Chapter 1103: The Trial of Death

“Hundreds of thousands of fugitives can only walk through the empty grasslands. This involves the pursuers’ fighting will.”

Meng Chao said, “Earlier in the camp, the Great Horn officer was right. The fugitives are not the main problem of the Blood Hoof Clan. No matter how furious the chiefs and priests are, as long as there is still a trace of rationality left, it is impossible for them to come out in full force to hunt down the fugitives.”

“Why?”

Ice Storm asked, “The fugitives overturned the entire Black-corner City and humiliated the Blood Hoof Clan!”

“A qualified commander would not start a war rashly out of anger.”

Meng Chao said, “I believe that the Bloody Hoof clan, which has a deep foundation, has more or less a few qualified commanders.

“Yes, the serial explosions and the theft of the temple in black-horn city have indeed embarrassed the bloody hoof clan. But just to save face, the entire army has been dispatched to the boundless sky-sinking prairie to hunt down a group of dirty, lowly, and hiding rats?

“Then, what should we do in the supreme power struggle between the Blood Hoof clan and the Gold Clan?

“Other than black-corner city and the sky-sinking prairies, who will intimidate and suppress the restless rats in the other places in the territory of the Blood Hoof Clan?

“Will the Blood Hoof clan participate in the Battle of Honor that the army is marching north to the land of Holy Light?

“For the chiefs and priests who are in control of the Bloody Hoof clan, the most important issue at this moment is not revenge, but cleaning up the mess, maintaining order, and ensuring that the bloody hoof army is still an army that is firmly united and ready to fight at any time. Moreover, this army still has sufficient food, weapons, and various war resources.

“As for the rat folk servants and slave laborers, there are plenty of them everywhere. It will be fine as long as they are rerecruited.

“The rat folk who are recruited again have never experienced the shock of black-corner city. They still have some respect for the blood hoof warriors deep in their bones, which makes them easier to control and exploit. They are the better cannon fodder.

“As for the fugitives who have rushed out of black-corner city, even if they have caught up with them and captured them, what will happen next?

“If they were reorganized into slaves or cannon fodder troops, they would have ignited the fire of resistance in their hearts a long time ago. It would be impossible for them to completely obey the orders of the Blood Hoof Warriors. They would be acting behind their backs, slacking off, or even sabotaging them on purpose. Besides, the fire of resistance would spread like a plague. Wouldn’t it be a waste to ‘pollute’the rat folk who came from the local areas and did not witness the misery of black-corner city?

“Or, kill them all?”?

“Of course, this method is very satisfying, but it can’t solve the problem of the lack of manpower and resources of the Blood Hoof clan. It’s also a waste of a large amount of war resources. To put it bluntly, not to mention capturing the wild and unruly living people who are willing to die together with them at any time, even if the army goes all out to capture hundreds of thousands of pigs on the grassland, the amount of war resources required is astronomical! “Now that the situation is so bad, can the big shots of the bloody hoof clan do such a loss-making business?”

Whether it was in the land of holy light or in Tulanze, when icestorm heard people talking about the war, they were all full of grandiose words like “For the glory of the true God, for the glory of the ancestral spirits, and for absolute justice”.

There were very few people like Meng Chao who treated the war as a business and calculated the gains and losses.

She couldn’t help but feel refreshed.

“However, a large number of ancient treasures were stolen from the temples in black-corner city. Don’t the nobles in the city want to recover these things?”icestorm thought for a moment and asked.

“To recover the ancient treasures, we don’t rely on a large number of relatively clumsy troops, but an elite team of experts.”

“Therefore, according to my speculation, as long as the fugitives are running away from the space-trapping prairies, there won’t be too many pursuers,”Meng Chao said.

“Of course, the first wave of pursuers will certainly be aggressive, and they won’t show mercy after they catch the fugitives. They will definitely use the cruelest means to make an example of the others.

“But as long as the fugitives can withstand the first wave of pursuers, they have a high chance of surviving — temporarily.”

“What about the war drum forest?”

“If the main force breaks out of the war drum forest, what’s the difference?”

“The difference is that the war drum forest is the important granary of the Blood Hoof clan, where countless mandala fruits are stored. Today, when the mandala trees no longer bear fruit and the stored grains are eaten one by one, these strategic materials are enough for any commander to devote all their troops.”

“If hundreds of thousands of fugitives or even more go to the war drum forest, the commanders in Black Horn City will have to consider the possibility that the great horn army is trying to conquer the war drum city and seize the important granary,”Meng Chao said.

“In the situation where the granary in black horn city has suffered heavy losses and a large amount of grain has been stolen and burnt, they will have no choice but to march out, no matter how high the price is.

“In the Forest of war drums, the defending soldiers, who had nowhere to retreat, could only summon the honor and courage of the Bloody Hoof Warriors when they were faced with more than a hundred times the number of rat soldiers. They fought the rat tide until the reinforcements arrived in black-corner city.

“You should know better than I do how terrifying a warrior of the clan can be when he is truly enraged.

“The Serious Blood Hoof Army is definitely not a mob that can be fought against in a hurry!”

Bingfeng nodded thoughtfully and said hesitantly, “But you just said that you smelled a strange fragrance from the depths of the forest of war drums…”

“That’s right.”

Meng Chao smiled slightly. “I’m just saying that it’s impossible for hundreds of thousands of soldiers to break out of the Forest of war drums. If the movement is too big, it will only attract the main force of the Blood Hoof Army and cause both sides to suffer heavy losses, which will benefit the golden clan for nothing.

“However, if only a few dozen, at most a few hundred temple thieves with ancient treasures infiltrate into the depths of the forest of war drums without anyone knowing, it is still possible for them to break through the defense line.

“After all, as I said just now, the defense line will be riddled with holes because of the lack of soldiers.

“Not to mention that, if I were the commander of the Great Horn Legion, I would have already carried out a lot of infiltration and conversion work deep inside the Forest of war drums to ensure that there were a lot of loyal followers of the great horn rat god among the rat folk servants and slaves in the Forest of war drums.

“With the cooperation of the followers, it is hard to say whether or not hundreds of thousands of people will be sent out in secret. It is not an impossible mission, is it?”

Hearing this, the ice storm finally realized something.

“Therefore, the people in front of us, US, and the hundreds of thousands of rats who have escaped from the sunken prairies are all bait!”

The ice storm said, “Just like the cover-up in Black Horn City, the furious eyes of all the bloody hooves warriors were fixed on the sunken prairies. The real big fish — the thieves of the temple with the ancient treasures — would be able to swagger away through the Forest of war drums

“That’s right. On one hand, this is the purpose. On the other hand, there is another benefit of having a large number of fugitives leave the sunken grassland.”

Meng Chao said, “Do you still remember what the commander of the Great Horn Army said? He said that this escape was the ultimate trial given by the great horn rat god to all the rat people. Only those who passed the trial could receive the protection and blessing of the Rat God. I think that, in a sense, this is true.”

“Trial?”icestorm mumbled.

“That’s right. The larger the army, the better. Especially when the communication methods of Tulanze are so backward, the logistics system is huge and clumsy, and the high-level orcs are more free and unruly. Under such an unruly situation, an army that has too many people will only be crushed by its own weight like a giant beast that grows endlessly.

“Even if they possess the Supreme Treasures and secret arts left behind by the ancient Tulan people, the Tulan Army reaching the scale of millions of people is already the limit. However, due to the crazy reproduction over the past 50 years, the total number of soldiers of the various clans is several times, or even ten times more than millions!

“This is the reason why the various clans have to carry out the game of the brave as well as the five clans’competition.

“It’s equivalent to having an elimination competition within the territory of the land of Holy Light before starting an all-out war. Through the elimination of the strong and the weak, the elite soldiers and generals that are truly qualified to enjoy the war resources will be selected.

“The great horn army faces the same problem.

“It’s even more serious.

“After all, the war resources that the Great Horn Army can control are far more scarce than the various great clans.

“However, the number of soldiers who were willing to join the great horn army was more than ten times that of the Warriors of the clans.

“The Great Horn Army, which relied on the righteousness of ‘the arrival of the great horn rat god to save all the rat people’to gather the people’s hearts, could not possibly reject all the rat soldiers who were full of resistance and fighting enthusiasm.

“Most importantly, the great horn army lacked the time to train the rat people, who were full of passion but lacked combat skills, into real warriors.

“If the Great Horn Army was still hiding in the darkness when black horn city had not been turned upside down, it would have been able to develop silently.

“Then, after such a destructive storm, how could the existence of the Great Horn Army be hidden from the eyes of the other four clans?

“I think that even the commander of the Great Horn Army did not have the luxury of concealing himself anymore. Therefore, even the low-level warriors such as the round bone club were able to talk about the secrets of the Great Horn Army without any fear.

“From the moment of the series of explosions in Black Horn City, the great horn army could only soar into the sky, stir up the wind and thunder, sweep over the entire area, and step onto the peak of glory.

“Or they could spin and die, completely defeated.

“These two paths can be chosen.

“Tell me, at such a critical moment, do you think that the Great Horn Army wishes to accept hundreds of thousands of mouths waiting to be fed, or do you think that thirty to fifty thousand strong soldiers, who have crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, will be able to hone their tenacity and strong combat ability in the moment of life and death and can be thrown into battle at any time