After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

Yang Hao, meanwhile, rode his steed towards the Hanging Gardens of Fingel, while his guards asked him curious questions:

"Your Majesty, are you really sure that Isugard will only plunge Romana into further chaos, rather than simply conquering the entire Roman Empire?"

Their questions made Yang Hao chuckle a few times:

“Yes. I only told them about Roman’s current predicament, but they don’t know that Roman, as an empire that my sworn brother and I raised ourselves, as a nation capable of driving centaurs and minotaurs back to the northern plains... if it didn’t have some trump cards, it would have been destroyed long ago after I left.”

"What's the trump card...?"

"Firstly—Priscilla, the Night Witch, my former lover. Her wide-area strategic magic was born for war. She can plunge an entire battlefield into darkness, except for friendly forces, and this darkness cannot be dispelled by lighting equipment."

Although the duration is short, on the battlefield, ten minutes can change everything... not to mention that for units with low morale, being suddenly plunged into darkness is enough to throw their formation into disarray.

The Night Witch is one of the Roman Empire's trump cards. She is called the "Night Witch" because during the barbarian war, she used magic to plunge 20,000 mixed-race barbarian cavalry into darkness for five minutes.

Suddenly plunged into darkness during the march, unable to see the commands or the road ahead, the 20,000 cavalrymen fell into a trap set by the human alliance almost instantly and were directly defeated by Yang Hao's sworn brother and his troops.

This established Roman's foundation for his nation and earned the witch the title of Night Witch.

But this is only one of Roman's trump cards.

Roman's second trump card was the teleportation network that Yang Hao had personally built.

This is a great thing... With order firmly held by the army, it will completely render traditional siege warfare meaningless.

The explosion in Kargard Town was caused by the large number of troublemakers who gathered there, leaving Kargard III with no control and allowing the portal to perform numerous and contradictory operations in a short period of time. This resulted in the portal exploding and causing magical debris to accumulate throughout the Kargard region.

However, the Roman Empire's military district, namely the coastal region... General Dreschka, though a greedy man, was indeed a formidable rival who could rival his sworn brother's military prowess.

That man understood the importance of discipline, and the coastal teleportation network was probably the best-maintained area—he would maintain discipline during wartime through cruel punishments, and more importantly, he knew how to deploy troops and use soldiers in every useful place.

Instead of the parishes, which simply throw soldiers wherever they are needed, resulting in a huge waste.

Besides that, the Roman Empire's biggest trump card... or rather, the parish's biggest trump card, should be Saint Cecilia.

Based on Yang Hao's understanding of Cecilia, he probably understood.

The "Saintess" is fundamentally different from ordinary clergy.

If priests and bishops still need believers to provide divine power in order to unleash divine spells, then a saint who is directly linked to the god of her faith is herself a mobile church, a mobile army of believers, and the strongest clergy.

She can unleash divine magic even when there are no followers around, simply because she herself is the greatest and most fanatical follower of the God of Light.

These three trump cards, combined with Ysgard's past conflict with a certain power at sea and their current need for transoceanic supply transport...

It's not hard to draw a conclusion.

“Isgard will be bogged down in war, while we Gaparia can reap the benefits, using the sacrifice of their warriors to buy us room to grow—but this is contingent on us surviving the invasion of the nearby parish.”

Issugard will be mired in war, and Romance will be further thrown into chaos by foreign invasions.

In the midst of this utter chaos, even if Garsen were to betray his country for personal gain, he would have to hold out until the Roman Empire as a whole gained the upper hand—until then, the little empress would be safe.

Garsen needed the little queen to reassure the people. The reason he didn't sit in that position himself was because he knew that only someone who wanted to die would willingly take that seat.

Last time, it was Yang Hao, who was exiled, who was forced to sit on it; this time, it's the little empress whose tongue was cut out. So, next time...?

Yang Hao will make him die on that throne, wiping the Roman Empire out of history.

Chapter Four: The Current State of the Salvation Army and the Parish, and "Light"

......

It has been almost 11 days since Gaparia signed the alliance agreement with Isugard, and Yang Hao and others have been preparing tactical innovations to counter the parish.

On June 1st, all the elf rangers who had ventured out returned to the area around the Monster Forest to wage guerrilla warfare against the Redeemer Army of Humanity.

These elves, still using longbows, are undoubtedly top-tier archers in the eyes of humans, but compared to the Redemption Army's sheer numbers and their efficient use of corpses, the harassment sent by the rangers was far too insignificant.

While fighting as guerrillas, they could kill one or two hundred people a day. But soon those one or two hundred people would become food for the Redemption Army, mixed with other food and used to satisfy the appetites of the soldiers.

Moreover, the Redemption Army's replenishment speed far exceeded the elves' expectations—the elves simply couldn't fathom why so many people were eager to join the army, with two being brought in for every one that died. They couldn't comprehend why the barbarians of the Roman Empire fought with such relentless effort.

But if any Romans who had ever been to Shanghai were present, they would probably tell them sadly: This isn't some kind of "voluntary enlistment." Those who join the Redemption Army now are either people who incurred huge debts to their parishes while fighting demons, and have no choice but to join the Redemption Army so they can go to heaven after death; or they are itinerant bandits and death row inmates, or even famine refugees who can't even afford moss, joining the Redemption Army only to live a better life.

Moreover, this is because the Redemption Army currently only allows men to participate—if women were also allowed to participate, the number of Redemption Army members would only increase.

"They are fighting for food, for debts, for plunder—but the only ones truly fighting for their Lord are the priests who remain in the Redemption Army."

A ranger muttered to herself, her face pale. She had already emptied her quiver of arrows. With the Redeemers being equipped with more and more shields, longbows were finding it increasingly difficult to inflict effective damage on Redeemer soldiers at long range.

She no longer dared to ponder why the Redemption Army had so many sources of leather and timber. Based on her recent observations, these beasts, having eaten people, must have developed quite a few health problems.

Many men appeared dazed and confused during the march, even responding to commands with a sluggish pace—but this was both a blessing and a curse; at least from the elves' perspective, their morale was declining at a slower rate...

As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. In the midst of such ecstatic cannibalism, perhaps these people have lost the wisdom and character of being human, and perhaps they have also lost the fear that a living being should feel.

The ranger clicked her tongue, casually summoning a wooden magic spell to create a final magical arrow that emitted a green glow, and then shot it at the head of the last Redeemer soldier standing on the field.

嗦！

The magic arrow pierced the short soldier's forehead, blasted open the back of his head, and knocked his cheap helmet away as well.

Through the elves' superior abilities, the ranger could tell that the last person he shot was a child under twelve years old.

"What am I fighting against?"

As she watched that sallow, emaciated face fall backward, she couldn't help but unleash her pent-up indignation towards the Roman parish.

The rangers were unable to pose a significant threat to the Redeemers with their longbows.

Fortunately, it is unknown what changes have occurred in the Gaparia—although their longbows are no longer as sharp as before, at least the Gaparia have not neglected the supply of consumables such as arrows.

But then again, who came up with these arrows that have no decorations at all?

...The ranger disappeared into the shadows. She needed to reach the nearest supply depot to get her supplies.

After the ranger left, the supply train, which had been following the annihilated patrol, also came up after waiting for half an hour to confirm that it was safe.

They tidied up the corpses, stripping them of their equipment in preparation for cleaning and repairing them before using them on the next batch of recruits. They treated human corpses like chickens and ducks in a slaughterhouse, practically ready to erect two rows of beams on a cart and hang them on hooks.

Treating corpses like chickens and ducks inevitably leads to evaluating them using the standards of chickens and ducks.

After lightly pinching the corpse's ribs, a supply soldier shook his head and said to his comrade:

"The food we've been eating lately has been getting thinner and thinner. Look at this one, there's hardly any meat on it. It probably wouldn't even make much broth... Wait, are our people getting thinner and thinner from all the eating or what? Are they newcomers?"

Another soldier leaned over for a look, then he and another comrade laboriously lifted a relatively strong-looking corpse onto the cart.

"You're looking at the stuff from the [central] side, right?"

"【central】?"

"The latest criteria. Those from the parish and the western regions are more robust because they used to have meat to eat, and they have more meat and fat on their bodies—like these I just brought up."

The Southerners are under the control of General Dreschka, but since they have fish to eat along the coast, they won't come to join us.

The miners in the East still have to dig for silver, and their food rations have been relatively plentiful lately...

So that leaves only people from the central region?

"But I remember the Central District is where the capital and several important cities are located."

"But that's also where there are the most farmers. This year there was no harvest at all, and the masters can't even afford cakes. How could they possibly distribute grain to these farmers? But I heard that they did distribute it. Then some serfs who escaped from the central district told me that half of the two slices of bread they received were mixed with dirt, and many people died from indigestion. That's why they came here."

The well-informed soldier looked up at the azure sky and sighed, saying that because the refugees on the road ate whatever grass they could find and drank whatever water they could find, when they came back, the survivors were all pale and thin, and they didn't even have the strength to walk, let alone gain weight!

Moreover, even if they joined the Redemption Army and ate meat for a few days, they would still need to digest it before they could grow back. Who knew that these unlucky guys would be assigned to "livestock" on their very first day—no, I mean "patrol sentry"?

It's so pitiful. They went through so much trouble to come here, only to eat meat for a day and die without even visiting the Demon City. It's so tragic.

It's too awful.

Just as everyone was loading the filthy corpses onto the cart, someone suddenly noticed that there was a small child among the patrol team's bodies.

The leader remained silent for a moment, then picked up the body and placed it on the cart.

"The meat is tender; it will probably be given to those who have distinguished themselves in battle."

"Where have these war heroes come from lately?"

"I heard that a vanguard army smoked out a lot of demons from the tunnels in the area where the demon forest was previously surrounded and cleared out—I didn't know that those demons could live underground, but at least I'm sure they're quite valuable, so I guess those who made contributions today will get a piece of this little brat's flesh."

"But most Redemption Army soldiers probably don't even know they're eating people, right?"

"Even if we knew, so what? At least here there are people to eat. Back in the central region, they've eaten most of the clay! Besides, frankly, it's all the same once it's in our stomachs..."

"Yes, they're all the same... But the elves really aren't strong enough. I've even been worried about the enemy these past few days; they can't even supply enough food for their troops!"

"Hmph, legend has it that elven rangers are unerring archers, but as I see it, with so many of us, how could their many arrows possibly outnumber us?"

"So, wouldn't that mean we can catch the elves off guard on the 15th? By the way, I heard that the plan was proposed by that bankrupt old man in Shkul Village?"

The Redemption Army no longer considered the elves and the monsters of the forest to pose any threat. With overwhelming numerical superiority, even if the elves were unerring marksmen, the Redemption Army would advance using the corpses of their comrades as shields. The dead would go to heaven sooner, and the living would have meat to eat—led by this fearless spirit, what could the elves possibly use to fight them?

With their arrows? Are you kidding me! Everyone knows elves are a perfect race—they take dozens of days to make even the smallest arrow. Dozens of days to make one arrow? Humph!

Once you run out of arrows, it will be your end!

Whenever they think of this, the Redemption Army's morale rises even higher.

Especially now that the Redemption Army has grown to over 50,000 combat troops, excluding the reserve food, everyone is full of confidence for the general offensive on June 15th.

The commander of the Redemption Army thought that instead of waiting for the main force to set off in August, September, or even October, they should go to the Monster Forest and make a fortune on their own.

It doesn't matter if we lose. If we win, every member of the Redemption Army will get money and meat to eat, and they might even get to sleep with a few elven women.

Considering that the elves were useless except for archery, this boosted the morale of the Redemption Army even further.

After all, in the Redemption Army's perception, these elves were not as terrifying as the barbarians of yesteryear!

"For the God of Light."

The Redeemers prayed.

He was saying it was for the God of Light.

In reality, it was all for the gold and silver jewelry in their eyes, and for the debauchery and extravagance.

They returned with high morale, carrying carts, because the hungry soldiers were waiting for their fresh meat rations.

Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, Bishop Stephen was calculating the gains and losses of May.

Since the "Fighting the Demon Clan" event began, the parish's rate of wealth accumulation has far exceeded people's expectations.

Those fanatical gamblers staked their entire fortunes on the arena in the Demon City, cheering for the victories of their supported demon race and wailing for their defeats. They even pawned their underwear to obtain more "Words of Atonement" for gambling. As a result, it's common to see scantily clad impoverished people anxiously awaiting the results of competitions in some of the smaller arenas in the Demon City.