Herald of Steel

The sound of the horn of surrender reverberated throughout the battlefield as the Cantagenans blew it to signify their loss, while the runners all ran to individual captains to inform the precarious situation they were in and told them to do what they thought best.

All this was witnessed by the mercenaries from atop the hill with grim, somber countenances as all of them felt their heart shatter at the sound of this distinct, unmistakable sound, hammering in the reality that they truly lost the war.

“Congratulations. Your warning came true.” Menes said to Alexander in an almost sarcastic way.

“Thanks.” Alexander shamelessly replied, seemingly unable to detect the sarcasm.

After all, if his warning had failed, he would have been very lucky to keep his neck.

When the fog came rolling in, it had caused quite a commotion within the entire camp.

People like Camius immediately claimed it to be the warming foretold by the blessed son of Gaia and his old-time friend, along with a few others, even started praying to Alexander, as one would to statues in a temple. .

The appearance of the fog even shook Alexander at first.

Wild thoughts like ‘Maybe gods really do exist?’ and ‘Am I in a supernatural world’ began to appear in his mind.

The latter was really, not at all as preposterous as it sounded because Alexander personally knew the existence of at least one ‘supernatural’ being- him.

After all, he had no idea how he got here, why he got here, who bought him or who put him in this body.

And as a bonus, he also had no idea where he was.

He had yet to see a map with any real detailed maps bigger than a city-state, so had no idea if he was on earth from a different time period, on earth from a different timeline or if he was on a completely different planet altogether.

He didn’t even know if he was in the same universe or in a parallel one.

And if he was on a different planet in a different universe, then, the existence of supernatural beings was certainly not out of the question.

Alexander certainly read Chinese wuxia and xianxia novels, where immortals existed, cold and aloof beings, disinterested in the mortal worlds below, viewed as mysterious beings, and worshipped as gods by the unaware, ignorant populace.

Thus, there certainly was a small possibility that Ramuh really did exist and so did Gaia and every other god.

But soon rational thought began to return to Alexander and they snuffed out the ridiculous, irrational thoughts that spontaneously surfaced in his mind.

There certainly was a scientific explanation behind the appearance of the fog and its appearance on the battlefield was likely a coincidence.

After all, Alexander reasoned that if the fog was truly magical and created by a real Ramuh to help the Adhanians, then it would have affected only the Cantagnans and the mercenaries.

But from what he could see, both sides were having problems with visibility.

And even if Ramuh was somehow real, Alexander had already dug a hole for himself that he was unable the extricate himself from.

After all, the potential rewards were too great and hence Alexander could only dig deeper, hoping he was in a normal world, identical to his previous life.

Or else his only option was to draw the ire of a god and perish.

Thus, fixing his mind on this course of action, he immediately noticed the current situation as a prime opportunity to cement his position in the hearts of the soldiers and so he instructed Camius, like last time, to spread that it was Alexander from Nestoras’s mercenary group that forewarned about the impending disaster.

And Alexander wouldn’t be disappointed as the flames of this rumor would soon touch the heart of almost all the soldiers, making him almost untouchable.

“Alexander, I heard Damious is seeking treatment in our camp. I am gonna check it out.” Suddenly, from the side came Theocles.

Though his tone sounded as if instead of informing Alexander of a decision he made, it sounded more like the man was asking for his permission.

“Sure,” Alexander uttered a single reply and Theocles soon sprinted off.

Alexander was aware that Damious had decided to run mid-battle and back then it had caused a huge ruckus when the observing soldiers saw Damious abandon Samaras and leave the battlefield with his three thousand troops.

Many booed and jeered him from the top and some in camp even blamed him for their loss in hushed tones.

Although Alexander didn’t think Damious did any major strategic mistakes, him leaving the battle prematurely provided a golden opportunity for him to exploit.

He intended to knock down and if possible even kill the mercenary leader to wrestle control of all the mercenary groups.

And he believed this was the time to strike.

Yes, this slave was that ambitious.

He didn’t just want to replace Nestoras or Aristotle to become the leader of a small, now less than a thousand men mercenary group.

He believed that only he was capable enough to lead all the survivors out of Adhania with the least amount of casualties and he aimed to lead everyone.

So he decided to rescind the previous order of, “Menes, Nestoras is likely dead. Even if he is not, this loss will be enough to oust him as the leader. I want you to prepare the soldiers to get them to nominate me as the next leader.”

Instead, as the giant was about to carry it out he said, “Wait! Scratch that.”

This made Menes halt and wordlessly turn his head to get new instructions, which were, “Spread across the troops that Damious has been bought out by the Adhanians and that’s why he abandoned Samaras at the critical moment. And he now feels threatened by the divine son of Gaia and intends to kill him.“

This made Menes give Alexander a long, deep penetrating look.

He understood that with Alexander’s rising fame it was inevitable that it would clash with Damious’s authority sooner or later.

And that it was very much Alexander’s style to preemptively strike rather than wait for the other party’s attack.

Menes on the other hand felt he did not have a scheming nature and though he could detect pitfalls, he wasn’t apt at creating ones.

Even when Alexander had tried to teach him political intrigue, he struggled to keep his eyes open.

He had always felt much happier letting Alexander deal with these complex issues while he could just turn off his head, follow orders and win.

And it was because of such convenience and trust that Alexander won’t screw him over was he loyal to the boy.

Alexander, on the other hand, liked Menes because he was competent, loyal, and most importantly ambitionless.

He on the other hand didn’t actually dislike Damious for throwing Samaras to the sides.

Alexander understood that this was a typical risk anyone ran when using mercenaries.

Using mercenaries had its benefits- you could get very good, experienced men for frankly a small amount of gold. If one wanted to produce elite units of similar caliber to mercenaries, one would need to be fanatics like Exolas or pour gold that was not really possible to afford for anyone except the likes of the super-rich Adhania or Cantagena.

But the downside was that mercenaries were only good when you were winning wars, not when losing, or even when showing signs of losing a war. Because, in the eyes of mercenaries, a losing employer may not have the coin to pay them or worse yet not be alive to pay them.

Thus it was common for mercenaries to backstab their employers when things were going south for them, either in an attempt to steal valuables from the employer’s camp or to gain favor and pardon from the opposite camp.

And many times they would get it and even be paid gold, because the other side would want to set a precedent so that others would switch sides in future battles too.

So, in Alexander’s eyes, Damious not switching sides was already generous in his eyes. Alexander was not sure he would not have done so in Damious’s place.

And as for the soldiers blaming Damious for the loss or claiming Samaras could have retreated with the army if Damious had stayed, Alexander found them to be solely delusional.

They all witnessed the incident from above when the much thicker Adhanian wings crashed into the Cantagenan ones and shattered them, and the veterans in the camp understood the battle was over.

And they all correctly blamed Samaras for splitting his already meager force in the dark, even after knowing how hard it would be to keep proper coordination with the individual units in such an environment.

When the Adhanians were approaching the unsuspecting Cantagenans, they had been detected by the Cantagenan mercenaries atop the hill and some in desperation screamed at the top of their lungs from atop to warm their fellow brothers below, but how could human voices travel so far or make it through so much noise?

The only thing these soldiers succeeded in doing was getting a sore throat.

They also resorted to sending people to inform those below of the imminent attack but they were too late.

Obscured by the fog, many runners who believed the warning were actually unable to locate the formation nor were they able to determine when the formation was attacked.

The people from above were also unable to determine the exact details due to the fog, and hence as a precaution, they sent people to inform the runner to tell Samaras to order a retreat.

But without concrete information, these people only received scorn from the fighting soldiers.

No one simply believed that a contingent of two thousand soldiers could be defeated so quickly without their knowledge and they even thought that these ‘rebels and traitors’ who disobeyed orders and chose to not fight with them were just trying to incite them to lose, just to save face.

Thus four thousand good men were lost due to human hubris.

Even now, as Alexander glanced below, he could see chaos and confusion with the Cantagenan ranks as they struggled to absorb the fact that their wings were gone, four thousand of their brothers were dead, and Adhanian right wing had manifested itself at their rear and the Adhanian left wing was on an imminent coarse to destroy their center flank.

They had effectively lost.

Many lamented for letting their ego and anger blind them from trusting their brothers but there was little anyone could do for them.

Their fates rested on the hands of Amenheraft.