Sasha held his breath, using a wooden stick to push aside the wet reeds, looking in the direction of the village commune.
Although he was prepared, when he truly saw everything before him, his teeth still bit through his lip, and a bloody haze covered his eyes.
Thick smoke hovered over the western suburbs of Qila Castle without dispersing, with charred wooden beams thrust obliquely into the blackened earth walls.
A hundred and thirty-seven corpses lay in a radial pattern at the edge of the threshing floor, the oldest woman still maintaining a curled posture protecting her grandchild.
Two charred corpses twisted together like molten bronze artifacts.
The wind swept through the burnt elm trees, lifting fragnts of unburned household registration books.
The paper ashes that hadn’t yet dissipated clung to the Long-Lived Army Knight’s wet chainmail.
"These beasts!" Sasha’s fingers instinctively dug deep into the humus soil, almost ready to rush out and fight desperately in the next second.
But his younger brother behind him clutched Sasha’s shoulder desperately, "Are you crazy? We barely survived; now is not the ti for revenge."
"Those damn Plain People, if it weren’t for them, Ninok wouldn’t have died, Aunt Rashaya wouldn’t have died, Uncle Valet wouldn’t have died..."
His gaze swept over the Plain County people bowing and scraping before the knights; Sasha’s entire body was trembling.
"I, I’ll sooner or later kill all the Plain People!"
Just after Sasha finished speaking, he felt a pat on the back of his head.
Turning around, he saw his father glaring at him angrily, "Yu Lian the preacher is a Plain Person. He had a hard ti hiding us. Do you want to kill him too?"
Only then did Sasha fall silent, rely continuing to look at the village commune’s tragic state, as if trying to rember every Leia soldier and every plundering Plain People’s face.
But as he looked, the bloody haze before his eyes faded, and everything beca blurred.
To be honest, compared to the town, this little military settlent village was quite shabby.
Wooden houses fenced in by pickets, with a fertile patch in the yard for growing ginger and thy.
They kept a dog, three sheep, and two fat pigs; his parents crowded together on one bed, and his younger siblings and he on another.
Every morning he would braid his sister’s hair and play the bride ga with her.
Now all he saw was a heap of unrecognizable heads.
Which was his mother? Which was his sister?
His mother, sister, grandpa next door, the la old soldier uncle at the village entrance...everyone who stayed in the village was dead.
All were piles of charred bodies. He couldn’t find his sister, only seeing the multicolored oil flowers floating on the puddles.
Her Highness Moliat wasn’t it said that they were going downhill to have a better life?
Where exactly is the better life? After enduring the hardship of the Blue Blood Monastery, now they suffer from Leia’s invasion.
Why do the Leia people keep grabbing them and not letting go? Why do the Plain People betray them?
Sasha felt soone touch his head, turned around, and saw Yu Lian the preacher looking at him with compassion.
The boy’s tears could no longer be contained as he pressed his face into Yu Lian’s bony chest, stifling his sobs in his chest cavity.
Watching his son’s shoulders shake silently, Pavel, this burly man, began to feel his eyes turn red.
"Let’s go, let’s go, don’t get discovered."
"Sir Raffel, what’s wrong?"
Raffel faced the reeds, hesitated for half a second, then shook his head, "Nothing."
Slaughtering the innocent violated his creed as is, so let these few escape as they had.
How laughable, the order was his own; yet now he has to violate it himself.
Turning his gaze back to the scene before him, Raffel’s face showed no sign of victory’s joy.
The Holy Father could never forgive him, but at least Leia had a slight chance of continuation.
The Plain Nobility nearby, sotis laughing and joking, other tis fighting and brawling like beggars scrabbling over food on these "new fields".
Beside the road by the village commune, several Leia Knights kicked rolling heads through charred earth as if playing a ga.
When a certain silver-greaved knight prepared to kick mid-air, Great Knight Raffel’s whip lashed the seam of his neck armor, "Desecrating the dead! Do you want to end up in Fire Prison? Get back to camp!"
Only then did those knights beg for rcy and leave, while several hooded Ascetics stepped out behind Raffel.
They wore hooded robes that left only their eyes visible.
Six hooded Ascetics took li bags from packhorses’ panniers, silently piecing together the limbs into barely human shapes.
Their coarse hoods swayed with the movent, revealing dark red Lanfeng marks on their necks.
As the corpse carts escorted by Immortal Army Knights passed by, the Squire Knight involuntarily reined back his horse half a step—those droplets falling from the masked helts were as viscous as grease.
"Knight Commander Raffel," Squire Knight Jorgen couldn’t help but ask, "Where are these Immortal Army Knights taking these bodies?"
"To bury or burn them," Raffel replied, looking at the corpse carts escorted by Immortal Army Knights with undisguised disgust in his eyes, "to prevent plague, don’t worry about it."
Watching the departing Immortal Army Knights, he turned his gaze to Qila Castle ahead, letting out a self-deprecating smile.
According to Ginijis’s plan, Thousand River Valley was a link that must be fought.
He knew, by common reasoning, Leia Kingdom’s next target ought to be Windmill Land or Thorn Garden.
But Ginijis planned to utilize this information gap, refusing to disband the troops and attacking Thousand River Valley in advance.
Relying on selling land and manors, thereby consuming the crown’s legitimacy to secure sufficient funds.
Since a fallout would happen sooner or later, might as well get so money to spend in advance.
So, King Jiji first sent spies posing as Ascetics to enter Thousand River Valley to draw maps and troop distribution and negotiate with local nobles.
Next, he won over the Duke of Wing Nest, excavating Innocent Dam to force internal chaos within Thousand River Valley.
Then inciting rebellion, at this point, Raffel would lead elite troops for a surprise attack.
With maps and troop distribution charts made by Ascetics pretending to make a pilgrimage, it was a complete surprise attack.
Even without Moliat, even with the Saint’s Grandson stationed at Xia Lvcheng, it would make no difference.
Soon several border fortresses fell into the hands of the Leia people, and the previous strategy of defending against enemies outside the kingdom was no longer feasible.
The next crucial step, they had achieved.
Led the Plain County people to massacre the mountain settlers and ordinary mountain inhabitants in the Military Settlent District, inciting relations between both parties.
Originally, Moliat’s policy of partially repaying mountain settlers’ bonds while oppressing Plain People had already accumulated significant public resentnt.
Of course, here "the public" specifically refers to those citizens with the capacity for unrest, including artisans, hooligans, minor and major landlords.
Real Plain County farrs, barely able to take out two Dinars, let alone afford expensive bonds, cared little for this.
This public resentnt, once stirred by Plain Nobility such as those in Sanboli, was ready to explode.
Could Moliat’s mountain-settler-based army still conduct normal operations in Plain County?
Raffel thought not.
Though the vassal troops from Immortal Stone Field sent several thousand n to Comita Town, it did not affect the overall picture.
Every step of Ginijis’s plan succeeded.
Even Raffel had to admit that this new king indeed had so of his father’s youthful flair.
Only his father, in his youth, still had a bottom line, being ruthless but not going as far as using any ans available.
But this new king—
"Truly too ruthless and harsh..."
With a sigh, Raffel looked towards Xia Lvcheng, and beyond it, Rapids City.
Beyond Rapids City lay the final destination of their attack on Thousand River Valley—the ry Court Barracks.
He hoped this war would end soon!
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