The Aikamad tribe prided themselves on being masters of the night raid.
Over the past fifty years of wars fought to unite the fractured steppe, the Aikamad had always been counted among the tribes most skilled at striking in darkness.
Not because of brilliant strategy. Not because of exceptional warriors. Nothing so variable as that.
Simply because their shamans were far superior to anyone else's.
The Aikamad shamans who could cast enhancement magic, pain immunity, fear suppression, and night vision on ten thousand warriors all at once were, without exaggeration, the finest on the steppe.
That confidence shaped their thinking about defensive preparations as well.
*If it comes to a night fight, our tribe has the advantage anyway.*
With that conviction, they invested comparatively little in guarding against night raids.
Their scouts had the ability to detect the signs of an enemy night attack before it materialized.
And throughout history, a night raid discovered in advance was a strategy that left the attacker at a severe disadvantage.
So even knowing that the Southern Army had crossed the border, they slept soundly through the night.
"The Southern bastards know full well how dangerous we are after dark."
"Besides, men without shamans can't mount a proper attack at night. If they're stupid enough to come at us in the dark, we should be thanking them."
Their reputation in night combat had already spread far and wide across the West.
The Aikamad were a tribe that excelled at slipping through the veil of night to strike enemy settlements without warning.
Raiding and burning towns in the dead of night with the aid of their shamans was one of their signature methods.
And like all people, the Aikamad never imagined they would fall victim to their own specialty.
"Enemy sighted ahead! Looks like Southern Army troops!"
Even when those words came, the barbarian settlement didn't descend into panic.
"Wait, they're actually coming?"
"Southerners must have lost their minds. Wake the shamans and ready the cavalry!"
The reason they didn't panic was simple.
There were still several kilometers between the Southern Army and the settlement.
A warrior people like the Aikamad had more than enough time to prepare before the enemy arrived.
"Cavalry, forward! The moment the shamans cast their spells, we charge! Show them what Aikamad warriors look like when they have no fear of death!"
"Yes, sir!"
Originally a nomadic people, they fielded cavalry on a scale that the settled peoples of the Empire could never match.
Once the Aikamad cavalry began their charge, they were unstoppable.
That was what they believed as they took up their weapons and mounted their horses.
*Fweeeeee—!*
A piercing whistle split the air, and what the Southern Army had hidden within the darkness revealed itself.
The horizon caught fire.
"—!"
There was no time to react. A hundred shells tore through the night sky and slammed into the heart of the settlement in an instant, detonating with tremendous force.
There was no window to respond. None at all.
The earth heaved and the world shook violently. A ringing filled their ears as though their eardrums had burst, and thick black smoke swallowed everything in every direction.
*BOOM—!*
Five shells landed squarely in the middle of the Aikamad cavalry formation, obliterating warriors who had been readying their charge in a single instant.
Heavy warhorses were flung into the air like scraps of paper. The impact scattered warriors' bodies in every direction.
"Ugh—!"
Those who somehow kept their senses looked around, still unable to process what had happened.
Thirty seconds ago, they had been rallying together, building their courage for the charge. The proud cavalry was gone.
Churned earth and a parade ground soaked in blood. Fragments of horses and men scattered in every direction. Every sight was surreal, without exception.
"What in the world is—"
And so their minds were slow to accept it.
That the comrades who had been laughing and talking moments ago had simply ceased to exist. That the proud Aikamad cavalry had been annihilated without accomplishing a single thing.
Fortunately, the barbarian cavalry didn't need to think deeply about it.
Because the horizon flashed again.
"...Huh?"
Before they could accept what had happened.
Once more, merciless destruction fell upon the settlement.
***
The firepower of the artillery from two divisions was immense.
One hundred field guns in total demolished everything in sight.
Stone buildings were shattered by the barrage, and the wooden outer walls of the settlement were riddled with holes. Shells rained down in succession wherever the barbarians were concentrated, and the shamans' quarters had long since ceased to exist.
When the shamans who suppressed fear were obliterated by the bombardment, the Aikamad settlement collapsed into chaos.
It was worse precisely because they had always fought with fear stripped away.
Imperial soldiers stood on the battlefield having overcome their fear.
But the Aikamad warriors, who had cheated their way through war by simply erasing fear, had never learned how to face it.
"Eek—someone help me!"
"Mother, mother—!"
"Where... where am I...?"
Powerfully built warriors with bare chests trembling and breaking down like children—it was almost grotesque to watch.
All the more so when you remembered that these were the same men who had crossed the Imperial border every season to ravage and plunder our West.
Five shells landed on a building where warriors had taken shelter. The rubble left by the explosion bore no trace of human remains.
Warriors who had gone blank with shock, staring into nothing—and warriors who had turned and were running for their lives—their fates were not so different.
Of course, there were those who managed to hold themselves together.
Mostly the tribal elders and the older warriors.
They were shouting orders, struggling to salvage something from the chaos.
"Get a hold of yourselves! If we're going to die anyway, at least die fighting! Everyone—charge!"
Three minutes into the bombardment.
Through the settlement's main gate, barbarian warriors began pouring out.
It was a disorganized mob with no semblance of order, but the sheer momentum was formidable.
The last desperate gambit of men who had realized that staying still meant death. An enemy charging with nothing left to lose is always a dangerous thing.
"If they want death, then death is what we give them."
In answer, the Southern Army infantry began to advance.
Past the artillery batteries spitting fire as though to tear the dark night apart, the army moved forward in disciplined ranks, step by measured step.
*Fweeee—!*
A flare burst again overhead. This time, directly above the barbarian warriors swarming out like a column of ants.
Once more, what had played out across countless estates along the Western border was replayed here.
The one difference this time was a single factor.
There were no shamans to keep the barbarian warriors free from fear.
"Fire!"
Massacre came again before the mounted machine guns and the massed rifle volley of the infantry.
Even warriors who had previously charged through withering fire could not bring themselves to advance this time. Before death that could not be answered, even the cavalry that had dominated the great steppe was helpless.
Bullets arriving at dozens of times the speed of a charging horse, punching through flesh.
Shells crashing down at intervals just long enough to forget, obliterating everything nearby.
Heavily armored infantry grinding down aura-users in close combat.
The plain before the great steppe became a horrific slaughter, filled with nothing but gunfire and screaming.
"Advance slowly. Keep the pressure on."
The barbarians' morale had not merely fallen—it had collapsed through the floor.
Such was the terror of the guns that some were already trying to retreat back into the settlement, where shells were still falling in real time.
Those men, of course, were swallowed by black smoke and vanished before long.
A handful cried out for surrender.
But it was already far too late.
"When they invaded the Western border, did they accept the surrender of Westerners?"
"No, sir."
"Then we accept no surrender either. Show them exactly how fearsome an enemy the Empire can be."
Driven back by the barrage, the tribesmen found themselves pressed against their own settlement's outer wall.
And there is no easier target than an enemy with nowhere left to run.
"Don't let a single one escape!"
Beneath the bright flares, the steppe turned red.
The bodies piling up against the outer wall kept mounting, and there were those who tried to crouch among them and loose arrows.
But an enemy with a ranged weapon only made themselves the riflemen's first priority.
It didn't take long for the barbarians who had charged out in a fit of rage to be wiped out to the last.
By the time the horde that had swarmed out like ants was dead, the interior of the settlement had already been reduced to rubble.
"Clear the field."
Toward that rubble, infantry units in disciplined formation began to advance.
Finishing off any enemies still alive among the bodies. Engaging every target in sight.
"It looks like some of them are attempting to flee, sir."
In the distance, figures could be seen making for the settlement's rear gate.
But there was no particular need to give chase.
"Leave them. They won't get far."
Because waiting for them out there was a far more terrifying force.