons entering the trenches, appearing from all directions.
Hannes had no choice but to put his back against the wall, hold the submachine gun with one hand, resting it on his hip, and shoot from there to reduce recoil. With the other hand, he drew his pistol to fire in different directions at the demons who had surrounded him. Many demons lunged at him but quickly fell to his shots.
However, as quickly as he killed enemies, his magazines ran out just as fast. No more than 6 seconds passed when he needed to reload, but the demons were not going to allow him to do so.
Hannes drew his knife, hoping to take out one or two more, but soon he noticed several shadows emerging from the ground. They were too large to be the shadows of flying demons. The demons also noticed and stopped their charge to look at the sky. These shadows were from wyverns who began to breathe fire on the oncoming enemy hordes, incinerating them.
The demons seemed to be contemplating retreat, as they didn't attack Hannes. However, that moment of hesitation was fatal for them because they soon saw one of the wyverns flying near the trench where they were. It didn't breathe fire, but it dropped something in front of the Gra Valkian soldier.
What fell was a person, a man in full-body metal armor who landed on his knees and quickly rose in front of the demons. He stood at a towering 1.90. In his hands, he appeared to be holding some kind of firearm.
Upon seeing him, the demons resumed their charge, but the knight pulled the trigger of his weapon, aiming it at them. From the mouth of the gun, a blue blaze consumed the demons in his path.
"A flamethrower?!" Hannes exclaimed, surprised. The knight didn't seem to be carrying a fuel backpack on his back.
Once he made sure that all his enemies were incinerated, he stopped firing and continued on his way to search for more demons that were still in the trenches, not bothering to look at or say a word to Hannes.
"Hey! Wait!" Trying to keep up with him, Hannes soon looked up at the sky again and noticed that the wyverns flying had more of those knights with them, dropping them at different points on the front.
He soon noticed that in front of them was another soldier, this time a Leiforian, who was also being cornered by demons. The knight aimed his weapon to fire.
"Wait! You're going to kill him too if you use that-"
But the knight ignored him and pulled the trigger. Hannes expected a blue blaze to consume the demons and the soldier, but that didn't happen. Instead, multiple streaks of blue light began to shoot out, striking the demons and causing their limbs to explode. Despite firing at a high rate, Hannes could see that the shots were not automatic. The knight pressed the trigger with each shot and quickly aimed at another demon for the next shot, ensuring not to hit the Leiforian soldier by mistake.
It didn't take long for this group of enemies to be destroyed, and the knight soon continued his search for demons without even bothering to say a word to the person he had saved.
"Hannes! Is that you?" The Leiforian soldier approached the Gra Valkian, appearing completely exhausted and agitated.
"Yes, it's me," Hannes said, taking out a canteen to give to his companion. The Leiforian soldier drank the water desperately. Hannes noticed that this soldier was the one who had made of guide in Topa and Grameus. "Do you know who those guys are?" He asked, pointing in the direction of the knight, who had started firing again.
"Magikaraich." the Leiforian responded after entering a bunker and taking cover to reload his weapons and check that nothing had been damaged. "A city-state from the second civilization. They possess the second most relics of the ancient Ravernal Empire. The only reason they're not a major power is their small population and the inability to project their strength beyond their borders. But invading them is impossible."
"What about that weapon? It changed from a flamethrower to a rifle in an instant!"
"What I'm about to tell you are rumors. They say the Magikaraich conducted an experiment that gave their soldiers such a large reserve of magic that if they tried to use it through traditional spells, they'd go out of control and die. These weapons allow them to extract pure magic from their bodies for combat in the form of projectiles or blue fire."
Hannes wanted to continue asking, but soon they had to go back out to combat again.
They could see bone spears being thrown at the knights, but they simply shattered upon impact against their heavy armor. They soon saw a flying demon diving toward the knight.
"Watch out!" Hannes tried to warn him, but it was too late. The demon descended at high speed, attempting to tackle the knight and make him fall to the ground. However, the knight didn't fall. He grabbed the winged demon with his hands, holding its wings, and with one swift motion, he tore them off. The demon let out a blood-curdling scream of pain while trying to use its sharp claws to tear through the armor. But the armor didn't tear; on the contrary, the demon's claws were shattered.
The knight grabbed the demon by the neck with one hand and struck its face with the other, smashing its skull and leaving the metal gauntlet soaked in blood.
However, the brief moment in which he stopped firing was enough for the demons to pounce on him, several with murderous intent.
"Damn it." The Leiforian soldier aimed at the knight to shoot the demons who were trying to remove his armor. One of them tried to take his sword and draw it to use against him, but he couldn't do it. A magical seal on the hilt prevented the sword from leaving its scabbard if its owner didn't do it.
"What are you doing?! You could hit him!" Hannes exclaimed as he pushed the gun's barrel in another direction.
"These armors can withstand the shots! Nothing will happen to him!" the Leiforian replied. But at that moment, the knight freed himself from the grip of his enemies to take his sword. He cut down all those who were close as if it were a butcher's knife against a slab of lard.
Limbs flew in all directions, and the demons began to hesitate to attack, even though they had lunged without hesitation at rows and rows of entrenched machine guns. When they saw those armors, they hesitated. Something about those armors felt... familiar to them. And the fact that those knights didn't utter a single word.
"Incredible..." was all Hannes could say as the enemies were massacred.
"Lucky for us, there are only ten thousand of them... Otherwise, the entire second civilization would have fallen to them." The Leiforian soldier said, swallowing hard.
The twelve Magikaraich knights took care of sweeping away all the demons that had infiltrated the trenches, while the others regrouped. Soon, with the support of these knights and the wyverns, the demons began to retreat, leaving behind piles of corpses.
"So... do we have 23 casualties today?" Hannes asked, looking at 23 bodies piled on top of each other.
"Manstein and Luger are still missing, Sergeant."
"... Damn it, how many of ours are fit for combat?"
"Only two hundred and sixteen out of the nine hundred that the imperial government decided to send..."
"More than half of the battalion has fallen in combat or is incapacitated for fighting... If they don't send reinforcements soon, the 567th infantry battalion of Gra Valkas will cease to exist." Hannes said to himself.
"Excuse me, are you Hannes Meyer, a sergeant in the volunteer battalion of Gra Valkas?" A man dressed in black, a member of the Order of the Defenders, asked.
"I am." He said, looking at the man out of the corner of his eye, annoyed that he wouldn't allow him to pay tribute to the fallen without giving him another mission.
"Maester Joseph seeks a meeting between you and Colonel Marduk, the overall commander of the Muans' forces in Grameus. It's an important summons."
"... Just what I needed, I'll have to work with those damn lunatics... Well, let's go. The sooner we get this over with, the better."
"I share your aversion to the Muan soldiers." The one who delivered the message replied, then turned around and began to walk. Hannes followed him.
As they made their way to the main fortress located at the continental crossing, they had to pass by a Muan camp.
Hannes could see out of the corner of his eye how the Muans had brought several demon bodies with them. The smell of blood permeated the area, and the fact that the Muans were cutting the corpses only made the smell more intense.
"I have a good liver." Hannes overheard a Muan soldier say. The Gra Valkian sergeant made the mistake of turning to see.
To his horror, he could see a group of Muan soldiers approaching a man who had just removed the liver from one of the demons' bodies.
"Finally! I've been looking for one in good condition," one of them said while the one with the liver cut a piece of it to hand it over.
In this crude manner, the Muan soldier brought the piece of liver to his mouth when the liver was completely raw. Hannes quickly averted his head to avoid seeing it. His stomach wouldn't have allowed it. He was so pale from the disgust that the Muan soldiers considered demon meat a delicacy.
But what was strange was that only the Muans could eat them. Anyone who was not from Mu and dared to try it would quickly become ill and was likely to die within 48 hours. However, the Muans appeared to be immune to these effects. This made no sense to Hannes. After all, the Muans were not a single race; there were numerous humans, demi-humans of all kinds, elves, and other species living in that country and among the volunteers. Yet they all seemed equally immune to the toxic effects of demon meat.
Seeing this reminded him of something a Leiforian guide who had accompanied them had once told them about Mu: "If you ever travel to Mu, always, and I mean always, make it clear that you're a foreigner when ordering your food in a restaurant."
