Imperial Crown.

Chapter 475 Beheading the Mercenaries
Many thanks to Qidian Dad [Fei Guang persuades you to drink a glass of wine] for the 4 rewards!

……

"We were scattered! We were defeated! We were routed by the Blood Swamp Tramplers of the Wild Boar! We are not deserters! You can't do this to us!"

next day
The Bloody Roar Province was once again hit by a wet and sticky drizzle, sparsely falling like sheep dung beans, appearing and disappearing from time to time.

There were more than 700 mercenaries alive on the left wing. It was impossible to behead them all, of course, so more than ten typical ones were picked out, locked up with magic-sealing steel shackles, and pushed to the edge of the venue where the decisive battle took place yesterday.

Mag naturally became one of them, and shouted heart-wrenchingly.

"We are still useful! I can swear to the gods that I will never retreat even a single step next time! I can kill many, many wild boar men to make up for my mistake! I can die on the battlefield, don't kill me! You don't have to kill me! I can still be a forward, today, today I can be the forward of the center! I will sacrifice my life as a ladder for the Eagle Army's victory! I am willing to use my heart to stop those orcs who deserve to die!"

Magog struggled, wailed, and cried, but was ruthlessly taken to the makeshift execution platform by the soldiers.

The Eagle Army soldiers and all the remaining mercenaries surrounded them all around. Even the goblins who were captured and used to carry Raven's dragon chariot were watching the excitement from afar.

Even though the mercenaries followed suit and formed a legion formation of the Eagle Army soldiers, the huge difference could be seen at a glance just from their postures. It was like a chasm between which one was the genuine army and which one was the counterfeit!

"Thor, you are the one who is venting your anger. You think our collapse has delayed your chance to fight! You are just venting your anger!"

"You didn't kill those orcs, but instead turned your butcher knife on us mercenaries. The gods will not forgive you! Your soul will be judged, and your body will be hanged! No! The stake!"

Mago was still wailing in despair, his shrill voice echoing in the dense forest of Bloody Howl Province in the early morning, like a cuckoo crying blood, or a ghost complaining about injustice... As the leader of a group of 300 mercenaries, Mago never dreamed that he would end up like this today. He was unwilling to accept it! He was really unwilling to accept it!
He wanted to become a noble, he wanted to be promoted to the third level... All his dreams had not yet been realized. Suddenly, Mag seemed to remember something, and begged in a trembling voice: "Thor, I still have merit points. I will give them all to you! All of them, okay?! Let me go! Let me go! I will never come back again. I can even leave the Keynes Empire and hide in the Elf Empire for the rest of my life! I can even go to the Miracle Mountains, which are full of high-level monsters. I heard that it is also the lair of the Death Hand Cult. I won't survive more than a few years there!"

All 300 of his men were beaten to pieces, and the only few who followed him were all killed... Last night, the tragic scene of Oranma being shot in the head lingered in his mind and became Mager's nightmare for the whole night. Dexi died on the spot to save him, but he was not able to avenge himself. Mager felt that he had too many reasons not to die in such a cowardly way.

Deng Deng Deng

Seeing Thor's sullen face and silence, Magog broke free from the soldiers around him, ran towards Bu Yu in the distance, and kicked Bu Yu to his knees on the ground, "She is the boar! She is the culprit! Kill her! If you kill her, she can't kill us!"

"I want to see Lord Earl! I want to see Lord Raven!"

"Let me go! Let me go now! You cold-blooded demons! The kind Lord Raven will never allow you to do such evil things! I want to see Lord Raven in person!"

But soon, Mag was forced to his knees on the execution platform again by the soldiers, unable to move.

Thor looked at the mercenaries kneeling in a row, some of whom were even scared to the point of urinating, with a complicated look in his eyes. Yesterday, his father Eric's whipping and the head of the family Raven's earnest teachings made Thor understand his mistakes. Although he was very angry with these mercenaries, he would not let them be beheaded in vain! After all, in Thor's view, it was reasonable for these mercenaries to collapse in the hands of the Wild Boar Man's ace legion, the Blood Swamp Tramplers! If we are to be fair, he, as the head coach, seems to have a greater responsibility.

But the Earl's orders were always final, and even his father Eric did not dare to disobey, let alone Thor himself.

What made Thor even more upset was that everyone seemed to believe that this was a punishment for Thor to "take revenge on personal grudges" without authorization. Even his father Eric didn't quite believe him. Naturally, these mercenaries would not believe that it was Lord Raven's order!

After all, in Eric's opinion, arranging these cowardly mercenaries as cannon fodder for the next decisive battle is more valuable! In this regard, Thor's idea is exactly the same as his father's.

But when Thor stood on the execution platform and looked at the Eagle Army soldiers below, each of whom had an expression of obvious depression on their faces, Thor seemed to understand a little bit why the master of the family did so.

Although we didn't lose the battle yesterday, it was a very frustrating fight. Since the establishment of the Eagle Army, it seems that we have never suffered such a heavy loss. Yesterday alone, our side suffered nearly 10,000 casualties!

Among them, more than 8000 people were killed and more than 4000 were injured.

Although more than half of them were mercenaries, the Eagle Army also suffered heavy casualties, and most of the dead were from the left-wing Eagle Army led by Thor. Most of the people on Hoyaz's side were injured, and there were also deaths and injuries, but because of the presence of mercenary cannon fodder, the proportion was reduced a lot.

Everything is afraid of comparison. Once compared, the superiority and inferiority will be revealed.

From this perspective, no matter how many cannon fodder boarmen Thor kills, it seems that it cannot make up for the damage to the Eagle Army, especially the blow to the morale of the Eagle Army!
It turns out that beheading these mercenaries is to vent the anger of the Eagle Army and boost the morale of the Eagle Army! On a deeper level, it is also to vent dissatisfaction with himself!
After all, everyone knew that this was Thor's first time leading an army. His own prestige was insufficient, and there were heavy casualties. Even if the soldiers of the Eagle Army didn't say it on the surface, they probably had some resentment in their hearts.

"Execution!"

After figuring this out, Thor no longer hesitated, waved his hand and shouted.

swish

The long sword was swung, and the heads of seventeen mercenaries fell from the execution platform one after another. Their eyes were wide open, filled with obvious unwillingness and regret. They rolled to the ground and looked around.

Mag's wailing came to an abrupt end!

The king of mercenaries, the legendary mercenary of Cartier Province - 'Wolf-hearted Iron Man' Mag, has come to an end!

There was a commotion below. The most obvious one, of course, was the formation of the mercenary corps. Since they were not going to fight, the mercenaries were arranged together.

"Captain..."

Beside Solingxi, his confidant Tim shouted, his tone mixed with fear and sadness.

Looking at the head of the Magog, who had fought with him for thirty or forty years and seemed like a friend but also a foe, Suo Lingxi's eyes flickered and his expression was cold: "We were all fooled."

"Fooled?" Tim obviously didn't quite understand what Solingxi meant. "Yes," Solingxi unconsciously placed his hands on the hilts of his two swords, and the scabbards collided with the armor, making a crisp sound. His cheeks twitched, "Don't you understand yet? Raven has never wanted to give us mercenaries anything. The titles, the gold coins... are all baits, and the so-called merit points are also a trap woven by Raven. All of us will become cannon fodder and will die in the Orc Empire without a single one left!"

"This damn little bee! Hateful noble! Damn bastard! He is no different from those bloodthirsty nobles! No! He is even more cruel and bloody than those old-fashioned nobles! Because he always hides behind the scenes and kills people without shedding blood!"

Through this beheading, Suo Lingxi completely understood that the reason why Raven threw out the title as an exchange resource was to attract them to die! It was impossible for anyone to live to the day of exchanging the title! Even if they didn't die at the hands of the orcs, they would die at the hands of Raven.

Raven is even more shameless than the nobles! Even more vicious and cruel!

"Yes, but merit points can indeed be exchanged for a lot of resources. I even exchanged for a few gold coins yesterday!" Tim still seemed to not understand what Thor did and what Lord Raven had to do with him. After all, Lord Raven's promise was valid. "I also plan to accumulate more merit points to exchange for the second-level promotion potion!"

“This is the most terrible question!”

Suo Lingxi couldn't help but growl, "It's because all the rewards are effective that we are trapped deeper and deeper! Because only in this way can we watch our former brothers being beheaded and remain indifferent! This is a complete trap, a big web of a rot sac spider! The more we struggle, the tighter it gets, and we can't get free at all! Until the moment we die!" Suo Lingxi couldn't help but say sadly.

The more he saw all this, the more desperate he became!
If they escape, it means that all their previous efforts will be in vain, and they will also have to guard against the double pursuit from the orcs and the Eagle Army, and fall into an ambush from all sides.

Suo Lingxi couldn't understand why a person's scheming and scheming could be so terrible! His temperament could be so cold-blooded!

As the leader of the group, Thor Lingxi understood that without Raven's approval, Thor would definitely not dare to behead these mercenaries in public. Poor Mag, who had strong limbs but a simple mind, thought until his death that this was just Thor's personal behavior, but he didn't know that Raven was the manipulator behind everything.

"cough cough"

On the execution platform, Thor suddenly coughed, and the commotion below gradually subsided. Everyone understood that Thor was about to speak.

"My fellow comrades, my name is Thor. Many people know me, but many people don't know me."

“Today, I am standing here and I don’t want to say too many long and boring clichés. I just want to tell you about myself, a story about myself!”

Thor looked pious, and his tone was sincere. "I was not born in Eagle Town. When I was born, my father had not yet joined the Iron Legion. At that time, our family was very poor, really poor. We had to break a piece of black bread into two pieces to eat."

"I started working in those noble castles when I was very young. I weeded and collected firewood for the knights, and repaired donkeys' hooves and fed horses for the barons... I was able to do these jobs since I was young, and I did them very skillfully. Later, my father joined the Iron Legion, and our family's situation was slightly improved. We could finally eat two meals of black bread a day!"

"The thing that I remember most vividly from my childhood was that one time the Baron's daughter gave me a piece of candy. She accidentally spit that candy out when she lost a tooth. Later, she kicked it in front of me, and I picked it up and put it in my mouth without hesitation, because if I was a second late, the candy would have been snatched away by other children. Although they were small, they were more swift than today's adult hunting dogs..."

When Thor said this, there was a burst of laughter from below.

"Don't laugh! What I said is true. That was the first time I ate candy in my life, and it was also the first time I knew that there was such sweet and delicious food in the world!" Thor's voice gradually became louder as he spoke. "Later, I followed the Baron's daughter like a puppy. No, I was more loyal than a dog. Later, I became the Baron's daughter's sparring partner! I was often beaten black and blue! My father served in the Iron Legion for a full eight years, and I! Was beaten in the Baron's Castle for a full four years!"

"Later, my family followed my father to Eagle Town. At that time, the lord was Baron Donald. Unexpectedly, after we moved to Eagle Town, our family's situation became worse than before. My father's salary was often delayed for several months, and I lost my 'job' because of this. I think the reason why I love fighting so much when I grew up is closely related to my childhood experience!"

"Later, Lord Raven came! It was after him that all of us achieved what we have today! I think there is no need for me to elaborate on Lord Raven's wisdom and bravery! Today, the reason why we are standing here, to put it bluntly, some of us are fighting for gold coins! Some of us are fighting for women! Some of us are fighting for the title!"

"Through yesterday's battle, I, Thor, understand why I am fighting!"

"I fight for glory! I fight for the Earl! I fight for the fearlessness of the Eagle Army!"

"Because I understand that without the Earl, we are nothing, and everything we have now will be taken away by others!"

"We didn't lose the battle yesterday! But for the heroic Eagle Army, if we don't win, we will lose! Since the Eagle Army was founded, there has never been a shameful record like yesterday's battle!"

"Everything is caused by my arrogance! Because of my arrogance! I will not put the blame for the failure on everyone present!"

Thor's tone was now completely excited. "But are we, the glorious and fearless Eagle Army, afraid of failure? Just like when I was a child and became the sparring partner of the Baron's daughter, if I was knocked down, I would get up and continue fighting until I was knocked down again, then get up and fight again, until the next time... it's better to fail!"

"I say this to tell you brothers that failure is not terrible, nor is it a shame!"

"Because I understand that the Eagle Army, which is truly tempered by ice and fire, will never fear death! They will never retreat even a single step! They will never yield to failure! And they will never! Never! Never! Never! Never let the Earl down!"

“Never!!!!”

Thor's voice was completely hoarse after shouting the last word. The enthusiasm of tens of thousands of people at the scene was ignited, and everyone shouted in unison: "Griffith! No surrender, no death! Griffith, no surrender, no death! Griffith! No surrender, no death!"

Thor roared again: "Beat these mercenaries today to tell everyone! Every soldier of our Eagle Army can only die in battle! We can't die like these cowards!"

"For glory! For the Earl! Let's fuck the orcs' asses! Burn down their houses! Take away their gold coins! Kill their women! Let others raise their children!"

"Let those tall and strong orcs tremble in front of our Eagle Army! Pray!"

Thor raised his weapon high and shouted.

In the mercenary phalanx below, Thorin looked at his confidant Tim, who was fanatically holding his weapon high, completely forgetting his worries and fears. Thorin realized that the platform Raven had set up for Thor today had worked! Thor had already established some prestige in the Eagle Army!

……

(End of this chapter)