Herald of Steel

*Trumpet*, *Trumpet*, *Trumpet*!

As Scorpyo and his thousand men strong sped toward Lord Macht's rear at breakneck speed, the old man was forced to acknowledge his defeat today.

And for a moment he even wished to fight it out here to the last man here, willing to risk everything. Perhaps Lord Macht believed he would be able to use his still outnumbering force to smash both of the incoming fists at once.

Of course in reality such a result was really a pipe dream within a pipe dream as Lord Macht's rear would likely collapse even before Scorpyo made contact.

This was not only because of the angle of Scorpyo's attack but also due to the fact that Lord Macht's rear units were in the midst of turning themselves.

Meaning they were more out of formation than if they were simply standing still with their backs turned to the incoming legionaries.

Plus, due to their new position, some of them could also see the imminent disaster about to unfold in front of them.

And it was almost written that these men would not simply wait for death to hit them. Most of these rear units would scatter before Scorpyo got the chance to butcher them.

This realization, combined with the reminder of what was at stake here by his adjutant, was at last enough for Lord Macht to let go of his desire to fight to the death here and now.

Rather than commit suicide here, Lord Macht thus allowed his men to sound the distinct retreating trumpet, as he quickly turned his horse around and waved the arms wildly towards the opposite shore, "Retreat! Retreat! Back to the ships! Retreat!"

The loud blare of the trumpet had caught most of Lord Macht's men, especially those in the front completely off guard.

Because to them, it seemed as if they were moments away from winning the battle.

"What! Why are we retreating now? Is this some kind of mistake?" Thus many of the even experienced officers could not help but cry out in alarm at this puzzling order.

But even if they had doubts about the sound of the trumpet, there was little they could do about it.

Because the moment its distinct honking blared across the battlefield, every soldier without looking at anything or asking anyone instantly dropped everything they were doing and then started to run madly around, scattering the formation they were in like sand dunes in the wind.

And there was little anyone could do to blame them for this. Because this was what they had been taught to do upon hearing that sound.

Thus at that moment, Remus and his very thin line of men were subjected to almost a magical sight, as the black and green tide that was threatening to swallow them at any moment suddenly dissolved away in the blink of an eye, leaving behind only a mass of panicked men who appeared to be stricken with fear and madness.

"Haha! The bastard did it! That old bastard did it!" And the appearance of this sight instantly caused a great big grin to streak across Remus's face, washing all the pent exhaustion in an instant.

He of course understood what this strange phenomenon meant, it meant that Scorpyo had succeeded. He had defeated his counterpart and was now either attacking the enemy's rear or at the very least very close to it.

Remus's heart could finally let off the heavy boulder that was pressing on his heart seeing this.

The once filled to the brim battlefield was now empty and vacant, littered with discarded shields and spears and filled with madly shouting men running around like headless chickens.

The young man might have been willing to put his life on the line to achieve just this kind of sight victory and was even quite confident of its success, but that did not mean he took it for granted once it happened.

The sight filled him with immense joy as he felt re energize and invigorate.

And the same could be said for his men, who, although were not as aware of the battle plans as their commander, could of course still see the current developments as godsend for them.

Thus even though many of them were exhausted and battered to the extent they could barely stand, it still did not stop from cheering at the top of their lungs and then chasing after the disintegrating foe.

"Go! Do not waste this chance! Chase them!"

"Do not let them regroup! Hound them to the sea!"

"Come! We need to avenge all the brothers killed by them!"

No order was needed to be given for the legionaries to do this and neither could any order have been given to stop them.

The battered legionaries instinctively chased these men, having become red eyed and furious after being beaten for so long, their hearts burning for revenge.

And just like Remus's men scattered to chase after the routing foe, Scorpyo's men too imitated their colleagues, the front echelons of the attacking formation spreading out to try and kill as many of the fleeing enemy as possible.

Since Scorpyo's men were directly in the path of their retreat, a large part of Lord Macht's men suddenly found themselves being funneled towards the awaiting legionaries with nothing to defend themselves with.

Lord Macht lost quite a lot of good men in that exchange, with the eager legionaries, fresh out of destroying one group formation, got to once again hacking and killing, dying that part of the island bright red.

The victorious legionnaires thus celebrated their triumph in this way, spending the better part of the latter half of the day catching and killing as many of the enemy as they could. By the end of the day, they managed to kill a few hundred men and capture close to another eight hundred.

Or in easier terms, more than half of the engaged enemy was neutralized here.

A feat that was even more amazing considering around eight hundred men had already escaped during Scorpyo's route.

This meant that very few of Lord Macht's original one and a half thousand made it out of the island alive.

Although sadly, for Remus, the one enemy he wanted the most to catch was not to be among the twelve to thirteen hundred claimed.

Something that became clear as the sun began to set and the legionaries halted their chase to start taking tally of their gains and losses.

"Did you find him?" And as this was being done, Scorpyo quickly came to Remus, asking so with a composed face showing neither too much joy, or sadness.

Despite the amazing results he had achieved in today's battle, the man seemed still a bit peeved at having let such a valuable piece slip through his fingers.

"...." Remus firstly lightly smirked before subtly shaking his head seeing this. Because he knew the elder man was always like this.

Scorpyo paid close attention to his outer image, and always had a stony face in front of his soldiers, allowing him to command great respect among them.

This meant that even though deep down Scorpyo might be quite pleased by the results of the battle, he would never outwardly appear as cavalier as Remus did.

Thus Remus did not appear too concerned by the man's slightly grumpy inquiry, and only informed in a rather rueful tone,

"Some of my men said they had noticed a large man dressed in ornate armor dashing across the island just as the enemy had begun to retreat! Three guess who that might be!"

".....*Tsk*!" Scorpyo did not play around with Remus's joke but thought it was such a shame that they had no horses to chase that rider.

In a very bitter tone he claimed, "Achillas is already in our hands! If we could have gotten Parker too…. We could have started preparing to go home by tomorrow!"

Like Lord Macht had mistaken Remus for Alexander, Remus, and Scorpyo too had mistaken Lord Macht for Lord Parker.

But this was too reasonable. After all, they had never seen Lord Parker close up and from a distance, it was hard to judge one's exact figure.

Plus they had no idea that there was someone like Lord Macht in Lord Parker's camp, and thus, with General Achillas out of the picture, the next most natural candidate undoubtedly became Lord Parker.

And capturing him would undoubtedly end the campaign once and for all.

If they had known it was Lord Macht they had let slip and Lord Parker, their regret would have been smaller.

Even then the two men did not wallow in their pity for too long.

Remus quickly patted Scorpyo on the shoulders and chuckled, "Ahhh… this is war, right! You can't have everything! Hehe… Let's not be greedy. We won today. That's what truly matters!"

Scorpyo had a hard time denying this, and thus turning around to see his much, younger colleague, felt he too was being infected by the latter's cheerful demeanor.

The elder man did not dislike this and so with a curt nod, chirped, "Mmmm… you are right! Congratulations on the win by the way! I am sure the lord will be pleased."

"Hehehe…" Remus was not modest when receiving this praise and took it with a big grin, his eyes twinkling in anticipation.

It was just that grin immediately died away a second later when Scorpyo posed,

"By the way, how are we going to house and feed these prisoner? We do not have enough food or water to keep all eight hundred!"