Chapter 128: Reverence for Life
Knight Wolf’s speed was faster than anyone had imagined.
By the third day, he had already assembled a team and headed toward the southern Forth Territory.
The Forth Territory bordered the York Territory. Viscount Youn Leonard was the lord of this land and one of the members of the allied forces preparing to invade York Territory.
Knight Wolf’s force totaled fewer than three hundred. Among them were five knights, forty cavalry, one hundred elite warriors, and the remaining were just over a hundred conscripted militia.
It shouldn’t be said they were mere militia. They were the better among the conscripted, and could all be referred to as Lower Warriors.
What they lacked to become real warriors was only the tempering of war.
Naturally, Knight Wolf brought them along to temper them through war.
Without bringing support troops, they set off from the territory at dawn and by dusk had razed a village of four to five hundred people.
They killed the village guards and the local gentry, then assigned the nearly three hundred captives to those conscripted militia, ordering them to kill the people kneeling before them, panicked and praying.
The fastest way to cultivate the most elite warriors was to make them kill.
Kill enough people. Kill until they no longer held reverence for life. Kill until when they charged, they would roar madly and rush forward.
Kill until madness.
So, on the second day, Knight Wolf led them to massacre another village.
By the third day, they finally encountered a knight leading his own squire and warriors, rallying the villagers to organize a defense.
"We can’t keep killing like this. Their minds are already stretched to the limit. One more trigger and they’ll go mad,"Nyx panted as he spoke.
He sat atop a horse, his whole body swaying like a cloth hung on its back.
"I’m not trying to cultivate elite warriors, nor even cavalry or knights. What I need now is a group of butchers,"Wolf replied and ordered the cavalry and elite warriors to form ranks.
"But what if these butchers strike your own rear lines?"Nyx said in a lowered voice.
"Then kill those who’ve gone mad. Keep only those who can maintain basic reason and distinguish between friend and foe,"Wolf remained indifferent.
"Wolf! Are you insane? The people of Forth Territory have already reacted. They won’t allow this kind of slaughter,"Nyx’s voice carried anger.
Compared to York Territory, Forth Territory was much smaller in area. It had only nineteen recorded villages.
At this rate of slaughter, in less than a month, the entire Forth Territory would be wiped out.
Killing one or two villages might be tolerable for a viscount, but this attitude of aiming to exterminate would truly drive the enemy mad.
Even though Viscount Youn had taken part of his warriors to Viscount Logan’s territory to join the allied forces, he still had some forces left in his domain.
With these forces as the core, and the remaining knights forcibly conscripting the populace, they could easily raise three to four thousand men for a defensive battle.
"This is war, Nyx. Don’t view these things with the Church’s mindset,"Wolf said.
"You’ve served as a magistrate before. You should understand this logic."
"Only by making our enemies feel fear, by making them realize that offending us comes with losses they cannot bear—"
"Will they understand that coveting the York Territory is a grave mistake."
"If you’re concerned about the state of those militia, then go soothe them with your Holy Scriptures."
With that, Knight Wolf urged his warhorse forward.
"This attack on the village doesn’t require them. Tonight, I’ll press the captives before them."
"And during this time, I don’t want you questioning my command."
"If you feel pity for them, then go do what you’re supposed to do."
Nyx opened his mouth but couldn’t speak, only able to watch as one elite warrior after another formed ranks and moved forward.
They chopped down trees and built siege weapons on site.
After all, what they were attacking was just a village, and because Wolf’s attacks came so swiftly, the village walls hadn’t even been reinforced.
Simple siege equipment would suffice.
Moreover, the mere reputation of the Butcher Wolf spreading out would make the village guards tremble.
Glancing at the warriors truly organizing the assault, Nyx pulled on the reins and turned his horse around.
Because Knight Wolf’s anticipated strategy was a blitzkrieg—attacking a village a day and quickly relocating—there was no arrangement to build temporary camps.
Nyx arrived at the place where the conscripted militia were gathered. He could see that those conscripted militia were merely sitting in a daze, their eyes somewhat vacant.
Some still had bloodstains on their faces—because they were not skilled at killing, when they struck down, blood sprayed and splattered onto their faces.
Nyx also saw one man holding the head of an infant in his hand.
It was something he had personally hacked off.
To prevent resistance from the captives, Knight Wolf had all the adult males killed.
What was left for these conscripted militia were mostly children, women, and the elderly—those who had no ability to resist.
And it was these people, in the face of the fear of death, whose desperate will to live was the most pitiable.
Especially when the weapons in the militia’s hands were not that sharp, and their killing techniques were unrefined.
When the axe came down, it would get stuck in the neck. At that moment, the person being struck wasn’t even dead yet, still able to feel pain, and would let out screams of terror.
The one holding the axe would panic, and once panicked, the motion of pulling out the axe would become distorted. The iron blade would grind against the bones of the neck, producing a wail like that of a resentful ghost.
Nyx didn’t even dare to recall such cruelty. At that moment, the cries of children, the screams of women, and the hoarse wails of the elderly still seemed to echo in his ears.
If he were still at the rear, just like during his earlier time as a magistrate, he would have viewed these numbers as mere statistics.
Each conscripted soldier only killed two to three people in one battle,
and they were people without the ability to resist.
In this context, even killing two to three people felt like they weren’t putting in enough effort.
If he were still a junior scholar, he might have laughed off such a loss.
Casually exploring some taboos, the number of people indirectly killed could reach hundreds or even thousands. Some extremely dangerous things could kill tens of thousands of people and it would still be considered common.
Whether during his time as a scholar or as a magistrate, the wails of life before death had always been distant from him.
The only time he had truly realized the misery of death was when Melia’s parents died before his eyes.
At that time, half of both their bodies had been gnawed away by something invisible.
Yet even then, the two were still emotionally telling him about the secret they had discovered, and handed him the beast hide on which they had recorded the secret, hoping he could seal it away.
It was then, as a father, that he felt a certain fear toward the fading of life.
But the two of them, when they died, did not wail like this. Their deaths were for the noble cause in their hearts. They did not fear death.
Nyx felt that his fear back then was more about never seeing his child again.
But the death of his own child was a kind of sublimation after fulfilling one’s values. It was a fearlessness toward death.
Completely different from these people who simply wanted to live.
So, being on the scene, watching the wailing of these people who purely longed to survive—
He suddenly felt that he somewhat understood why the Bishop had insisted on Ando.
He also began to understand why he had never been able to elevate his own Faith.
Perhaps, it was because he lacked reverence for life.