Yang Hao just nodded slightly, then sighed heavily:
"Fin, you don't understand humans. You don't understand what the God of Light means to the people of the parish, and you don't understand that to the parish, "human life" is ultimately just a number."
"Of course. I value every newborn baby in the Elf Kingdom."
"So you don't understand them. They won't stop. They may postpone the decisive battle, or they may advance the decisive battle, but they will never give up the decisive battle - because they need to consume their excess population, otherwise their food will not be able to feed so many people."
"Since they all eat people, wouldn't it be better to just kill them openly?"
"This involves another problem of human beings: although human beings are fully aware of what they have done, they still need some bright and great excuse to cover up their shame. Even if it is a parish, they can't openly say that they are eating people, unless they want to arouse public anger..."
“This is really troublesome.”
"Yes. It's very troublesome..."
For the time being, Finn understood that the barbarians of the Roman Empire seemed to be an extremely complex group.
They can eat their own kind without a clear conscience, but are too ashamed to tell their own kind about it. They are stubborn but cowardly, selfish and extremely cruel.
In the final analysis, the Roman Empire as a whole is not the human race as the elves know it—
In other words, the only humans recognized by the elves are the Bayerjans. Now we have to count Yang Hao, as well as a very small number of Romans such as Joseph and Arthur.
But that's all.
Fen shook her head, and after taking a last look at the terrain transformation work that was still being painstakingly prepared, she took Yang Hao's wrist and used teleportation magic to send them both back to the green courtyard of Fingel's Sky Garden.
As soon as they came down, they found that the nun was staring at them with wide eyes. Fen smiled back, and for some reason her grip was getting tighter and tighter, making Yang Hao feel a little painful.
Fortunately, the women did not intend to get angry in front of Yang Hao. Fen finally let go of her hand, and then watched Theresa with a grimace directly holding her man's arm and said:
"How are things ahead?"
"It's OK. We are currently transforming the terrain to create a suitable battle terrain, and the golems are constantly harassing the Northern Expeditionary Force's camp... If nothing unexpected happens, we should be able to do everything we can to reduce the number of people when we have a decisive battle with the diocese at the end of October."
"Is that so... Then come with me. I do have something to discuss with you about the demons."
The nun snorted softly, gently took out a handkerchief and wiped the stains on the man's face, then led the two men to her chapel.
In the church, the statue of light worshipped by Teresa was already emitting a faint, almost invisible white light.
Theresa said that her recent psychological counseling with the demons was very effective—
Although it is unknown why the demons will eventually choose to worship light and become believers of light, in general, the demons are completely willing to join Caparia and become citizens of Caparia.
"And they are willing to put aside their past grudges. I have to say that the invasion of the diocese did at least do one good thing: it made the demon tribes in the Monster Forest unite as one."
Theresa complained, and after kneeling on the mat and praying to the statue for less than two seconds under the strange gazes of the two men, she stood up very gracefully.
To be honest, this isn’t the first time Yang-ho has seen her pray—but is this really the piety of a nun
Facing Yang Hao's strange gaze, the nun simply curled her lips and looked towards the elf:
“In short, if you want to accept the words of the demons, Fen, just tell me directly and it’s all over—and you too, Yang Hao, just tell me directly.
By the way, as the number of believers in my Lord has increased, I can also use some strange magic to assist you in the battle. So I will also go to the decisive battle. "
"But Theresa, the front is dangerous."
"What do you think will happen to me if you fail? So don't try to persuade me on this matter. If I fail, at least we can die together. We might even be nailed on the front and back of the same cross. Finn will probably be in a worse situation."
The nun twisted the man's waist with a bitter look on his face. Although she was saying something unpleasant, Finn seemed to agree with her for some reason:
"So we have to avoid the worst outcome... So, is that the end of what you're saying?"
"It's over. So when you make a decision, remember to tell me - after all, it's tiring to say mass for them."
"Consider developing the sect and adding more nuns."
"I am a nun myself."
She rolled her eyes. The night passed in the nun's complaints.
…
A week later.
Bishop Stephen proved his conjecture with practical results.
His priests and the Knights of the Skitarii did find traces of the puppets' activities outside the camp. Not only that, some Skitarii even encountered the iron golems when they were acting alone.
As expected, those tall metal puppets or golems completely ignored the slashing and stabbing of conventional swords. They could use their peculiar claw-like limbs to easily cut through the armor of the Crusader Knights, not to mention the direct impact of their heavy weight on ordinary soldiers when they moved forward.
The priest's spear of light was quite effective in killing these golems, but before a golem could be completely killed, the enemy's reinforcements beat back the priest and the crusaders.
This made the priests at the time very embarrassed, but for Bishop Stephen, such results were enough.
"We have detected a new type of enemy unit and determined how they might threaten us. Now that the firestorm in the camp has passed, we should not suffer any further casualties, and the pressure on the slaughterhouse will naturally not increase further."
At the meeting, Bishop Stephen passionately expounded his ideas. But just when Bishop Stephen was proud of his war wisdom, a piece of bad news reached his ears.
No one knew what was wrong with the elves and demons. They used magic and unknown forces to create a "canyon" in the open area in front of the Monster Forest to block their attack route.
Although the "canyon" is still being excavated, once the canyon is formed, the disadvantages it will bring to the Northern Expeditionary Force are real.
This made the smile on Bishop Stephen's face disappear. He took a sip of wine to suppress his anger, and then after checking the troops he had, he suddenly had an idea:
"Perhaps I know how to make the most of the wounded soldiers."
With a mysterious smile on his face, Bishop Stephen personally stepped into the camp of the Northern Expeditionary Force after entrusting his servants to take care of his property.
And after releasing the bishop-level divine gift to the wounded soldiers.
He ordered these hopeless wounded to charge directly into the trenches being dug, braving the rain of arrows from the elves, and from a distance he used divine magic to fix the bodies of the dead into hard stone that could not be mined efficiently.
At this point, the number of the Northern Expeditionary Force had dropped to 250,000 - but these 50,000 wounded soldiers not only provided food for the expeditionary force, but also became the cornerstone of the expeditionary force's future decisive battle.
They can be said to have devoted themselves to the cause.
Whether or not you can go to heaven is another matter.
Chapter 9: The True Magic of the God of Light
… After resolving the historical legacy of wounded soldiers and preventing the Golems from continuing to attack the Northern Expeditionary Army's camp and destroying morale, the Northern Expeditionary Army and the Elves and Demons coalition were suddenly stuck in a quagmire and unable to extricate themselves.
Neither side could defeat the other. The elves and demons tried hard to dig out a wider and steeper canyon, but it was useless because of the petrified bodies of the believers.
Those guys who were turned into stone by the bishop-level magic may still be alive until now. After all, the elves have heard that as long as the caster of the magic is alive, those who are punished by "petrification" will never be able to ascend to heaven.
As long as the poor guys are not completely dead, the stones on these guys' bodies will be indestructible and will regenerate almost unlimitedly. In Yang Hao's helpless words: This is a fucking living metal created by magic that can repair itself!
Although he wanted the Ling people to simply use these stones as raw materials to make special golems, and then have these golems be "returned in their original form".
But I don’t know if it’s the interference of divine magic, the magic of the Ling people is of no use to these special corpse stones...
So they had to give up the front half of the canyon, which was half occupied by corpses and rocks, and instead expand the canyon backwards.
The elves and demons had no choice but to shrink their rear lines. The northern expeditionary army was also having a hard time.
Although it is true that Bishop Stephen's personal presence has boosted the morale of the believers to a certain extent, in the final analysis, there are still more and more desertion incidents.
Almost all of these deserters fled during field exercises - their faith in the God of Light seemed to have been crushed by the fear of death.
Rather, they would rather die than spend the rest of their lives disabled or burned in flames without the chance to go to heaven.
Moreover, the screens throughout the diocese also told them that even if they betrayed the God of Light, he would not punish them...
so…
Things just got worse.
At first, perhaps only one or two people escaped.
Behind them, small groups of people were escaping.
In the end, they just fled one organization at a time!
Bishop Stephen had an army of 250,000 before, but now that there were no more wounded soldiers, nearly 20,000 of them fled due to low morale!
As a last resort, Bishop Stephen could only order the priests and crusaders to "fire freely", giving them the right to execute deserters in public and even the right to burn them at the stake at will.
In this way, deserters were successfully suppressed, but more soldiers died at the hands of their own people.
As a result, Bishop Stephen now has only about 220,000 troops left.
The majority of them are ordinary believers who have not received much training and are only used to boost morale and as cannon fodder.
"well!"
Bishop Stephen sighed heavily - if he was given more time to train, he was confident that he could train these 220,000 people into a useful militia.
But not only did the elves not give him time to dig trenches frantically in front, but even the Council of Bishops in the rear did not give him time.
Patriarch Peter and other bishops urged Bishop Stephen to quickly win a resounding victory, but Bishop Stephen knew very well that this was actually a sign that public opinion in the diocese was about to be out of control.
After all, there are still many of those damned Redemption Army defeated soldiers wandering through the mountains and forests in the parish.
These bastards knew they would be dead if caught by the diocese, so they simply chose to give up their faith, and then began to burn, kill, and loot their former church members, not to mention that they also widely spread the word that they "don't respect or love" the God of Light.
This made the diocese extremely anxious: after all, even if the diocese wanted to deal with these defeated troops, as they were broken up into small groups, even the most elite Griffin Paladins would not be able to quickly clear them from east to west.
To use the simplest way of moving as an analogy, this is the cockroaches scattered around the house -
Maybe your insecticide can kill one or two in front of you, but it will still be useless against those guys that have penetrated deep into the cracks in the wall.
The diocese had no choice but to pin all its hopes on Bishop Stephen: as long as Stephen could bring victory, the diocese's public opinion machine would be able to help the bishops regain control over the believers.
But Bishop Stephen is also in a difficult situation!
"How are you going to let me win with a bunch of cannon fodder?! Have you forgotten that these guys came here just to die?!"
Bishop Stephen said bitterly: Yes, more than half of the soldiers of the Northern Expeditionary Force came here to die.
From the beginning, the parish deliberately set its sights on the Elf Kingdom in order to get them killed.
Although Bishop Stephen admitted that he also had the fantasy of defeating the Elf Kingdom and making a fortune, objectively speaking, the soldiers here simply could not achieve such a goal...
They were sent to die! And now the guys who don't know how to fight think they can win by relying on numbers? What a joke!
If victory could be achieved by relying on numbers, then ants would have destroyed the human country long ago!
Do they know that in addition to quantity, the most important things in war are "quality" and "discipline"? !
Those believers might even have only a dung fork in their hands! You want me to use them to attack the Elf Forest?! Attack the Elf Kingdom where for some reason they seem to have endless arrows and new weapons
Why the hell don't you let me commit suicide?!
Bishop Stephen's anger was erupting like a volcano.
But the constraints of the Bishops' Council on him were real. And if he failed to achieve his goal and return, the punishment from Patriarch Peter was also real.
Bishop Stephen was more afraid of Pope Peter trapping his soul in candles and causing it to burn endlessly than death.
So he finally took a deep breath, then gritted his teeth and decided: Since the current believers cannot help me win, let me transform them into suitable soldiers!
But until then…
He had to first deal with the low-morale quasi-deserters in the army, as well as some priests who were already vaguely unwilling to obey his orders...
"Someone come! Deliver the order to the Seventh Legion!"
Bishop Stephen gnashed his teeth.
It is better to let your soldiers go to hell than to let yourself go to hell.
…
In the afternoon of late October, the elves and demons were still struggling to prepare a favorable terrain for the decisive battle.
More and more demons volunteered to join the army, but these demons simply could not go to the battlefield - from Yang Hao's observation, they were too impulsive. They had almost no discipline, and if they really let them go to the battlefield, they would only destroy their formation.
However, due to the severe shortage of troops on the front line, Yang Hao could only place them on the flanks to fill the front line.
After all, between the two options of "no one" and "someone", he preferred the latter. After all, if there were people, at least they could resist the enemy's advance.
And for some reason, there have been an increasing number of suicide attacks on trenches in the parish recently.
"This is the sixth batch today..."
He looked at the believers and priests attacking from afar and muttered to himself. With the sound of the horn, the coalition forces of the elves and demons immediately stopped their work and retreated behind the bunkers under the cover of the longbowmen, waiting for the enemy's attack.
The parish seemed to realize that if the elves and demons were allowed to complete the trench work in front of the Monster Forest, their subsequent attack would be a dead end with no return.
So they chose the fanatical tactics that Yang Hao least wanted to see to fill the trenches.
That is to use people, corpses, and almost unlimited courage under the influence of magic and drugs.