Elemental Cats

Since they had decided to prepare for war, the badgers wanted to prepare thoroughly. They cleared other smaller groups off the mountain, either by informing them that a singular of boars were about to charge over, probably not in the mood to take a detour around innocent bystanders, or by force. (*Fun fact: a group of boars are called a singular)

The ones shoved off the mountain were naturally displeased since almost the entirety of the mountain range was occupied by other beasts, and it was ridiculous for a single small group of badgers to take charge of an entire mountain. But what could they do, they were weak and the badgers with their earth magic had a tactical advantage on the mountain, even if they stayed and put up a fight they would just literally get shoved down and blocked from climbing up the mountain again.

On the other hand those that accepted the warning were grateful to the badgers for telling them and not using them as involuntary meat shields. Of course the badgers didn't do it for a noble reason, they just wanted full control of the mountain and for no possible dangers to pop up from the inside.

With the mountain cleared the badgers began working on reinforcing it. Building ramparts, digging pitfalls, arranging traps. With enough preparation and material to work with, earth magic could turn into a pain to deal with, especially when it came to sieges. Aside from the traps and defenses the badgers also turned the inside of the mountain into a labyrinth of tunnels and made escape routes.

Although they were confident in their defenses the gathered boars wouldn't just be a few, like the ones that had attacked them earlier, it would be the entire singular. Even if the boars weren't the largest group this time around they were definitely in the top five. If they disregarded their safety they could bulldoze over the mountain and running the badgers down with ease. And as the boars were known for their hotheadedness the badgers didn't put it past them to go all out and try to destroy the mountain along with the badgers.

As expected the boars arrived quickly at the mountain, and although the badgers wanted to do more there wasn't any time.

The singular slowed their charge and stopped below the mountain. Judging from the hostility in their eyes there was no room for discussion, but the badgers still wanted an explanation for being sneak attacked in their sleep. Unfortunately before they could say anything they heard a voice from down below,

"Look how prepared they are, they really did kill them!"

The voice was slightly higher than what one would expect from a boar but no one seemed to care about that as the boars stomped with their hooves and snorted, preparing to charge up the mountain.

"Yeah, they must have planned it all! What a bunch of bastards!"

Another voice quickly followed up, from another spot in the group, before the badgers could say anything in response. Although the voice sounded different from before it was still pretty light.

"I won't stand for this, let's kill them and avenge our brothers!"

If the boars had previously been angered, they were now fired up thanks to the third voice, that was also surprisingly light. The boars started chanting to kill the badgers, but since their leader was down in the pit they had no one to take the lead. Although there were several second level boars in the group, none of them stood out enough, only their leader, almost at the peak second level was strong enough to be a focal point for the whole singular.

Although no one took the lead, soon the word charge began to spread in the chants and when more than the majority of the boars chanted it in chorus they did just that, charged right up the mountain.

Right from the start the badgers hadn't done anything but the atmosphere surrounding the boars had changed drastically. The badger were at a loss and could only get ready to do their best.

The boars charged with intense furor, with the feared disregard of their comrades, the ones in front ended up filling the pitfalls with their bodies, letting their friends use them as bridges. The second row and third row and however many it took became steps to climb the walls and ramparts. No matter what kind of trap they encountered they contiued charging until they physically couldn't anymore.

The reckless charge scared the breakfast out of the badgers and they began rolling huge boulders down the mountain. The boulders cleared a path through the boars before smashing through the walls and crushing the boars still in the pitfalls. Unfortunately the gap was quickly closed as more boars replaced the fallen ones.

As one of the largest groups, even if they didn't have numbers in the several tens of thousands as the deer and wolves, or a strong third level leader, they still had hundreds of boars in their group, maybe even over a thousand. Although the badgers' defenses had killed and maimed a lot of them it was still just more than a drop in the bucket as the boars swarmed the mountain.

The badgers panicked and began retreating through the tunnels, trying to escape from the mountain range. With the boars stomping all over the practically hollowed out mountain it wasn't surprising that a lot of the tunnels collapsed, trapping the badgers.

Blinded by their fury the boars continued their charge into the tunnels, wanting to hunt down every last badger. The badgers panicked and having used a lot of their mana to put up defenses were incapable of resisting and a lot of them died. But they weren't alone in their deaths, they used their remaining mana to collapse the mountain, leaving large parts of the singular of boars dead or injured, in a large pile of rubble that used to be a mountain.

The battle ended at that point as the boars rummaged through the wreckage, trying to find friends and enemies. It didn't leave them satisfied as they had incurred a lot of loss, but at least they had avenged their comrades.

The results of the battle didn't only affect the surviving badgers and boars but also almost everyone else in the surroundings were shocked and worried. In part because of the wild ferocity and recklessness of the boars and the badgers' brutal defenses, but also because the battle had erupted out of thin air. One moment the boars had been splashing in a pond next to the sleeping badgers and in the next a battle to the death had happened for seemingly no reason at all.

After the random mountain toppling battle the atmosphere among the beasts in the mountain range changed, although it had been like a pot of oil on the verge of boiling over before, now it was more like the calm before the storm. The beasts were more subdued and calm, fearing that something similar to the boars against badgers battle would happen again, but this time involving themselves. There were even rumors circulating around, one of them being that there were remnants of ancient magic floating about that could turn even the closest of friends into enemies. There were even rumors of ghosts inciting taking over bodies and inciting conflict.

The only ones not worried about the situation were Toz, Nil, and Lucy. Toz and Nil had a hunch that Lucy was somehow behind what was happening in the mountain range, mostly because he kept giggling in a corner all the time, except for when he went out for walks or slept. There was also the case of missing spices and an unexpected supply of birds, Lucy also came back hoarse after a very recent walk. Although Nil and Toz didn't know exactly what Lucy was up to he was happy, happier than he had been in a long while even if it didn't show, and even if it was because he was doing some strange things, they didn't care.