“In this era of formation-based warfare, those who hold steady until the opponent breaks, wins. Of course, there are lunatics who took risks and tried to break the enemy formation instead of holding steady and outlasting them, but these rarely succeed, and if they do, rarely more than once.” - Seko Tu Mboma, noble and commander from Posuin, circa 530 VA.

Unlike when they were still with the Warforged, Alvaro and Njeri did not charge ahead on their own, entirely uncaring for their own lives. Instead, each of them brought four chosen subordinates with them, spearmen who were most skilled in close combat. The four were entrusted to guard their sides and back as they charged through the enemy formation relentlessly.

The move caught their opponents off guard like it did with the retinue of the noblemen they defeated back at Posuin. It was the norm in that day and age for a duel between formation to rely on which side could outlast the other, a battle of tenacity and discipline, a test of nerves to see which side would break down before the other.

To actively break apart one’s own formation to flank, encircle, and then strike deeply into the enemy formation were things that were typically attributed to gloryhound behavior that would only lead to self destruction. It was fine to pull maneuvers and the likes when one outnumbered their foe and could devote additional formations to do so, but to break apart one’s own formation in a clash was seen as suicidal.

Too bad for them, the Free Lances had long made an art out of the practice, and the former Warforged naturally learned from them as well.

Alvaro stepped forward with steady footsteps, his greatblade swinging around him in a blur that kept the enemy soldiers from daring to approach. The limbs and heads of those who had stepped too close served as testament to the fate that awaited any who dared to brave the whirling blade the young warrior kept in constant, circular motion around his body.

The very air made a whirring, near whistling sound as he brought his blade around him in rapid revolutions, making full use of the weapon’s prodigious length to keep his enemies at bay. While the enemy soldiers possess spears longer than his blade, they were not trained to use those against enemies within their formation, while those that drew their swords found themselves hopelessly outmatched by the length of Alvaro’s greatblade.

Given the shallowness of the enemy formation, it had not taken Alvaro long before he reached the backline where the enemy commanders were. The four enemy commanders still looked flustered at the situation of their army when he fell upon them and forced them to forget about commanding as they had to fight for their lives.

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While Alvaro was skilled, one against four was not as easy as it sounded, especially since the enemy’s high commander, the half-elven man, was just as skilled with the slender saber he wielded. In fact, Alvaro doubted that he could match the man in single combat should the man not be weighed down by his allies who often got in his way accidentally.

Fortunately he was not alone for long either.

Njeri and her group burst out from the enemy formation’s other side shortly after he engaged the enemy commanders in a fight, and the girl herself pounced at the fight from behind. The half-elven high commander had the instinct and awareness to notice the danger and managed to block the stab Njeri directed at him, but his colleague beside him was not as lucky, as the tip of Njeri’s crescent-bladed shotel slipped past his raised shield and entered his brain through his left eye.

Alvaro immediately redoubled his assault on the remaining enemy commanders, while Njeri kept the half-elf occupied. While Alvaro was better at dealing with crowds due to his fighting style and weapon of choice, he had no illusions and knew that Njeri was by far the better duelist between them. As such, he entrusted the one tough enemy to her as he took care of the rest, entrusting their backs to their teams.

It only took a few exchanges before one of the enemy commanders made a mistake and stumbled against the half-elf’s back by accident as he retreated, causing the older man to almost get himself skewered by Njeri. Before the flustered enemy managed to apologize or regain himself, however, Alvaro already struck, and his blade cleanly decapitated the man on the spot.

From there it was a two on two fight against a pair of opponents who had nowhere near the sort of tacit understanding he and Njeri had with each other after nearly two decades of training and fighting together. They cleverly maneuvered their opponents until the back of the other’s opponent was open to the other, then they struck simultaneously as they switched targets.

The sharpened point of the parrying stick built as a part of Njeri’s buckler stabbed through the throat of Alvaro’s last opponent from behind, while the half-elf only barely managed to avoid death from Alvaro’s whirling blade, escaping with a bleeding cut behind his right shoulder. Even though he escaped death for the moment, his fate was pretty much sealed.

After all, he was now injured, left alone, and fighting against both Alvaro and Njeri at the same time.

It only took the pair another fifteen seconds before Njeri managed to trap the half-elf’s blade between her shotel and her buckler, rendering him unable to defend himself when Alvaro’s strike arrived and nearly cleaved his upper body in half from shoulder to waist. The man teetered for another step before he dropped dead on the ground before them.

With all the enemy commanders wiped out, it was a trivial matter for the rest of the former warforged to encircle and eliminate the rest of their opponents. Some of the opposing soldiers saw the writing on the wall and threw away their weapons, kneeling with their hands raised high in surrender. Others were more stubborn and insisted on fighting until their last breath.

Some of the surrendering enemies were killed, not by the former Warforged, but by their own former comrades. All it resulted was an internal dispute that had the mercenaries simply watch from the outskirts before what was left of their enemies collectively surrendered, having slain those who slew the surrendering ones earlier.