The Lord’s Empire - Page 168/726

Chapter 167 – Bloodied Sword

Translator: Mr Voltaire

Editor: Modlawls123

A saber light flashed as Saar charged over on his warhorse, decapitating the leader of the village in one fell stroke. He caught the head as he dismounted and raised it as he yelled in the human language, “Your leader has died; anyone who resists will be killed without exception!”

When the entire village saw Saar’s ferocious attack and that their leader had died, the entire village quickly chose to surrender.

After the battle ended, a Deputy came up and reported, “Sir Saar, we’ve obtained 752 captives this time, many goods, and 100,000 copper coins. In terms of losses, 163 of our men were injured, and we suffered seven casualties.”

Hearing this, Saar felt somewhat happy. After obtaining so many captives, he had completed one-fifth of his quota for this month. Following this, he ordered, “Distribute all of the goods and money among the soldiers. Send the injured to the medics quickly and take good care of the corpses of our soldiers!”

Now that Great Qin was unreservedly attacking other villages, the soldiers took great risks each time. As such, Bai Qi had ordered that all of the spoils were to be distributed among the soldiers.

At the same time, bringing back captives would result in great rewards. Now that Great Qin was in a militaristic state, divisions benefited as a whole when they were rewarded.

It could be said that Great Qin’s battle spirit had been greatly roused, resulting in high morale.

Elsewhere, Xiao Jian led his division to the bottom of a small mountain and found a normal village with roughly 1,500 villagers.

After observing the village for a while and finding that the village would not be easy to take care of because of how many people it had, Xiao Jian ordered his soldiers to take a villager captive and to whip the person until he gave in.

In the end, the captive gave in and told Xiao Jian all of the information that he wanted to know. Xiao Jian thought of something and suddenly grinned, but because of the scars on his face, it made him look extremely savage.

This time, apart from normal soldiers, Xiao Jian had also brought 100 Assassins. Most of these Assassins were Ratfolk – because Ratfolk were naturally agile and nimble, it was easy for them to be acknowledged by the profession.

By now, the sky had darkened, and the villagers had finished eating dinner and had started to rest. The moonlight tonight was somewhat hazy, and within the darkness, 100 or so figures stealthily entered the village from different places.

Their job was not to carry out assassinations but to kidnap people. Each of the important figures was quite strong and had many people protecting him or her, so without top-notch Assassins, it would likely alert them.

As such, Xiao Jian had ordered the Assassins to kidnap easier targets, which were the families of the important figures. Most people were sleeping at this time and didn’t realize anything.

However, screams started to pierce through the night air, and the guards started to yell, “Enemies! There are enemies attacking!”

A chorus of yells sounded out, sending the entire village into a panic. Following this, a big man wearing armor furiously stormed to the entrance of the village and looked at the torches outside. They had already been completely surrounded by a large number of enemies, most of whom were Human.

What angered the man the most was that there were 20 or so people tied up and kneeling on the ground. They were all family members of the upper-level officials of the village, and his own 5-year-old son was there.

Xiao Jian came to the side of these 20 or so people and terrifyingly smiled as he yelled, “I’m sure that there’s no need for me to state my purpose here. Hurry and surrender! We won’t mistreat you all, and we’ll release them.”

The man furiously roared, “You despicable scum! If you want to obtain our village, why not just attack? Why resort to such shameless methods? Little Hill Village won’t surrender to you!”

“Hahahaha…” Xiao Jian loudly laughed and said uncaringly, “All is fair in love and war! Do you really expect all of your enemies to act like gentlemen? It’s best that you surrender quickly; otherwise, don’t blame me for being heartless.”

Hearing Xiao Jian’s words, the people within the village looked at the ferocious-looking enemies gathered outside and the people kneeling on the ground and were incredibly hesitant.

After a while, Xiao Jian’s gaze became cold and he signaled at a soldier, who brought an elderly man before Xiao Jian.

“Are you sure you don’t want to surrender?” Xiao Jian yelled coldly.

There was no response from the village, so Xiao Jian didn’t hesitate to chop off the elderly man’s head. A heart-wrenching scream immediately sounded out from within the village, “Dad!!!!”

A youth cast all thought aside and tried to rush out, but he was held back by a few people beside him.

Xiao Jian was no longer as courteous as before. He raised his bloodied sword and pointed it at the village, yelling in a voice filled with killing intent, “I’ll give you a bit more time to think. Next time, I’ll be killing all of them before massacring your entire village!”

When the leader saw the elderly man who had been killed because of him, their sobbing family members kneeling on the ground, and how well equipped their enemies were, the leader’s face became ashen, and the people around him had extremely unsightly looks on their faces. The villagers also started to panic, as Xiao Jian didn’t seem to be joking or lying when he said that he would massacre the entire village.

After a while, Xiao Jian saw that there was still no response, so he mounted his warhorse and raised his sword as he yelled, “Ready!”

All of the Archers and the soldiers in charge of the ballistae made their preparations and aimed at the captives and the rest of the village. At the same time, he prepared to give the signal for the 70 or so Assassins hidden within the village to kill as many people as they could in the chaos.

“Wait!” Facing this massive threat, the villagers finally decided to surrender. Even though they had 1,500 people, only half of them could fight. The rest were women, elderly, and children, and facing Xiao Jian’s elite soldiers, the villagers would definitely be slaughtered.

Facing so much pressure, the leader could only sigh, and a dejected look appeared on his face as he and a few others put down their weapons and walked out.

Seeing this, Xiao Jian relaxed and accepted their surrender, and the Assassins lying in ambush within the village walked out, giving the villagers a big fright.

They had incurred no injuries or casualties and had obtained 1,500 captives, countless goods, and 160,000 copper coins. Even though this method was quite shameless and despicable, Bai Qi allowed anything as long as they brought back more villagers.

The other divisions went through more or less the same things as Saar and Xiao Jian’s divisions. By now, Great Qin was developing much faster than before, but it started to be filled with blood and gore.

……………………………..

Back at the Rolan Historical Remnant, Zhao Fu finished clearing out all of the Goblins in the outermost region and walked towards the historical remnant.