Vigoro turned to look at Cong Wuyang, then turned his head and stared at Matthews with a fierce gleam of hatred in his eyes. He nodded, led the bandit leader Matthews, who was being escorted by the soldiers, towards a nearby house, and said, "Thank you, my lord."
Matthews felt a chill down his spine being stared at like that and couldn't help but plead pitifully. In this way, he was taken into the house.
After everything settled down, ever since Vigoro brought the bandit leader into the house, all sorts of strange noises and unceasing screams had been coming from the house throughout the night.
...
The next morning, Vigoro walked out of a relatively intact house. He looked at the soldiers who were busily collecting the corpses and tidying up the damaged buildings, and took a deep breath.
A smell that mixed the strong smell of blood and the earthy scent carried in the morning mist in the mountains rushed into his chest and abdomen with his breath, making him much more awake after being busy in the early morning for a long time.
Looking around, there were ruins everywhere. The corpses of the villagers and the bandits were being carried out by the soldiers from every corner of the village. The villagers' corpses were being neatly arranged on the open ground beside the big banyan tree at the entrance of the village, ready to be given a simple funeral and buried. The Klein brothers were over there identifying them one by one.
The bandits' corpses didn't have such good treatment. They were all being transported to a large pit dug beside the forest outside the village and casually thrown in and buried together.
Ergou was leading several soldiers to patrol around the village, also checking if there were any survivors. Several soldiers were setting up bonfires beside the nearby buildings to cook food.
At this time, Vigoro also walked out of the nearby house with red eyes and a tired spirit. Seeing that Cong Wuyang had already gotten up, he walked quickly towards him and said, "My lord, I've already asked clearly from the bandit leader about the course and reason of the incident."
...
It turned out that, just as Cong Wuyang had thought, this group of bandits had indeed fled from the neighboring Kingdom of Mania. The bandit leader and several core members used to be part of a certain mercenary group in the Kingdom of Mania.
They were hired by the king of the Kingdom of Mania to fight against the Jede Empire in the north. There were also many other large and small mercenary teams that were similarly hired. They were integrated together and ordered to bypass the front line and launch a surprise attack on Windsor Castle on the Dunlun Plain of the Jede Empire, establish a stronghold there, and harass the supply lines of the Jede Empire.
Windsor Castle was located on the Dunlun Plain of the Jede Empire, at the junction of the Yavir Duchy, the Kingdom of Mania, and the Jede Empire. It was a supply route transfer station for the Jede Empire in this three-country war.
At that time, more than 600 people from dozens of large and small mercenary groups took advantage of the fierce battle between the two countries and the Jede Empire at the front line and planned to secretly enter the Dunlun Plain. They gathered in a dense forest 40 kilometers east of Windsor Castle. When the large group of soldiers transporting supplies from the Jede Empire left the castle, they launched an attack.
They originally thought that since the supply troops had just left, the castle should be in a vulnerable state. Even if there were some troops, there would be no more than 200 people, and they could easily capture the castle. However, when they set up the ladders and pushed the battering rams towards the castle, in the heat of the battle, a hundred-man cavalry unit of the Jede Empire charged out from the plain behind the mercenary troops.
Suddenly, all the mercenary group leaders were terrified. But because the mercenaries belonged to different groups and no leader could convince the others, if it weren't for the high commission motivating them, they wouldn't even have come to attack the castle. At this moment, they all wanted the others to go and die, and they couldn't organize an effective resistance.
Even if they could organize a resistance, with these mercenaries who didn't even have heavy armor, they couldn't form a large enough pike phalanx to block the charge of the cavalry unit. Moreover, this was on a plain and they were facing a cavalry unit with neatly arranged armor and leveled lances.
Unless they could hold their ground in the castle on this vast plain, but the troops in the front were still attacking the castle and were in the thick of the battle with the castle defenders, and they hadn't captured it yet.
The result was predictable. This ragtag group of mercenary groups was charged and massacred by the hundred-man cavalry unit. When Matthews saw the cavalry unit charging towards them, he led several of his trusted subordinates and attacked the place where all the mercenary groups had stored their horses together.
Before the battle started, all the mercenary group leaders had gathered together to discuss and unanimously agreed to store all their horses together and then send people from each group to take turns guarding them. This could effectively prevent any group from suffering excessive losses or fleeing the battlefield. They also reached an agreement that if any group fled the battlefield privately, they would be jointly hunted down by all the mercenary groups.
Coincidentally, the subordinates led by Matthews were very close to the place where the horses were being guarded. Seeing this situation, they didn't care at all whether they would be hunted down in the future. After all, surviving at the moment was the best choice. After leading his subordinates to seize the horses, he fled in a hurry. Although some people in other mercenary groups might have had the same idea, they didn't expect Matthews to get there first.
When they saw that the cavalry of the Jede Empire was already approaching, they were anxious, angry, and enraged, but they could only watch helplessly as Matthews and his group fled away. Then they shouted and called their subordinates to gather and resist the cavalry.
Matthews led several people and, after winding their way around, actually fled back to the territory of the Kingdom of Mania. Because they were afraid of being massacred by the troops at the front line and hunted down by the mercenary groups, they could only keep running southward, not even daring to enter the towns.
They thought that if there were any survivors among the mercenary groups under Windsor Castle, the king and lords of the Kingdom of Mania at the front line had already received the news of their desertion. If the news spread back to the country, surely people in every castle and town would be searching for them.
Finally, they fled all the way to the border area between the Kingdom of Mania and the Yavir Kingdom. They couldn't be mercenaries anymore. In desperation, they had no choice but to become bandits and specifically plunder the villages in the territory of the Kingdom of Mania along the border between the two countries.
Matthews, however, in this process, enjoyed a kind of pleasure that he had never experienced when he was a mercenary before. He had the power to decide the life and death of the innocent villagers and felt a sense of superiority.
As they plundered their way along, they also recruited many so-called "talents" from the plundered villages, those idle, trouble-making hooligans. The group grew from the initial eight or nine people to more than fifty people.
They led their subordinates to plunder and flee all the way. When they saw Attila, through their daytime reconnaissance, they found that there were basically no young and strong men in the village. They thought that because of the war among the three countries, the young and strong men had all been conscripted by the local lords and sent to their deaths. So, taking advantage of the emptiness of the village, they entered the village to plunder when night fell.
Finally, because of a woman's shouting before she died, many villagers who were asleep were awakened. Although he ordered the bandit group to pursue and kill them, a small number of people still managed to hide in the forest and escaped because of the darkness of the night.
Among them, there was also an old man. After being caught up with and brought back by two of his subordinates from the forest behind the village, he was brutally tortured and then hanged on the banyan tree at the entrance of the village.
They spent a day ransacking all the supplies in the entire village, not even sparing the ripe crops in the fields outside the village. They were just about to celebrate for one night and then continue to march towards the territory of the Yavir Duchy the next day.
However, they didn't expect that when everyone was sound asleep, a troop of soldiers would sneak up and annihilate and capture them all. It can be said that those who do evil will eventually pay the price.
Cong Wuyang had no good feelings towards these low-level guys who liked to plunder villages. What was there to gain from poor villages? If they wanted to rob, they should rob the lords everywhere. That would be considered ambitious. Moreover, these guys had massacred Attila Village, which he regarded as his own domain.
...
After that, Cong Wuyang knew everything that happened. He didn't ask Vigoro what he had done to Matthews either. Presumably, Matthews had gone to where he deserved to go, either into the belly of a mountain wolf or the mouth of a stray dog outside the village, without even the chance of being buried.
Finally, under the auspices of Vigoro, Ergou, and the two Klein brothers, a simple memorial service was held for the deceased villagers under the big banyan tree at the entrance of the village, and the corpses of each family were buried together.
Among them, all of the Klein brothers' family members had died. Ergou still had a younger brother, but his body wasn't found. It was thought that he had fled into the forest together. As for the families of Eric and Darren, after their identification, except for Darren's old mother who was missing, the rest had also died.
After burying the villagers in the village, everyone ate the food prepared by the soldiers. Vigoro, Ergou, and the others were asking Cong Wuyang about his future plans. After all, now the people in the village were either dead or had fled, and the village no longer really existed. The fields outside the village were also in a mess due to the bandits' plunder.
The cows, sheep, and poultry that used to be in the village had basically ended up in the bellies of the bandits.
The remaining buildings were also in a state of disrepair, leaning in all directions and severely damaged due to the bandits' looting.
Now they were still immersed in the grief and hadn't come out of it. Their minds basically had no ability to think at the moment. Moreover, with just a few poor villagers like them who couldn't even fill their stomachs, they couldn't come up with any good ideas either.
If they hadn't followed Cong Wuyang, they might have died under the bandits' swords last night. So, at this moment, they could only place their hopes on their leader, Cong Wuyang.
Looking at Vigoro, Ergou, and the others all staring at him, Cong Wuyang pondered for a moment and said, "Now Attila exists in name only. Even if you report it to the magistrate of Dehal, it won't be of any use."
"Since you have followed me, I have to be responsible for you. I won't hide it from you. I want to create my own legend on this continent, and I will also lead you and make the name of Attila resound throughout the continent."
"Let's start creating a new life together from this wasteland!"