Badge in Azure

The second battalion took a day’s time to retreat back to Metatrin City. When they returned a special army departed from the city. This army only consisted of two-thousand soldiers and they were all riding on skeletal warhorses.

Saleen requested for the twelve Earls and four Dukes to send one-hundred and two-hundred soldiers each respectively so there were two-thousand elite soldiers in total. Along with these two-thousand soldiers were ten mages and the Three Kings. Their location of ambush would be in a hilly region that was more than ten miles away from western town.

Regardless if the ambush was successful or not, this army must lure the enemy to bypass western town. The ten story magic tower was on the east side of western town. When the Holy See’s army saw this magic tower, they would surely go mad.

In other words, this army would only need to flee for twenty miles or so.

Besides, Lex had left behind another battalion in western town which was made up of over thirty-thousand soldiers contributed by the noble families of Metatrin City. The defense of this city had been built up for more than a year and would be more than capable of stopping the Holy See’s army.

Lex’s battalion would not be as weak as Saleen’s army. In such a battle where they were the defending side, they would be able to display might multiple times of their fighting capabilities.

Saleen had no idea that the Holy See’s army was attacking so frantically because they did not have much food left. If they did not take down Broken Blade Pass quickly, they would all have to starve. They would have to wait for the Holy See to send aid or even be forced to retreat and attack Phoenix instead.

There was no food in Broken Blade Pass as Saleen had only left behind five days’ worth of grain for the second battalion and mercenary groups. They did not manage to bring the grain along when they retreated, but a day’s worth of food for twenty-thousand soldiers would not be enough for the Holy See’s army that still consisted of more than ninety-thousand soldiers.

The Holy See’s army was also at wit’s end. Taking down Broken Blade Pass was an enormous task and they expected the enemy to defend to death. Although the resistance was fierce, the enemy ultimately retreated. This could only mean that there would be more resistance to be overcome ahead. The Holy See did not pay any attention to Metatrin City and did not receive any information.

There was news from the oracles and the supreme court, but it had been concealed.

The supreme court activated five-thousand jailors, twelve black high priests, and three terrifying and anonymous men. They had not involved themselves in any of the battles before, not even when the enemy was burning the logistic army’s grain.

The supreme court behaved abnormally and claimed to only join in the fight at Metatrin City. This infuriated the commander of this battle; Grand Bishop Nicholas.

Grand Bishop Nicholas and the general of Tanggulasi Empire’s ninth corp could not command the men of the supreme court so they could only keep pushing the expedition to sacrifice their lives in exchange for Broken Blade Pass. They strived to reach Metatrin City early so that the three bastards of the supreme court would have no excuse not to join in the fight.

“Too bad that oracle Fycro is not around, otherwise he would have been able to flatten this city.” Grand Bishop Nicholas was thinking to himself gloomily. Although he was the bodyguard of the Pope, he was still very respectful towards Fycro. Fycro was so powerful that if the Pope did not have the three godly items, he might not be able to handle Fycro either.

The expedition temporarily camped at Broken Blade Pass. The holy priests needed to heal many of the injured soldiers. Many of the soldiers were heavily injured, but they could not be ignored. Even if they were to die, they wanted to die in Metatrin City.

The disciples only knew that the holy priests could heal all wounds and very soon they would be able to fight again. Of course, the holy priests would never reveal their secret, it was how they made a living after all. If people knew that divine spells caused harm to their bodies, no one would be willing to spend money to seek help from them.

Outside of Broken Blade Pass, a fire was raging. This was the only task that the men of the supreme court were carrying out; the burning of the corpses.

Just as Grand Bishop Nicholas was becoming depressed, the men of the supreme court sent over a batch of food. It was dried meat strips that were commonly found in the northern part of Tanggulasi Empire. Nicholas was overjoyed. With these meat strips, they would be able to survive for another six to seven days and the expedition would finally have the chance to rest and reorganize.

Nicholas had no idea that back in the supreme court’s camp, the three murderous-looking fellows were laughing maniacally.

“Big brother, if they realized that they are eating human meat, do you think they will vomit it out?”

“Vomit it out? Third brother, maybe they will ask for more, hahaha…”

“Big brother, these men have already eaten human flesh. They must repent. It will be much easier to force them into the supreme court in future. This idea of yours is really amazing.”

“Humph, if not for the fact that this was an order from the Head Inquisitor, do you think I would do something as stupid as this? Theisio raised this army so hastily and did not care about the battle against Luolan. This is strange. The three of us are still alive only because of the Head Inquisitor, so we don’t have to do our best for Theisio. By giving them human flesh, they will now have the energy to fight. Who can predict the future? I don’t think we can take the city with them.”

“Big brother, what do you mean?”

“Stop asking questions. I heard that the Head Inquisitor does not wish for us to take down this city. Look after the jailers. If Nicholas is defeated, we will head to Phoenix.”

“The Head Inquisitor has a secret order?” The other two were shocked.

“Not really a secret order. We just need to find out the situation in Phoenix. Our maps are not accurate. Didn’t you see the twelve high-level black high priests? Their task is to map out the coordinates and landmarks.”

After the situation at Broken Blade Pass has stabilized, Metatrin City seemed to have become a calmer place too. Soldiers were patrolling the streets and many spirits of the dead roamed the center of the city. No one dared to enter for no reason. Caucasus magic wolf warriors were also patrolling that area. No one dared to risk being eaten by magic wolves by accident.

The number of boats at the port on the east side was few and far between. Saleen had already asked Guya and the rest to think of ways to attract merchants to sell some of their animals there. The outskirts of Metatrin City were all valuable lands for agriculture so there were no farms. Saleen has always provided for the meat. Nevertheless, not everyone liked the taste of fish and prawn from the sea. Many of the warriors had been used to eating mutton so in the meantime, they could only rely on merchants to import these meats.

Soldiers must eat meat in order to have the energy to fight. Saleen even built an abattoir on an island on the northern part of Metatrin City. Large amounts of meat would be transported into the city for the consumption of his fifty-thousand strong army.

Qin was wealthy and goods were cheap, but a cow would still cost tens of gold coins. Not every farmer could use puppets for farming so more than half of Qin’s farmlands still used cows for plowing.

The daily import of meat was a profitable business for merchants, but the moment the news broke of the Holy See expedition. This business ceased on land and few still continued via the sea route. More often many animals would die when being transported on boats.

Saleen’s five battalions of soldiers consumed half a pound of meat on a daily basis. Other than a few fish and prawn, the rest of their meat consumption was beef and mutton. Four-thousand pounds of meat would be consumed daily. Few people in the north of Qin reared pigs so most of the pork would have to be bought from the southern region.

A one-hundred-thousand strong army was deployed at the border of Luolan and they consumed large amounts of meat daily too. All the meat from the north of Qin had already been bought over by the Empire’s army. Whatever Saleen could get his hands on was bought from noble families.

Gradually, the price of meat from north of Qin increased by four to five times. It was not possible to purchase meat at cost price like in Holy Rock City anymore. Now that Saleen was ruling over a kingdom, he finally realized that money was easy to earn, but also easy to spend.

The army that had retreated back to Metatrin City replenished their soldiers while Saleen’s five battalions began to set up their defences nervously. As the city was enormous, each city wall was almost eight miles wide. The two main walls would need twenty-thousand men to defend them. It was still going to be tight defending with five battalions.

Fortunately, most of the people that had settled down in Metatrin City were strong and fit. Saleen tried to recruit auxiliary soldiers at the last minute and still managed to find another twenty-thousand men. In addition to the twenty-thousand auxiliary soldiers he already had, Saleen now had ninety-thousand soldiers in total. The noble families’ private soldiers amounted to about twenty-thousand men as well. The forces on the inside and outside of the city were about the same. It was not a matter of whether Metatrin City would be lost, but of how many lives would be lost in the battle.

The compensation that Saleen was willing to pay for each soldier’s death was between forty to one-hundred gold coins to their family. If ten-thousand died, the compensation for death and loss of equipment would definitely be more than one-million gold coins.

Eleanor also felt that they would make a huge loss and said, “If only we had the grain from the elvish dimension. Consume one meal and one would be full for the entire day. There would be no need for meat either.”

“Magic bugs won’t be too bad either. One would be full for a few days after one meal.” Nailisi felt helpless about the situation at hand. The demon city has yet to be completed. She would only be able to summon tens of demons, which would not help much in the battle and waste a lot of magic nuclei.

The benefit of summoning demons was to save on death compensations. No one had ever heard of demons caring about what happened to them after their deaths.

“Are you saying that one need not eat for a few days after consuming magic bugs?” Saleen managed to catch what Nailisi said.

“Yes, Master. Not only do magic bugs taste good, they are also more filling than beef. They are like the beasts from the sea, hmm… like the giant whale’s oil.”

Giant whale’s oil was a food item given to Saleen’s elite soldiers. Each soldier would bring along one pound and could consume it for up to a week. The amount of energy it provided was equivalent to consuming only meat every meal every day. Saleen’s warehouse stored tens of thousands of pounds of giant whale’s oil. Giant whales could only be found in the deep seas and were hard to capture though.

“There would be no danger for humans to consume them?”

“I’m not sure about that. Even the weakest demonic spirits can digest magic bugs. It shouldn’t be a problem for human soldiers, right?”

“Find a way to bring me a few. If this works, we will mass produce them and replace the grain for the armies with them!”

Saleen thought to himself, “Let the Eastern Sea slaves be the guinea pigs first. If they don’t die or fall sick, then humans will be able to consume magic bugs.” Many of the bugs were vegetarians and could grow very rapidly, as fast as one week. That rapid rate of growth made feeding the large amounts of demons in the demon dimension possible.