The natives had witnessed the Praetorian Guard's power, and so they made no further attempt to attack.
They stood before the natives like warriors from myth, their movements fluid and graceful, like walking machines of destruction. Two three-meter-tall giants wielded astonishingly large spears, silently slaughtering every armed soldier with movements too fast for ordinary people to see. Those enormous weapons bore obvious mechanical structures; one could tell just by looking that they were capable of more than hacking and slashing. Yet regardless, they were deadly weapons. Before their heavy blades, sturdy human bones split cleanly like dry firewood.
Some soldiers did not even realize they were dead after being decapitated. Some still had beating hearts after being cleaved vertically in two. Arrows fired by tribal warriors were cut apart before they could reach them, and even bullets that could easily pierce a human body merely glanced harmlessly off their armor, releasing their kinetic energy into rocks, soil, trees, or other completely unprotected human bodies.
These natives were not ignorant primitives. Long before the Spanish colonizers landed, this tribe had already developed a considerable agricultural and hunting civilization, creating a relatively stable political system. After the colonizers brought muskets, horses, and Christianity, they still preserved their old faith, passing down their mission through bloodlines from generation to generation—the boy, the next inheritor of that mission, had been rescued from the soldiers by the Praetorian Guard. The native woman leading them nodded, indicating that she understood the Praetorian Guard's warning. She did not want the boy harmed in any way.
"Our lord will resolve the disaster about to descend upon this land and bring an utter end to your fate." Supiluliumas slowly retracted the Spear of the Garrison, then removed his helmet and held it in his hands. His pronounced brow ridge