Battle

"We will let them come to us, there is no need to meet them right behind our borders and give up our advantage. Our troops are used to fighting in harsh snowy environments. We can also set up traps beforehand" Seika explained his plan

"Prince, with all due respect, their numbers aren't so great for us to go as far as setting up traps and using the environment to our advantage. They are practically making fun of us!" Scarred general complained.

"I don't care if they are taking us too lightly, my goal in the upcoming battle is to reduce our casualties as much as possible. Knowing the Empire, they won't bother targeting any small strongholds and will march straight here."

"Dora, send a message to all other strongholds that are close to the path the Empire's army will take to fortify themselves." Seika turned to Dora who nodded her head and wrote something on the paper in her hands.

"Let's end the meeting here" Seika said and the moment he got up from his seat, the others followed and lightly bowed to him.

The moment he left the room, he took Doya and Dora to the side and explained his plans further.

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Seika gathered part of the Northern Tribes' army, leaving a larger part of his troops in the town. On the horseback, he led his troops to intercept the empire's army midway to their capital, they got there much sooner than the enemy so he began his preparations.

Doya and the assassins under her were responsible for keeping the empire's scouts at bay which she accomplished splendidly.

The day the empire's army arrived has finally come and as Seika predicted, they must have ignored all the distractions to get this far deep inside their territory so fast.

"You northern tribes barbarians, surrender now before all of you will end up massacred!" A large man in front leading the empire's army shouted across the entire plains covered in snow surrounded by the taiga. It was evident that he is strong just from his voice alone.

"Not like it will matter, your fate will be the same anyway" He had a triumphant smile as he muttered under his breath and how could he not be confident...

"They have at least ten thousand more troops than us...Prince! We should have taken more troops with us, there was no reason to leave most of them back in the town!" One of the generals said with a shocked expression as he saw the empire's army number advantage.

"What's done is done, instead of panicking, try to think of all possible tactics, though I will not use any of them since I have already everything planned" Seika replied to him before losing interest in him.

Seika commanded his horse to gallop a bit closer to the enemy before he stopped and observed them with an indifferent expression.

"You empire monkeys, I am still giving you a chance to retreat! Take it or die!" Seika shouted loud enough so everyone could hear him.

The enemy general's face distorted in anger.

"Kill them! Don't let anyone run away!" The general shouted and the first troops that advanced were the empire's cavalry.

Seika smiled and quickly returned to his army specifically by the exact same path he took before.

"Shields to the front!" Seika ordered with an outstretched arm and hundreds of soldiers holding massive shields resembling scutum shields formed a shield wall in front. AS the cavalry got closer, soldiers behind the shield wall put their spears in its gaps.

"Don't stop! Once we crush their shield wall, we will disrupt their formation!" The enemy general shouted seeing the pitiful number of soldiers with those large shields.

"This one is truly impulsive, how could they have even appointed him as general?" Seika muttered and as the first of the horses crossed the mark of 20 meters, the snow on the ground suddenly fell down, revealing a long trench. The horses started falling down into the trench and the horses behind them started tripping over, sending their riders flying over the trench close to the shield wall.

Seika's original plan has never involved the usage of such a weak shield wall to resist numerous cavalry. The moment riders fell over the trench, they were instantly pierced by the spears behind the shield wall.

"AAGH!" Complete chaos on the enemy's side ensued

"What is this, I can't get out!"

On top of digging up the trench, Seika filled it with very thick mud similar to quicksand.

"Tch! Gunmen, destroy that shield wall!" The enemy general shouted at a few hundred troops wielding guns.

"B-But we will end up shooting our allies in this situation"

"Does it look like they can survive for much longer?! Shoot!" As the command was given, the numerous sounds of gunshots resounded on the battlefield. A lot of bullets hit their own allies but those that hit the shield wall actually bounced back essentially killing even more of their allies.

Seika watched a few soldiers that were holding those shields and noticed them sweating a lot while gritting their teeth. Those shields weren't any regular shields and only a few selected truly strong men could wield them skillfully since they weighed a lot.

Seika immediately returned the fire but instead of using guns that were quite scarce, he let all his men at the back pick up bows to shoot arrows or throw javelins. A lot of soldiers had experience hunting games in the Northern Tribes due to the harsh climate therefore practically anyone could become a decent archer.

The empire's gunmen squad was swallowed by thousands of arrows shot at once.

"Tch! Infantry, cross the trench!" The general pointed at the trench that by now got filled with horses and empire soldier's bodies.

Seika let the first wave of infantry get punctured by numerous spears behind the shield wall before he ordered his own infantry to start a surprise attack by jumping over the wall, madly attacking the empire's infantry.

"Kill them all!

"For the Northern Tribes!"

"For the prince!"

Seika wanted to use the shield wall much more but he decided to just let his troops go crazy after he gave them a large enough morale boost.

The enemy practically lost functional cavalry and effective ranged units. He continued watching the empire's army slowly getting slaughtered.

"AAGH!" When he looked a bit further, he saw that the enemy general was finally taking action and as expected, Seika's regular soldiers were just cannon fodder in front of his large battle axe.

"Hero of the North! Are you just going to watch your soldiers get slaughtered without getting involved?! What kind of leader are you?!" The general shouted, trying to provoke Seika insinuating that he is just a coward.

Instead of answering, he just looked at him with a disinterested expression from the saddle of his horse before forming a mocking smile.

"You bastard!" His actions enraged the general who started rushing toward him, knocking away all Northern tribes' soldiers.

In an instant, he made his way in front of Seika but before he knew it, he was completely separated from his troops and a circle of shields was formed with him in the middle.

"HU!" Hundreds of spears appeared in the gaps and soldiers started to slowly close in.

"You think some pathetic barbarians will be able to stop me?!" The general prepared to swing his axe in a wide arc, however the moment he got in the range to slash the shields, spears thrust forward forcing him to jump to the middle.

"HU!" In an organized manner, soldiers kept closing in.

"TCH!" The general who was most likely proud of his abnormal physical strength decided against attempting to break through with sheer power and instead jumped high to get away.

While he was still in the air, Seika's spear flew fast as lighting at his chest.

"HA!" *CLANG!* He swung his large axe at the spear and easily struck it down, making it pierce the ground below.

'He has no weapon now, what a dumbass. Barbarian hero will always stay barbarian' A smirk formed on the general's face as he looked down at Seika's expressionless face.

*BANG!* A gunshot resounded right behind the general and two bullets penetrated the back of his skull instantly killing him.

"He really was a loud moron..." Doya muttered as she fell down back on the ground along the general's corpse.

"The general...? R-Retreat!" The empire's soldiers' morale completely crumbled upon seeing their general killed so effortlessly that they decided to run, unfortunately for them...

"W-What is this?!" All of their escape routes were blocked by even more Northern Tribes' soldiers that appeared out of nowhere.

"The empire monkeys! Surrender or die, you have already been given a chance to retreat and you didn't take it, face the consequences!" Seika shouted as he retrieved his spear and walked in front of his soldiers.

The soldiers started dropping their weapons in terror but there were some who tried to take this chance and attack Seika while he was alone.

As five empire soldiers closed in to attack him, Seika swung his spear twice. First in a wide arc to effortlessly cut all of them in half and second to get rid of the blood off his spear's blade.

'So that's what it feels like to kill a human? Honestly, I am so calm about it that I am no longer sure whether it is my own or original Seika's emotion' Seika thought while looking at the snow-covered in blood with his blue emotionless eyes.

Upon witnessing this scene, the Northern Tribes's soldiers cheered to finally see the prince in action while the empire soldiers dropped to their knees realizing that Seika's physical ability might even surpass their now dead general's. They couldn't wrap their heads around why Seika barely fought in this battle and just gave out orders. Precisely because of these actions they thought that the title Hero of the North might have been just an exaggeration to boost the morale.

As Seika's soldiers began tying up the empire soldiers that surrendered, Doya approached his side.

"You ordered all small strongholds in the empire's army's path to fortify walls to appear like we are on the defense just to make the soldiers from all various strongholds to gather in one place and then have them march behind the enemy army. However, all of that would have been useless if you hadn't ordered my unit to take care of the Empire's scouts and assassins a short time before the battle started...Cunning!" Doya said with a teasing smile.

"What can I say, I have very reliable and capable friends" Seika looked at her with a gentle smile and Doya quickly looked away from him which made him raise his eyebrow in question.

The triumphant feeling of victory quickly left Seika as he observed the battlefield and saw a noticeable amount of corpses belonging to the Northern Tribes. He suddenly started feeling stinging pain in his heart and his mind started slowly being clouded by rage.

'Those are original Seika's emotions!' Seika thought as he clenched his right hand into a fist.

"Prince, what should we do with the prisoners?" A soldier asked Seika who looked around just to see on their faces that many felt a similar rage.

"Put every single one of them inside the mines! They will atone for their sins by working to death!" Seika shouted his decision which appealed to his people but turned the empire's soldiers' faces pale. They must have held on to hope that Seika would be willing to negotiate with the Empire.

'I have no idea whether something like this happened behind the scenes in Akame Ga Kill but the next time the Empire will decide to invade, it will be a massacre if I won't do something to stop that woman!' Seika thought with determined eyes as he stared far at the horizon.

The emotions of the original owner of his body were providing him with even bigger motivation to become much stronger.