Damon's Ascension-Chapter 83: Tribal War 1

[Essence Augmented Reality (Earth) - Pra River Instance 1]

[Duration: 1 day.]

[Details: As a disgraced Obetse who defied your Mantse, you have been forcefully constricted to fight as a common footsoldier in the resistance army against the Ashanti Invasion.]

[Objective(s):

A. Slaughter as many Ashanti invaders as possible.

B. Prevent the Ashanti from breaking into Accra.

C. Kill the Ashanti generals.]

The battlefield was chaos.

The air was thick with the stench of sweat, blood, and damp earth while the hateful tropical sun hung mercilessly above the Pra River plains, beating down on the thousands of warriors standing in formation.

Damon could hear the rhythmic pounding of war drums from both sides, their deep, echoing booms mixing with the guttural cries of warriors preparing for battle.

The Ga warriors beside him were bare-chested, their dark skin glistening with sweat and war paint as many clutched long spears, their knuckles white from the tension. Others wielded rusted muskets, the flintlocks barely holding together while they sang war songs which were growling chants meant to steel their nerves and rattle the enemy.

Across the field, the Ashanti army stood in massive and disciplined ranks, their golden war tunics shining under the sun.

Their banners were emblazoned with sacred Adinkra symbols and fluttered arrogantly in the hot wind.

Unlike the Ga warriors, the Ashanti had superior weapons like imported muskets, cannons hauled by oxen, and well-crafted blades.

Meanwhile, their warriors stood tall, their commanders - like the Krontihene of this era - were mounted on horseback, calmly surveying the battlefield.

Damon smiled, his enhanced mental faculties sharpened by a Mentality stat at 3 allowed him to effortlessly recall the historical context unfolding before him. frёewebnoѵēl.com

Ah, the famous Ga–Ashanti War of 1824, which was also known as the Battle of Katamanso.

What? You didn’t really expect all the African historical instances to be about the British, or about white men, did you?

The foreigners only reached the coasts of Africa in 1415 or so. Counting from then until now, the foreigners had only been around for about six or seven centuries, and the calendar started a long time ago.

Even if we start from the beginning of the calendar, the foreigners only impacted 6 of the 31 centuries that have passed till the modern age.

So before the advent of the white man, what were Africans doing? They couldn’t possibly have been rolling in mud all the time, right?

Even though this war took place in the 19th century and had foreign parties, it was one of the more recent local wars that displayed the brutality of the African battlefield that happened repeatedly over those initial 24 centuries where foreigners were not present.

The background of this war was quite simple, at least on the surface.

The Ashanti Empire, a dominant military force in West Africa - not just Ghana - had spent over a century expanding its territory, swallowing up smaller states and turning them into vassals.

If you were a neighboring state, you basically had three options, which was to either pay tribute, get annexed, or get wiped out, a very simple and effective system.

Meanwhile, the Ga people - whose capital was Accra - weren’t exactly pushovers, but they were sitting on prime coastal real estate, the kind that European traders loved because of its easy access to the Atlantic.

This meant that the Ga had allies, particularly the British, who were very interested in making sure the Ashanti didn’t take over Accra and disrupt their trade.

So, what do you get when you mix expansionist ambition, strategic European meddling, and a long history of inter-ethnic rivalry? A tribal war, of course.

The Ashanti, led by Asantehene Osei Yaw Akoto, had been growing increasingly irritated by Ga resistance and the British presence on the coast.

The Ga, on the other hand, weren’t too keen on bending the knee to the Ashanti and certainly weren’t about to let them waltz into Accra unchallenged.

And so, in 1824, the Ashanti launched an invasion by marching their huge armies south with that numbered in the tens of thousands. Their goal was to crush the Ga forces, take Accra, and send a clear message to both the British and the other coastal states that the Ashanti were still the dominant power in the region.

But war was never that simple, was it?

Because while the Ga were outnumbered and outgunned, they had allies in the form of British soldiers, Fante warriors, and even some escaped Ashanti slaves who saw an opportunity to fight back against the empire that had raided their villages for centuries.

Once again, slavery did not start with the white man, but was a thing that was present locally for a long, long time.

Anyway, back to the topic, despite their superior weapons and battlefield tactics, the Ashanti had one major weakness, which was actually somewhat amusing.

They were used to fighting on their own terms, in the dense forests of the interior, not on the open plains of Katamanso where British artillery and musket fire could rip through their ranks.

So, while history often painted the Ashanti as the fearsome warlords of West Africa - which, to be fair, they absolutely were - this battle wasn’t going to be as easy as they had hoped.

And now, Damon found himself standing in the middle of this historic bloodbath, a disgraced noble forced to fight for a cause he hadn’t even chosen, at the whim of the angry Universe Will.

The war drums pounded louder as the Ashanti cannons roared to signal the beginning of the battle, with the Ga warriors around Damon roaring and bracing themselves.

Damon chuckled and glanced at the opposite side with tens of thousands of warriors, and his heart couldn’t help but thump with excitement.

It seemed that his problems with regards to the quantity of Worldly Essence needed were about to be resolved once and for all!

Damon inhaled deeply to ready his mind and body for what was to come next, then moved.

He surged forward, faster than any normal human, his Probability Manipulation warping reality just enough to ensure that the first musket ball fired at him veered off course.

The soldier who fired it had no time to process his failure before Damon slid under his guard, grabbed his face, and activated Devour to kick things off.

The man convulsed violently as the energy in his body drained away rapidly, turning his flesh pale and brittle. His lifeless corpse hit the dirt before Damon had even drawn his next breath, then he activated Silver Eclipse’s time domain.

The battlefield dimmed for a fraction of a second as moonlight - impossible in the hot African sun - gathered around him, seeping into his skin. Time slowed in his surroundings for around 50 meters in all directions, and the Ashanti warriors charging toward him suddenly felt slow as turtles.

Damon accelerated lightly and stepped into their ranks, and the massacre began.

A warrior swung a blade at him slowly enough that it was akin to a movie rehearsal. Damon simply caught his wrist, twisted it at an unnatural angle, and forced the blade into its owner’s throat.

Blood sprayed out crazily while another fellow lunged at him with a spear, causing Damon to sidestep casually, grab the shaft and yank the warrior forward, smashing his skull with a precise elbow strike.

One soldier raised his musket, but Damon was already there as if using flash step, grabbing the barrel and redirecting the shot into another Ashanti warrior’s gut.

The man screamed, clutching his torn intestines as he tried to patch them up, but Damon had already moved on.

A group of enemy warriors surrounded him quickly, identifying him as a supernatural threat, their spears and swords glinting in the sun.

Damon crouched low, his palm slamming into the dirt as Silver Eclipse pulsed outward at a different frequency. For a moment, reality seemed to abandon the nearby warriors as they lost all sense of their surroundings and their minds were plunged into a sensory void.

Then Damon struck by leaping into the air, flipping over a confused spearman and grabbing his head mid-spin. With a brutal snap, Damon twisted the man’s neck 180 degrees and knocked him aside so his corpse wouldn’t get in the way.

Landing smoothly, he casually avoided a wild slash while grabbing the attacker’s wrist then flipping him over and slamming his own weapon into his heart.

Another came from behind, hoping to catch Damon off guard. Unfortunately for him, Damon - without even looking and relying on his triple boosted senses - thrust his arm backward, catching the man’s throat in a vice grip.

Damon activated Devour again and the warrior’s body withered in seconds, drained of all life essence as he tossed the husk aside.

Five enemies down in under three seconds.

The hundred or so Ashanti soldiers in this area began to panic as the man before them clearly wasn’t human. He moved like a shadow, disappearing and reappearing while tearing through their ranks like a demon from the depths of the abyss.