NOVPUBFive days later, the beastmen’s army regrouped. This time, compared to their high spirits when advancing, the returning beastmen looked somewhat disheveled, like a defeated army.
After the Bloodfire Clan was attacked, other military groups besides Balu’s main force also suffered varying degrees of attacks, each incurring losses of two to five thousand. This casualty ratio could be described as quite devastating.
After regrouping, they held another meeting in the central military tent.
“We truly didn’t expect this heavy rain...” Balu said, lowering his head. “As the battlefield commander, I failed to understand the climate here beforehand. I truly didn’t do my job properly. The blame for this poor start should be borne by me.”
“Hmph.” On the other side, Swin of the Bloodfire Clan showed Balu no respect whatsoever. He had already exchanged messages with the other chieftains. Their forces had all suffered some losses, only Balu’s troops had no combat losses, except for a dozen or so lost due to illness caused by the heavy rain.
“How can we blame Chieftain Balu? Your troops perfectly executed the ‘retreat’ mission and suffered no losses whatsoever.”
“...” Balu looked at Swin, his expression calm, then he said, “Apologies, regarding your losses, I will replenish the soldiers in your military groups.”
“Heh, Chieftain Balu, are you pitying us?” Another chieftain, Tak of the Graybone Clan, said with displeasure.
In this battle, besides Swin, Tak of the Graybone Clan suffered the most losses.
“Then I don’t know what would make you satisfied,” Balu said, frowning.
“Shouldn’t that question be addressed to you, Balu!” Saying this, Tak slammed his hand on the table, stood up, and directly pointed at Balu himself.
“You said you had human informants, and we fell for your trick. Think about it, our ancestors never attacked humans at this time. But you specifically convened a beastmen assembly early, making us attack at this time, which resulted in us losing tens of thousands of our brethren for nothing here!”
Yes, the reason this war broke out was also because Balu said at the meeting of the united beastmen tribes that he had human informants. The mastermind behind the informants seemed to be of considerable status. It was because of this that the beastmen chieftains pinned the future hope of their tribes on this attack.
Balu was now completely unable to defend himself.
He also didn’t know that the climate here was so strange at this time of year, with heavy rain so severe that it could directly cause mountains to collapse.
Moreover, before this, according to the human informant’s information, the beastmen’s advance had been very smooth, and everyone had praised Balu’s ability.
But now, simply because of one failure, these chieftains were all dissatisfied with him and wanted to pull him down from his chieftain position.
Balu naturally knew what these people were thinking. It was nothing more than wanting to gain the most benefits for their own tribes in this war, and accumulate enough capital for the next attack twenty years later. He just hadn’t explicitly said it out loud for the sake of the bigger picture.
“Then, you tell me, in that situation, what other options did we have besides retreating?”
Balu said this, looking at Tak, his gaze intense.
“Or do you think our strategy of burning the mountains and forests earlier, and exploiting the internal disunity of the human race to break through at one point, was wrong?”
“Climate is something that the heavens decide. We have no control over it. Who could have predicted this outcome?”
Tak had nothing to say now. He could only sit down resentfully.
“Then, Chieftain Balu, tell us, what should we do now? Our food reserves are only enough for less than three or four days. It seems we can only retreat now, right?” Swin asked from the side.
“But if we retreat now, the gains we’ve made so far won’t last us long. And if we want to fight our way back, by then the human race should be prepared, and it won’t be as simple as before.”
“By the way.” At this moment, on the other side, Ony, the chieftain of the Helm Clan, raised his hand.
“I want to know, who was the commander on the opposite side in this battle? To have such courage and boldness, and to plan so thoroughly based on the timing, they are a very formidable opponent.”
“Wasn’t it Lucius, the one who killed my father eighteen years ago?” Swin asked with confusion.
“No, Lucius has been off the front lines for a long time due to being attacked,” Tak shook his head.
“It’s Orson,” Balu stated.
“Orson?” Ony looked at Balu, showing a confused expression. “Who is this Orson? We didn’t hear of any human general by that name when we were preparing before.”
“He is Lucius’s son.” As Balu’s words fell, everyone present suddenly understood.
In the war more than ten years ago, some of these people were still young at the time and hadn’t gone to the battlefield. As for the chieftains who had been on the battlefield back then, the name Lucius was known to everyone. 𝒏𝒐𝒗𝒑𝒖𝙗.𝒄𝒐𝒎
Although the beastmen plundered a lot of spoils from that war and brought them back to the desert, the price they paid was also huge.
And the person who made them pay that huge price was Lucius.
Before this attack, the beastmen had been waiting for news from their informant. Upon learning that Lucius had been attacked and couldn’t come to the battlefield, the beastmen’s morale soared.
But they hadn’t expected that while Lucius couldn’t come, his son would deliver them a heavy blow.
At this moment, a scout suddenly ran into the military tent from outside.
“Chieftain, something terrible has happened!”
