Chapter 409

"But this is a situation that has not changed for thousands of years. Why..."

"You don't need to delve into this issue. In short, the problem of sandstorms that harm the human body in the desert has been solved."

"I understand." Carlisle nodded. "Then, are there anything else you should pay attention to?"

"Well, of course." Orson said: "Please be sure to inform every soldier that the combat targets entering the desert this time are only orcs, not half-orcs."

"Half-orcs have not participated in the war between orcs against humans. They are also oppressed by orcs. As aboriginal people in the desert, half-orcs can serve as guides to help our army quickly find orc tribes and eliminate them."

"At the same time, even if we encounter those orc tribes that are unwilling to cooperate, we should not use force. Leave some food for them and let them see our sincerity. They will choose to trust us and cooperate with us."

"This..." Carlisle opened his mouth in surprise when he heard Orson's arrangement.

"This is a little too crazy..." he said.

For humans to cooperate with other races, there seems to be no other record except when they fight against demons in legends.

Oh, there is also an age of dragons, but that is usually included in the civil war.

"Yes, we are in an era of great change." Orson said this and patted Carlisle on the shoulder. "General Carlisle, from now on, there will be more and more changes in this world."

"I understand." Carlisle nodded after hearing this.

"By the way, speaking of it, Mr. Ossen, there seems to be a banquet held in Antica City recently. It seems to be initiated by His Majesty the Emperor. It is said to be a grand celebration of the great achievements made in this war. Mr. Ossen, what are you doing? The point of this war

Sir, I think you still need to rush back as soon as possible to attend. "

"What?" Orson heard this and looked at Carlisle in surprise.

"When is the banquet expected to be held?" he asked.

"As far as I know, His Majesty the Emperor will arrive in Antica tomorrow, and the banquet will be held as soon as His Majesty the Emperor arrives."

"I understand." Orson nodded after hearing this.

It would have been okay if this banquet had been held before, but it happened to be held when Lucius developed this disease...

I'm afraid someone with good intentions got the information about Lucius' illness and wanted to take the opportunity to cause trouble.

Orson thought and sighed.

Why are family affairs always so bad?

…

Desert, Balu tribe.

Balu has been in a bad mood recently. Although he has relied on his own abilities to continuously conquer nearby orc tribes and incorporate them into his own command, the casualties he paid in the civil war have reduced the strength of the orcs as a whole. More than half.

The number of orc warriors before the war was 300,000. Now, the number of orcs under Balu's command is about 10,000, and the total number of other tribes combined is only about 10,000.

The orcs are truly gone.

Although the orcs reproduce at a very fast rate, and it will only take a few decades to return to the scale before the war, these decades are the period when the orcs are at their weakest.

If there was a race that could ignore the invasion of wind and sand and launch an attack on itself, the orcs would really be exterminated.

However, the sandy weather seems to have really disappeared recently, which makes Balu even more worried.

He looked at the old orc who had become his military advisor. At this moment, the old orc was drinking cold water leisurely.

"Senior, I don't know why, but I always have a bad feeling lately?"

"Oh?" The old orc heard this and looked at Balu. "Chief Balu, what are you worried about? Why don't you tell us?"

"In the past few days, there seems to have been no sandstorms in the desert."

"This is a normal thing." The old orc said, not caring about Balu's worries. "In the desert, this kind of thing happens from time to time. It doesn't mean that there will always be wind and sand. Moreover, our current location is on the outskirts of the desert. The deeper we go into the desert, the more frequent the wind and sand will be."

"I hope so." Balu nodded after hearing this. "Now that the strength of our tribe has surpassed that of the entire orcs, the remaining tribes will basically just have to wait for time to persuade them to surrender."

"When the time comes, we will follow your ideas, senior, and imitate the human system and carry out reforms. This is the way out for the orcs, right?"

"Yes." The old orc nodded.

"Well, I hope the sacrifices of so many compatriots are meaningful." Balu said this and sighed.

"Chief Balu, you don't have to feel sad for their passing. Think about it, maybe not long ago, they were wishing you were dead."

"They are just stumbling blocks on the road of the orcs' revival. Besides, you have confessed before the King of Beasts, so you don't need to feel guilty." The old orc comforted Balu.

"Yeah." Balu nodded after hearing this.

Then, suddenly an orc warrior ran in.

"Something is bad! Chief Balu! Humans, so many humans! They are coming towards us!" the orc warrior said, breathing heavily and looking very embarrassed.

"What? Why do humans come to us?" Balu said, looking at the orc warriors in disbelief, and then turned to look at the old orcs.

"Senior, what should we do in this situation?"

"This..." the old orc thought for a while, and then said: "Maybe there is really no wind and sand in the outer areas these days. Why don't we retreat deep into the desert first?"

"This seems to be the only solution for now." Balu nodded in agreement after hearing this.

Anyway, as long as you go deep into the desert, you will definitely be protected by the wind and sand. If humans still dare to pursue them, they will die of various diseases without the help of the orcs, and they will leave behind a large amount of food. Supply the orcs.

Subsequently, Balu ordered the tribe to set out overnight.

Then, after marching for three days, Balu's mood never got better.

For the past three days, they had been marching deep into the desert, but they did not encounter the sandy weather they had dreamed of.

And human soldiers are also chasing behind them.

He only has 10,000 soldiers, while humans have a hundred thousand.

Although there is no emperor

Imperial elites like the Family Knights, but local elites like the Black Army are still in this army.

Not just Balu's army, other orc tribes in the desert were also attacked by human armies. They never imagined that humans who had not dared to go deep into the desert for thousands of years would go deep into the desert this time, and not a little bit. Nothing happened.

Late at night, Balu was sitting in the makeshift military camp. He looked at the old orc sitting next to him.

The old orc's face didn't look very good at this moment.

"Senior, tell me, could it be that we were fighting each other, causing the King of Beasts to no longer protect us..."

"This is impossible." The old orc shook his head firmly. "The King of Beasts will never abandon his creation..."

"Then why, why is there still no wind..."

"This..." The old orc was silent for a while, not knowing what to say.

"How about." At this time, Balu suddenly said: "How about we fight this human army. If we retreat again, we will retreat to the temple. We don't want to see the land of the King of Beasts destroyed. Outsiders trample on..."

"Okay." The old orc said and nodded. "Moreover, we are not sure whether humans have encountered sandstorms before. What if this group of human troops encountered sandstorms when they first entered the desert, and now they are actually sick to fight against us..."

"Well, that's all." Balu said, making up his mind.

Early the next morning, Balu gathered all the warriors in the tribe, distributed the food, and after eating the last meal, he led the warriors towards the human army.

While the soldiers charged, the women and children continued to retreat to the rear under the leadership of the old orcs.

Balu took the lead and charged into the human army, hacking and slashing.

These orcs have the mentality of killing one to get back their money and killing two to earn one, and have almost lost their discipline.

The human army was not diseased as Balu and the old orcs imagined. Instead, it was very fierce and could fight better than ordinary orcs.

The result of the war is obvious. The human side won a great victory, while the orcs were completely wiped out.

Humans have no habit of keeping prisoners. Under the pursuit of cavalry, no matter how strong the two legs of the orcs are, they cannot outrun the four legs of the cavalry.

A few days later, the human army finally caught up with the old, weak, women and children of the Balu tribe.

Facing the pursuing human army, first the elders and women of the tribe took up arms, and then the young children.

As for the infants in swaddling clothes, under such harsh conditions, most of them would have died long ago, and the remaining babies would not survive more than a few days without anyone to care for them.

The first phase of the elimination mission took half a month, and a thorough carpet search and elimination of the orcs still required a lot of time, but the manpower and material resources invested in it were still much less than in the first phase.

On the other side, Orson thought of a good strategy. He gave the city of Kars, which was originally intended to be an immigration city, to the orcs as a city for the orcs.

When collecting information about the orcs, Orson was surprised to find that the total number of orcs was only over 30,000.

You know, even if the orcs kill each other to that point, there are still 20,000 warriors and about 50,000 ordinary people. The number is about 70,000, and this is the lowest number of orcs in decades.

At its peak, the number of orcs exceeded one million.

The number of orcs is quite stable.

Originally, Orson thought that the development of the Orcs would take up a lot of land in the eastern region, but now it seems that one Karls City is even enough to house all the Orc groups.

Of course, these are just the orcs in the desert. In the human empire, there are still many orcs as slaves or free people in various cities, but their total number will not exceed one hundred thousand.

The number of humans is hundreds of times that of orcs.

Thinking about it this way, the orcs can actually adopt the city-state development model. As long as the city of Kars is developed well, the orcs can live a very good life.

Under the recommendation of the orc leaders, Arati, who had a good relationship with Orson, was elected as the temporary city lord of Kars City and became the leader of the orc group.

Everything is developing prosperously.

But before all this, things in the Duchy of Antica were not that good.

After Lite received the news that Emperor Odysseus was about to visit the Duchy of Antica, he was stunned for a moment, and then felt a little difficult.

If Odysseus comes, Lucius will have to come out to see him, right?

Even if he stays indoors due to illness, what should he do if Odysseus asks to visit Lucius in the house?

If Lucius does not get sick during the visit, it is fine, but what if Lucius suddenly gets sick?

For patients with this disease, it is very likely that they will suddenly say something or do something stupid, but if that becomes disrespectful to the emperor, even if Odysseus can understand Lucius and escape the blame, the family's reputation will be hit.

Think about it, a family with a dementia head will be laughed at if it is told out.

But after all, it was a letter sent by the emperor himself, and he couldn't not reply. In desperation, Lit could only reply on his behalf.

In the letter, Lit implicitly expressed that Lucius was ill and might not be able to pay respect to the emperor at that time, and after Odysseus received the letter, he had to visit Lucius.

No matter what, Lucius is also the emperor's confidant. He has made great military achievements for the empire. Now he is injured. As the emperor, he has to come to see him, whether it is to take care of the minister's mood or to achieve his own political goals.

After receiving the reply, Litt felt even more overwhelmed. Helplessly, he could only take it one step at a time.

The invitations have been sent out, and the dignitaries have also started to leave.

And some people are probably waiting to see the joke of the Stranik family.

At this time, Mary took the test and challenged Litt again.

"Litt, are you sure you haven't found Randall in the past few days?"

"Yeah." Litt rubbed his forehead and nodded helplessly. "Sorry, mother, we have searched the entire Dukedom of Antica and have not found any trace of Mr. Randall. I suspect he may have been kidnapped."

"Kidnapped?!" Mary said this with a suspicious expression.

"Leet, let me be frank." After saying this, she took a deep breath and then said, "I already know about the master's affairs. He has a vague memory and always treats me as his ex-wife."

"Such a serious matter, why did you and Orson hide it from me? Why did I have to go and see it myself to know it? Are you the master's children, and am I not the master's wife?!" She questioned Leet loudly, making Leet feel ashamed.

"Sorry, mother, this matter... is mainly for the sake of father's face..."

"Face, what face do we have to talk about in a family?" Mary said this, and laughed in anger. "I think you don't treat me as your mother at all. The master just forgot about the matter, and you started to undermine the master's power. Now you are kidnapping my confidants. Are you going to do it to me next!?"

Faced with the aggressive Mary, Orson could only make concessions in words.

"I'm sorry, mother, but Mr. Randall's disappearance really has nothing to do with us. We are also trying hard to find him..."

"Heh, trying hard to find him? Posting a few notices is considered trying hard to find him? Why don't you look for the properties under your and Orson's names? See if there are any Tibetans there?!"

"Mother, please believe us..."

"Lite." Mary said this and walked to the door. "I'll be frank with you. If you don't treat me as a family member, don't blame me for being ruthless and ungrateful."

With this, Mary closed the door heavily.

Looking at the closed door, Lit sighed helplessly.

This wave of pressure can be regarded as withstanding, but what should be done next when the emperor arrives?