Fanxing used a mix of threats and inducements to requisition three hundred militiamen from several minor lords, including the Porcupine Knight.
They weren't willing, but they had no choice.
Otherwise, those ten Paladins might go berserk and slaughter every last one of them before calmly walking away.
Don't talk to Fanxing about mercy or rules. Black Knights were the least bound by rules when it mattered. Otherwise, how could the Lyne Empire have conquered such vast territory with nothing but Paladins who were like ascetics and saints?
The Porcupine Knight reluctantly sent eighty men. Fanxing had paid him a good sum, but cash alone couldn't keep an estate running. People were what mattered most. Many had already died in the great battle, and now he was sending off dozens more able-bodied young men. The Porcupine Knight was already worrying about next year's planting.
He might as well consider these men dead already. They were going to fight that terrifying lich. Perhaps they would serve as cannon fodder, exhausting its magic.
By some peculiar preference of the Creator, in most situations on this continent, individual might surpassed the power of the many.
The tales that were widely told were heroic epics, not stories of people uniting to win.
So in many high-level wars, ordinary soldiers played a negligible role. Most of the time, they were there to set the mood or serve as a backdrop before the strong unleashed their full power.
The fate of the militiamen from the various estates in the last campaign against the lich had proved this point well.
But the Lyne Empire was a little different.
Thanks to the tradition left by its founding emperor, it placed the interests of humanity above all else, nearly on a par with its faith. But the Lyne Empire had