The Commander slashed his sword across one of the fake Sullivans and deflected another attack as the first man collapsed.

Behind him, another horseman beheaded another fake Sullivan. The militia’s spear landed on the horseman’s chest plating and slid off to the side without achieving much. Metal spears could punch through the leather armor of ordinary Sullivan soldiers, but against the metal platings of the Commander’s guards, they were nearly useless.

“Commander, we need to fall back and regroup!” The lieutenant screamed. His sword was stained with blood as well. Three militias have fallen under his strikes.

Just as the Commander was about to reply, an arrow came out from the side. The Commander swore as he tilted his head, dodging the projectile. The arrow came out of nowhere, but he didn't exactly become the leader of more than one thousand men with just his tactics. In the brutal Sullivan army, strength was even more of a qualification requirement than intelligence.

“Take him out! He’s the commander!” In the dark, Nicole reloaded.

Sullivans were dying all around her, but there were just too many of them. It was difficult to understand how large an army of 800 is just by looking at the number. 800 soldiers could form 8 squares of 10 by 10. They were enough to fill multiple basketball fields.

The initial blow to the Sullivans claimed hundreds of dead, but gradually, more and more Sullivans learned to identify the imposters. Militias were discovered, outnumbered, and terminated. The freedmen were still fighting, but after the initial rush of adrenaline faded, their lack of experience and equipment started to show. Casualties rose.

If the Commander could lead his horsemen on a counterattack, the Alliance might just be broken. Militias have performed well until now, but no one has forgotten what their unit description was.

Basically villagers with a few weeks of training and uniform pikes as weapons. They still don’t have any armor. They are slightly more durable in a fight than villagers, but if they are in a difficult fight, or even an even fight, they would turn and flee.

If twenty nearly invincible horsemen charge into the field, it would be a matter of time before the militias turn and flee. Without their forces, the teens would be picked off one by one.

The Commander has to die.

Luckily, her call for aid quickly reached the ear of her comrades.

From the side, Chris and Sophia, each with a dozen militias behind them, closed in. Their swords and spears were ready to embrace blood.

“Charge!” The Commander turned to the incoming Alliance forces. He waved his sword, and his twenty cavalries started charging. They quickly smashed into the militias.

The first collision left ten militias impaled and a two horsemen dismounted. The militias, with their wooden spears and plain clothing, didn't stand a chance against heavily armored cavalry units.

One of the dismounted horsemen was on the ground before his ride accidentally stumbled onto a hole in the ground in the dark. The beast collapsed. The second horseman was simply pushed over by multiple spears. Yet none of them was seriously injured.

Chris dodged a rider’s spear, grabbed onto it and held it in place, and smashed his sword into the man’s chestplate. It made the rider cough, but the sword wasn’t able to do any real damage. The two held that position for a while as they tried to bring each other down.

Sophia saw a similar problem, only she was smarter.

“Go for the legs! The horse legs!”

She slammed her spear into the front legs of one of the horses beside her. The legs weren’t armored because it would simply be too cumbersome for the horse to move efficiently. With the front legs broken, the horse collapsed. The rider barely recovered from the fall before two militias stepped on him and started stabbing him with spears. The rider’s spear was on the ground, and his sword has fallen out during the fall. Defenseless, he could only watch as some of the stabs made it through his armor and claimed his life.

Chris tried a similar thing and took down the horseman he was struggling with.

Nicole loaded another arrow and fired it at the Commander. It missed again.

The battle continued. With the commander trapped, Jerry and Patel, in the back, pressed on the attack. More and more ordinary Sullivan soldiers were outflanked and put down. They had the numbers, but one side had command and the other side didn't. Eventually, the militias and the freedmen started to get an upper hand.

As more and more militias came in, more and more riders fell. The Commander tried to charge forward, but after decapitating a couple of militias, he was pushed back. The random arrows from the side didn't help with his cause either. None of them really hurt him, but the archer firing those shots was skilled. He was forced back again and again.

Beside him, the lieutenant collapsed. A freedman, a former hunter, shot an arrow into his left eye. When he hit the ground, two more militias mutilated his body and made sure he was dead.

At this point, the Commander realized a dire thing. His men might still be fighting, but as more and more of the forces of the Alliance were attributed to him, he himself has been surrounded. His guards were falling one by one. Eventually, he would be knocked down and captured.

He needed to break out of this and get to his men now.

“Guards, on me!” He screamed as he whipped his horse hard. The beast, in pain, charged forward with all its strength. It ran into a militia and simply stepped on him and ran him over. The sound of bones cracking echoed through the chaotic night.

A handful of cavalry guards followed him.

Chris saw it.

“Militia, form a wall! Spears out!” One of the teens whose militias happened to be in the way the Commander was charging at decided to stop him. With a single order, fifteen militias formed a two men thick wall. Their spears pointed at the commander.

The Commander ran head on into the wall. He wore full body armor. The militia wooden spears crashed into the metal armor and broke, but after four casualties, the militias still managed to get the Commander off his ride.

“Die you rebel scum!” Even on the ground, the Commander wasn’t easy to deal with. He didn't even need to use his weapon as he grabbed onto a militia by the neck and broke it. Militias attacked him repeatedly but failed to achieve anything. Sometimes, armor was really helpful.

Behind him, the last riders were consumed by reinforcing militias. Once they lost the momentum, they quickly became sitting ducks for the militia spears.

Suddenly, Chris leaped up from behind and smashed the hilt his large sword at the Commander’s neck. There was still armor there, but the defenses there were weaker. The strike knocked the Commander off his feet. He was a good fighter, but being a good fighter didn't give him eyes on the back of his head.

More militias came in and piled on top of him.

At this point, without further backup, the Commander was subdued. The strength of a single person was nothing if he was facing an army just by himself. A single stab from the back could end him.

Chris raised his weapon again. Before he could bring it down for the killing blow, Sophia stopped him.

“We should take him alive. If we don’t need him, we can kill him afterward.”

Chris nodded and took a step back.

As the Commander went down, the rest of the Sullivans knew the battle was lost. They tried to make it for the gate, but there was too much chaos and too little command. The retreat turned into a route. Before long, the battle was over.

At the end of the day, 500 Sullivans fell dead. Corpses of red armored men was scattered across the mines once again.

Overall 120 militias were killed in the battle, along with 100 or so freedmen. Just looking at the numbers, it was a clear victory, but there were nonetheless concerns. The Sullivans had an empire, but the teens only had a few hundred men left.

“What do we do with the prisoners?”

When the teens met up again, that was the first question.

“Put them all to the sword, starting with their commander.” That was obviously Chris. Even now, he couldn’t forget the sight of Karl’s head on a spike, been marched down the road. It was only fair to return the favor.

Blood must have blood. An eye for an eye, and three hundreds heads for one was more than enough.

“They’re defenseless.” Nicole objected. “Now, I’m not saying we should show how we’re better than they are, but if we let them go and have them tell their own people what happened, then the next Sullivans will know that if they surrender to us, they get to live. That will be a heavy blow to their morale.”

“It wouldn’t work.” Chris shook his head. “The Sullivans run their empire with fear. They will only see our merciness as a weakness. We need to make them scared of us, not thank us. Gratitude will not stop them from putting a blade into our back.”

“I suggest we kill them all.” Sophia suggested. She was almost like two different people when dealing with the Sullivans and when dealing with the others. To the innocent people like the freedmen, she tried to be as nice as possible, but when it came to the Sullivans, she had anything but mercy.

Patel frowned as the others shared their thoughts. He didn't want to kill the prisoners. He knew he wasn’t exactly a saint. When the freedmen wanted to leave, he prompted them to stay, and now a hundred of them were dead. But killing unarmed, defenseless prisoners was still a bit too much for him.

Finally, he turned to Jerry. Last time he checked, the man wasn’t exactly a fan of killing prisoners either. When Chris forced him to kill the cook, he almost wanted to punch Chris in the face.

“Jerry?”

“Huh?” Jerry looked up like he was just woken up by something. “What was that?”

“We captured 300 Sullivans. What should we do with them?”

“Send the ones capable of working into the mines. Kill the rest.” Jerry’s answer came out quickly.

The next second he realized Patel and Nicole were staring at him in surprise.

“What? This is what must be done. If we keep the prisoners alive, we need to feed them. The capable ones can still earn their food by working in the mines and giving us gold, but for the ones too sick to work, they’ll die soon anyways without medical supply. Might as well give them a clean death.”

Behind him, Alex smiled at the suggestion.

“Jerry…”

Nicole was about to say something when Jerry suddenly added.

“Actually, another thing. Identify all the Sullivan officers and round them up. Extract every piece of information they know. We will need information if we want to expand.”

“How are we going to…”

“I’m on it.” Alex’s smile went even wider as the girl quickly walked out of the room. Her hand on her dagger.

Patel sighed and gave a slight approving nod. A few dozen being merci-killed was better than three hundred people getting slaughtered. Nicole bit her lips, silently making up her mind to go talk to Jerry afterwards.

She really didn't like where this was going.

“There are more important things to attend to.” Jerry suddenly spoke up. “Bring up your control panels.”

As the others turned to their control panels, Jerry pulled up his own.

Name: Jerry

Gold: 0

Merit: 2,000 * 0.2 = 400

Tier: 1

Available Units to summon: Villager. Militia.

Press to upgrade to Tier 2 (Now Available)

The most obvious change was the merit tab. When Jerry looked at his personal interface before the series of battles, he had 0 merit. He checked out the personal interface a few times, but he never paid any attention to that.

He gently tapped the upgrade to tier 2 tab. It flashed, and a popup came out.

Upgrading to Tier 2 requires 100 merit. Press Yes to continue.

Yes/No

How...interesting…

Jerry pressed the upgrade to tier 2 button.