"THIS IS WAR!"
Willy screamed from the bottom of his lungs as he hacked down with his axe, plunging the blade right into the shoulder of the enemy warrior, cutting through flesh, and then digging heavily into the man's bone.
Keeping the pressure on where he struck, Willy forced the man down to one knee, then on both of his knees.
In the end, though, Willy never got the chance to finish his target off. The very moment his strike created a window of opportunity, a fellow soldier by his side slashed with his sword, opening up the barbarian's throat.
Bit by bit, death after death, the gap in the enemy line continued to widen. As more and more of Willy's companions and allies poured through the opening behind his back, the process of dismantling the enemy formation only continued.
"THIS IS WAR!" Willy shouted again, forcing his weapon out of the dying barbarian's shoulder and raising it up, only to use the butt of the handle to strike off a weapon reaching out for his own throat.
The parry worked... but it wasn't perfect enough to fully save Willy from the attack. He leaned back, trying to escape the redirected blade, but it still managed to leave a considerable notch over his throat.
'THIS IS WAR!'
Not having the breath to shout again, Willy simply chanted the words in his mind, paying no mind to his wound as he quickly rushed to exploit the opening the enemy's attack created.
Willy's axe fell down, only to meet the soldier's... No, the warrioress' guard created by crossing two daggers together.
'That's why you will lose!' Willy thought, grinning from ear to ear as he added his other hand to the axe's handle before stacking the weight of his body on top and pressing down with his weapon in the contest of raw strength with the barbarian female.
Contrary to the more or less uniformly armed soldiers of the empire, its vassal states, and major nobles, the barbarians of the local forest came armed with weapons of all kinds.
In the course of the battle so far, Willy saw all sorts of weapons in the barbarian use, from maces through whips and at strange, long hand-claws ending. Of course, most of the barbarians still used the same weapons like swords, spears, or axes... But there was no rule or order behind how they were armed.
On the other hand, Willy's imperial allies all came sporting the same, extremely narrow variety of weapons, allowing them to push the advantage each weapon offered in the strict set of circumstances.
And it just so happened, that a one-handed axe and a supporting machete to be held in the off-hand were insanely deadly when one was stuck in the middle of this extremely close-quarters fight.
"DIE!" Willy screamed out right into the barbarian woman's face while applying all of his weight and all of his strength in his attempt to overpower her guard.
There was no doubt that this woman, just by how she appeared to shine with silver light, was much stronger than Willy, a mere ascender of a middle rank.
But due to their positions and the woman's unfortunate angle of defense, it was only a matter of time before Willy would push his weight down and break past the woman's guard.
The barbarian's arms started to tremble, losing more and more strength with each passing second. The woman's face turned redder and redder as she strained herself further and further to keep her block up.
Her daggers offered her great freedom of movement, something Willy could only be jealous of... But at the same time, they only offered extremely limited leverage of her strength, especially when pitted against someone with a weapon as simple and straightforward as Willy's hand-held axe.
The platoon's leader's orders rang through the small speaker hidden in the ear cover of Willy's helmet.
'To thing, I would have the questionable glory of working from the very front of the line,' Willy thought, flicking the safety switch on his gun before resting its butt on the inner side of his right shoulder and slowly yet confidently moving step after step.
By now, the heavily armored truck of their mobile battalion parked at the very back of the open area within the clearing, in the area where the smoke was the thickest. The two predators of their battalion sprung to the sides, ready to pounce at the enemy as soon as the infantry would cut open a corridor for them to move past the friendlies and get a direct line of fire on the enemy.
"All ahead, five paces!"
The lieutenant's order rang in Willy's earpiece, prompting him to slowly but steadily advance the ordered distance.
With his gun ready and in position to fire off his hip, Willy took five paces forward, making sure not to let the thick smoke break the visual contact he had with his fellow soldiers to his sides.
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And then, as the front of their unit emerged from the area with the thick smoke, the true scale of the battlefield revealed itself to Willy's eyes.
In a single instant, Willy noticed a total of five breaches within the line of what looked like defenders, with more and more local soldiers rushing in.
The entire formation was on the verge of collapsing now that the imperial soldiers could surround, pocket in, and then cut down the faltering resistance of the enemy. And as more and more of them poured through the openings...
"Take aim!"
This time, the voice ringing in Willy's ear belonged to the staff sergeant directly in charge of Willy's squad.
Following the order, Willy raised his weapon and took aim, picking his target at a complete random.
"Steady!" the sergeant's voice likely echoed what he himself heard in his own earpiece.
And then, a single moment of tranquility ensued as the modern soldiers properly emerged from the smoke, revealing themselves to the soldiers fighting in the battle just a few steps ahead.
The two sides locked eyes. Apparently, by now, locals knew full well the potential of the firearms. And as the soldiers of this world realized what was about to happen...
Some tried to run. Others fell down to the ground. But most of them...
Most of them simply stared at the new enemy emerging from the clearing as if they saw a bunch of ghosts.
"Open fire."
There was no emotion in the voice of whoever gave the order. And in this single moment, the single instant of the tranquility came to an end, as bullets spewed out from the guns of tens if not hundreds of former soldiers, reaping a bloody harvest from the poor locals who failed to understand the situation they suddenly found themselves in.