Chapter 321: Reorganization (1/2)

[Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach]

There wasn’t really any suspense in this battle since Dark Flame held the absolute advantage both in terms of weaponry and experts.

There were only a couple hundred soldiers guarding this town—the mayor and the guard captain were only rank four or five in addition to numerous outsiders who were above rank-five. But Dark Flame seemed completely uninterested in those strangers and had no intention to negotiate. As soon as the unit arrived, they began the battle with a round of heavy artillery barrage.

The fight ended before an hour had passed. They half-destroyed the town wall and gates, razed the mayor’s residence to the ground, and killed all who resisted without mercy. Afterward, Duan Hao performed a large-scale manhunt throughout the town, capturing all the relatives of the mayor and the guard captain. He then immediately sold the captives to a slave merchant who had come along with the army.

Such a ruthless and thunderous method shook all the small towns that were still wavering. They quickly dispatched messengers in succession and expressed their wish to submit to Qianye. The entire Blackflow defensive region had fallen under Dark Flame control at this point, in name at least.

It went without saying that such allegiances were like grass on the wall—they would sway to whichever side the wind blew. This was merely the path to survival for people on Evernight Continent. Qianye didn’t require their absolute loyalty; he only needed them to adapt to the present circumstances and be obedient while he governed the defensive region.

Three days after the battles ended, Qianye was finally able to gain a basic level of control over the general situation of the Blackflow defensive region, and there were no longer any open voices of dissent in various regions. The surviving officers from the seventh division had all been brought to the Dark Flame headquarters, while the soldiers were placed under watch in the three military camps.

After gaining initial control over the state of affairs, Qianye summoned all the officers of the seventh division and began to formally reorganize them.

The assembly point was a large warehouse hundreds of square meters in area. This used to be where the two mobile heavy cannons were parked.

There were thick chains hanging down from the steel rails near the ceiling of the warehouse. One side of the warehouse had been raised half a meter and installed with brand new steam rails. All of these were equipment used to support the maintenance of heavy machinery. It was just that dispatch divisions garrisoned by the expeditionary army rarely built such expensive maintenance facilities.

Presently, there were a tightly packed group of over 200 people in this fairly large space. The group below quieted down when Qianye walked in through the doors and leapt onto a high platform.

All of the seventh division’s officers above the second lieutenant level had gathered here with the exception of a dozen-odd imprisoned officers who still refused to yield. There were four colonels here including Zhu Wuya, 14 lieutenant colonels, and over 30 majors. The remaining junior officers numbered over a hundred. This also meant that there were approximately 200 fighters above rank-two gathered here. Among them, there were three rank-eight and one rank-nine expert.

The three rank-eight colonels weren’t exactly outstanding and were already over forty years of age. Their origin power was somewhat deeper than the standard, but they had more or less reached the peak of their cultivation with no possibility of future progress.

Zhu Wuya’s position as a rank-nine sniper was already quite outstanding in the army. Moreover, he had awakened Danger Awareness and Origin Sight, two very rare abilities most suited for snipers. He was also an important core member of many tactical operations. That was why he had always been able to retain his position regardless of who was in power. Unfortunately, bumping into Qianye was like meeting a natural predator—he was left with no room to display his abilities.

As a whole, the strength of the officers gathered here was already about to surpass Dark Flame. But the seventh division’s equipment was inferior to Dark Flame’s by a level, and they were vastly inferior in terms of heavy weaponry. Additionally, they had been caught unaware due to Wei Bainian’s plot and were unable to display even half of their abilities, allowing Qianye to lead Dark Flame to an easy victory.

At this moment, all of the seventh division officers here were unrestrained. They had neither been injected with origin power inhibitors nor forced to wear origin shackles. All of them were in good condition apart from some of the officers who had been injured in the previous battle. Meanwhile, on Dark Flame’s side, there were only three groups of warriors guarding the two sides of the door. Yet, there wasn’t the slightest bit of abnormal movement among the group of officers.

They had already seen the combat power of Dark Flames special forces unit two days ago. Back then, Song Hu was taking roll with the seventh division’s roster in hand and his inspection had reached a rank-six warrior clad in a major’s uniform whose name wasn’t on the list. That person and another senior officer suddenly launched a surprise attack.

Song Hu was rank-six and the two Dark Flame warriors beside him were only rank-five. However, they didn’t even mobilize the sniper outside the entrance and simply killed the men on the spot.

The entire process took only a couple of minutes and didn’t even give the other officers time to consider whether they should rebel together. This result wasn’t brought about by a suppression in terms of equipment—their warriors also possessed mutual understanding and cooperation. This was a clear display of how Dark Flame’s fighting strength was vastly superior to ordinary mercenary corps.

After the officers from the Four Rivers Military Base arrived and recounted how Dark Flame’s commander had single-handedly forced them to surrender, most of the others no longer entertained any more thoughts about resisting.

Qianye swept his gaze through the crowd one by one and finally said, “I think all of you already know the reason behind this battle.”

At this point, the expressions on many of the officers became quite unnatural. This was especially true for the senior officers who had been contacted by Dong Qifeng’s representative. Song Hu had already announced the entire story to all of the seventh division officers while checking the prisoners of war.

This was also a type of psychological warfare. Dark Flame was resisting a tyrannical rule and not rebelling. The two involved completely different meanings.

Those old veterans who had been tempered through the flames of war naturally weren’t lacking in resolution, but they also needed to see what they were fighting for. At least in the eyes of most middle and junior officers whose benefits were unrelated to this matter, this new general was simply trying to cause trouble without the capability. He had tried to reorganize a mercenary corps for no reason but was reorganized instead.

No soldier was willing to serve a foolish and incapable commander.