Ground hard steel, squashing gentle blades of grass as it began to offload its troops. 2,000 Codsworth men. All clad in traditional armor, they rapidly marched out of their transport and stood to attention in their ranks for their 14 officers.

This was one of many rights of submission. The country had assumed that the UNE as a backwater barbarian Coalition of humans working with the demi-humans, owing to their internal strife.

So many of the empires and great nations. Invoked the right of submission, a right with a locals would be challenged to a duel between two warring forces. The process was simple, a war would take place that would have two static units. Engaging in war over territory no more than 10,000 men. Per side would be allowed to commit to the conflict.

The loser would permanently forfeit any claim to their land and hand anything that would be used to benefit the winner. Again, at any time, even the home country could be invoked.

If the defender loses the battle, they would immediately abandon all operations and leave the area if they refuse the entire compact would attack them and wipe them out, it was easier and simpler than mass genocide or outright warfare and costed less lives and resources. It was a system that worked for centuries and to make it fair for local primitives or other such civilizations.

The right would be conducted on their own home turf to give an advantage.

The men were expecting an easy victory as they marched.

This would be easy.

Not only because a jungle was their own natural element, but also due to a technological advantage, they had musket rifles and flintlock pistols, cannons, and tracked armored vehicles with a heavy cannon on top.

This would be all too easy to defeat, the human's primitive coalition, black rifles and projectiles.

After all, the troops disembarked and waited for their orders, they stood to attention, checking weapons, a bright red, flash of light in the sky from a large flare signaled the start of the right and the general began a speech.

All present, puffed their chests with pride and held their heads high.

'This would be an easy victory,' they thought.

As their sensory magic could pick up no movement anywhere or see anything nearby. The general stopped in his tracks, let out a soft moan of pain, and then collapsed on the ground.

A soldier broke ranks and attempted to provide aid. Only to find a small hole in the back of the general's head as blood now stained his hands.

He screamed out they were under attack just as his squad captain led out a small squishy noise splattering blood on the poor sod behind him. Then he fell to the floor dead. Panic gripped the unit as they sprinted for cover and began looking for targets, only to find none. A few moments passed with nothing but silence no more deaths. No nothing.

One officer poked his head out to check for anything and instantly died as a arrow went into his eye.

The group began to panic fire into the trees. Six more men died from either bullets or we aimed arrows. Each one a perfect shot right to his head. Even though, these men wore helmets, that easily deflected shots or arrows on top the head. In most cases the bullets just pierced straight through and the arrows hit the open slits where the  eyes or mouth are.

The panic fire continued for a bit longer in and a few officers braved, the firing line calling to stop a few tense moments followed and no more death happened.

The officers rallied their troops and sent them into the trees. They found nothing, no ammunition, no tracks, no traces most of the soldiers ran into the jungle and experienced an eerie silence with not even a bird song in the air. Nothing but the quiet hum of the wind and the soft rustling of leaves to secure their way back.

A squad of 50 men guarded the transports as a retreat meant a loss but a loss could be learned from. There were 50 transports. All of them were horse draw or pulled by their armored vehicles and a squad of 200 to guard them allowed.

A thud was suddenly heard in the distance, shortly before one transport was instantly destroyed going up in a massive fireball. A few of the men nearby were incinerated or blown back by the explosions seconds. Later, another impact blew the engine clean off another transport, causing it to taking out two more transports in the process, as it crashed into them. Panic gripped the men as two more transports were hit.

One of which landed on a screaming officer who was unfortunate enough to be trying to calm his troops down in the precise wrong spot.

Suddenly, masses of explosions and random detonations began occurring in the mountain. The unit of 200 sent to scour the mountainside was now panicking firing wildly into the trees as they suddenly detonated.

Legs and arms suddenly being severed.

Now be set on two fronts. The transports were easy prey and one shell perfectly hit an officer in the face by the time any officer had collected himself enough to give any orders.

The mountain unit was all dead or dying and only 13 of the 50 transports were still moving. An order to retreat was given and the transports fled.

A streak of smoke suddenly emerged from the mountains surrounding them. Every transport was hit with a missile strike that came out of nowhere. First five, then eight, then 10 missiles each aiming for a transport street across the ground.

No transport survived the attack.

And now the army was stranded trapped fighting an enemy they didn't understand, nor could even see the officers wisely assumed that the mountains had trapped or other such means to dissuade attackers. The only real road through was the roads. This was a bad idea as the officers later found out smartly however. They ordered their men to stagger formation and space themselves to defend against explosive attacks. Like those seen in the mountains, the force was now stranded and had lost a total of three hundred of the 2,000 men. They still had plenty of strength and carried on.

The army, marched on a group of 400 or so crossed a long bridge, leading to the larger island in the archipelago chain. This army was just about to cross a bridge when a massive explosion rocked the front and rear simultaneously of the bridge at both ends suddenly collapsed trapping the army where it stood. They collected themselves quickly and began to look for any trace of their targets.

Nothing, the two officers that were there hid carefully using their soldiers as cover. The army was now trapped 200 feet in the air on a bridge over a raging river. Any man who fell in the river was condemned in those merciless rapids.

If they aren't crushed by the falling bridge or killed by the explosions.

Two more explosions suddenly racked the column again, at both ends of the bridge, then two more explosions. Again at the same point. The north end of the bridge collapsing, the south end of the bridge collapsing after a third explosion, and officer was about to give an order, when an explosive shell, landed directly on his head.

Detonating such that any soldier not caught by the blast was splattered with fragments of his bones and armor or flattered with a shower of his blood. Two more explosions, followed further the bridge. Collapse marked the end of the bridge army as the last two segments of the bridge collapsed condemning all to a watery or messy grave.

That one failure marked the death.

Now with only four of its original 14 officers and only had a thousand to 300 of its original 2,000. Still, plenty of strength and army of 200 marched south from the bridge and made their way through what looked like an abandoned village area or some kind of logging storage yard, they spotted movement in the camp and charged fourth firing wildly as both a cover for their advance and a means of intimidation, they went in and gathered around a strange idle. It was a strange ape like creature or at least a faux approximation of one sitting on a box while holding two strange, circular metal devices. It appeared to be a children's toy of some kind, the army carefully scanned, the local area and found nothing.

But this strange idle, one soldier seemingly out of curiosity, picked up the toy and it began to emit a shriek and banged its metal objects together. Making a ringing noise, the toy had a string attached to it and as it was picked up a clicked noise was heard. As the soldier, looked at the string, he realized the monkey was sitting on a box of explosives(C4), demolition charges placed at key locations all across the yard suddenly detonated.

Any man that was left alive began to panic and run, followed by being quickly shot and killed by a bullet, arrow or a magical arrow from nowhere.

200 men died.

Three officers left and a army of four hundred moving towards an outpost, a long road towards it. Every few places the army took two or three men would receive a bullet and fall dead. The army would stop raise their rifles. Someone would open fire at the sight of movement and then after a barrage of fire would stop. Sudden ambushes from the trees of automatic gun fire would spray the road down killing a few men than suddenly stopped.

Remaining soldiers would run up into the mountainside or the jungle and find nothing. A few of them sent to investigate would not return to formation.

A slow whittling of troops as they approached.

The outpost had them broken and fearful the officer in charge barely capable of keeping his men together was out in the open.

He realized this too late as his head suddenly disappeared in a shower of bone and blood.

With the officer dead, there was nothing stopping the army from panic firing wildly before their forces were hit by a series of explosions seemingly from above, there were no dragon to be seen and no enemy could be found as the army was whittled down.

One man was all that was left.

It was here. The first human warrior(Filipino Marine) was seen.

He emerged from the jungle and approached the Codsworth soldier holding an automatic rifle. It was a human wearing green armor that looked like fabric with the only metal in his armor in interwoven plating around his chest and the helmet on his head.

The soldier still in a panic tried to open fire. Only to realize his rifle's magic mana were spent from his wild firing. The human approached getting within spitting distance and aimed his weapon, emptying the ammunition clip into the Codsworth soldier.

Then with a sadistic smile, vanished back into the trees.

The army to the west of force of 300 met, a sudden and messy end as they encountered a UNE military vehicle(AAVP-7A2).

Author's Note: The AAVP-7A2 is a new AAV, as it carries a turret equipped with an M61 Vulcan s 20 mm × 102 mm (20 mm caliber) six-barrel, electrically fired Gatling-style rotary cannon, and a Mk19 40 mm automatic grenade launcher. It carries four crew radios as well as the AN/VIC-2 Mk 2 intercom system. It is capable of carrying 22 combat equipped Marines in addition to the crew of 4: A driver, a crew chief/vehicle commander, and a gunner.

A single military vehicle met them in an open field, and ugly, boxy looking thing on primitive tracks with a turret mounted gun. The officers were unnerved by its gun as it had six barrels that spun around on registering a threat, the vehicle charged at them and began firing. The army, had fallen into a perfect trap and the vehicle's gun began spraying thousands upon thousands of rounds into the army's forces and slaughtering every man there. Weapons firing at it would be too slow and the vehicles speed would allow it to ignore them as it moves.

Magical fire would bounce off at it harmlessly.

The battle lasted barely two minutes as the machine flanked the army and hit their broadside. And army of around a hundred had come across a terrain too difficult to traverse and had fallen back to their entry point.

Only to find a smoldering graveyard of their comrades.

In a sensed by this dishonor, they moved west to the bridge.

Their existence was short lived.

A few strange cylindrical objects, suddenly appeared at their feet and began to spew out smoke obscuring their view. A scene of terror and horror followed making men panic and run. The site of a human using a device known as a M2 flamethrower, was a scene reminiscent of their ancient history of a God of Hatred and Vengeance. That plagued them millennia ago. The site called many to flee only to be immediately killed by a arrow from the blue.

Or failed to run in time were in golfed by a blazing inferno that scorched their skin and boiled them in their own armor. Seeing that the world in the open was a means of death. The last 300 men carefully made their way through the terrain and tried to avoid the roads and open areas.

A hundred of those men fell prey to a random arrow from nowhere, traps in the trees or terrain pits. The last remaining officer in the group hit a pitfall trap and the soldiers with him, panicked and fled into the trees as they saw him face up in the trap with his body, turned into a literal pin cushion.

The remaining 200 or so were picked off by snipers or fell prey to traps.

By the time it was over, a group of ten were left.

10 out of 2,000.

Those ten were now cowering in fear in the middle of a field. One soldier, seemingly now insane. Called his enemy to show themselves and fight like real warriors. Their panicked firing had expended all of their mission and they only had daggers and swords to fight. Now, they towered over the humans(The Filipino Marines). Though so it meant nothing. They would win as the soldiers stood in a circle and taunted their enemy. To show them themselves.

A sudden spray of blood showered.

One soldier as nine of the ten men suddenly dropped dead from a bullet. The remaining soldier screamed in rage and terror. As he frantically wiped his face clean of his brother's blood. He screamed at the locals to show themselves daring the humans to face him in combat.

He heard a rustling noise and suddenly two dozen humans appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

Each one was wearing a selection of bushes and face paint, making them blend in perfectly in the brush. Each one armed with a assault rifle with suppressors. Before the soldier could do anything. A bullet blew one of his kneecaps off. Severing his left leg from his body. He yelled in pain for a few moments before one human came up to him with a large caliber pistol(Desert Eagle Mark XIX .50 AE) and finished him off.

"Mabuti. Iyan ay isang mas kaunting ungol ng Codsworth. [Good. That's one less Codsworth grunt.]" The Filipino Marine said as he holstered his pistol.

The Filipino Marine stood among his comrades, their faces painted with a mix of anger and satisfaction. The ambush had been executed flawlessly, and the Codsworth army that had once numbered in the thousands was now reduced to a mere handful.

"Mag-ingat sa paligid, baka may iba pa. [Be cautious, there might be others.]" He cautioned his fellow marines as they scanned the area for any remaining threats.

The jungle echoed with the eerie silence that followed the intense engagement. The remaining Codsworth soldiers had learned a harsh lesson about the dangers that lurked in this unfamiliar land.

As they regrouped and tended to their wounded, the Filipino Marine looked at the scene of the last stand. The fallen Codsworth soldiers served as a grim reminder of the consequences of invading foreign territories.

"Ang kanilang ambisyon ay nagdudulot ng kanilang pagkalaglag. [Their ambition led to their downfall.]" He muttered to himself, acknowledging the price paid by those who sought to impose their will on others.

The Filipino Marine and his comrades moved cautiously through the jungle, aware that there might still be pockets of resistance. Their mission was clear - protect their homeland from any threats, foreign or domestic.

Little did they know that the actions of Codsworth had sparked a broader conflict, drawing in nations and empires from distant lands. The fate of this region hung in the balance, and the Filipino Marine and his comrades would play a crucial role in the unfolding events.

As they disappeared into the dense foliage, the jungle swallowed the echoes of the recent battle, leaving only the quiet whispers of the wind and the distant sounds of nature to fill the air. The stage was set for a complex and multifaceted struggle that would shape the destiny of the land they now traversed.

Not far, but still close was also the Feline Empire knights and kitsunes holding bows, crossbows, and magical bows as they moved with the Filipino marines.

One male Feline Empire knight(FEK) was looking at the marines Remington R4s. He was at first skeptical about how they would work and it's range as he was used to using bows and crossbows. Not firearms or automatic ones.

Now he was a bit fearful of them and the use of arts of guerrilla warfare. He whispered his thoughts about the Filipino marines to a fellow female FEK.

"I've never seen anything like those Remington R4s. They seem powerful, but will they truly be effective in battle? Our bows and crossbows have served us well for generations."

The female FEK listened attentively, her feline ears twitching slightly as she considered his words. "Change can be unsettling, but if these marines trust in their weapons, perhaps we should too. Our magic and traditional skills combined with their modern firepower might be a formidable force."

The male FEK nodded, acknowledging the wisdom in her words. "True, unity is our strength. Let us learn from one another and adapt to face the challenges ahead. The fate of our lands depends on it."

As they moved alongside the Filipino Marines, the Feline Empire knights and kitsunes formed a diverse coalition, blending ancient skills with modern tactics. In the dense jungle, where danger could lurk behind every tree, they prepared to face the uncertainties that awaited them. The intertwining of traditions and innovations marked the beginning of a unique alliance, born out of necessity in the face of a common threat.