Chapter 60: Conquest { XX }

It was still the late hours of the afternoon. Glenwood soldiers, under the leadership of their fat Lord, could be seen marching towards Winterseed with serious expressions on their faces.The army behind Lord Fagin had more than three thousand soldiers--five hundred soldiers rode on horses while the others marched.

Lord Fagin and his eight captains rode their horses, staying at the front.

They led the soldiers toward Winterseed to conquer it. After killing Lord Rowan, they believed their village would prosper even more. The number of slaves working their farms would increase, the number of usable women would rise, and their village would become more popular among others.

With this motivation in mind, they kept marching forward.

Lord Fagin, riding ahead, waved his hand, and two soldiers quickly ran to him, handing him a big piece of meat that they had prepared beforehand. Searᴄh the NôᴠelFirё.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Fagin took the large piece of meat and devoured it in just two big bites. He then let out a satisfied belch and continued riding forward.

Some of the soldiers felt disgusted but couldn't voice it. Even the captains were repulsed by his actions--how could their Lord be nothing but a fat tyrant who knew nothing of ruling except conquering smaller villages and taking their women? The past lords had been nothing like him. They were all powerful warriors and true leaders.

Nevertheless, Fagin was too obsessed with flattening Winterseed and seizing all the beautiful women for himself to notice the feelings of his soldiers.

It had been nearly three hours since they had marched out of Glenwood. Due to the large number of soldiers, they had only managed to move a short distance away from their village.

"Lord Fagin, look over there," one of the captains pointed ahead of them.

"What?" Fagin lazily asked, struggling to move his fat head in the direction the captain pointed.

The other captains and soldiers riding at the front had already seen the surprising sight, and their faces were filled with shock.

Up ahead, several meters away, fifteen horses stood in a dazed state.

Close to the horses, fifteen soldiers were lying on the plain ground, or so it seemed to them.

When Fagin saw this, his gaze immediately turned furious. "Those bastards I sent after Liara and that traitor Ren are resting instead of doing their jobs!!" he shouted in anger.

The other captains understood his rage.

"You and you, go wake them up," Waga, who was beside Fagin, said to two soldiers behind him.

The soldiers nodded, pulled the reins of their horses, and rode toward the group of horses and "sleeping" soldiers. When they arrived, they made their horses stomp on the heads of the men to wake them up.

"You lazy bastards! How dare you defy the orders of our great Lord Fagin! Wake up this instant and face his wrath!" one of the soldiers berated as he stomped their heads.

But there was no response.

Not even a single movement from the men on the ground.

At that moment, the soldier noticed the strange state of their leather armor--it looked as though it had been squeezed by something incredibly strong.

'Strange,' the soldier thought to himself, and he stomped their heads even harder.

Still, there was no response. His eyes widened as he realized the truth. He turned to look at Lord Fagin and the soldiers, who were watching him with squinted eyes, and said in a loud voice, "They are dead!"

Gasps erupted from the soldiers.

"What do you mean, dead? I told you to wake them up, and now you're making up lies in front of me? Are you courting death?" Fagin was in disbelief and berated the soldier instead.

"I am not lying..." the soldier responded quickly.

He dismounted his horse and grabbed the body of one of the soldiers. Lifting the body up, he let go of it, and it slumped back into its original position without a single reaction. He did the same with the others, and only then did the shocking realization sink in.

Fagin's reaction was, as expected, overly dramatic.

He ordered the captains to inspect the corpses themselves. When the captains returned, their reports shocked him.

"What do you mean they died without any wounds?" he demanded, but the soldiers gave no answer.

How could they have died without wounds? What had killed them? Why were the horses standing there without any reaction?

So many questions filled their minds.

"This is the work of Ren!" Fagin finally concluded.

"That traitor knows how to use herbs to heal, which means he also knows how to use them to kill! He poisoned them!" he continued angrily.

His conclusion was quickly accepted by the soldiers. They all knew about Ren's ability to heal with herbs, and they also knew that some herbs could be poisonous, which meant Ren could indeed kill with them.

"Damn! He's most likely taking that Winterseed wench to her people, and then he'll give them all the information about us. We need to move faster and make sure he doesn't get the chance! Even if he does, the people of Winterseed won't be able to fully prepare before we arrive," he said to the soldiers.

"Based on the calculation from my advisers, we should arrive in Winterseed before midday tomorrow if we stop to rest on the way. But why should we rest? Let's keep marching forward!" he roused his soldiers.

They let out a loud war cry and clanged their weapons together.

"We need to reach their village before dawn and attack while they sleep!" Fagin declared with a wicked grin.

Without further delay, he resumed leading his men toward Winterseed to conquer it.

They marched past the corpses of the soldiers on the ground. Some tried to take the horses, but the animals refused to budge. It was as if their bodies were frozen, though strangely, they were still breathing and alive.

What could be happening? the soldiers wondered.

But they didn't stay to find out and kept marching forward.

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Meanwhile, in a vast plain where a gathering of powerful individuals stood, D'andre suddenly recalled something and muttered to himself, "Damnit, I forgot to deactivate the mind-break spell on those horses!"