From Skaven to God of War

Chapter 298: The Flame of Hatred
The Rat War seemed to be undergoing some kind of planning and preparation.

Preparation for white mice.

Although he seemed to have overlooked or underestimated some things.

An army with only hatred in its heart set out, and the traces of some long-lost guys have not been noticed for a long time.

………….

In front of an ordinary city that was not very tall, many flags stood in a row, and the scene was extremely lively. Those were the flags of the churches of the gods, and a recruitment meeting was taking place at this time.

Not long ago, a brutal rat plague swept across this area, and many people lost their relatives, property, houses, lovers, or more.

But now, this recruitment fair seems particularly lively. Perhaps it can also be called a job fair, and there seems to be no difference.

Recruit people who are willing to fight in this war.

This is a holy war, launched in the name of the gods of mankind. In theory, the Church of the Gods does not have the ability to recruit troops so blatantly. This right should belong to the nobles of all sizes who control this area.

But the prince stood with these churches.

Well, that's not important.

This recruitment meeting, this recruitment meeting in front of the city gate was particularly lively.

The expressions on the faces of these frustrated and numb people at this moment could perhaps be described as forced smiles.

It's just a forced smile, but it's still a smile.

This deliberately arranged excitement even attracted many children from the city to watch from afar.

After darkness fell, it had been a long time since such a lively scene appeared. Everyone was so busy and so sad.

Busy and lively.

A young man sat blankly on a tree stump, with a blood-stained sword beside him. He did not show any signs of fatigue from long hours of work, nor did he look weathered by the wind and frost.

A bulging purse was placed casually beside him, together with the blood-stained sword.

The young man was a knight's squire, once upon a time.

There is nothing new about his story. The rat people came and everything was ruined, and then he survived by chance and came here.

The Church of the Gods was not stingy and gave a large sum of money after signing the contract.

This attracted many third-rate mercenaries who were struggling to make ends meet to join the army.

Not far away, a middle-aged man in leather armor stuffed his purse into a timid woman's hand with a hearty laugh.

Well, everyone knows what this money represents, but at least, the price offered by the Church of the Gods is indeed generous.

Many third-rate mercenaries were about to collapse, and this kind of recruitment and money became their lifeline.

Once upon a time, when the sun was high in the sky.

You can see mercenaries of all kinds in almost every city.

To the Ghost Eye people, mercenaries do not have much other meaning, and their social status is not high. They are more like a supplement to the guard. In areas where many lords levy excessively high taxes, most of the villages there cannot even afford to support the amateur militia guarding the villages. This is when these mercenaries have room to play.

Most of them do simple and non-dangerous tasks, such as driving away goblins, clearing out stream fishmen, and similar jobs. The biggest room for them to do so is to coax and intimidate those ignorant villagers to give them some extra rewards, or to add some dried meat to the meals during the commission.

Most mercenaries don't have a good life.

Although some powerful mercenary groups are indeed able to intervene in disputes between nobles.

But most of the guys are dealing with these trivial matters.

The mercenaries came from all walks of life. A large number of them were young people who could not inherit their family's land and were unwilling to sell themselves to the lords as serfs. They did not know what to do, so they just slapped their heads and declared themselves to be mercenaries.

This was a very common thing. Not only did the nobles determine their heirs, but ordinary farmers also chose one child to pass on everything in the family. The logic behind this was the same as the logic behind the nobles' choice of heirs.

No matter how powerful a noble family is, it cannot survive a few splits, and no matter how wealthy a farmer is, he will not be foolish enough to divide his land equally among his sons.

A large field is more likely to support a family.

Well, in fact, it all comes down to class solidification. In this corrupt empire, no matter whether they are nobles or ordinary farmers, they have almost no possibility of upward movement, and they are all trying their best to hold on to what they hold in their hands even more tightly.

This situation will continue as expected.

Until the arrival of the rat people, everything changed.

Many of these busy third-rate mercenaries chose to participate in this war.

Most of them are only slightly stronger than ordinary people, and participating in a real war is obviously a bit beyond their scope.

But there is no way.

In the past, one could still barely maintain that difficult life by being busy, but now, if you don’t join this war, it will be difficult to even survive.

The dazed young man looked at the middle-aged man not far away with envy. At least, at least that guy was still being missed by others.

Going to war with the Ratman Empire is really not good news, because these lunatics are aiming for a total war from the beginning.

For those high and mighty nobles, it is still unknown, but for those ordinary Ghost-Eyed People, there are only two situations: either they have no choice but to join the battlefield due to the involvement of the war, or they are violently cleansed by the rats and then step onto the battlefield with hatred and nothing.

The young man picked up the blood-stained sword at hand and did not grab the bulging purse. Even though the money was so generous, he didn't know what to do with it.

Everything around was so lively, everything was happening in front of the city gate, and there was even a wonderful acrobatic show in the middle.

Which prince ordered all this?

It's not that it has no effect at all, it brings some comfort.

The lively scene lasted for three days. On the third day, the Church of the Gods left with a huge team and disappeared into the deep darkness.

The heavy city gate closed with the creaking sound of turning gears, and the children were the most reluctant to leave.

It's just that it's clear that this team won't stop for the city kids.

………….

Something different was happening in front of the plateau that lay between the three provinces.

Today, some special guests seem ready to visit this plateau.

A group of mages arrived here.

The leader was an old wizard with a long white beard and a pointed hat. This was a very orthodox wizard outfit, often seen in magic societies that were about to be eliminated.

Although the magic associations of the Ghost Eye people were the predecessors of today's magic academies, there were probably not many wizards who would wear such attire. This old wizard was the leader of this team of wizards. With the blessing of magic, they began to climb towards this plateau.

The cold that once caused great harm to the Rat War was obviously not a big problem for these mages. All they needed was a constant temperature spell, an immunity to wind and snow, and an ability to walk on flat ground, and there would be no trouble at all.

This group of mages is a group of explorers.

The investigators who set out to prepare for a major project came from the brightly lit City of the Sun and from the prestigious First Academy of Magic Elements in the Empire.

The magic industry system is progressing in great strides among the Dark Eye people.

The magic core that has been freed from restrictions is the epoch-making thing, or it can be said that the huge controllable magic elements have created the progress of the Youyan people in magic civilization.

All the mages were ecstatic during this period, until the sudden jam.

The power of the Elemental Chaos Cannon has brought about a huge demand, but the production capacity has reached a bottleneck, and the traditional magic workshop model can no longer keep up with the times.

Faced with the huge demand and the nobles who were wielding large numbers of golden soldiers to purchase elemental chaos cannons, a reform was obviously necessary.

A more advanced, larger, and more productive magic industrial zone was put into planning, and then, it got stuck.

The mages who designed the magic industrial zone found a problem that was difficult to avoid.

Due to the shortage of magic power, the amount of magic power needed to keep a huge magic industrial zone running normally is incalculable.

It is so huge that even if all the diffuse elements in the surrounding environment are drained out, it may not be enough.

This is a problem that is difficult to avoid. After all, the total amount of magic power in an area is there. Even if it is all drained, it is still not enough.

In order to solve this problem, the mages of the Ghost Eye tribe began to try in two directions.

One is to find a way to gather magic power from a larger area, and the other is to find some special places, areas where magic power is naturally enriched.

So a group of wizards set out on an expedition.

Is there such a place in the Youyan Human Empire, or in other words, is there such a magical place in the main continent.

There really is one. This plateau that made Shu Zhan so embarrassed is such a place.

The higher you climb towards the plateau, the more clearly you can feel the presence of elements. Such clarity indicates that the concentration of elements is increasing.

This discovery made the team of mages ecstatic, as this was the place they were looking for.

It’s almost time to reach the plateau.

But before that, there was a small problem to be solved. A group of plateau barbarians riding giant lizards appeared in front of the mages.

With eager expressions on their faces, these highland barbarians not only do not welcome the ratmen, but also seem to be unwelcome to the visit of the mage.

………….

After completing the handover of the goods in hand, Shu Zhan no longer stayed in this border area. He did not continue to move forward along the border area, but began to return in the direction he came from.

That area has been swept by the Rat War once, and there are no valuable targets except for the difficult cities.

Rat War was not prepared to attack the city so quickly, at least not to attack these unimportant small cities.

So why go back the same way?

In order to avoid having humans figure out their route of action.

They turned back and made a surprise attack, then continued to rush towards the heartland of the Youyan human race. After learning about Sheng Qi and Sheng Qi's sea route, they no longer had any hope of advancing towards the heartland of the Youyan human empire.

Of course, they had to keep moving forward. Shu Zhan didn't really want to be blocked by a large-scale force again and have to engage in endless exchanges and confrontations.

Waving the pitch-black flag, the endless number of rats entrenched in the area began to move.

Well, even though most of them were abandoned, and a lot of ratmen were killed in the running and killing, the scale of the Eastern Expeditionary Force in Shuzhan's hands was still so huge.

The rats are coming back again, but no one knows whether the Ghost-Eyed People in the area that had just been abused are ready.

The Rat War encountered a human army. They were not numerous enough, had flags of various styles, and their equipment was not good enough.

The commander of this human army did not anticipate the return of the ratmen.

During this period of time, the ratmen's movement trajectory has been very clear. They almost never looked back or returned to revisit the swept area.

Unfortunately, this was the first time they ran into this, so they had no more choices.

With shouts, the battle began.

The numbers of this human team were completely crushed, and the outcome was basically no suspense, but the warriors in this human team rarely showed any morale collapse, and even hesitation was rarely seen among this group of human warriors.

Shu Zhan originally thought that the guys he encountered would probably fall down at the first charge, but he didn't expect that these guys would actually shake the Eastern Expeditionary Army in his hands. Although the time was very short, the collision caused the Eastern Expeditionary Army to stagnate for a moment.

It just doesn't change anything.

Not long after, most of these crazy guys were killed by the rats. The rats who were at the forefront of the battle had a hint of fear and terror in their eyes. In the previous battle, the performance of some humans and their crazy postures made people doubt who the real rats were.

The battle entered its final stages, and there were only a few human warriors left standing.

Unfortunately, these guys collided head-on with the rats before they could join the main force.

A young man, holding a blood-stained sword, was gasping for breath on the battlefield. A ratman's spear pierced his abdomen. The spear had not been pulled out yet and was stuck in his abdomen.

It is difficult to say whether the early encounter with the rat man is a good thing or a bad thing for this young man. Death is not something difficult to accept. The young man has always felt this way during this period of time.

Just now, he saw with his own eyes that the middle-aged mercenary who was cared for by others was killed by the rats and his head was cut off.

Unspeakable anger, eyes red.

A loud and angry roar.

"You damn guys!"

The furious young man charged forward regardless of the consequences, with unspeakable anger and hatred, but he was not a hero after all. After killing several rat warriors, he was caught in a flaw because he was too reckless, and was attacked from behind by a rat warrior.

At that moment, he saw his own body.

The way he died was exactly the same as that middle-aged mercenary, with his head cut off.

The battle ended soon after. It was a battle without any suspense, but it did hinder the Eastern Expeditionary Force's mad rush.

Although the obstacle was so weak, there was no way to make Shu Zhan pay more attention to it.

(End of this chapter)