Nishinomiyako, western castle.

On the same day that President Cristobal was going to give his speech, a battle was developing between the Parlpadian invasion forces and Fenn's forces.

"Fuck! Open fire!" Commanded the daymio to his ashigaru who were firing the Monique muzzleloading rifles provided by Leifor. They were defending the western castle which was the only thing stopping the Parlpadian troops from reaching the city.

Although about five thousand soldiers were defending the castle, there were only 200 rifles that could fire from one to three shots per minute, so they still depended on the 900 yumi archers, with 2 meter high bows with a range of 150 to 200 meters, as the main method of defense.

Although the Parlpadians had a considerable advantage in firepower, their karlslinger muskets had a much shorter effective range than the Monique. The Leiforian rifles had a range of 600 meters while the muskets had a range of 250 meters. Of course, the Monique could not fire accurately beyond 300 meters but it was still lethal at those distances, the Parlpadians proved lethal when advancing against their guns in large formations, so high accuracy was not necessary.

"Ashigaru riflemen! On the right flank are concentrating the enemy, in position!" The daymio felt a cannonball hit next to him, blowing up pieces of wood and stone. "Tsk, head behind the battlements! Those musketeers are already under the wall!"

Although the defenders were vastly outnumbered there was still a way they could emerge victorious. They must hold out as long as they could and cause as much damage as possible until reinforcements arrived.

The Daymio knew that this Parlpadian attack force did not invade in full force, it would have been impossible for them to attack by surprise if they had moved too many transport ships and brought in their dragon-carriers. This meant that the vast majority of the troops they brought were actually light infantry, some light guns and maybe a couple of land dragoons, plus bringing a lot of troops and heavy equipment would have completely slowed down their landing, risking detection by that Falklands submarine.

The experienced warrior could see that the plan was to take Nishinomiyako first with a reduced force as soon as possible and use that port to unload the heavy equipment as quickly as possible before the Falklanders noticed and intervened, which meant that if they did enough damage when the reinforcements arrived they could push them back out to sea.

"It's easier thought than done..." He said to himself, once the enemies got under the wall, or if they could find some cover at a distance of at least 200 meters then they would unleash suppressive fire on the defenders, Fenn's soldiers would take a great risk by leaning out to try to take aim, causing more Parlpadian soldiers to close in, the archers and riflemen could no longer keep firing effective.

Soon, a series of explosions began to occur at the top of the walls, those explosions were not caused by the Parlpadian cannons, the same enemy soldiers began to recite incantations that caused their magic projectiles to explode, sweeping the defenders upstairs.

"Damn it! Leave the walls! Prepare for a melee battle!" Soon the defenders retreated to the interior of the palace, taking positions to ambush the parlpadians forcing them into a melee fight, riflemen were also placed at the end of corridors where some of those ambushes were found, Welcome them with a mighty barrage so that the swordsmen will eliminate the rest.

"The Parlpadians are not going to risk setting fire to this castle with their land dragons, this is the only defensive position they would have in case reinforcements arrive."

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The Parlpadians had already taken the ramparts and now Marcus and his battalion were preparing to assault the castle, readying bayonets.

"Assault tactics Denlich!" said the sergeant, immediately Marcus and the others stood at the sides of the palace gate as he pulled out a hand iron grenade, which was nothing more than a small iron sphere with magic in it with a length of slow-match.

The sergeant stood a few meters in front of the gate and began to cast a spell, but not before drinking a kind of potion, a spell that took approximately 5 minutes to complete and then shoot it against the gate, a loud noise indicated that the wood was breaking and soon fell, a powerful gust of concentrated wind and the force of the door impacting the ground made a cloud of dust took over the place.

"Now!" The sergeant exclaimed, but instead of Marcus and his companions charging they began to mutter under their breath for a few moments, soon illusions of themselves appeared in front of them, intangible illusions without any expression, anyone who saw it would know that what was in front of them was not a real person... but no one would notice that in the middle of a combat.

"Ahhh!" Everyone, including Marcus, gave a battle cry to right after send their illusions, who went into the cloud of dust. Soon they heard gunfire, the ashigarus were waiting to meet them with a barrage of gunfire.

"For the Emperor!" Marcus exclaimed as he stood in front of the net, throwing his grenade as hard as he could, his teammates soon did the same and soon several explosions were heard followed by cries of pain.

As the Parlpadians entered the main entrance, Marcus could see a badly wounded enemy samurai approaching with katana in hand. The soldier opened fire on him and soon fell to the inert ground, Marcus soon reloaded the weapon quickly using the trigger.

"We will divide into groups, we must clear this castle by evening." commanded the sergeant.

"Yes sir!"

The Parlpadian soldiers began to advance in small groups, each of them having applied a spell to his companion, a spell that would make him stronger, faster and with better senses for a limited time. In the future scientists would discover that what caused the spell was an increase in adrenaline.

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The group Marcus was in was cleaning the rooms one by one.

"On the ground!" The soldier shouted, throwing himself on the floor next to one of his companions to avoid a barrage of shots that some of his companions had received.

"Open the fire!" It was only a moment but the rate of fire of the Parlpadian soldiers caused the Fenn ashigaru to have to hide behind colunas and furniture without being able to fight.

However soon a Parlpadian soldier was sliced by a clean cut of a Katana, several samurai charged against them in all directions and surrounded them.

"Shit!" Marcus exclaimed as he blocked a sword with his musket, soon the resistance rune began to glow slightly indicating that the weapon had been damaged.

"Fulgura!" Soon a flash of light came out of him stunning his attacker, at which point Marcus took the opportunity to drive his bayonet under the armpit, where he had no armor and could reach the vital organs.

He soon saw one of his companions being stabbed in the shoulder, not knowing whether his weapon could be fired or not he was carrying his sword to draw it.

"Tempestas!" Making a cut in the air, soon a cutting wind was directed to the enemy, although the armor covered a part of the damage, especially the steel plates, the most unprotected parts as the sections of the armor protected by leather were cut and made the target bleed, giving room for manoeuvre from the one being stabbed into taking a knife to stab him in the samurai's neck.

Without wasting any more time, Marcus took his sword to the nearest enemy swordsman, he smiled, maybe the swordsmen of Fenn have no equal, however the empire had something that those barbarians did not, magic.

"Fulmen!" Saying that, a powerful electric charge seized his saber, when this and the katana collided the electricity traveled to the katana and to the nemesis using the metallic armor as a conductor. By simple impulse the enemy's body simply withdrew its sword briskly, the soldier's body was very stunned and his muscles did not respond to try to defend itself from the second attack that went to his neck, cutting off his head from a movement.

The soldiers fought bravely using all the tricks they had, but they were soon overcome. A sword pierced Marcus' stomach.

"G-GH!" He was spitting blood at the swordsman in front of him. " Bloody barbarian! Do not dare the satisfaction of killing me" he said, placing his hands on the samurai's helmet. "IGNIS!" Soon fire began to come from his hands to enter the helmet, the enemy samurai parted from Marcus screaming in pain to try to remove his helmet.

Marcus kneels on the ground, even with the sword in him.

"Bloody Parlpadian dog!" Said one of the samurai's companions, who approached Marcus in order to execute him while others helped the other.

However, before being executed, multiple shots sound in place, another group heard the fight and had approached to help. Fenn's men fell like flies from the sudden fire of Parlpadian muskets.

"We need a doctor here!" he spat before falling unconscious from the wounds.

Although some groups of Parlpadian soldiers had been destroyed by the ambushes, Fenn's forces could not resist much longer, by the time the sun was hidden the castle was under total Parlpadian control.

Commander Bertran's military council, western castle.

"An approximate of 1, 200 dead and almost three thousand wounded... How could something so scandalous happen?!" The commander was furious at the casualty count.

"As I have always said, large formations of concentrated soldiers are not effective against weapons of high cadence or high firing range." Squad commander Arma responds.

"That's ridiculous, the barbarians had too few of those weapons to make the formations a problem, most of our casualties were the fault of the palace assault." Captain Bafram responds.

"To say they were not a problem is stupid! Because of those weapons much progress was stopped because two or more people must take the wounded back to the rear!" Arma argued. "Besides using large formations makes no sense with our repeating muskets! The point of large concentrations is supposed to compensate for the little cadence and precision to make there a chance to hit the enemy!"

"The formations are not just for that, for the barbarians to see a large army march in sync towards them, all wearing the same uniform is something terrifying, a blue tide that comes to wipe them out! You can't leave out the psychological factor!" Bafram countered.

"We received a third of the casualties!" Bertran pounded the meza with fury. " We only won thanks to numerical superiority! That's unacceptable! Much less against a barbarous people!"

"Sir, Fenn's main army will have a greater number of Leiforian weapons, if we do not change our tactics we will receive much greater damage than necessary, we cannot use the same strategies we regularly use against barbarians if they use weapons of the second civilisation." Weapon was trying to convince his superior.

"Then what do you propose?"

"Since their weapons have a greater range of fire we must deny them that advantage, make it more difficult for them to hit at great distances, for that the troops must attack dispersing, quickly advancing through the battlefield using spells to hide and reach the firing range. And no longer shoot standing, troops must be crouching or body to ground using logs or stones as cover so that the enemy has less room to aim at. At the moment of defending ourselves we must build trenches and idstintas fortiicaciones to put to cover." Respondio Arma.

"That is ridiculous!" Bafram said indignantly. "You just have to say that we must replace our precious and intimidating uniforms with something more opaque and discreet!"

"If that helps us reduce casualties..."

Bertran was thinking of those ideas carefully.

"That men use so many spells won't make them run out faster?" the commander asked.

"It is true! Soldiers usually use magic at the moment of firing and in close combat, which they use who knows how many spells all the way will make them more ineffective at the time of fighting!" Bafram thought he'd caught Arma by now.

"It is a possibility that the magic wear takes its toll, however in this way there will be more possibilities for our soldiers to enter combat in the first place."

Bertran pondered all this. " All right, let's try your tactics when we face the bulk of the army, now get ready, once our medics finish healing our troops we'll leave for Nishinomiyako."

Medical tent.

Marcus woke up on a stretcher, saw his stomach and saw that the wound was closed. With some pain he sat on the stretcher.

He could see how a doctor tried to remove a bullet from a soldier's torso while trying not to bleed, they could not close the wound without removing the bullet because this could cause internal damage in the future.

"Thank the gods I can avenge my companions." He said enlisting, knowing he wouldn't have much time to rest to go and take the city.

The city of Nishinomiyako surrendered without a fight, most of the defenders had died defending the castle, so the next morning ships arrived at the port of that city landing troops and wyverns that would reinforce the city's defenses and prepare to take the rest of the country.

However, between these ships traveled two people who were not Parlpadians, they were two Leiforians undercover with a magic camera, of which are obtained in Mirishial.

The work of both? Secretly taking photographs of anything that made Parlpadia look like a bloodthirsty country, they began to take pictures of the enslaved population or the bodies of civilians who decided to resist the occupation, This in order to make Altarus and the Falklanders fight to the end to bleed as much as they can to Parlpadia.