From Skaven to God of War

Chapter 370: Rotting, festering, and unhealable wounds
This advance was not so easy. Even though Qi had prepared for it early on, the actual difficulties he encountered were far beyond his expectations.

There was no singing, just fear brought by the mad rush and a devastating attack.

Escapes, routs, snooping, and attacks in dark moments.

Perhaps Qi should understand why in this era, the status of the rat knights is getting lower and lower, with villages and towns turned into fortresses, and large numbers of ordinary militiamen equipped with magic rifles.

An efficient early warning system and a group of front-line troops who have retreated from the front line for rest and recuperation.

Qi and the army under his command seemed to be locked down after crossing the river. There were continuous scattered rangers and some strange magical creatures hovering in the air appearing all around the army.

When the flag first attacked a stronghold that was converted from a manor into a fortress, it was ambushed by the Youyan people.

If the army that ambushed him was not short of men, he would have been defeated in the first battle.

Even though he was a rat-man warlord with a large rat-man regular army under his command, he still suffered such a devastating defeat.

It’s hard to imagine how the rat knights would deal with such a situation.

I'm afraid that most of them will break through the front line in a suicide attack, and then wither away on this vast land without leaving even a single survivor.

One thing that must be admitted is that the rat people are better at positional warfare and wars of attrition.

In the face of comprehensive backwardness in technology and troop quality, the rat people had no choice but to continuously draw out long and brutal battle lines and consume the Ghost-Eyed people in a crazy manner.

To be honest, the rat lords, rat priests, and temple guards did not quite understand why the humans, who had been defeated by the rat war and even torn in half and in imminent danger in the last expedition, seemed to have changed their attitude in such a short period of time and become so difficult and irritating.

The promotion of the magic industry and the transition of national power did save the Dark Eye Human Empire. In just three short years, the nobles had quickly reached the point where they existed in name only.

Things, industries, promotion channels, entertainment, these were all widely given up under the impetus of the new emperor.

Everything was very radical. In the first year of the three-year war, the emperor was eager to do many things, cracking down on long-term contracts between nobles and civilians, unifying tax rates among various noble territories, abolishing private slaves, and forcefully giving the right of free travel to every citizen of the empire.

All these things triggered a tsunami-like backlash, but it was completely suppressed.

Caesar displayed a madness comparable to that of a rat man during this crisis.

He recalled all the guards who were resisting the ratmen's advance in the Plains Province, and suppressed the rebellion with an extremely tough attitude, without any compromise or negotiation.

Such madness is simply jaw-dropping.

The nobles were frightened, and eventually everything calmed down. Those noble families that had lasted for hundreds or thousands of years never recovered from this, and the guy who raised the butcher knife was the greatest noble in the empire, the emperor of that empire.

In the second year of the three-year war, when no one expected it, the emperor arbitrarily launched an education reform ordinance. The Mage Association pushed him to the throne, but he chose to take action against the mages without hesitation.

The eight great wizards gathered in the capital of the empire were invited into the palace one by one. At the same time, the young reserve forces who worshipped Caesar in various cities began to take action. They surrounded one magic tower after another and aimed the magical weapons provided by the Mage Association at these wizards.

Caesar wants to confiscate all spells and magical technologies. He wants to build a huge imperial library in order to break the influence of each wizard school relying on its own unique magic technology on the wizards who are about to be selected.

Magic schools have already selected the first batch of one million wizard apprentices, although about 90% of them will only be ordinary trainee wizards for the rest of their lives and will never be able to advance any further.

But just that 10% is enough to rapidly expand the mage schools established around the great mage.

So Caesar chose to build a large library and unify all magical knowledge in the Mage Association to eliminate this possibility.

The crisis finally ended with the compromise of the wizards, because of the compromise made by Caesar, the magical knowledge was unified in the Wizards Association instead of being controlled by the imperial royal family.

At the same time, there were internal conflicts. Four great wizards clearly chose to support Caesar, three chose to remain neutral, and a large number of wizards of ordinary origin and some young aristocratic wizards chose Caesar.

If this resolution cannot be pushed forward, what will come first will not be a magical war to overthrow the tyrannical emperor but a horrific civil war among wizards.

The remaining great wizards chose to compromise.

What is interesting is that compared to those resentful old nobles, Caesar's prestige among the young people is almost visible to the naked eye, whether they are young mages, nobles, or farmers' children.

Indeed, Caesar is indeed quite charming. He was born of the noblest blood, fought against the most terrifying enemies, and stood up again when he was at his lowest point. He is simply a living protagonist in a storybook.

But even such a Caesar, in a corner unknown to them, was sighing frequently.

With the support of magical agriculture and the legacy of the Golden Wheatfield Academy, food has become extremely abundant every year. With such abundance and increasingly low food prices, a large number of farmers who used to have to stay in the fields all their lives have been able to leave the fields, go to big cities, and find jobs in those magic workshops.

Young people are no longer numbly repeating themselves; the habits and stories among the mages are eventually spread to all corners of the empire.

After all, over the years, these seemingly crazy wizards have always been the most adventurous guys among humans.

The wind of progressive thought began to blow.

These young kids began to tell the world loudly what they want to do and what they want to bring, instead of always emphasizing the old-fashioned glory, bloodline or anything else.

Caesar liked those kids very much. Well, that's what he was doing when he was young and the same age as these kids.

Reading chivalry novels? Reading erotic biographies? Staring at the huge soft part of the maid in the Royal Fortress, unable to move your eyes away, and pretending to be serious and coughing like the protagonist in the chivalry biography if you were caught?
Okay, all of them.

He admired the progressive ideas in the empire. After all, he was still a young emperor and undoubtedly preferred progressive and uplifting things.

But the prerequisite is that the shadow of war dissipates from the sky over the empire.

The never-ending war is like a wound that keeps bleeding.

Two reports were placed before Caesar.

One letter was about the casualties of soldiers on the front line last week and the pensions that needed to be given, and the other was about the number of new babies born in the human empire last year. The number of soldiers killed last week had reached 50,000, which was just one week's casualties. About 2.5 million soldiers died on the battlefield in a year.

Last year, the Mage Association estimated that there were only about three million newborns in the Human Empire.

The existence of the rats and this war are like a torn wound, with the rolling flesh and flowing blood slowly consuming almost everything.

Those farmers who were curiously watching the big city, those children running in the fields, those young people with ideals and hopes, all of them were objects to be consumed.

The hot, bright red blood flowed out from the hideous wound that had torn open the flesh, and fell to the ground, accumulating into a pool of lifeless, filthy, and smelly blood that was filled with a rancid stench.

Caesar wanted to stop all this, he wanted to stop all this, but he couldn't, he could only watch it all happen, and could only reveal the indelible sadness on his face in the dead of night.

Rat men, rat men, rat men, this group of crazy guys are a disaster. They destroy everything and don’t care whether they trample on light or darkness. They don’t care what they trample on, not even themselves.

In the dark night, the flag lit a flame in the wheat field that was already covered with a hint of golden color.

The billowing flames rolled in the darkness and the black smoke rose up, becoming a beacon.

Qi also found his own way to deal with the uninterrupted pursuit.

That is dispersion. After an attack, the entire huge army quickly dispersed and fled in all directions. When it was time to gather together, just like now, they would set fire to anything and destroy anything. The rats wandering around would naturally gather together, and then when they gathered enough to attack those outposts, villages, and fortresses, they would run wildly in the dark, and flee again after success.

This is an extremely effective strategy.

After all, all the temple guards asked Qi to do was harass and attract attention.

As long as Qi keeps running around in this place, no matter what he does, it will completely meet the definition of harassment and attracting attention.

Of course, such a strategy is not perfect enough. If they are too dispersed, it will inevitably be difficult to gather enough ratmen troops when needed. This is a problem that is difficult to avoid.

But solving this problem is also simple.

All we need is a steady supply of ratmen to be injected into this area.

Can Qi do this? Of course, he certainly can't, but his inability does not mean that the temple guards can't do it.

These guys have been working really hard recently in order to make some progress in this war.

All of this is still related to Caesar's reforms.

During the three-year war, who was stuck in Lianyan Province and made no progress? It was you! The temple guard!

Oh! Look at those traitors you brought with you, they are stuck here and can't move, it's really out of control!

This is probably the attitude shown by the rat lords in the rat council now. Although the mysterious commander of the temple guards remains calm about this, the other leaders of the temple guards will be furious.

This made them spare no effort to devote their strength to the battlefield.

The problems faced by Qi's strategy were also solved in this way. Every once in a while, a large number of ratmen warriors would be injected into the area where Qi was wreaking havoc through the flat river channel.

All this is related to Caesar's suppression of the nobles. After he transferred the troops on this front, the rat army led by the private army leader advanced madly for a long distance.

In the darkness, in the flames, a little bit of red appeared, rustling sounds, and sneaky figures gathered in the diffuse flames, gathering around the figure standing in front of the flames.

When Qi saw his army coming, he raised the flag high and roared loudly.

"Follow me! Kill them! For the sake of God! And for yourself!"

The rats began to respond to the roar. In the dark night, they raised their weapons high and shouted excitedly.

"For the gods! And for myself!"

Indeed, the ratmen brought almost nothing but destruction.

In the dark night, the rats gathered in groups and began to run wildly under the leadership of the high-raised flag.

Not far away, in a small town built like a fortress, men holding torches began running in the village. In an ordinary farmhouse, a tired man sat up carefully and stretched out his hand to grab the spear hanging on the head of the bed.

Not far away, the young children were still sleeping soundly. Two brothers of similar age were hugging each other, with snot bubbles running from their noses. The shouting outside the house did not wake up the two little guys.

The tired man took a look at the two little guys. Seeing their strange looks, a smile appeared on his face. He thought of something and turned around, only to see the woman who had sat up like him.

The woman had been frightened by the rat cavalry who broke in here not long ago, and the fear was still buried in her heart. Listening to the shouting outside and looking at the man like this, a bit more fear appeared on her face, but she did not stop the man.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she just sat on the bed wiping her tears.

The man looked at the woman with a more complicated expression on his face, but he did not stop his actions. He picked up the fur hat from the table and stood up.

The steps are light.

"Wait for me, I'll be back soon."

After leaving these words, he left in a hurry.

The flames lit by the flag alarmed the nearby town, and a mobilization began.

The relationship between the two sides is not friendly. It can only be said that since the rat people crossed the narrow land bridge and arrived on this continent, the fight between the two sides has escalated to the level of a fight to the death.

(End of this chapter)