Lord Of Puppets

Question:

Do people think when they are in danger?

The answer is obvious that they do... Most in the cases that is.

In panic, in fear, in anger, in confusion.... Simple put, if your mind is overwhelmed you may try to act on instinct or without thinking.

For example:

-Pulling a trigger when you hear something... Only to realize it was just a cat.

Why would you shoot a cat?

No reason.

Panic and fear clouded your judgment and you did it out of instincts.

In the battles, this thing is quiet common.

But there is somebody who is a "voice of a reason".

And that is usually the person in charge.

A leader.

A captain.

A general.

A voice of that kind of person, their command, their instruction can be a thing which may snap somebody.

And often without even thinking about, soldiers would fallow their leader command, since "they knew what they were doing".

But tell me.

What if the one on top of the chain of command, who carries the voice of "authority" and "leadership" says something extremely stupid when the stress and panic is at all time high?

Some may not listen, since obviously they are panicking.... But what about those that does listen without questing the order?

Well, then those are the "good soldiers" who fallow orders.

...

But this time, they should by no means fallowed that order to "survive".

The current situation is as fallows.

The soldiers are surrounded by all directions and because they are so grouped up, explosions were causing maximum amount of damage each time.

Their movements restricted and escape paths blocked.

So.... What would be the best play here?

Obviously running away and trying to make a "hole" in enemy lines is already out of the question as the captain realized it... But then, what else they can do?

Well... Stay.

It does sounds stupid and everything, but there are a simple problem people may not understand here.

So far? The soldiers survived because they somehow are recovering their line of defense or trying to reconstruct it whenever explosion occurred.

THIS was one of the things which was somewhat HELPING THEM SURVIVE.

But... What would happened if that line of defense, which was a thing which was only thing somewhat preventing the total destruction.... I don’t know...

Just disappear?

Simple put, a collapse will happened.

The only thing that was somewhat keeping the soldiers "safe" would result in obvious situation.

A slaughter.

...

And that is what pretty much happened the moment the man shot the flare and shouted his command.

A good part of the soldiers tried fallowing the captain’s order... But because they did it in the heat of moment and not even raising the question, they ended up screwing up everything.

The line of the defense ended up falling apart and this in turn not only gave a chance for the bomb hounds to manage to now much easier blow-up people, since they were not being stopped properly now... But also, the regular golems had opening to launch their own attacks.

....

Truth to be told, they had a chance.

A chance to survive, not to win.

If they just stayed on the defensive.

If they just tried enduring the waves of explosions fallowed up the wave of golems, they would had survived and gained opening to escape.

...

But because of that captain’s order, things pretty much went straight to hell.

He ended up giving in a heat of battle a worst possible command.

A command that will cause all of his men to die.

"FUCK! DON’T RUN YOU IDIOT! HOLD THE LINE!"

"DIDN’T YOU HEARD THE ORDER! RETREAT!"

"RETREAT?! WHERE!? WE ARE FUCKING SURROUNDED!"

"THEN JUST MAKE A PATH!"

Prety much, chaos instantly erupted.

The chain of commands shattered.... And the soldiers had hard time cooperating with each other.

The ones that understood the situation tried standing their ground in order to survive... But those who were panicking or were the "good soldiers" were trying to fallow the idiotic order.... And their conflict in turn gave a chance for the golems to strike.

The invaders were now getting not only slaughtered by the bomb golems, but also by the regular golems.

Some people tried to point out the obvious, but the chaos was too much too control at this point.

"..."

(What the hell is going on?) – even Thauma itself was completely dumbfounded by what was just happening. The soldiers were just going nuts and Thauma didn’t knew if it was it doing or something else caused the soldiers to act like this.

And their captain?

He was too busy trying to escape by himself.

(I need to leave this place!) – thought the panicking captain as he was held by the hound golems who were non stop attacking the man whenever he tried move.

The man.... Well, there is no use kicking around the bucket.

The chances of making out alive are barely there.

The explosions, the nonstop fighting and his injures?

He lost way too much blood and already exhausted too much of his stamina as well as magic.

If he only had to break through soldiers or knight golems, he could outrun them.

But the hounds?

In his state, this will be impossible.

Unless the red bow archer fires his bow, who had in possession the explosive arrow that could give the man’s opening to knock back the hounds and give the man enough time to climb over the fallen trees.

"..."

(No.) – but the red bow archer decided not to do it.

(He became useless.) – thought the red bow archer as he disappeared into the shadows, leaving the knight captain to fend for himself.... As more and more hound golems started ganging up on him.

The man tried in desperation swinging around his blade, unleashing any move he had left.... It bought him some time.... But at the same time, it also caused his exhaustion to stack up... Which in turn caused his movement to start getting slower and sloppier.

And that in turn gave the hounds more openings to strike.

The man’s armor was getting beaten up nonstop, allowing most of the damage to be somewhat survived.... But the damage was stacking up and the two head on explosions from before already did a great amount of damage to the armor.

As the man continues to struggle... The parts of his armor started coming loose, which caused the man to panic.

He knew that if he were to receive an explosion blast now, it wouldn’t just end up with some small part of his armor being destroyed, but instead a massive part of it.

"OUT OF MY WAY!" – the man tried in desperation to break through by swinging around his blade, knocking away the hound golems in his way, before leaping upwards and grabbing onto the fallen tree.

The man tried instantly climbing up, but one of the hound golems leaped onto the man’s back and grabbed onto it.

"GET OFF!" – shouted the man as he tried getting rid of heavy monster, which was completely stopped the man in his tracks.

And right after that, his legs were bitten by the two more hounds.

The man tried resisting.... But the weight was only increasing as the hound gathered... And before long, the man was thrown to the ground.

The hounds began ripping apart the man’s armor, slashing him and biting him, causing him to bleed more and more.

"FUCK OFF!" – shouted the man in anger and desperation as he used his fresh bleeding wounds to fire off a blast of blood that was able to knock back the hound that was on top of the man and allow the man to stood up once more.

"...Eh?" – but as he tried to break into a run.... He saw a bomb golem right in front of his face.

"...No..." – the hope completely drained out of the man’s face instantly... As he didn’t even tried defending himself as the golem exploded right in the man’s face, ripping apart his face and shattering parts of his armor.

The man was once again knocked to the ground... And this time, his armor was not going to save him anymore.

The hounds all began ripping the man’s body apart as he starts screaming and trashing around.

...And it wasn’t just him.

The Crow Watchers were currently getting butchered.

Any hopes they had left were now gone.

Nobody had a chance to escape.

Nobody had chance to stand their ground.

...

The battle still lasted for sometime as the desperate warriors tried survive.... But the golems were showing no mercy.

Their numbers were shattering right in front of their eyes.

They could no longer hold their defensive line.

...

They could no longer "fight back".... And what was happening right now what was just that.

A slaughter.

They were getting hunted down and no matter what they did now, they would die.

And right now?

There were barely any soldiers left.

By now, the results of the war had already been cast in the stone.

"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! I REFUSE TO FUCKING DIE HERE!" – shouted panicking mag as the remaining forces of the Crow Watchers tried surviving... But couldn’t as they were getting murdered from all the sides, causing the number of the survivors to start culled down, leaving only small portion of the soldiers behind.

"Then do something?! Can’t you summon another golem?!" – asked panicking soldier

"Do you think this would even work?! I don’t even have any mana to spare in the first place!" – said the panicking mage.

"..."

"Heh....Hehehehe.... Hey... Is this it?" – asked the soldier who had lost it.

"I guess.... We are-"

(Stop.)

"..."

"?"

"Eh...?" – the soldiers stood dumbfounded as the monsters around suddenly stopped moving.

"They.... They stopped?"

"Are we.... Safe?"

"..."

(Uff... Thank fuck.) – thought nervous Thauma.

(The order reached them in just in time before they slaughtered the remaining soldiers.)

(If they did that, I wouldn’t be able to obtain prisoners for the interrogation.)

(...But still... It is still hard to believe after fighting these foes.)

(But I’ve won!) – thought Thauma as almost the entire army of the Crow Watchers was completely annihilated, as the countess corpse and golem parts were scattered everywhere... While in the middle of it stood a small group of remaining soldiers.

"..."

(But for how long?)

(I know this is a moment of joy and everything.... But this was just a first attack.... I don’t know if the enemy has another army like this or maybe two...)

(I’m not relived just yet... I need information.)

(I need to know WHO they are!)

(I need to find out who my enemy really is before the next attack comes this way.)