The siren blared loudly as the fog of war began to draw back. A new message window appeared.

The Battle Begins!

Each wave will last for approximately five minutes, before the next wave begins. Defeat as many enemies as possible during that time period to prevent them from joining together on the following waves. During the fifth wave, the commander will appear. Defeat the commander to claim your territory.

The fog drew back to a point just outside of the land that he had claimed. Scott shifted forms and rose up into the air to get a good look. All around him, ghostly bonfires of blue-white flame had appeared. Each of them was surrounded by the shades of men who wore uniforms similar to those worn during the civil war, though both sides of that war were represented.

Ghostly, ephemeral, soldiers of the ancient past. They bore wounds that, had this been anything but a weird game thing, would have no doubt been the veritable image of what slew them in life.

“Confederate and Union soldiers working together to kick my ass. Someone tell Sabaton to write a song about my life…” he said with an amused snort.

The battle started without a moment’s notice. The first to attack was a large group of confederate soldiers. The solemnity of the battle was broken when the background noise shifted to a weird electronic remix version of ‘Dixie’.

His eyes narrowed. “You did not just butcher Dixie, you bastards…”

Several of the specters dropped quickly to one knee and fired a round of musket in his general direction. Most shots went wildly off target, but two of them managed to rip through his shadowy mass. Scott cried out in shock as his mass neatly parted and a sense akin to pain vibrated within the depths of his essence. The musket fire was innately supernatural. It could hurt his shadow form!

He gave up the skies and shifted into human form. “Alright. Let’s do this!”

Scott rushed the incoming line of confederate soldiers, hoping that he could avoid most of the musket shots. It took them a bit of time to reload, though he suspected that they did so faster than a living man would have managed it.

His aura washed out across the battlefield, but to his shock the soldiers merely stopped what they were doing and looked up at him. One of them even spoke!

A soldier to the fore shouted, “Mister. I don’t rightly know where you’re from, but the only thing a Southern boy fears is god and his mama!”

“Fuck!” snapped Scott suddenly. The musket shot came faster now, the good ol’ boys from the south wore masks of barely contained fury. His aura had enraged them and made them stronger!

“Listen at ‘em!” shouted another confederate soldier. “Maw’d wash my mouth out!”

He roared in pain as a musket ball slammed into the meat of his shoulder. Sent spinning from the force of impact, he found himself on the receiving end of a second firing line!

Scott threw himself to the ground then withdrew into the dirt. Direct assault was out, but he had figured that much.

“Whar’d he get off to?” asked one of the soldiers. The others shrugged and continued to look around.

Techno-Dixie blaring in the background, it took them a moment to realize that the yellow bellowed enemy of their homeland had already slipped past their lines. Scott rose up with a roar and immediately shifted into his dragon form.

“Holy god in heaven! That’s the ugliest dog I ever seen!” cried one of the men, just before Scott’s tail whipped him across the face.

“Reminds me of your sister!” snapped another soldier just before he tried to rush at Scott with his bayonet.

Scott released a massive gout of dark dragon fire on the man and caught several of his friends in the area of effect. Before they could regroup, he flew back into the dirt and moved to another spot. He continued to pop out of nowhere while wreaking havoc on their orderly lines.

It took far longer than he would have liked, and his shoulder was left with a massive bruise. Still, it at least provided him with a bit of insight. If he could tank a musket ball without life force to reduce the damage, he could probably survive small handgun fire.

He panted heavily then searched the battlefield for loot. Whenever he had killed one of the ghosts, they faded away amidst strangled cries and desperate screams. Strangely, the only thing that dropped was money. American money. Modern American money.

“Heh. That’s like sixty bucks…” He pocketed the loose conglomeration of bills he found then rand back toward the buildings nearby. He was not a match for a dedicated firing line unless he could surprise them. There was no way to know how they would attack next, but they weren’t done by a long shot.

The union soldiers came for him next, but by now he had a good idea of what he would need to do. They didn’t show any different tactics than the confederates. Though, there were twice as many, and they seemed to be better armed.

“Wait…” the background music had changed. He recognized the Battle Hymn of the Republic, but the longer it went on the more annoyed he became.

His left eyelid twitched. “If you weren’t already dead, I’d kill you.”

They already deserved to be sent back to the great beyond for doing that to Dixie, but a shitty electro-dubstep version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic? “The hell is wrong with these people!”

The Union soldiers arrived at his warehouse and began to open fire at regular intervals. Their shitty version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic blaring in the air.

Unlike their Southern brothers, these soldiers didn’t seem interested in chatting. Not hospitable at all!

“Stop shooting my new house, you fake bastards!” snarled Scott. He said those words, but secretly he was happy that he was not fighting actual ghosts of war. They’d die all over again for making him have to deal with the shitty battlefield music.

They weren’t real soldiers from the civil war. If anything, he was certain that they were no different than the ghosts that popped up at the graveyard. There was no sense of tactics from them at all. They just massed together and took turns firing in lines. It was a bigger disrespect to those soldiers than his attempt to usurp control of the area!

He had a gift for these fake soldiers. The system had made a grave mistake by sending fake civil war dead after him. He’d had a nice long nap a while back and he’d recovered something important.

They all congregated at the front of his warehouse and tried to shoot down the door. Eventually, they would get through despite it being made of steel. Scott would not wait that long.

Voice strong and resonant, he chanted a certain intonation then whirled sideways and pointed at the thickest knot of soldiers. “Dark Judgment!”

As the circle of flame erupted in the center of the formation, and over two dozen souls were caught inside, the energy released sent the other soldiers fleeing in mortal terror. This was no dragon fear. No, it was the existential dread of the abyss that existed within all souls.

Fake soldiers or not, they operated like undead beings and could not help but turn away and try to flee. While the souls trapped inside the circle of flame were snatched down into the abyss, he chased after the survivors. He managed to finish off several of them, but the rest fled until the reached the fog of war at the edge of the battlefield.

One soldier fled into the crimson fog then screamed in agony as he was torn apart. The others ignored it and ran as well.

“So… don’t go into the fog. I guess….” said Scott.

The ding sounded again once the last of the enemy forces had been routed in that wave. The second wave had come to an end. He didn’t have long before the next wave. So, he went back to the place of judgment and snatched up the handful of stones that he found. “Might be enough for another round…”

“The third wave begins,” intoned a voice before Scott could absorb the little crystals.

Over a hundred Union and Confederate soldiers rushed toward him from the bonfires, but then several fell to their knees. They began to vomit profusely. Another few began to rip their pants off. Soon, several fell over and dissipated.

No music played in the background this time, but there was still a ridiculous scene before him. The entire third wave fell to the ground and died!

“The third wave has succumbed to plague and dysentery. The fourth wave will begin shortly,” intoned the voice.

“Seriously?” he asked with a laugh. What was even going on? He didn’t even pretend to know anymore