Chapter 110: For the Empire (6)
The large head of the war beast dripped with blood, undeniably announcing to everyone present that the largest and strongest of the greenskins had been defeated in one-on-one combat.
Meanwhile, the dwarf king, the Supreme King, was still on his way.
The golden light in the emperor’s eyes gradually faded as he gazed around.
He had heard that when the leader of the greenskins was killed, they would scatter in disarray, falling into infighting. While greenskins were indeed prone to fighting, they did not like to engage in fights they were sure to lose.
However, scholars had also warned him that greenskins would not necessarily scatter; if the situation was heavily tilted in one direction, why would the greenskins flee instead of fighting?
There were simply too many greenskins around; the entire hillside was filled with them, stretching into the distance, beyond which a cloud of dust spread. He could see goblins shouting chaotically, but no organized imperial army in sight.
Perhaps the imperial army had been routed.
The emperor felt a wave of anxiety, trying to put himself in the greenskins’ shoes. How could he just let a crowd of fleeing soldiers go unpursued and turn to run away?
“I won’t accept this!” A tall black orc charged over. “This shrimp is no bigger than me! I’m bigger, I’m stronger!”
The emperor still had divine power coursing through his body. He wielded the hammer with one hand and, despite his severe injuries, leaped to deliver a powerful blow to flatten the black orc’s head.
“Who won’t accept it?!”
The emperor struggled to hold the beast’s head high, but as the last bit of divine power left his mortal body, he felt a surge of weakness. His hand fell, unable to support the weight. The emperor could only watch helplessly as the beast’s head dropped toward the ground.
The greenskins erupted into chaos, and the brawl that had just paused resumed.
A hand grabbed his falling wrist, lifting the beast’s head back up.
The emperor looked and saw it was Acanis, who had just severed his left hand for him. He revealed his true appearance, with a silver ponytail and a half-elf ear, grinning like a goblin.
“Brave and fearless Emperor Your Majesty,” Acanis said in a surprisingly flattering tone, “considering I disguised myself as a goblin shaman and lost my left hand, could you let me take this head to show off? There are still many greenskins unaware their beast is dead, and I’m particularly curious to see their expressions.”
The emperor released his grip. “Of course you can.”
Acanis exclaimed excitedly, “Great, from now on, you’re my boss, Emperor.”
The half-elf grasped the beast’s head, disregarding his severed left arm, and like a child who had received a new toy, he ran, jumped, and waved the head around, shouting in Orcish, “The beast is dead! The beast is dead!”
The remaining dozens of Reiksguard, some mounted, some not, surrounded the emperor and joined in the chant: “The beast is dead! The beast is dead!”
They didn’t care whether the greenskins could understand the common tongue.
Without a second thought, the goblins turned and fled, some greenskins following suit.
But many more greenskins hesitated, seeing the emperor and the remaining Reiksguard were so few, unsure or simply unable to comprehend what was happening. They surrounded the emperor, watching him.
At that moment, the emperor could no longer support himself and fell straight back, hitting the ground with his feet still stiff.
“Emperor! Emperor!”
The Reiksguard scrambled to lift him. The emperor’s lips trembled: “Quick… help me up… up.”
A goblin shouted upon seeing this, “The great king has fallen! The great king has fallen!”
Many greenskins, who intended to flee, stopped in their tracks.
A hefty orc bellowed, “Charge! Let’s butcher this lot of shrimps!”
“Waaaaagh!”
The orcs roared, though their voices were not as loud as before, nor was their battle fervor as rampant, but it still urged the young orc warriors and the hefty orc to raise their weapons and charge.
At that moment, a long horn sounded, cutting over the Waaaaagh shouts. From the dust-filled battlefield in the distance, several goblins riding wolves or spiders fled in panic, followed by rows of red shield walls emerging from the dust, the standing banners breaking through the haze.
The imperial soldiers were returning.
As the sword-and-shield troops marched, they struck their tower shields with their short swords and shouted, “Sigmar!”
The Waaaaagh cries were instantly extinguished; the appearance of the imperial army was like dousing a bucket of ice water over the heads of all the warlike greenskins, extinguishing their battle zeal.
The greenskins on the hillside began to scatter in groups, retreating.
“We must kill the great shrimp king!” the hefty orc shouted, “I’m bigger than you! Follow me!”
They had already charged forward; they should have kept going.
Many greenskins thought this.
The Reiksguard surrounded the emperor, anxiously protecting him.
At this moment, the armored George burst from the greenskin crowd, arms raised, and with one swing of his great sword, cleaved the hefty orc’s shoulder and head.
“Oh dear, another iron shrimp who can fight!”
Without a second thought, the charging greenskins scattered, turning to flee.
The first batch of imperial soldiers to return to the battlefield only numbered around two thousand. Thrown into the sea of greenskins, they only caused small splashes, but the overwhelming greenskins recoiled, abandoning their weapons and fleeing desperately. Even as three or four imperial knights swung their knightly swords in pursuit of thousands of greenskins, none dared to fight back.
They were all just focused on escaping.
Acanis transformed back into the goblin shaman, riding on a stolen wolf, clutching the beast’s head, pursuing the fleeing greenskins and shouting, “The beast is dead! I backstabbed him, I backstabbed him! Hey, take a look at this!”
The greenskins, terrified, dared not even glance back, fleeing faster and more frantically. The goblins that had tried to flee earlier were soon overtaken by orcs and unfortunately trampled to death.
Meanwhile, the Supreme King was still on his way.
The emperor was helped upright by the Reiksguard; the bloody setting sun cast light on his face. He struggled to open his eyes, seeing the advancing imperial battle formations not far off, the wounded shield-bearers of the empire, and the surging greenskin retreat, finally feeling at ease enough to close his eyes and say, “Let me rest for a while.”
As soon as he spoke, darkness enveloped him, and he lost consciousness.
The Reiksguard carefully laid him down on the ground, and someone shouted, “Doctor! Doctor!”
The remaining Reiksguard formed a protective circle around him. George squeezed into the circle, approaching the unconscious emperor. Even though the emperor had fallen, the fleeing greenskins dared not come within ten meters of the circle; it stood like an unyielding stone pillar amid the green tide.
An eagle with bloodstained wings flew over the obsidian pass, beneath it, in the valley, the green tide was rapidly receding.
And at this moment, the Supreme King was still on his way.
About half an hour later, the sky gradually darkened, with half the sun hovering on the horizon.
Gima sat on a stone, excitedly arguing with George:
“How could my professional judgment be wrong? I also said unless Sigmar manifested!”
“In a situation where you could just charge and win, how could that beast have decided to duel the emperor? These greenskins don’t know history; they don’t realize that back then Sigmar himself stood here, hammer in hand, smashing the brains out of the greenskin leader.”
“Besides the emperor, there’s no one who could match Sigmar; it was almost a re-enactment of history. If we let the greenskins duel and kill the emperor, where would that leave Sigmar’s reputation?”
“So, it’s really the war beast’s arrogance, and he’s got issues; always wanting to slap the gods in the face. Just look, his head got smashed off.” Gima shrugged, “That’s a low-probability event.”
George laughed, “Then why didn’t you hypothesize that Sigmar might manifest?”
“Who knows? What if Sigmar couldn’t beat the second-rate demi-god and didn’t successfully manifest?” Gima shrugged, “Whether or not a god manifests is something even the gods themselves can’t say for sure.”
“All right, stay here and attend the emperor’s victory feast for me.” George said, “I feel like my time is short.”
“Sounds like you’re about to kick the bucket—aren’t you just saying the duration is about to run out?”
George said, “You shouldn’t say that next time.”
“Hmph, as if you could decide the outcome of the battle just because you’re in a hurry. The main characters are the emperor and the war beast!”
The argument didn’t last long; George vanished like a popped bubble.
Gima stood up, looking at the battlefield strewn with corpses, the air filled with cries of lament, while squads of human spearmen prodded at the greenskin corpses to ensure there were no fakes.
This time the empire had suffered a costly victory, so many corpses… but then again, it was better than if the greenskins had been the ones cleaning the battlefield. The emperor would surely reward me.
Gima began to count her achievements.
She brought George along, but he had only killed one large orc trying to take the emperor away and had also healed the emperor a bit; it didn’t matter if he was there or not.
Counting it all up, her greatest contribution was actually sticking Acanis into the greenskin ranks as a spy.
“Sigh.” Gima sighed, “If I could count a wave of bad luck against the war beast as credit, it would be great. Maybe I should have brought George earlier; you can’t be too cautious or you won’t catch the wolf.”
She then shook her head; George was just a platinum; recklessly intervening in a duel might cost him his life.
A cheer suddenly erupted from a distance. Gima turned to see a group of imperial soldiers lifting a young soldier in the air, chanting as they walked:
“Henry! Henry! The hero of the empire!”
“Henry! Henry! The Sword Saint of Skar!”
Gima, with her keen eyesight, recognized him as someone she had seen before, like one of her companions who had tried to steal her underwear.
Unexpectedly, she ran into him here, and he had become a hero.
This thought quickly passed, and Gima continued to ponder how to inflate her contributions.
Speaking of which, the soldier nicknamed the Sword Saint of Skar, named Henry, looked dazed. He didn’t understand how he, a mere deserter, had turned into a hero of the empire.
The people celebrating him finally set him back down. An excited knight approached him and shouted:
“Hero of the empire! Henry! I’m sorry, when I saw you take my horse, I thought you were a deserter!”
Another soldier squeezed past the knight and said:
“But you didn’t flee; you threw down your sword and killed that black boar boss on the other side! Truly worthy of the Sword Saint of Skar; even throwing a sword is so accurate!”
Henry’s smile became awkward.
The knight pushed the soldier aside and said, “You’re a brave soldier. To save the entire fleeing platoon—no, the whole army—you’ve drawn all the war boars and giant spiders’ attention with your sword skills!”
The soldier excitedly pushed the knight aside, gripping Henry’s hand tightly, saying, “We all owe you thanks, or I would have been eaten by a giant spider long ago.”
For the first time, Henry felt how difficult it was to maintain a smile. He was hearing about his heroic deeds for the first time, and yet he had only been running away.
He struggled and said, “Uh, actually, I was running… running… away.”
