129 Chapter 129: Bloodbath

It was a bloodbath. As in, literally.

Suzuki Shirou and I were bathed in blood. And not just any blood – highly corrosive blood that melted us down to our skeletons. For some reason, our clothes were unaffected. Maybe the corrosive blood only affected living things or organic material. I didn't know. Only Kubo Taito Sensei knew – he was the one who made Unohana Retsu's Bankai that way, after all. Up till now, not many fans still understood what Unohana's Bankai actually did.

…so why was I ripping her off anyway?

Actually, now that I thought about it, that wasn't true. Zaraki Kenpachi's sleeves were shown to have been corroded away by the blood. So the blood probably was acidic and did affect clothes too. Watching carefully, I saw that Suzuki's sleeves had been burned away, mercilessly eaten by the ravenous blood.

"Can you stop digressing to Bleach and finish this battle already?!" Suzuki yelled when he noticed me musing to myself.

"Oh, sorry. Then die."

The voracious blood acid engulfed and utterly obliterated Suzuki before he could protest or shout defiantly, chewing away at his skeleton and consuming him completely. After half a minute, there was nothing left of him but a smoking puddle of half-melted bones and sizzling fabric. All the flesh and internal organs had been destroyed.

"Hah…hah…"

Panting, I rested on my Blood Dragon Sword while waiting for my wounds to heal. My Regeneration kicked in and restored my lost skin. I watched in awe as muscle and nerves regenerated over bone, bundling and weaving together, before returning to normal. My face must have been restored from the terrifying skull it had been earlier. I knew because that was exactly what Suzuki's face looked like when he was struck by the acidic blood.

Nothing but a grinning, hollow skull.

And now he was worse than even that.

"Huff…"

I wiped the blood from my mouth and dismissed the Blood Abyss that my Bankai had created over us. The sea of blood remained, however, for it still served a purpose.

"The hero…the hero has been defeated?!"

"How is that possible!?"

"Suzuki-sama is among the strongest of heroes! He's supposed to have a thousand abilities! How did he die?!"

"No way!"

The dismayed cries of the human soldiers echoed throughout the battlefield. Dragoons and infantry alike were reeling from the loss of their talismanic commander. However, the zealots' fanatical devotion to Kobayashi Kenji kicked in and they fought harder than ever, determined to bring this battle down to the last man if necessary.

"Yare yare."

The sad thing was that this probably wasn't even their will. It was Kobayashi's will, indoctrinated into them against their wills.

Fortunately, I already had a measure in place for this. It was also the reason why I didn't completely dismiss my Bankai.

With a groan, thousands of Blood Ghouls dragged themselves out of the sea of blood and staggered toward the humans. It wasn't just from the red sea. Pools of blood that had spilled from corpses and were splattered across the battlefield, leaking from bodies both living and dead, contributed to spawning these things. The more blood was spilled, the more Blood Ghoouls I cold summon. Even blood dripping from the ruined bodies entombed within the chassis of the Dragoons flowed toward the sea of life, giving life or un-life to these foul creatures that were not truly living. Moaning, the horde of Blood Ghouls shambled toward the humans.

Yet the human soldiers remained grimly stoic. They met the charge of the Blood Ghouls with superhuman resolve and undying faith in their False Emperor, hacking and slashing at the foul creatures with swords, axes and spears. Despite the ferocious attacks, the Blood Ghouls merely reformed and regenerated, their physical shapes only momentarily disrupted. Several mages put a permanent end to the Blood Ghouls with powerful magic spells, but those overly reliant on physical attacks (that was the majority) were completely helpless against the Blood Ghouls.

Even the Dragoons were unable to fully decimate the approaching Blood Ghouls, despite their phase disruptors having some effect and succeeding in vaporizing a significant number of them. I watched as a blue antimatter bolt disintegrated a Blood Ghoul, erasing its fluid body away into nothingness. However, with their slow rate of fire and the innumerable of Blood Ghouls rising from the ground, it was like throwing pebbles into a tsunami to stop it. And when they turned their attention toward the new threat, they were ripped apart by a bombardment of plasma blasts from my Malthas Executioner tanks.

Even so, the tide of humans would not stop. Marching on stoically, they clashed with the Blood Ghouls ineffectually. Most died in the first wave. More died in the next, unable to compete with the vicious Blood Ghouls in close combat. The Blood Ghouls transformed their limbs into blades, swords or knives, stabbing or lopping off arms and weapons, or beheading their enemies in swift, precise strokes. All the while they healed from any dangerous wounds the humans dealt them.

Worse. The more humans they killed, the larger the army of Blood Ghouls grew, and the smaller the remaining forces of humans were left. At this rate, the human army would be completely wiped out within the hour.

It was a complete bloodbath.

Only Nishida Kensuke did nothing. Stunned by the death of his boss, he dropped to his knees and gaped at the unbelievable sight. He had essentially surrendered and no longer possessed the will to fight.

I paid him no attention. Nishida was not worth paying any attention to.

In less than sixty minutes, the enemy army was all but annihilated.

*

"Thank you, Colonel Tanaka!"

Captain Dante Infernius saluted sharply when he spotted me heading toward the gates of his garrison. I returned the salute and nodded.

"Good to see that you and your men are safe, Captain Infernius."

Dante laughed softly. "It's all thanks to you and your men, Colonel. You saved us. If you hadn't arrived when you did, I fear we would have only lasted for another ten minutes before my garrison fell into enemy hands."

I wasn't sure about that, but I didn't know too much about siege battles so I refrained from saying anything to make myself look stupid. Not that I already didn't look stupid. Just look at the number of readers who all thought I was an idiot. It was nearly hundred percent.

"Good thing Alan made it in time, or we would have been annihilated."

"Yeah, Alan did great."

I turned and nodded at Alan, who hesitantly stepped forward and bowed to his leader.

"Sir."

"Good work, Alan. You really saved us there."

Following behind us was a line of tanks, which rolled into the garrison. Already the Tech-priests Enginseer of the Adeptus Mechanicus…I mean, of Morian training, were already tending to the wounded machines of war, chanting binaric hymns and raising incense. Rubbing holy oils over the tanks, they sang to soothe the agitated machine spirits, pacifying them so that they might restore themselves to perfect condition.

I waved away the incense smoke even as Major Daniel Dressia strolled over to me, with a hero in tow. Not just any hero, but one in chains.

"What do we do with this person, sir?"

"Hmm?"

I glanced at Daniel and his entourage of armor infantry who were guarding the prisoner closely. Their muskets were all pointed in the crouching young man's direction, the soldiers ready to squeeze the triggers and unleash a lethal hail of bullets on the prisoner if he so much as twitched.

Nishida Kensuke looked up at me pitifully.

"Please, Tanaka-kun," he begged. "Don't kill me. I never meant to do any of those things to you. It's just that…Kobayashi forced us to. And you know how the boss is. He was just picking on you out of respect. He didn't mean any harm!"

"Uh huh," I replied absent-mindedly. I held no grudge against him or Suzuki. As I said before, Suzuki's group mostly stood off and did their own thing, and even Kobayashi rarely bothered them or gave them orders. No one would be stupid enough to attempt to command a delinquent like Suzuki around, not even Kobayashi.

"Please! I'm so sorry! Just…just spare my life! I'll work under you! I'll pledge my loyalty to you! You'll be my new boss! I swear I won't betray you! I'll forge you whatever demonic weapons you want! Jut don't kill me!"

"Don't worry, I have no intention of killing you," I assured him. I was getting sick of listening to his pleas, so I shut him up with that declaration. Nishida immediately looked pretty relieved. I continued, "and you don't have to do all that either. I don't need you to serve me and I'm not some delinquent boss. Just don't get in my way, that's all I ask."

"Yes, Tanaka-kun!"

Nishida pressed his forehead to the floor. Dude, just how little pride did you have? And I already said there's no need for that.

"I know it's shameless of me to ask this of you, but…please! I have a request!"

Now that caught my attention. I turned to stare at him, causing Nishida to squirm under my gaze.

"What request do you have?"

"Please keep me by your side!"

What the fuck?! Did the bastard just propose to me?

"Sorry, dude," I growled and shook my head. "But I'm not gay. I'm straight. I'm not sure what kind of relationship you had with Suzuki, but don't think you can just get another guy to replace him. I prefer girls."

Nishida turned red. "No! That's not what I mean!" he howled. "I don't mean that! And the boss and I don't have that kind of relationship!"

"Okay. Then what do you mean?"

"Please!" Nishida implored. "Just take me with you wherever you go! I can't go back to Legnica…I can't go back to the rest! Kobayashi, Yamada, Ishida…they'll all skin me alive! Without the boss's protection, I'm doomed! They'll kill me!"

"Why would they kill you?"

I frowned at that. That made no sense whatsoever. Even if Suzuki was dead, Nishida was still of great use to Kobayashi and the others. With Nagano Nanaka defecting to the Iron Knights, Kobayashi's gang was in great need of a swordsmith. Nishida was their only source of weapons. If they killed him, they would be essentially cutting off their arms.

"I don't mean it literally. More like they'll imprison me, enslave me and force me to do their bidding. Kobayashi the bastard already tried to do that, but the boss saved me. Now that the boss is dead, there's nothing stopping from Kobayashi to trap me inside his castle and force me to produce an endless supply of demonic weapons!"

The poor guy was actually weeping.

"Kobayashi, that scoundrel, he doesn't think of us as humans! Only as tools! He only treats the girls well…and those two right-hand men of his! The rest of us are just tools, puppets for him to manipulate! He doesn't care about my well-being! He only wants to turn me into a servitor that manufactures demonic weapons for his entire army! He'll trap me into a machine, lobotomize me and turn me into a servitor to 'maximize efficiency and productivity' – his words! The only reason why he didn't do that to Nagano-san was because she's a girl and she's more beautiful and useful to him as a human girl than a servitor!"

In other words, Kobayashi wasn't satisfied with merely having a harem of princesses. He planned on adding all the girls in class to his harem eventually.

What a sick bastard…

But there was still something nagging at me, even as I watched Nishida quietly.

How do I know this isn't a trap?

For all I knew, Nishida could be trying to worm his way into my inner circle, to act as a spy for Kobayashi and feed him information. It might be fatal to keep him nearby, for he would look for an opportunity to stab me in the back while my guard was down.

Well, Absolute Appraisal says he isn't lying, though.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Of course, I wasn't naïve enough to completely trust him, so I made sure to entrust my back to people I could actually believe. As they said, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Better that Nishida was in a place where I could easily keep watch over him than sneakily concocting some sinister scheme out of sight.

I glanced at Daniel and nodded.

"Let him up and take off his restraints."

"Sir."

Daniel didn't look like he agreed, so I stepped up and whispered into his ear.

"Pick a few guards – people you trust deeply – and have them watch over him. If he tries anything funny, inform me right away. Monitor closely whoever he contacts and communicates with. If he is a spy, I want to know."

Daniel nodded without a hint of protest this time. "Yes, sir!"

Stepping back, I turned back toward Nishida, who was rubbing his hands after the guards took off his shackles. He wasn't stupid enough to leap at me or anything after retrieving his freedom, but then again if his purpose was to be a spy, there was no way he would do anything as bold and reckless as attacking me immediately.

"Thank you!"

Despite being released from his chains, Nishida prostrated himself gratefully before me.

"You won't regret this! I swear! I'll definitely repay you!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to it."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes, and turned back to Dante Infernius.

"Captain, we'll have to borrow your facilities for a bit. We need to repair, refuel and resupply our vehicles."

"Please! Let us know if you need anything else! You saved our lives and defeated the tyrant's armies. This is the least we can do."

"Uh, right. Sure."

"Ah!" Dante brightened up. "I'll get my men to lead your soldiers to the barracks. After such an intense battle, I'm sure you'll need a lot of rest. We'll allocate you the best rooms in the garrison, so help yourself to them."

"No need for that. We'll appreciate it as long as there's a bed."

It was so uncomfortable sleeping upright in the tank, so I knew my men would undoubtedly be happy with having a soft bed to rest in after such a long, arduous journey.

"Um…"

Nishida raised a hand. Everyone turned to look at him. He cleared his throat nervously.

"If you don't mind…do you have an armory or a forge in this garrison?"

"We do…" Dante said hesitantly. "What about it?"

"If you don't mind, I can repair and maintain everyone's weapons. After such a fierce battle, I'm sure everyone's weapons will be in quite the state of disrepair. In addition, I can start producing several demoinc weapons for you to use."

"Demonic weapons?"

"Ah…! It's just a manner of speaking. You don't have to use them if you don't want to. But…" he turned to stare at me hopefully. "For the demons, they will be powerful assets. I won't be able to produce that many, but I hope to forge at least a dozen or so…for the officers, if nothing else."

I exchanged a glance with Daniel, and then offered my consent.

"Sure. We'll be posting guards to watch you."

"Ah…I see. I understand. Of course it would be too much to ask for you to trust me, especially since I was part of the group that attacked this garrison after all…"

The Demonic Swordsmith looked a bit downcast, but he nodded understandingly and steeled his resolve.

"I won't let you down. I swear."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll see you later then."

I watched Nishida leave. To be honest, I could understand what he was trying to do. Nishida wasn't that kind enough to have a change of heart and swear loyalty to me. He was a crafty, sneaky guy who prioritized his life over anything else. He was presently sucking up to me because I was his best choice of survival. Going back to Kobayashi without Suzuki's protection would be suicide…assuming he was telling the truth, of course.

As Nishida didn't possess great combat skills, he needed to rely on somebody to protect me. Right now, I seemed like the most ideal candidate. While I was skeptical about Nishida's claims, it wouldn't surprise me if Kobayashi really intended on transforming Nishida into a servitor for the sake of mass-producing demonic weapons. That sounded typical of the insane, megalomaniac bully who viewed everyone else as tools.

I still remembered how he callously sacrificed Samejima Hiroki just so he could defeat the previous Demon Lord.

"Will there be anything else, Colonel? You should rest…"

I shook my head and cut off Dante before he could continue.

"Before that, do you mind if I call a short meeting with your commanders?"

"Hmm? I don't mind, but…"

"Yeah, it won't take long."

Dante Infernius indulged me and brought us to a strategy room. Once everyone got seated, I wasted no time and proceeded to the next phase of my plan.

"I'll get straight to the point." I swept my gaze over Dante, Alan and the commanders of the Knights of Blood. "I want your aid. I wish to enlist the Knights of Blood and get them to assist me and my regiment to assault Havia in a few days' time. We already have an armada ready, captured from the Marrina Isles. Even now, the rest of my regiment is preparing to launch the naval fleet toward Legnica and get within bombardment range of the capital."

"You…what?"

"Ah…! I heard of it! The demons' victory at the Marrina Isles!"

"Don't tell me…that's you?"

"My regiment," I corrected as a hushed whisper swept across the briefing room. The knights were all looking at each other, astonished.

"If I may."

This time, it was a dwarf who cut in. Captain Ben Grimm, the commander of the Elemental Forces from Moria, raised his stocky hand to call my attention.

"Colonel, as you already know, the 1st Elemental Armored Infantry Company has been assigned to your regiment, as a mark of friendship between Moria and Helsfort."

"Yeah, but you guys took on heavy losses during this battle."

Grimm shook his head. "We're still at 70% fighting capability, and we're scheduled to get reinforcements in a few days' time. It won't be a problem. All I ask is that you don't forget to include me and my men in that plan."

I met his gaze squarely. "I have no intention of doing so, Captain. I'll definitely honor the trust and faith that his majesty King Hedol has shown in me by including your Elemental Company in the assault plans. As far as I am concerned, you're already a part of my regiment."

Grimm grinned. "Thank you, sir. It's a massive honor to hear those words personally from you."

I shook my head. "The honor's all mine, Captain. If it weren't for you and your Elementals, my tank regiment would have been overrun. Only your timely arrival kept us from being routed by the enemy. It was my fault. I underestimated the enemy."

A sharp pain struck my heart as I said that. It was true. I had underestimated the enemy and rushed in, thinking my tanks and their superior armor and overwhelming firepower would be more than enough to massacre the enemy. Yet we were completely taken surprise by the sheer numbers that the human army threw at us. If the Elementals didn't reinforce us when they did, we would have been slaughtered by the endless tides of human soldiers, infantry and cyborg Dragoon walkers.

Unfortunately, I wasn't a Grand Strategist or Tactical Genius who could perfectly predict and counter every strategy my enemies came up with. I was only human. I was prone to making mistakes and miscalculations as any normal human would do. In an ideal world full of Mary Sue protagonists or overpowered main characters, everything would go according to plan (keikaku doori!) while I had everything dancing in the palm of my hand because I saw through everything.

But I wasn't a genius. I was only human. I was mortal and mediocre.

If people wanted to read about overpowered protagonists who curbstomped their opponents in one or two moves, or outsmarting everyone in the universe with their sheer tactical brilliance, they could go somewhere else.

"What about you?"

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Now that I had cleared Ben Grimm's concerns over his Elementals being left out, I turned to Dante Infernius and his knights.

"Are you in?"

"We'll join your regiment," Dante replied immediately. He turned to the rest of the commanders after a second. "If no one objects, of course."

"No objection here."

"I'll be happy to."

"It'll be much better than sitting around in this garrison, just waiting to be attacked."

"Yeah, it's time to bring the fight to the enemy!"

While the other knights voiced their approval, Alan stood up.

"I'm honored to fight under you, Tanaka-san! In fact, I would have gladly left the Knights of Blood to join you!"

"Um…maybe it's not a good idea to say that in front of the commanders of the Knights of Blood…" I muttered. Alan blinked before realizing his stupidity.

"No offense meant, of course."

"None taken," Dante replied pointedly. "You were the one who showed a lot of faith in Tanaka-san and brought him here, after all. No one would hold it against you if you chose to follow him instead of us. If I recall, you were even in the same party?"

"Yup." I nodded. "We went to slay dragons together. And now, I'll be happy to fight alongside the Knights of Blood to reclaim Legnica from the self-proclaimed Emperor of Humanity." Drawing my sword, I raised it high to the air. "Death to the False Emperor!"

"Death to the False Emperor!" the Knights of Blood echoed.

With this, the ranks of my regiment swelled yet again.