High Spirits

Having an extra skill was always a good thing. Though he did not know exactly what had happened, Hudson's intuition told him it was related to the Compass devouring Soul Fire earlier.

Before this, his archery could only be considered beginner-level. Relying on a knight's arm strength, he could draw a Strong Bow to its full extent. His accuracy was limited to within fifty meters; beyond that, it was all down to luck.

Now, with his keen senses, he could easily lock onto his targets. Unfortunately, while the bow in his hand was of decent quality, it was still ordinary equipment. If he had been using specially crafted Elven bows and arrows, the Rebel Army commander definitely would not have escaped today.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

Carried away by the moment, Hudson directly switched to precision shooting. Anyone who displeased him got an arrow, and within moments, dozens of people had died.

It was like a real-life battle royale, except rifles had been replaced by bows and arrows. But that did not affect the experience in the slightest. Walking the line between life and death was, if anything, even more thrilling.

After emptying an entire quiver, Hudson calmed down and immediately instructed the guards beside him, "Shout with me."

"The rebel commander is dead! Surrender now if you don't want to die!"

"The rebel commander is dead! Surrender now if you don't want to die!"

At first, it was several dozen people, then over a hundred, and finally several thousand allied soldiers joined in the chant. The deafening cries threw the Rebel Army soldiers into utter confusion.

"Don't listen to the enemy's nonsense! How could the High Priest possibly—"

Before the Rebel Army leader who had stepped forward could finish speaking, an arrow Hudson had seized from an archer struck him, killing him on the spot.

This was only the beginning. Any Rebel Army leader who stepped forward to steady the troops would receive Hudson's special attention from his bow.

As long as they were within range, they were almost always killed with a single arrow. The price was that two Strong Bows in Hudson's hands had been ruined.

With no one taking charge and their minds thrown into chaos, the Rebel Army soldiers stopped advancing and began searching everywhere for the High Priest.

But where was the Grey-robed Elder now? Not only had their commander-in-chief vanished, even the leaders who usually commanded the Rebel Army had been killed or wounded almost to the last man.

At this sight, quite a few mentally fragile Rebel Army soldiers collapsed on the spot. This proved that Courage Potions were not all-powerful.

With the curtain raised on their collapse, most Rebel Army soldiers lost the will to fight, aside from a small number of diehards.

Cautious as ever, Hudson did not rush to order the entire army forward. Instead, he quietly waited for the Rebel Army soldiers to make their choice.

With the battle having reached this point, it no longer mattered whether they surrendered. As long as he delayed until the effects of the medicine wore off, everything would be over.

In Hudson's view, these Rebel Army soldiers were much like people addicted to opium. At first, they were fired up and their combat strength surged, but once the drug wore off, they became listless.

Perhaps the Skull Society's means of controlling the Rebel Army soldiers were even more potent than opium, but they were still ultimately unfit to be seen in public.

If the boost in combat strength had not been so limited and the restrictions so numerous, the noble factions, who possessed far greater resources, would have already begun imitating it despite the mere side effects.

Hudson did not have to wait long before deserters began appearing in the Rebel Army camp. One, two, three, four... Soon, it triggered a chain reaction.

Watching the Rebel Army soldiers throw down their weapons and flee in every direction, Hudson, who had originally planned to order pursuit, ultimately had a soft-hearted moment.

They were all unfortunate souls. Why slaughter them all? More importantly, they had thrown away their most valuable weapons. Even if they gave chase, there would be no spoils left to loot!

Unlike the supplies in the camp, these spoils were his legitimate income. He could openly take them with him on the road.

Commanding another family's private army in battle, earning military merit and spoils for himself, while the original owners paid for the casualties and losses—just thinking about it felt wonderful.

Those were the rules of the game. On the Aslant Continent, serf soldiers had no rights, and any military achievements they earned belonged to the nobles.

As the sole commander of this battle, Hudson naturally had the right to claim all the military merit for himself. As for his colleagues in the Fifth Army, they should first explain to the Noble Allied Forces headquarters why they had abandoned the baggage train and run off to loot.

If they came out to fight over the military merit after leaving their own elite troops behind to escort the provisions, then wanting a share would have been barely understandable.

Unfortunately, every one of them had taken their elites out to loot, leaving behind nothing but serf soldiers. Under those circumstances, even if they had the nerve to show their faces, no one would acknowledge their claims.

Hudson had even drafted the battle report in his mind. The Noble Allied Forces had won this battle and preserved their provisions chiefly thanks to Knight Hudson's brilliant command and the Coslo Family private army's bloody struggle.

As for the serf soldiers from the other participating families, they had merely made up the numbers. A brief mention would suffice; there was no need to waste parchment on them.

"Pass down the order. The Supervision Team will gather the wounded and stand guard. The first through tenth hundred-man units will clean the battlefield and collect the spoils. The eleventh through twenty-third hundred-man units will gather firewood. The twenty-fourth—"

Hudson gave his orders in high spirits.

The most urgent task was to clear the battlefield as quickly as possible and burn the corpses lying on the ground, lest they leave the enemy an opportunity to exploit.

Silver Skeletons had already appeared. Who knew whether the fleeing Rebel Army mages might return and use the corpses on the ground to trigger a Necrotic Cataclysm?

Of course, that was only a possibility. If Necrotic Cataclysms were so easy to create, the Aslant Continent would have long since become the domain of necromancers.

As far as Hudson knew, mysterious necromancers were actually not much different from ordinary mages. They merely possessed an additional skill: summoning Undead creatures.

In theory, Undead creatures could be summoned without limit, provided one's mental power was strong enough to suppress the Undead creatures one had summoned.

This suppression was not directed at individual Undead creatures, but at the combined mental power of all the Undead creatures summoned.

Once the critical threshold was exceeded, the necromancer would suffer a backlash from the Undead creatures. A major reason necromancers were so rare was precisely because of such backlashes.

After all, the Undead creatures they summoned could devour the flesh, blood, and souls of living beings to advance. Once an Undead creature's mental power surpassed that of its necromancer, it could break free of the contract's restraints.

Being honorable creatures, the Undead would naturally repay the necromancer for summoning them by keeping him by their side forever.

By comparison, believers attached to some powerful figure in the Undead realm were much safer.

If their own mental power was insufficient, they could still borrow the authority of the powerful, using specific rituals or incantations to draw upon their master's strength.

Of course, with an entire world between them, the power they could borrow was also extremely limited. Otherwise, they would not have encountered five Silver Skeletons earlier, but an entire sea of skeletons.