Keeping an eye on the ward hovering over the eastern side of the Central Defense Line, Spade wiped his sword, grimacing with irritation at the copious amount of blood on it.
"That's a lot of blood, Vice-Chair," the shaman next to him said.
"Happens when you stab someone in the neck," Spade replied. "Anyways, keep at it with the ward."
Spade was almost surprised when he'd actually used the energy flowing through Joyce's circuits in a large-scale attack. He hadn't realized how much 'a truckload of energy' was until he'd channeled it into the ward, and then he'd thought it was maybe a bit overkill.
Then again, Joyce was just like their shamans, inexperienced and unskilled when it came to shaman-y stuff. Relying on things that used brute force and copious amounts of spiritual energy was their best bet. Even after dumping so much energy into two wards at once, Joyce wasn't tired at all. It was a pretty neat and bloodless arrangement that took care of the enemy from a distance. It was perfect for Joyce.
Spade ignored the whimpering from the enemy soldiers collapsed on the floor a few feet away and the screams from the fleeing soldiers in the other direction.
They'd placed in the ward between a chunk of the soldiers and the rest of the line to drive a wedge into the right side of the Central Defense Line. Part of the soldiers would flee East into the waiting Alliance soldiers, and the rest would flee West where they would cause a huge commotion throughout the Central Defense Line. Combined with his earlier attack on the left side of Central, it would hopefully cause the soldiers to panic.
The fact that Gu Feng was dead kinda helped too. Spade really hadn't expected to run into Gu Feng chilling with the night patrol guards. Sulking might be a bit more accurate though since that was what Gu Feng was doing.
Stabbing the warlord in the neck while the man was still sulking wasn't exactly the high road, but it was instinct, what could he do?
"Sir, you��re holding the sword really close to my face," the shaman next to him said, distinctly trembling.
"My bad," Spade said, putting it away. He climbed out of the truck and onto its roof, sword still unsheathed and slightly bloody.
He looked at the shamans openly staring at the blood on his hair, clothes, and sword.
"Put your backs into it!" Spade shouted. The shamans quickly turned back to their respective tasks.
'Gonna get moving in three, two, and one,' Joyce sent through their link. Another two wards shot into the sky about twenty miles away. 'I take East and you take West, meet in the middle?'
'You're in the North and I'm in the East, please let someone who knows the directions give orders. You just tell them when to put up wards and attack or whatever. Why's it just you? What about the other factions?' Spade sent back.
'They're slow and kinda miffed that we just went for it, so we're moving first. They'll probably catch up later. If not, they're on cleanup duty, not my problem,' Joyce sent to him. 'Let's just treat this as a trial run of the North. Oh, and check your phone, Kajio's coordinating for us.'
Spade let out a deep sigh and gestured for the driver to hand him a drink. He popped open a can of herbal tea with one hand and took a gulp, watching the sky intently.
"Vice-Chair! The tracking spirits say this area's clear!"
Spade nodded at the shaman who had given the report and shifted the position of the ward. Meanwhile, Joyce was mowing through the soldiers at a much faster rate by dumping enough energy into the ward to probably power an entire city for a year. Spade sighed and increased the energy in his ward as well.
For the second time in forty years, he'd left Canton to fight with little intention of returning, except that he was much better-armed this time.
"Everyone keep it together, you'll rest better if your enemies can't bomb you," Spade shouted into the communication radio.
He could sense Joyce breaking through the newly regrouped Eastern Defense Line, splitting it into two and forcing the left half to retreat towards the eastern flank of the Central Defense Line, where Spade was already wreaking as much havoc as he could. By the time the other factions got there, Spade thought they would have nothing left to do but take prisoners.
'Don't let them circle behind you,' Spade warned Joyce, thinking of the remaining half of the line she'd left her back turned towards.
'Mohan's got it, no worries,' Joyce sent back cheerfully with a mental image of Mohan setting things on fire with youthful vigor.
'Mohan's attacking right-most side with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th Brigades. Joyce pushing towards Central with 5th Brigade, Spade at Central with 4th Brigade,' the text message from Kajio popped onto their group chat. Spade prayed to the spirits that the one Kajio'd sent to the soldiers was a little more detailed than that.
'Upload a picture of Gu Feng's body to social media,�� the next text read. Spade shook his head and ordered a soldier to get it done.
'You should've tagged it but whatever,' Selva sent into the group chat. Spade dutifully ignored him.
'We've been really lucky today, so we should be extra careful recently. When your luck is good, something's off. Weird shit's about to go down,' Spade warned Joyce. She somehow managed to mentally send a thumbs-up.
Spade's fingers twitched around the hilt of his sword. The whole thing was long-range, none of them were actually getting close enough for him to use his sword on them. With the obvious exception of Gu Feng.
"Holy shit! Vice-Chair, the tracking spirits saw the enemy shamans! They've made their own wards but can't use them on a large-scale, so they're using small wards to shield a few combatants each," a shaman reported. "They're heading over here right now! Probably some kind of suicide attack."
Spade was somewhat impressed at their determination, but it was a little annoying that they were attacking instead of retreating as was the tactically right thing to do. Wu Peifu didn't have that many shamans, but the Alliance did. Taking out a few in a suicide charge wasn't really going to change anything in the long run.
"How many are there?" Spade asked. The shamans in charge of tracking quickly tried to get more information.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"There are eleven shamans, and they're shielding a total of about 100 elite soldiers," the shaman reported. Spade raised an eyebrow, looking around at his unit.
Most of the shamans were working on maintaining the ward, with twenty-five shamans left for tracking and defense.
"You guys," Spade pointed out thirteen shamans on defense duty who were particularly good at short-range combat. "Take out the shamans."
"Yes, sir!"
"And you guys," Spade waved at the remaining twelve. "Take out the enemy soldiers, I'll take care of a few myself."
"Yes, sir!"
Spade waved them to the front, jumping off the car to move in front of them. Even if all of them were trained, they were more jittery than pumped up after Spade had killed Gu Feng. To be fair, Spade had flung himself out the window of a moving car, backflipped to kick two soldiers in the face, and then stabbed Gu Feng in the throat after he'd spotted the warlord. Spade was probably at fault.
That was exactly why he intended to cut down whoever got too close.
At least that was Spade's intention, but everyone was pretty good at their jobs, or at least no worse than the enemy shamans. Wu Peifu was probably starting to give out orders now, but it didn't really matter to Spade either way – those orders were useless to the guys currently charging them.
Spade stood idly as the enemy stragglers were dispatched with brutal efficiency before signaling for the ward to be moved again towards where Joyce's wards were shining in the night sky.
----------------------------------------
Joyce moved the wards further west without looking up from her phone, chasing the Eastern Defense Line towards Spade and otherwise dropping the ones who didn't get away with nonlethal incapacitation.
Spade's social media post of Gu Feng's body had been removed for violating guidelines, but it had already been reposted pretty much everywhere. Thanks to that, his earlier videos had blown up too, and there were a few new photos of Spade looking cool on top of a car.
She couldn't believe he was going viral in the middle of a battle, but whatever.
"Chairman, there are a few dozen enemy shamans who are using wards to defend themselves and some soldiers! They're heading over right now!"
Joyce looked up at the shaman who had spoken. "Damn, how many are there? Why the hell are they even heading here, shouldn't they run North?"
The shaman hurriedly tried to get the information from his tracking spirits, before giving up and turning to the other trackers. He was tall and skinny, with glasses that perched crookedly on his nose and a timid expression. All of this served to make him look more confused and uncertain as he delivered the information.
"Um, probably around 25 shamans," the shaman said uncertainly. "Or thirty. Or more."
Joyce stared at him for a moment, silently judging him for his incompetency before giving up and focusing on the more important part. "Okay, and how many soldiers?"
The shaman fumbled a bit more before one of his colleagues took pity and cut in.
"Probably around 300," she said.
Joyce raised her eyebrows. That wasn't great, but not all bad either, they still had 25 shamans on defense duty.
"Alright, how about this, all 25 of you take on the shamans one on one, they'll have a harder time than you guys," Joyce ordered. She turned to the ward casters and grabbed ten more shamans.
"It'll be over soon enough," she said to their protests, "Take care of the soldiers and we'll be done."
"Disable all their weapons and then blast them," Kiyoko said fiercely.
"What Kiyoko said. All of you, start as soon as they're in range," Joyce ordered. She turned to grin at her bodyguard. Kiyoko carefully patted the pistol in her coat and smiled reassuringly.
Joyce moved the defense squad to the front, keeping the ward casters safely tucked behind. She stood in the middle, where the energy running through her circuits acted as a natural amplifier for the shamans.
The enemy was outnumbered, and the Flying Dragons' defense team had a larger range thanks to Joyce, but the enemy shamans were surprisingly competent and weren't all that easy to take out. The enemy shamans were super pumped up too, seeming to have some kind of weird death seeking urge pushing them on. Joyce had wanted to focus on the wards, but the enemy shamans set up a great defense until they were close enough to attack, and then kept Joyce's group on their toes.
Except for Joyce, who had just been standing there. She sighed and tossed several mini-cyclones in their direction and disabled the soldiers' guns with metal-spirits.
"Should I toss fire at them? But that's so violent," Joyce complained. "I may cause people to fall sick and feel like they'd rather be dead with my wards but I draw the line at immolation."
But her shamans had actually managed to find their footing while the enemy was distracted and finished the skirmish quickly. Joyce nodded in satisfaction. They did outnumber the enemy, it would be ridiculous if she had to step in again. Or how would the brigades ever hold their own in the North?
"Hey, um, just a quick question, how did you guys decide on who's on defense?" Joyce asked the shaman who had fumbled with his tracking spirit.
"Oh, the ones who were bad at casting got assigned," he said modestly. Joyce stared at him.
"Who the hell arranged that?" she asked in disbelief. Even she knew that was the best way to get everyone killed, and Joyce didn't even know who Zhang Zuolin's son was.
"We kind of decided it by majority vote," he said. The young man looked ready to cry, so Joyce gave up and patted him on the shoulder.
"Whatever, mate, we'll work on that later," Joyce said sympathetically. "What's your name again?"
"Han Gai," he said timidly. He glanced at the scene before them. "Also, I think we're done."
Joyce glanced at where the other shamans had made quick work of the remaining soldiers and grinned, trying to ignore the severed hand a few feet away. Even though she had wanted to reduce casualties and fatalities as much as she could, Joyce wasn't stupid. This much was necessary.
"Good job guys – gah!" Joyce let out a frightened squawk as one of the "dead" soldiers jumped up from the grass and hurled something at her face.
Kiyoko shoved her to the side with enough force to take down a politically incorrect statue. Joyce crashed into Han Gai, taking both of them to the ground. They both gaped in shock at the giant sword that had slammed into the car right behind where Joyce had been standing, leaving a huge-ass dent in the hood.
"Chairman, get down!" Kiyoko shouted, pulling out her gun and shooting at the soldier. She missed and quickly fired again, shooting the man in the head. The man crumpled to the floor, an un-thrown dagger still clenched in his hand.
Joyce stared at Kiyoko, suddenly very glad the older girl had come along.
"Make sure they're dead, you fuckers! What the hell are you being paid for?!" Kiyoko barked. The defense squad sprung into action. Kiyoko hurried back to where Joyce was still sitting on top of Han Gai.
"Chairman, are you hurt?!" Kiyoko asked.
"I'm fine," Joyce said. "That was badass. Also, who the hell still uses giant swords in this day and age?!" She gestured furiously at the sword that had nearly cleaved her in half.
"The Vice-Chairman uses a giant sword," Kiyoko said bluntly, grabbing Joyce's arm to pull her up. Kiyoko carefully looked Joyce over again before letting out a satisfied huff of air.
"Thanks," Joyce said sincerely. Kiyoko smiled and shook her head.
Joyce turned towards the defense squad. "Casters get back to casting, trackers get back to tracking! The rest of you, stay on guard and make sure no more people rise from the dead to chuck things at me, thank you very much." She walked closer to the guy who'd thrown a sword at her, peering at his face. The poor sword dude looked like your average stocky forty-year-old, making his dagger look out of place. After some deliberation, Joyce pulled it from his fingers and quickly walked back towards Kiyoko and Han Gai.
Satisfied that she'd handled the immediate problem, Joyce turned back to Kiyoko to offer more praise and a cool dagger for the older girl's trouble, but her bodyguard was already laying into Han Gai.
"What the hell did you say about being done again, you shitty excuse of a tracker?!" Kiyoko snarled into Han Gai's face.
"I'm sorry," he offered meekly.
"And you took so goddamn long with the information, do you even know how to use tracking-spirits properly?!"
"I'm really sorry! I'm sorry, Chairman!" Hangai turned towards Joyce tearfully. Joyce tilted her head to the side, something clicking into place in her brain.
'Kiyoko was hella hot.'
Not that, Joyce shook the stray thought out of her head.
'This kid's going to be important.'
She nodded in satisfaction. That was more like it.
"Kiyoko, let's calm down for now," Joyce said, patting both of them on the shoulder with a wide smile. "And Han Gai? I'm really interested in exactly what you can do. Why don't you leave the 5th Brigade and come with me?"
Joyce wondered why both of them looked vaguely creeped out but didn't think too much on it, continuing to smile until Hangai stammered out a tearful apology-agreement. She let her gaze drift to the giant sword lying on the floor, and back to the thin young man.
It was a good fit, she decided. Or at the very least, it would become one.