Chapter 212: Chapter 107: Bootlickers? Catlickers! The night passed quickly.
Last night, after drilling with Anya, Duncan got up early the next morning to train the soldiers.
The elite battle group he planned to form was different from the past imperial structure; it wasn’t a thousand-man legion but was composed of about ten hundred-man squads. Similar to merging the top-tier units in Mount & Blade II, combining the high-tier units of various kingdom powers into small-scale battle groups to adapt to the complex battlefield environments of the wilderness.
This is waging a strategically advantageous localized war with absolute strength.
The elites Duncan selected were mainly those marked with an asterisk, and each hundred-man squad would have a two-star centurion. The Gaul Oath Warriors Battle Group was already restructured, with about a hundred and twenty people, while the Highland Swordsmen being trained and reorganized were estimated to have more than three hundred people.
Besides that, there was the Druid Order, with only forty people, and the Imperial Eagle Banner Field Army, with a size of two hundred.
Because the conquered area was desolate and cavalry couldn’t operate well, a small number of high-tier warriors might be reorganized into the ’Governor of Britain’s Personal Guard Battle Group,’ and the ranged troops were mainly the recruited Welsh archers, with a small number of Saxon elite hunters marked with an asterisk.
It is worth mentioning that Duncan surprisingly recruited a batch of Frankish axe-throwing infantry (one-star), who were a branch of exiles from the defeated Frankish tribe.
These people were remnants of other tribes that Molov had not successfully conquered and secretly joined the Bagada people.
Recruiting them would offend the Frankish leader Molov, but Duncan didn’t care at all.
Duncan would sooner or later go to war with Molov.
Perhaps due to the legendary level’s influence, Duncan even had some Hunnic mounted archers under his command, though there were not many, just a dozen, incorporated into the Barbarian Race Foreign Legion. Although he had killed God’s Whip - Attila, the Hunnic Empire didn’t hate him much because Duncan had won honorably.
Moreover, the defeated were allowed to take Attila’s body back, and the words Duncan said after the battle were spread among many Hunnic tribes, earning the respect of the Hunnic chieftains and warriors.
The Huns were not afraid of death; they had their own honor and respected strong warriors.
Under such circumstances, Duncan was able to win, and they respected that.
So, interestingly, the Hunnic Empire wanted to gather an army in the name of revenge, and the target of their revenge was unexpectedly the empire and Aetius.
Aetius: ???
Why am I the scapegoat? Why are they seeking revenge on me?
Anyway, Aetius was busy now because the Hunnic Empire had begun gathering troops, and if everything went smoothly, they might attack Italy from the Alps by March next year.
Avenging God’s Whip - Attila was fake, just an excuse. The Hunnic Empire relied on war and plunder to maintain itself, using astonishing military achievements to intimidate various barbarian tribes. They needed a victory in war and abundant spoils to keep the Hunnic Empire running.
Just a few years ago, the Hunnic Empire ravaged the Balkans, and the Eastern Empire had nothing left to offer.
Looking across all of Europe, only the Western Empire was still relatively affluent, making it a target for raiding.
Attila wasn’t an exceptional political leader; the Hunnic Empire he built was a massive war machine. Once he died, the Hunnic court would collapse unless someone could lead them to continue extracting wealth from all of Europe.
Empires like this were very common in history, such as the Macedonian Empire, the Hunnic Empire, the Mongol Empire, etc., which divided very quickly.
Dimension Space.
After arranging internal affairs and development, Duncan switched back to the number two human form. The juvenile dragon that had been sleeping soundly had woken up and was leisurely catching fish to snack on.
Since it was eating a lot, the nearby fish schools were almost depleted, forcing it to go to the frozen river area.
Boom!
The solid ice surface shattered as the juvenile dragon broke through the ice and soared into the air, its ice-blue dragon scales gleaming brilliantly.
After surveying the surrounding area, Duncan controlled the juvenile dragon to fly towards the direction of the bonfire, having already illuminated a native gathering place and exploring more locations. The Northern Land was very extensive, comparable to the Siberian area on Earth, and the young dragon’s activity diameter was only a few tens of kilometers, with many dark regions still on the strategic large map.
——Ancient Catman Tribe.
As the silhouette of the juvenile dragon appeared once more, the catmen at the gathering place were no longer as panic-stricken as before.
"The dragon is coming!"
"Quickly, notify the priest." A catman hunter said hastily.
Perhaps due to the last tribal war, they had set up sentry posts on nearby high points. Some of the catman warriors wore bear-skin coats, relying on thick fur, and had hunters cut through the ice to continue fishing through ice fishing.
A young catman hunter ran wildly over the snowy ground and, upon entering the tribe, soon had the elderly priest come out.
His expression was full of joy!
"Quick!"
"Quickly bring over the fish caught in the past few days."
The elderly catman priest, looking harried, directed others to place the tribute food on the previous small hill.
Interestingly, six sacrifice stones were placed there at some unknown time, with dragon images carved into them using daggers.
More than ten plump river fish were placed on the central altar.
The catman warriors retreated reverently, leaving only the elderly priest standing a hundred meters away. Interestingly, last time he stood two hundred meters away, and this time the distance had closed by a hundred meters.
"What are they trying to do?"
Duncan was quite curious. After the catman warriors retreated, he controlled the juvenile dragon to land, taking big bites of the frozen solid river fish. Having food delivered was much more convenient than hunting himself.
The juvenile dragon gobbled them up.
Soon, it finished eating all the river fish, and then the dragon’s ferocious head curiously examined the sacrificial stones around it, which were just ordinary stones with dragon images carved into them. It seemed a simple ritual had been performed once on them.
Because there were bloodstains on the ground, the offering might have been a bear’s head.
In ancient times, various rituals predominantly involved blood sacrifices, and the ancient catman tribe was no exception. They performed traditional blood sacrifices and even killed a severely wounded bear-man captive.
"Are they planning to worship me as a divine spirit?"