HCOP Book 2, Chapter 99: War

A brown-skinned fox-girl was casually walking across a beautiful crimson meadow. The sky was red and it was possible to see a constant stream of explosions on every horizon. However, for the most part, that patch of land was a ‘safe-zone’.

Inari was wearing her ragged and bloody hooded cloak, while carrying her only other piece of equipment in her right hand. That enormous jade-green guan dao was excruciatingly heavy, but its wielder was strong enough to carry it with little effort.

Those bright-blue vulpine eyes moved around and were attracted to everything that entered her line of sight. Although, her only real interests were potential targets to sate her ever-increasing hunger.

The air was close to the original Earth’s, but because of all the volcanic activity, there were some places with excessive amounts of carbon-dioxide. It wasn’t a coincidence that the atmosphere resembled humanity’s old home. Terraforming was rather easy with the assistance of mana and magic.

Whenever Inari took in a breath of the toxic smog, her body would naturally filter it and by the time she exhaled, the air would be purified in a sense. Harmful heavy metals and radioactive isotopes that were constantly floating around, were ‘devoured’ by her overpowered lungs. However, she wasn’t the only creature on the planet that was able to perform the same simple trick.

She was actually approaching a herd of truly colossal monstrosities. They were all shaped like cows and bulls, but their exteriors were entirely coated in thick chrome scales. Even their eyes were protected by some type of transparent and incredibly thick glass. Purple lightning continuously fell onto their enormous metallic horns and they were consuming copious amounts of gargantuan red grass, which seemed to grow everywhere in that meadow.

The temperature was so high that even though it was always raining, the drops of water would swiftly evaporate and there were only a few huge superheated springs. Yet, regardless of the horrible weather and climate, those magical-beasts were able to survive and even thrive in such an environment.

Of course, while those herbivores were dozens of meters tall and outrageously strong, they were still just food for the carnivores. Although, there were still plenty of other threats out there.

An entire army of seven to eight foot tall humanoids were marching through the meadow, with their heads barely above the tips of those crimson grasses. Their bodies were totally covered by thick bronze platemail and they carried everything from spears and swords, to rifles and flamethrowers.

Their armor was reminiscent to that of ancient knights from Earth, but it was much more complex and organically designed. A few of them weren’t wearing helmets, so their appearances were easily identified. They had very pale skin, nordic facial features, blonde hair, blue or green eyes and extremely elongated, pointed ears. Essentially, they were all High Elves.

However, their goal wasn’t to ‘hunt’ those gigantic bovines. Floating around in the air were dozens of tiny golden Pixies, who had cameras and other equipment. Suddenly, something spooked the cows and bulls, causing all of them to start stampeding off into the northern distance. Once they were gone, Inari was able to see the second, much larger army.

There were tens of thousands of little red-skinned Goblins, who had horns protruding from their hideous faces and bald heads. They wore nothing but dirty rags to cover their groins; even the females allowed their breasts to sag and flop around, though most of the younger women didn’t have much of anything to hide anyway. Their weapons spanned from wooden sticks with sharp rocks on the ends and rusty kitchen knives, to sticks of dynamite and poorly made zip-guns.

Behind that pathetic militia, was an actual military force. At least a thousand heavily armed and armored Orcs. Most of them had a combination of equipment, from shotguns, rifles, pistols and machine-guns, to warhammers, greatswords, guan daos, and Chinese sabers. Their armor was thick and covered most of their rippling, bulging muscles, but their heads were usually totally exposed. Some had dark-brown dreadlocks or afros, though the majority were completely bald, with horns protruding from their craniums, temples or foreheads. Their heights varied from two to three meters on average, though there were a few Ogres mixed in, who could be much larger.

The golden Pixies weren’t actually on either side of the conflict and were merely recording and reporting upon it. One of the tiny women was explaining “The war between the Crimson Raiders and Scarlet Knights has been raging for the past three years, so both sides have been whittled down to practically nothing. From their very first battle on Olympus Mons until now, they’ve lost far too many comrades, friends and family to be able to live under the same sky anymore. Thus, they scheduled this public match to be a final and glorious ending to their feud. In this last fight, they even managed to invite a few incredibly powerful mercenaries. Chamuel, also known as Aqua Aegis, has been hired by the Crimson Raiders. Meanwhile, Gabriel Sanchez is apparently assisting the Scarlet Knights… Rumor has it, that Gabriel is planning on recruiting the small army into The Guardians’ Martian Branch.”

Meanwhile, there were actually several other ‘journalists’ flying around and taking interviews from the more prominent figures on each side. Since the grass was so ridiculous tall throughout most of the meadow, they all chose the place where the enormous cattle were grazing for their warzone.

“Oh hello there! My name is Jennifer, it’s nice to meet you!” A golden Pixie suddenly swooped down in front of Inari’s face, but it didn’t manage to startle her. With the fox-girl’s amazing perception, even the thousands of assassins that were camped around and hiding in the distance, weren’t able to escape her senses.

The tiny woman was wearing a frilly pink, low-cut dress and had long, curly black hair. She grinned at rather the suspicious-looking, five-foot tall vixen and said “So~, you seem like a pretty sharp cookie… Are you interested in making any bets? Personally, I put my money on the Scarlet Knights. Even though the Crimson Raiders are stronger, these kinds of fights are always more about the mercs than the actual armies. That ugly gorilla guy is a big-shot in The Guardians and I heard that he’s also got one of those ‘Seeds’ that everybody always talks about… On the other hand, the bear-man is probably a lot stronger on his own, but he doesn’t have any backing. Hmmm~, they’re both super-OP and way too powerful to be in such a small skirmish though… I have a feeling that they won’t even do anything until the fight is almost over.”

Chamuel near the back of that huge horde of Orcs. He was essentially a humanoid grizzly-bear that was covered in beautiful blue platemail. His armor had all sorts of ornate runes carved into it and his head was totally unprotected. There was a huge green guan dao by his side, which had sapphires encrusted along where the blade and staff met. He had brown fur and glowing blue eyes, which casually swept across the distant enemies. However, even though he stared at the fox-girl for a few moments, his gaze quickly returned to the adorable Pixie that was interviewing him.

Gabriel on the other hand, seemed a bit more out of place. Even though he was a three-meter tall gorilla-man, he was wearing a black suit and even a white undershirt. He didn’t have shoes, so his ape-like feet were totally visible. His huge hands straightened up his red tie, before he took out a comb and attempted to make the short silver hair on his head, seem a bit more ‘tidy’.

The Pixie that was interviewing the ape, nervously asked “Mister Sanchez… The viewers are wondering if you plan on using any armor or weapons for this battle? It is an extremely rare event for you to appear in public, so everyone is curious about how strong you really are!”

He smiled at the camera-man and calmly answered “Well, as many of my fans probably know… I don’t like to flaunt my power. When you reach a certain point, you really don’t need to use weapons or wear armor. Even this excruciating heat can be easily ignored, kinda… Anyway, I’m honestly not much of a fighter myself and I’m usually a pacifist, but the leader of the Scarlet Knights is an old friend of mine. There’s a lot of bad blood between Aoi and the Crimson Raiders’ chieftain, Decum. I actually used to know him back when he was named David Cummings, so I hoped that I could somehow smooth things over with the two of them. Regardless of what happens today, I won’t allow Aoi or any of her people to die. Chamuel already made a deal with me a few days ago… If I can beat him in a duel, then he’ll help me form a truce. Even if I lose though, I don’t think that the violence will escalate too dramatically. I just hope that no one else tries to interfere.”

That tiny woman smiled wryly, “Mister Sanchez, you must realize that this conflict is inevitable, right? Besides that, the viewers are only interested in ‘real’ battles… I’m afraid that while your intentions are pure, there are a lot of people who aren’t going to be very happy about this.”

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2 thoughts on “HCOP Book 2, Chapter 99: War

  1. Pingback: HCOP Book 2, Chapter 98: Rated PG | Mike777ac

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