The newly appointed deputy commander knew how to read the situation. Slick and shrewd, with a hint of cunning, he stood beside Caesar without looking the least bit out of place.
The twenty thousand soldiers were of course not inside Sand City. Uno could never hand over the elite troops guarding the city. What he handed over was a portion of the soldiers stationed west of Sand City. They were neither logistics troops nor the old, weak, sick, and disabled. They were not recruits, either, but a defeated army that had just withdrawn from the front lines.
Uno could not hand over the logistics troops, the old and infirm, or the recruits. The Sand Emperor was no figurehead, and Uno did not dare go too far.
In Uno's words, this defeated army became the elite of the front lines, temporarily withdrawn for recuperation. But a defeated army was still a defeated army, and its abysmal morale was easy to imagine.
When Su Xiao reached the western part of the city, a vast expanse of tents came into view. Soldiers stood or sat among them, all looking more or less dispirited. Most had a faint scent of blood on them, the result of their injuries. Beneath their light armor were battered bodies wrapped in white cloth.
"Fall in!"
The newly appointed deputy commander, Os, shouted. He then removed the horn from his waist, drew a deep breath, and blew into it with all his might. The sound was neither long and melodious nor imbued with the booming gravitas of an imminent battle. It sounded like a long, loud, muffled fart.
Hearing the horn, all the soldiers between the tents tensed up, only to relax again and slowly rise to their feet.
Nearly twenty minutes later, the soldiers finally assembled in an