The long, stretched strip of land was completely devoid of any trees. It gaped like an ugly scar on the body of the forest, as all the trees had been ripped apart, burned, or driven straight into the ground.
All around, black craters gaped as revolting ulcers, as if someone had conducted an artillery barrage or the same mortar fire.
And from both ends of this bald patch on the body of the world, thousands of desperately screaming people armed with spears and swords ran towards each other. Even at such a distance, it was obvious that they were incredibly poorly dressed. Rarely did anyone have a full set of even ordinary clothes, let alone armor.
The long spears in their hands trembled fiercely and pointed higher or lower than necessary. Clearly, their skills left much to be desired. But it didn't matter - the spear is one of the simplest weapons in all of human history because it's much easier to kill with.
Stas shuddered with disgust when the unified sound of flesh tearing reached him.
Spears sank into ribs and bellies with a wet crunch. Those with swords swung them diligently, sowing death and terror around. Judging by their appearance and the presence of armor on almost everyone, they belonged to a much higher class. The living flesh, unprotected even by clothing, served as excellent lubrication for their blades.
As if that weren't enough, behind the infantry on both sides stood orderly ranks of archers, raining down arrows on both the infantry and each other. And the bows were simply huge, often almost the height of a man. Occasionally, one of the fighters would grasp the arrow protruding from his chest and fall to the ground, his place immediately taken by other archers, again forming a line.
Stas's vision, sharpened by adrenaline, allowed him to see in detail the tragedy unfolding before him.
The collar of his coat rustled, and near the nape of his neck appeared Levi's curious head. Initially, Ordyntsev was worried that she would try to crawl out completely, but the snake patiently remained in place, as if intently surveying the horror unfolding before her.
The earthling's attention shifted slightly further, where, off to the side, cavalrymen had converged in a life-or-death struggle.
Here, unlike the poorly armed and trained infantry, real professionals fought. Sturdy spears with tips that could not only pierce but also slash. Thick, richly decorated armor made in the form of wide square and rectangular plates. Quaint helmets, many of which flaunted gruesome masks.
Many of the riders drew long bows and began spinning in a frenzied dance, sending arrow after arrow into each other.
Nevertheless, the ferocity of the battle was in no way inferior to what was unfolding on the main battlefield.
But everything that was happening was overshadowed by what occurred when the trees at the opposite end of the clearing from Stas began to stir and rise upward.
Ordyntsev's eyes widened in awe as he watched a gigantic stone warrior rise heavily from the ground. Part of its back and head were covered with a forest that had not fallen off, creating a stunning green mane.
As if a terrible fairy tale had come to life, and magic, which belonged only in books and movies, forcefully burst into reality.
Suddenly, from somewhere below in the forest, dozens of evidently magical attacks struck. Stas doubted that the madness unfolding before him could be explained by technology.
The colossus's torso and legs were covered with bursting explosions. Among them, one could see electrical and fiery flashes. Occasionally, some blue projectiles appeared. Stanislav assumed it must be the remaining element - water.
An unbearable rumble once again shook the area, but the people cutting each other up already paid no attention.
Massive chunks of stone and earth spiraled downward, but the giant stood firm. The earthen figure covered its head with its left hand, so it took the brunt of the damage. Most of the fingers broke off, leaving a black, charred stump.
Nevertheless, the earth, obeying a powerful will, began to flow back to the golem's feet and rise, repairing the damage.
The owner of such a massive weapon was not about to just take hits. The right hand, which had hardly suffered from the bombardment, slowly aimed towards the attackers, and then from it, like from a machine gun, heavy stones and chunks of compacted earth flew out.
Considering their weight and speed, even a modern tank would feel uncomfortable after such a hit, let alone delicate human bodies.
Meanwhile, the battle did not stand still. Any semblance of organization that both sides had initially demonstrated was completely gone by the middle of the fight, replaced by uncontrolled chaos.
People furiously killed each other, oblivious to what surrounded them. Many scattered into the forest and continued to fight there. Half-naked bodies covered in blood and dirt ferociously attacked each other like beasts. Where weapons broke, fists, teeth, and stones came into play.
Stas realized too late what this could mean.
"Hey, you! Paleskin! Which daimyo do you serve?" The voice behind Stas was anything but friendly.
Ordyntsev spun around, rising to his feet.
The gazes of the two met. A disheveled hick dressed in a real ragged kimono, tightly holding a brown spear, and a neat, suspiciously silent pale man.
Suddenly, the spearman realized that the mysterious stranger was not only richly dressed but also a whole head taller than himself. This revelation only made the former peasant grip his spear tighter, responding with even more aggression to his fear.
"Answer, you pale dog, before I gut you like a fish!" Each word was accompanied by a threatening swing of the spear. Perhaps, in a normal situation, he would have been far more polite, but now, in the heat of battle, priorities were different.
At that moment, Stas was struggling with a throbbing pain in his temples and a sense of wrongness.
Somehow, mystically, he understood what the swarthy native was saying, but he shouldn't have. This knowledge had nowhere to come from, and the man's consciousness was in disarray, trying to put together a crumbling picture.
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This strange duality literally tore his head apart, preventing him from thinking.
However, Ordyntsev still managed to overcome bouts of nausea and focus on the spearman before him.
Words of an unknown language fell like heavy stones, which he struggled to turn over.
"I... Accidentally... Here... Appeared... I... Not... Daimyo."
Perhaps at that moment, the conversation could have turned peaceful. The peasant, in doubt, lowered his spear and worried that he almost attacked some noble. Who else could afford such rich and strange clothing?
But a bright flash of light that occurred behind Stas played a decisive role. It nearly blinded the spearman, making him feel an unpleasant helplessness.
The fear of death seemed to flip an invisible switch in the peasant's head, and he, uttering an inarticulate battle cry, lunged forward, spear extended.
Stas was saved only by his reflexes and the fact that his opponent was still seeing poorly.
The spear barely grazed the man's side, embedding itself in the compacted earth of a fallen slab.
Ordyntsev somehow remained on his feet after the sudden jerk. His mind was all mixed up, but it didn't stop him from realizing a simple truth - if he didn't take away the spear, he would soon feel it in his guts in full measure.
His stomach tightened at the prospect, and Stas charged forward, trying to intercept and wrestle the cursed piece of wood.
Unfortunately, the spearman had already recovered enough to notice the earthling's maneuver.
The spear whizzed and nearly planted itself in Stas's eye, forcing him to hastily dodge to the side. The enraged spearman, step by step, pressed the dodging and retreating man. Had a real warrior been in the peasant's place, it would have ended very quickly and sadly.
The spearman, on the other hand, hesitated and feared any unexpected actions from the supposed nobleman.
But such a dance with death couldn't last long.
Another blow - Stas miraculously let it pass by himself. But he celebrated too soon as the grimacing native quickly turned his weapon and struck Stas right in the head with the blunt side of the spear.
The man's world shook, and with a groan, he hit the ground, his elbow striking an inconveniently placed stone.
Above the writhing Stas loomed the triumphant peasant. His face was frozen in deep satisfaction - not every day did one get the chance to kill one of the cursed nobles unpunished.
The spear, like a guillotine, rose slowly. Stas, like a detached observer, watched the leisurely ascent, waiting for the inevitable strike. The tip of his own weapon of murder looked disgusting - poor steel, rough workmanship.
'Being killed by such a wretch is like being beaten to death with a club!' Stas thought last.
"Ah!" The swarthy local shrieked in fear, bending over and looking down. Ordyntsev's eyes widened as he watched his faithful Leviathan, which had fallen out of his shirt during the fight, now fiercely clung to the leg of her master's would-be killer.
The brave little snake writhed vigorously, delivering a plethora of "pleasant" sensations to the aggressor. Her coils tightly squeezed the dirty leg, trying to break it. The small snake, naturally, couldn't do it, but that didn't stop her from trying.
"Ah, you vile creature!" The peasant's fist powerfully crashed down on poor Levi's head, causing her to shudder from unbearable pain. Naturally so, as her length after the transition didn't even exceed one meter.
The second punch finally threw Leviathan off, making her lifelessly collapse onto the grass.
But her selflessness allowed Stas to staggeringly rise from the ground and then lunge at his distracted opponent. The first thing the man did was grab the spear, preventing it from being directed at himself.
Everything turned black and red. In Ordyntsev's perception flickered the unnaturally wide eyeballs of the spearman, but then the world spun rapidly.
The frenzied earthling knocked his enemy to the ground and immediately bore down on top, pressing the native's own spear shaft to his throat and beginning to strangle him.
Despite the blow to the head, Stas was physically much stronger than the peasant, who had been undernourished or starved all his life. Moreover, his ancestors lived the same way.
Everyone knows that people of the past lived much shorter lives, but few consider how devastating a lack of nutrition in childhood can be to a population's health.
If, at first, the struggling on the ground spearman tried to push away the suffocating spear, then later, freeing one hand, he began to scratch and hit Stas in the face in a mad hope.
Countless cuts and abrasions from the native's black nails covered the face of the enraged Ordyntsev, who incoherently gasped in the face of his unsuccessful killer.
In the man's head, he furiously screamed, but the convulsing lungs only squeezed out this painful gasp.
As if mocking the earthling who had arrived in this world, the clouds dispersed, joyfully illuminating the surrounding cruelty. The bright sunny day allowed one to see all the details of the atrocities abound.
As if reality itself laughed at how sentient beings, by their own choice, so intoxicatingly cut, strangled, and killed each other.
Eventually, the body twitching under Stas went still. The corpse's eyes seemed to bulge out, the mouth opened in a frozen scream, and the fingers curled like broken tree branches.
Stas released the spear and tiredly sat down next to the dead man. This short struggle had drained him of all his strength.
"Khra-a-ah!" A hollow breath nearby made Stas nearly have a stroke. Ordyntsev looked incredulously at the peasant, who at that moment was breathing quite successfully, still reaching for the spear!
"When will you finally calm down, bastard!" At that moment, as if on cue, a stone that he had earlier hit his elbow on appeared under Stas's hand. "Just die already!"
Perhaps the revived, unfinished spearman was simply trying to remove the spear from his throat, or maybe he was indeed reaching for the weapon to deliver an unexpected blow.
The enraged Stas didn't care. Seizing the enemy by the collar of the kimono, which was about to tear, the man began to strike blow after blow with the stone directly into the opponent's head.
At some point during this savage execution, Stas recalled what the human skull looked like, so the next hit targeted the temple.
He didn't remember how long this frenzied state lasted. But it was clearly enough for the stone he held in his hand to be completely stained with blood, and the enemy's face to cease to exist.
"I hope you're dead now," the parched lips of the man whispered, and he somehow got up, moving towards the only thing that was important in this world.
Levi's little body was still defenselessly lying on the grass. Stas fell to his knees and carefully picked her up by the head and body. She was so small that she fit entirely in his palms.
'She's still breathing!' Stas sat down on the ground and placed his savior on his knees.
"Please, Levi, don't die," for the man at that moment, only his injured pet existed. The only quivering thread that connected him to the old world.
Ordyntsev's fingers trembled slightly as he stroked his favorite. He felt a burning shame that Leviathan had suffered because of him.
Did snakes ever protect their owners? Stas had not heard such stories. This only strengthened the earthling's belief that his pet was special.
Perhaps he needed to run away right now. After all, where there's one soldier, there could be a dozen. In such a state, he would hardly cope with even one more. But Ordyntsev couldn't bring himself to stand up.
Nevertheless, he was lucky, and no one came here. This time was just enough for Stanislav to come to his senses.
The battle, meanwhile, had somehow imperceptibly begun to subside. Stas peeked out from behind the now so-familiar earth slab and saw no sign of the stone giant in the distance. But the aftermath of that magical fight was clearly visible.
The entire horizon was shrouded in black columns of smoke from the grimly burning forest tracts. What wasn't burning was torn apart by explosions and other unknown attacks.
Especially impressive were the multi-meter stone spikes sticking out here and there, like the mythical fangs of a dragon. They were matched in size by a couple of glaze hills that looked as if a wave from some typhoon had instantly turned to ice.
Seeing the extent of the destruction, Stas involuntarily felt an unpleasant chill run down his spine.
The battle of ordinary people had also come to an end. The left side, whose flags depicted three intersecting circles, had won.
Though Stas would call it a Pyrrhic victory. There were literally only a few survivors among the winners. Even those nobles had been considerably thinned out.
Their opponents, with a flag showing a circle with three protruding crosses, were forced to flee, saving their lives.
However, it was easier said than done, as all surviving riders chased after them, slashing and piercing the backs of those who sought refuge in flight.
The only hope for the losers was to get lost among the trees.
Right now, all surviving infantrymen wandered the battlefield, finishing off the wounded.
Ordyntsev suddenly realized that if nothing was done, he would soon face another serious problem.