Soon, the flames billowed up into the skies and Asher and his troops watched the town from when it was set ablaze to when it burned so much that they could feel the heat.
The stormbringers could be spotted returning to the top of the hill, all sweating profusely.
“You chose to annihilate the small town.” Uriah muttered but Asher heard it.
“From the moment they sent assassins and tried to enslave me into a contract that would make me a slave lord all the days of my life, the line had been crossed. I shall wipe that clan off the face of the Bashan basin.”
Uriah trembled inwardly.
“But they have fierce footmen, numbering in thousands.”
Asher scoffed.
“You seem not to understand the name of your city. It is called the great city of Centraks and the owners of those Centraks are the Bladebreakers. 5000 footmen will be trampled by them.”
“These are beastmen, Your Lordship, not humans!”
Asher slowly turned his head to Uriah.
Right at that moment, Eritrea and the Stormbringers arrived.
“You fear them.”
Asher suddenly said.
“Your Lord—”
Asher lifted up his hand, issuing an order of silence that not even a prestigious mage dared object to. This was called the ultimate spell. The command of a Lord!
“I happen to know that the Bashan clan sacrificed 10 barbarians. 5 men and 5 women every month to these Jackals. For such to happen, your lord must either fear them since he was under your counsel or he has been enslaved, which is more likely.”
Uriah couldn’t retort.
Asher made Bezerk take a few steps toward Uriah and lean forward. “You were all slaves, ignorant of reality. You were all fooling yourselves, thinking you were freemen.”
Uriah smiled bitterly and lowered his head.
“We had to submit before true power and you will too. The great city you have built is just for them to inhabit because they will surely come; beastmen are not humans; they are twice as strong, armed with claws as sharp as a refined sword; they are several folds more agile and aggressive.”
“Yet… they shall all die.”
Uriah furrowed his brows as not even a flicker of fear flashed through Asher’s eyes.
[Ding! Conquer the gold mining town without sustaining a single loss (1/1).
[Reward Unlocked.]
Bright white light burst forth from the ground, swallowing the flames, and a keep appeared on the hill that was on the other side. The tall tower had 5 meters thick and 15 meters tall walls!
The keep had a long backcloth with the image of a wolfhead. It looked desolate yet epic as it stood there, the dark skies casting a solemn background for the solitary tower.
As they got close to the keep, a voice rang from within, and the keep’s gates were pulled open. When it opened, Asher saw warriors clad in silver helmets and silver breastplates above exquisitely made chainmail. They wore light brown leather pants and steel boots.
Their helmets had protruding iron crests and red cloaks billowed behind them. Their armor had a simple style, not as complicated as the ones worn by special and terror-grade troops but their physique was quite impressive.
A look, and Asher knew they were all barbarians because their helmets had a T-shaped opening, exposing the eyes, nose, mouth, and beard the barbarians were famous for.
They had longswords strapped to their waist belts and round shields attached to their backs. The image on the shield was the head of a howling wolf.
“It’s his lordship!” One Ashkelon Guard turned his head back and yelled. It seemed like he was informing those inside the keep.
The sound of footsteps fell into Asher’s ears. Not long after, 22 Ashkelon Guards half kneeled before him.
“We greet His Lordship!”
“What troop is this?”
Before the soldiers could respond, the system’s notification appeared in his retina.
[Ashkelon Guards, a normal grade troop equipped to be the city guards of the great Ashkelon.] [Host, this garrison has been created to defend the city and they are under General Adam.]
‘You created a garrison for Ashkelon because it had no troop stele, apart from the Bladebreakers?’
[Yes. The barrack is now in the city and to transform one civilian into an Ashkelon Guard, you shall pay 1 silver coin.
Troops were expensive and the reason was because the troops he gained from the system were the best of the best. They had decades of knowledge, top-tier armor and weapons, along with powerful physiques.
And all he needed was 1 silver coin to get a ready-made soldier, while the normal route would take decades of training before the trainee would become a capable warrior and yet they still needed to enter the field to gain experience.
[Host, Ashkelon has 67,000 civilians. This means you will need over 6,000 Ashkelon Guards for a proper security percentage.]
The moment Asher saw that, he realized he had not checked the city’s status panel. He had to return first in order to check it.
However, the sight of the Ashkelon Guards both impressed and satisfied him.
With the keep here, he would call for builders to build an outpost kilometers away from the keep in order to inform them when the jackals were coming.
But Asher had faith those jackals would not be coming anytime soon once the assassin relayed his information and the one they spared also relayed his. He wanted to buy time to digest his gains and prepare to engage them in battle.
After ordering the Ashkelon Guards to keep their eyes on the gold mine, Asher returned back to Ashkelon after a short while. The distance from Ashkelon to the mine was just 10 kilometers, and it was a few minutes’ journey on horseback.
Back at Ashkelon, Asher visited the northern part of the city, which was behind the lord’s mansion and he saw another barrack beside the Bladebreaker barrack and the Ashkelon Guards’s stele built a similar transformation building, a building that looked similar to a tower.
At the gates of the barrack, he met Adam seated on a stone grinding his large cleaver. Behind Adam were thousands of young and adult barbarians chatting inside the barrack.
“You’re here.” Asher chuckled.
Adam shook his head. “You’re the mysterious force that transported us here and we also heard your voice. You told me that I would be the general of this troop and they would be my men. I could not disobey your orders and leave so I had to wait.”
Asher blinked.
‘System!’
