He raised his hands to indicate that he meant no harm, and also gestured for the surviving skeleton riders to come forward and explain the situation.
After his explanation, Colin's expression seemed rather unpleasant (how could you tell?), and his tone also carried a hint of hesitation.
Rationally speaking, there is no doubt that [ the Western Sharpshooter ] did the right thing:
When two armies meet unexpectedly, battle is inevitable. At this time, military orders must be issued by one person or jointly by two people after discussion. Otherwise, exposing the discord between the officers will only harm the morale of the troops.
The dead skeleton cavalry captain made this mistake: he either indicated from the beginning that he didn't want to fight, or he led the charge from the start, only to stop after two waves of attacks, which was obviously unacceptable.
On a more emotional level, Colin was also very dissatisfied with the [ Western Sharpshooter ]'s approach:
No matter how incompetent the Skeleton Cavalry Captain was, he was still one of his own kind, while the Soul Returner swiftly and decisively killed him with a single shot.
Even if it's severely injured, it can still be saved as long as it gets new limbs. But now its head has exploded. When it gets a new head, who knows who will wake up?
Colin was caught in a dilemma, even considering whether to remove the generals [ Western Sharpshooter ] and [ Gill's Cuisine ], as well as [ Ginseng Rooster ], who was always trying to offer advice.
However, all doubts and concerns vanished in an instant.
Because [ Western Sharpshooter ] had the Soul Returner and Skeleton Soldiers bring up the enemy corpses and prisoners, and diligently reported the data from the entire battle:
The Imperial Army had a total of 120 light cavalrymen. When the count was taken after the battle, more than 80 of them had died, most of the rest were captured, and a small number escaped.
The Skeleton Alliance had over 160 light cavalry, including over 60 Soul Returner mercenaries, and the rest were all skeleton cavalry.
Of these people, about half of the Soul Returner were killed, and more than half of the Skeleton Riders were also killed. The survivors, the recoverable corpses, and the Imperial Hoofed Beast were all brought back by the [ Western Sharpshooter ].
When this data was presented to Colin, all his doubts vanished instantly, and even his idea of giving [ Western Sharpshooter ] a Knight's Leap Slash was temporarily dispelled.
The reason is simple: from any perspective, this is a genuine victory.
Although we are outnumbered and our side has suffered heavy losses, this is the Skeleton Alliance. The dead Imperial soldiers can be transformed into our own, and the skeleton soldiers can still be saved as long as they are not shattered into pieces. As for who wakes up, let's not worry about that for now.
Especially when he saw that most of the skeleton soldiers' corpses were still relatively intact, Colin immediately realized that the losses would not exceed 20% of the total number of troops deployed.
All things considered, this should be an indisputable landslide victory!
With the misunderstanding cleared up, Colin immediately ordered the city gates to be opened. He personally welcomed in [ Western Sharpshooter ] and the others, whose faces had been half burned off, and asked them to wait until he was done with his own business so they could come and get more details about the battle.
After properly disposing of the skeleton soldiers, the enemy, and some of their own corpses, Colin was surprised to see about twenty prisoners.
He looked these imperialists up and down, sensing that their demeanor was very strange.
Colin originally intended to use these people as raw materials to send to the Sand Capital to be processed into new skeleton soldiers, but after some probing, he was surprised to find that these people were not Imperials but Soul Returner!
This is a big deal!
What exactly happened?
Five minutes later, in the top-floor room of the sandcastle, only [ Western Sharpshooter ], [ Ginseng Rooster ], and the fortress knight Colin.
The latter clearly did not understand this situation and began to suspect whether his two subordinates, one civil and one military, were colluding with outsiders.
Collusion and conspiracy certainly exist; otherwise, they wouldn't be players.
But the methods and approaches were completely different from what Colin had guessed, and the purposes were, of course, very different as well.
"Excuse my bluntness, sir."
Seeing Colin's skeptical expression, [ The Western Sharpshooter ] began constructing his own history again:
"Some of the Soul Returner have apparently joined the Empire's camp, which might indicate that something is wrong with the Theocracy."
"What problems could possibly arise on the Theocracy's side? Is Adrian dead?"
Colin expressed his bewilderment and obvious skepticism.
"That's right. Logically speaking, the Skeleton Alliance signed the employment agreement with the Soul Returner first, right?"
"That's right."
[ Ginseng Rooster ] continues with a half-true, half-false explanation:
"But the number of Soul Returner is simply too great. Although tens of thousands of Soul Returner have already joined the Skeleton Alliance to fight for the Alliance, this is insignificant compared to the total number of Soul Returner."
"I had expected that."
Colin nodded. As an ambitious fortress knight, the Soul Returner were the foundation of his survival.
Therefore, he also went to great lengths to try and learn more about this group of alien creatures.
Through subtle probing, he estimated that the total number of Soul Returner was around 200,000, and that a large portion of them were not skilled in combat.
Although the number 200,000 is far from the current total number of players, the fact that Colin has such awareness is enough to show that he is not a useless piece of trash.
Seeing that the other party was not refuting him, [ the Ginseng Rooster ] continued to explain:
"Now that the Theocracy has been completely stabilized, apart from those Soul Returner have a special skill, the remaining Soul Returner who are good at fighting need to find another way out."
"So wherever there is war, there they are. Although the Skeleton Alliance is now recruiting Soul Returner on a large scale, it is not without its limitations."
"Each fortress knight, even the Bastion Lord or the Border Garrison Warlord, has a limited number of Soul Returner they can recruit."
"They went to some sandcastles but didn't get recruited, so of course they'd go to the other side of the empire to see if it would work."
"The Empire must also be aware of the powerful foreign force of the Soul Returner, so they are now stepping up their recruitment efforts."
Colin fell into deep thought upon hearing this.
[ The Ginseng Rooster ]'s words make a lot of sense.
The Soul Returner are currently a large group of highly skilled but desperately needy unemployed people. Whoever can recruit more of them will have a greater chance of winning in the war.
However, he only had two hundred Soul Returner under his command. Any more would require him to take charge of the defense of another sandcastle, or he would need to be promoted one rank from "Fortress Knight" to " Bastion Lord ".
That's easier said than done.
Of course, both Colin and [ the Ginseng Rooster ] selectively ignored the third method, which is...
Recruiting private soldiers.