As the news spread, the world was in an uproar.
In this world, war was a common occurrence. It was not uncommon to lose a battle and have one's whole family killed. But to carry out a large-scale massacre of civilians, or even to completely destroy villages and towns, without considering the outcome of the battle, just to destroy the other party's logistics and strike at the other party's will to fight, this kind of behavior had seriously broken the long-standing "convention."
Generally speaking, this kind of thing mostly happened outside the Main Plane. Only those species that had small worlds as their strongholds and fought and killed each other would do such a cruel thing. And in the Main Plane, even the emotionless elemental creatures, or even the evil and ferocious demons, would not do such a thing — because it was meaningless.
What was the use of killing? Could it be that human flesh was just a little more delicious than other meats? Even if human flesh was more delicious, it was not like there was no human reproduction in other worlds. Spending so much effort and money to break into the human world, just to have a bite of something fresh?
If anyone did this, even if they were demons, they would definitely be the "sick" type that needed to be treated.
Generally speaking, even if it was the evil creatures of the Lower Realm, such as demons, their practice was to kill humans and take their souls away to replenish their own subordinates. And simply killing people was really … rare.
In fact, this was no longer a matter of "rare," but a matter of insanity.
When the news reached the aristocratic party's territory, the great aristocrats who had discussed this matter with Earl Hauss were also dumbfounded. They had thought that Earl Hauss would only carry out the usual burning, killing, and looting, but they did not expect this guy to be a devil. Wherever the invading troops passed, no one was spared, regardless of gender or age. They even burned down houses and farmlands, killed all the livestock, and even tried to pollute the water source. If not for their limited time, the farmlands would have been damaged by spells.
"This … this is really … really …" At the meeting of the great aristocrats, Marquis Yuke shook his head a few times. He did not know what to say. In the end, he could only repeatedly say "really" and could not say anything else.
"We shouldn't have agreed to him in the first place!" An earl of the local party said hatefully, his tone full of resentment. "I didn't expect him to have such a murderous nature! After these few battles, I'm afraid he has killed thousands of people. "
"According to the North, there are almost six thousand of them," an Earl from the Central Faction replied. "Now we're in a very passive position. It's very difficult …"
He was currently in charge of diplomacy with the merchant party. By right, both parties were equally matched in terms of strength. Even if he could not gain any advantage in diplomatic work, he should not be at a disadvantage. But because of Earl Hauss' crazy behavior, the aristocratic party was now at a disadvantage in terms of diplomacy. Not only was the merchant party furious, even the churches of many good gods were pressuring them.
Things had developed to this point, which was beyond their imagination. They had initially thought that no matter how brutal Earl Hauss was, he would at most harass a few places. Then, he would kill 30 to 50 people in each place, create a disturbance, and then leave. Earl Hauss had clearly told them this during the initial discussion.
Logically speaking, killing all the people in a place was far inferior to killing a small portion of them. This way, not only would it save time and effort, but it would also allow the remaining people to spread their fear. If he directly killed everyone, the only thing that could be spread was hatred.
What Earl Hauss and his group wanted was to spread fear, thereby dampening the merchant party's will to fight. At the same time, they wanted to create chaos and destroy the merchant party's logistics. It was impossible to achieve such an effect by simply massacring villages and towns.
At present, the one who was suffering the most was not the merchant party, but the Earl in charge of diplomatic work in the aristocratic party. On the one hand, he had to appease the diplomat of the merchant party who put on an "I'm so angry that I'm about to explode." On the other hand, he had to explain to the churches of the good gods to prevent the aristocratic party from becoming the public enemy of society. On the other hand, he had to work hard to pursue the original diplomatic goal … He felt that among all the diplomats since ancient times, there was no second one as miserable as him.
In fact, he was really not the most miserable. After all, the aristocratic party was still considered strong and could handle the situation. The diplomats of those weak countries were the ones who were really miserable. They were purely decorations and often had to be humiliated.
Faced with Earl Hauss' crazy behavior, the merchant party was naturally furious. They quickly formed the rapid-mobility troops and then hurriedly sent them out to chase after the traces of destruction that Earl Hauss and his group had left behind, trying to catch up with them and annihilate them in one fell swoop.
A few days later, another piece of news came.
The rapid-mobility troops of the merchant party had indeed caught up with the rapid-mobility troops of the aristocratic party led by Earl Hauss. Both parties had a big battle in the wilderness. However, the result of the battle was that the rapid-mobility troops that the merchant party had spent a lot of money on had completely collapsed. Apart from a few lucky ones who had teleportation spells or teleportation scrolls who managed to survive, the rest of the nearly 300 people were completely annihilated.
This news shocked the Merchant Parliament, and the nobles were also in an uproar.
In war, the disparity in the number of people could not be ignored. The aristocratic party's rapid-mobility troops only had about 200 people, while the merchant party had 300 people, which was more than half their manpower. In terms of equipment, the rich and imposing merchant party had equipped the rapid-mobility troops with weapons, armor, warhorses, and consumables. They were definitely not inferior to the aristocratic party. In terms of quality, although the merchant party had fallen behind, they had quite a number of mercenary organizations that had long-term cooperation with them. By right, the troops formed by the transfer of elites should only be stronger than the motley crew that the aristocratic party had organized by "clearing out their inventories."
But the result was completely the opposite. The rapid-mobility troops of the aristocratic party, who were supposed to lose without a doubt, had won. On the contrary, the merchant party, who had the advantage in terms of manpower and material resources, had suffered a crushing defeat. They had almost been completely annihilated.
This was simply unbelievable, but it was an iron-clad fact.
Faced with such a fact, the great nobles were also somewhat at a loss.
"What should we do?" Marquis Gordon asked at the meeting of the great nobles. "Let's discuss this. In this situation, what exactly is the most appropriate thing to do?"
"First of all, we have to change our thinking," said an earl of the local party. "Although Hauss' approach is indeed very excessive, we have to admit that he is very strong, so strong that … he is really strong enough to change the outcome of this war."
The great nobles looked at each other and nodded silently.
"Originally, we were evenly matched with the group of merchants in the north, and no one could do anything to the other. But with him and his troops, the logistics of the merchant party will definitely have problems, and their will to fight will also be greatly affected. In this way, we should be able to gain an advantage when we finally sign the peace treaty. "The earl paused for a moment and emphasized," Not a small advantage, but a big one! "
"We don't object to this," a count from the central party said. "But the problem is that he has also brought us a lot of pressure."
"Yes, he has brought us a lot of pressure, a lot of trouble. But he can also bring us victory! "The count from before emphasized," Victory! "
The great nobles were silent. Indeed, for war, victory was the most important thing.
No matter what they did, it would be meaningless if they could not win.
Even if they had to pay a great price, it was worth it in order to win.
In the end, the great nobles passed a resolution to withstand the pressure from all sides and delay Earl Hauss as much as possible so that they could achieve more results.
As for morality and conscience, they did not have much of such things to begin with. What little they had left, in order to win the war, they did not mind selling it again …
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