At last... At last, the day had come!
With hands trembling in excitement, Xu Ning stroked the cardboard box in front of him. It looked perfectly ordinary, with a line of large print across the front: Premium Fresh-Pressed Peanut Oil. But it had clearly been repacked. Torn patches marked the places where tape had been peeled away.
A box like this could contain anything. After all, although a cardboard box of this sort was not especially sturdy, simply throwing it away or disposing of it as wastepaper always seemed a shame. People would therefore pack all sorts of things into them. This particular box also had a shipping label attached, so it plainly contained a special delivery.
After indulging his excitement for a little while, Xu Ning soon calmed down. He picked up a pair of scissors, cut through the tape along the seams, and took out the contents one piece at a time.
Metal rings rubbed against one another with a clear, fine rustling sound. Wrapped in a simple sheet of plastic, a heavy coat of mail gleaming silver finally saw the light of day again, its surface still coated in rustproofing grease.
Next came lamellar armor woven from long, narrow plates and sturdy leather thongs, a skirt of fine, neatly arranged fish-scale armor, a lamellar waist guard secured around the waist with leather straps, and a heavy helmet with a mail face guard that left only two openings for the eyes. A bright red plume crowned it.
This magnificent, heavy suit of armor weighed ninety jin in all. The combined weight of the knee-length mail underneath and the lamellar and fish-scale armor outside was enough to slow an ordinary, untrained person to a crawl. It would not quite leave them unable to get up if they fell, but it would drain their stamina considerably. Only someone who had trained could bear such heavy war gear.
Adding the plate-covered iron boots and mail-and-plate gauntlets that had arrived earlier brought the total weight close to a hundred jin. Even moving it all was no small physical task.
Looking at these treasures before him, Xu Ning stood up, unable to suppress the excitement on his face. His grin almost reached his ears. He jumped hard a few times to vent his excitement, then seemed to remember something and ran to the window to look outside, worry and vigilance on his face...
He had bought this entire precious set behind his parents' backs. It had taken a month to arrive, and he had calculated the timing specifically. Today, his parents happened to be working in the fields while he stayed home alone to study.
Only then had he called the food-delivery guy he was on very good terms with. Until now, all these things had been stored temporarily at the man's home.
In short, lovely as the armor was, its price was lovelier still. This single purchase had all but wiped out the money he had saved over the past few years.
If his parents found out, there would certainly be no escaping a good scolding, so it was better to keep things quiet. Normally, he could keep these lovely things in his wardrobe, where they would not be easily discovered.
...
Xu Ning was an ordinary university graduate. Two months after graduation, he still had not found a job, so he was preparing to take the civil service exam and had spent this period studying at home.
Although his parents were very supportive of their son's decision, they still hoped he would go out for a walk when he had time rather than always staying home alone. But Xu Ning was quiet and reserved by nature, and complicated interpersonal relationships always intimidated him. He still spent most of his time at home.
During his breaks from studying, he had become obsessed with a game called Mount & Blade II. Deeply drawn to its distinctive atmosphere and world, he had been unable to resist the urge and commissioned a suit of armor online matching that of a cataphract. He had then gone to considerable lengths to get it home in secret.
Seeing no sign that his parents would be back anytime soon, Xu Ning could hardly wait to try it on. He rummaged through his wardrobe for a while and found a red padded jacket that would serve perfectly as an underlayer.
Then he pulled the heavy, long coat of mail over his head. After adjusting it into place, he used leather straps to secure the lamellar armor over his chest and back, fastened the glittering scale skirt around his waist, and strapped on the lamellar waist guard with its leather suspenders.
Finally, he put on the lamellar shoulder guards, gauntlets, and leg armor, spread open the mail face guard and slipped it over his head, and secured the helmet's leather strap.
Looking at himself in the full-length mirror in the living room, he truly cut an imposing figure, bristling with menace.
Xu Ning took a light step, and the plates of his armor rattled without cease. He was already so tall that he had to duck to get through his own front door, and his powerful physique filled out the entire suit, making it look even better.
As he excitedly looked himself over from every angle, a thought suddenly struck him. He remembered the spacious area in the backyard. Although a few fruit trees grew there, it still had plenty of room for him to move around. Why not go out there and run a few steps?
He acted on the thought at once. He pushed open the back door, then drew a spear roughly three meters long from the narrow gap beside his wardrobe.
He had commissioned its head from the old blacksmith in the village, using a vehicle's steel leaf spring, which was quite good steel. After finding a hardwood shaft without any knots and with a straight grain, he had put together this decidedly lethal spear.
For his sidearm, he had chosen the most cost-effective weapon: an iron-headed mace with a hardwood shaft, or an iron cudgel. The head was a large gear he had bought online, and he had wrapped the grip in leather. It could easily smash bricks, too... On a real battlefield fought without firearms, it could just as easily smash the head beneath an iron helmet.
Hanging his iron-headed mace from an iron ring on his leather belt, he stepped out of the room with a smile.
As his heel touched the ground, however, an intense wave of dizziness suddenly struck him. It felt as though his brainstem were being sliced to pieces an inch at a time.
Unable to maintain his balance at all, Xu Ning lost control and pitched toward the ground. His limbs, too, seemed to have been seized, completely beyond his control.
'This is going to be a nasty fall. Good thing I'm still wearing armor...'
Reflecting on both his good luck and his bad, Xu Ning crashed heavily to the ground. Muddy water splashed through the helmet's eye openings and beneath his eyelids. The intense dizziness continued to torment his head, making his ears buzz and his nose ache and swell, as though something were about to run out of it.
He desperately tried to push himself off the ground with his hands. A warm stream gushed from his nose. He did not know whether it was blood or cerebrospinal fluid, but surely it could not be anything as serious as the latter, could it? ...
The shrill ringing in his ears finally began to fade, and the dizzy, unbalanced sensation suddenly vanished without a trace. But the intense discomfort still left him unable to get up for a long time. He could only focus all his attention on the hands braced against the ground.
Cold, sticky mud seeped through the gaps in his mail. All he wanted now was to get up quickly and clean his armor. Otherwise, it would definitely rust.
Just as he was wondering why he could not muster any strength in his normally strong, agile body, a pair of large hands suddenly seized his shoulders. Another pair took hold of his arms, and together, the two pairs of hands hauled him up off the ground.
"Thanks... What on earth is wrong with me today? Don't tell me there's something wrong with my brain when I'm still this young...?"
Assuming a few of his friends from the village had helped him up, Xu Ning unceremoniously rested his hand on the shoulder of the person beside him. Then he noticed something strange about what he felt... Only hard armor plates felt like this. So who exactly had helped him up? ...
He slowly raised his head. What met his eyes was a helmet with a close-knit mail face guard and a red plume on top. Several large, sturdy, curved plates were riveted together to form the helmet's shell.
An intricate band of brass decoration ran around its lower edge, and wings fashioned from brass defined the eye openings in the mail mask. A pair of bright black eyes lay hidden within...
This outfit looked so familiar, as familiar as if he had only just seen it...! Wasn't that helmet exactly the same as his own?! Xu Ning straightened abruptly in astonishment. The two people supporting his shoulders released him as he did so and stepped back two paces.
Only then did he notice the surrounding din. A heavy, dense sound, oppressive as a mountain and enough to leave him breathless, suddenly thundered in his ears.
It was the sound of countless people killing one another with blades, the screams of the dying and wounded interwoven with battle cries. It surged into his ears with irresistible force, vibrating his eardrums and carrying signals along his nerves all the way to his brain.
The damp smell of mud, the metallic stench of blood, the foul reek of feces, and the sour stink of sweat flooded his nostrils together. This complex odor was so aggressively overpowering that it engulfed every one of his olfactory cells in an instant. He involuntarily tried to cover his nose, but all his hand could touch was the cold surface of mail.
A sudden tension filled his heart. His feet kept crossing and shifting as he turned in a full circle from left to right, taking in every part of his surroundings. And what he saw left him utterly dumbstruck...
He stood on a very gently sloping hillside, with charred, fallen trees scattered everywhere. The center had been cleared, and a large body of cavalrymen encased entirely in steel waited quietly there with their warhorses.
Not only the soldiers but even their mounts were covered in iron scale armor hanging down to their knees. The soldiers, holding spears and shields, stood utterly motionless in the rain. Almost every pair of eyes was fixed on him.
To his left stood an expanse of white tents, from which a strong smell of blood drifted out. Auxiliary soldiers in red padded jackets were using wooden stretchers to carry wounded men, missing arms or legs, into the white tent area one after another.
Limbs had been severed and flesh torn open. Yellow fat showed a complex, granular texture, plainly visible before his eyes with streaks of blood running through it. Stark white broken bones, wrapped in the remaining flesh, jutted out beside knees. Mud and weeds coated the wounds, and everyone was filthy.
Some were still screaming themselves hoarse, their pale throats already drained of color. Others had fallen unconscious, half their tongues bitten through and hanging from the corners of their mouths.
Excruciating pain tortured them into loud screams. The corners of their eyes looked ready to split, and their own shrill cries seemed about to tear their vocal cords apart.
There were at least a thousand people screaming like this nearby, with only a few dozen people in short white tunics moving among them, apparently medical personnel. Those already dead had been laid out on the open ground beside them, packed so densely that they were already heaped like a mountain.
A doctor carrying a bloodstained saw directed several auxiliaries to hold down a man's leg. As the man struggled violently, the doctor set the saw above his knee. Then, with a call to the others, he began to pull it back and forth with force...
Blood gushed out in great quantities. The sound of the saw tearing through muscle set the teeth on edge. Before long, it reached bone, and tiny bone fragments emerged from the cut.
The man had already passed out, but the auxiliaries still did not dare release their grip. With the final two strokes, the silvery-white tendons were severed as well, and the entire amputated leg fell free. The doctor casually tossed it into a nearby corner.
He picked up a small iron knife, gave it a cursory rinse in the boiling water beside him, and began peeling back and stretching the skin on the thigh. Then he stitched the ends together, closing the wound completely.
Taking a roll of white cloth from beside him, he wrapped the enormous wound thoroughly. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his bloodstained white sleeve and called for his assistants to carry the man away.
The next man was brought up, the end of one arm smashed to pieces...
Shrill screams and wails rang out incessantly. Xu Ning shuddered all over. His eyes were still bewildered, but now held a trace of fear.
As though sensing something, he raised his head and looked toward the distant plain. Just as he had expected, an enormous battlefield lay there. Countless military formations tore at and crushed one another, oozing bright red liquid that flowed into the earth, turning the black soil into blood-colored mud.
Steel and flesh were becoming a gigantic millstone, and the material being ground to pieces was made of those very same things. After the sticky entrails and bloody flesh spilled onto the ground, feet trampled them again and again until they merged completely with the earth and could no longer be distinguished.
Countless weapons swung and thrust through the air, then struck bodies and armor, letting those precious yet filthy lives flow out through their wounds.
Wounded men still wailing were trodden into the ground beneath countless feet, again and again, until they fell silent.
Arrows filled the air as densely as raindrops, some even scraping and colliding with one another before falling short. But the vast majority still landed among the tightly packed formations. For the lucky, armor and shields stopped the arrows. For the unlucky, they pierced straight through flesh and injured internal organs.
As this magnificent, cruel, and utterly staggering sight filled his eyes, Xu Ning felt as though his soul had left his body and was observing the dream before him...
"Lord Tesolys, the consul has just given the order. We are to charge."
Xu Ning turned his head, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open:
"Huh?!! ..."
PS: I'm a new author. If you think this is good, please support it.
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