“My lord,” the messenger gasped, kneeling. “The Oda have thirty thousand men at the border. Our scouts report… they move without rest. Without hunger. They have not slept in three days.”

In three hours, he killed eleven thousand men.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “The Oda remnants… the Uesugi… they’ll attack the moment I do.”

He hesitated. Then he pressed Apply. The next morning, a lone ashigaru spearman from the Silver Crane walked toward the Oda vanguard. The Oda general laughed. Then the spearman began to run. Not the sprint of a man, but the relentless glide of a predator. He crossed a river without slowing. Arrows struck him and vanished. Swords shattered against his skin.

Hideaki’s advisor, an old monk named Kenji, frowned. “Impossible.”