"Left right left! Left right left!"
Shouting the neat slogan, the guards’ battle formation charged towards the Armed Farmers in the middle of the hillside.
Their strides were sometimes orderly, sometimes out of sync, pausing every ten steps or so to rearrange their zigzag battle line.
Jeska couldn’t fathom how a formation of seven people could arrange into such a zigzag battle line.
This side was still accelerating with the charge, not yet engaged, while the western front was embroiled in a bloody battle with Madlan and others fighting fearlessly.
They swung their sticks randomly, threw turtle punches, but still couldn’t resist the Armed Farmers’ advance.
Every second, someone would fall into a pool of blood, yet they still didn’t give in, holding on relentlessly for ten whole seconds before finally scattering.
But this was just the first battle line, the second was much more harmonious.
Beyond the twenty odd Armed Farmers in Tommy’s core circle and his enforcers, the other Armed Farmers seemed to be fighting fiercely, but in reality, they were facing each other, striking at air.
Not to mention some burst into laughter mid-fight, or even chatting while engaging.
"Fourth uncle, did my fifth cousin get married this year?"
"Not yet, are you going to introduce someone to me?"
"No, just seeing him unmarried, I’m not in a rush either."
No wonder, the Thousand River Valley People were constantly oppressed and betrayed, prioritizing family ties, for they had no one else to rely on but their own family.
Even when it came to Armed Farmers and their Public Register Farmer relatives, they wouldn’t fall out unless absolutely necessary.
After all, fortunes rise and fall, who hasn’t faced adversity?
Jeanne herself came from Armed Farmer roots, when other Armed Farmers devoured her family’s estate, wasn’t it Old Gallar, the distant Public Register Farmer relative, who adopted her.
This conveyed a sense of family heroism.
Yet in reality, this was merely the second law of the Thousand River Valley.
The first law of the Thousand River Valley was - Better a poor life than a good death.
As long as one could survive, family could be temporarily set aside.
"Second uncle, it’s me!"
A pitchfork pierced through the chest of an Armed Farmer, who clutched the three holes in his chest, crying out in agony.
Actually, these three holes were less than an inch deep, but the Armed Farmer rolled to the side as if his belly had been pierced.
Meanwhile, the iron-hearted Pope Guards coldly stepped over him and continued forward.
Compared to the mild battles of the western front, the eastern front was much more intense and brutal.
After all, the Armed Farmers of the east were facing the strongest army in the Pope Country - the Pope Guards.
Not only were they well-equipped and impeccably trained, undefeated throughout the Pope Country, they could even form battle formations that only military men could muster.
Facing the flood of forty elite troops, the hesitant Armed Farmers retreated step by step, forcing Tommy to urgently redeploy elite confidants from the dominant west line to the eastern battlefield six meters away.
"Hold firm, hold firm!"
Seven or eight enforcers and Armed Farmers arrived at the front line, led by a big man wielding the Crow Pecking Warhammer.
A courageous warrior standing one meter seventy tall, a single heavy blow laid a one meter sixty Pope Guard flat on the ground.
The entire Pope’s Guard’s forward momentum came to a quick halt, seeing the unfavorable situation, Jeska promptly shouted: "Dodging Hands, attack."
The Dodging Hands who had been protecting the sides of the formation, armed with wooden shields, mostly short in stature but extremely agile, immediately squeezed inward from both sides, rolling across the ground fiercely, hacking at the legs and toes of Tommy’s formation with hammers, axes, and daggers.
However, the Dodging Hands’ daggers and axes couldn’t penetrate the sturdy cloth armor made by the Armed Farmers, only a mere three or four succeeded, with even one rolling down the hillside.
Yet this created an opportunity for Jeska.
The warhammer hand had just flipped the Hammer from the Shield-bearer, when a whistling sound echoed past his ear.
He quickly sidestepped, but couldn’t dodge in time, an arrow pierced through his face, causing him to fall flat backward.
Seeing the hammer-wielding warrior fall, the Pope Guards who had been forced to step back by him regained their spirits.
With disordered steps, they barely formed into an arc line, continuing their charge towards the Armed Farmers.
The Armed Farmers, however, hesitated and shrank back; that person was the bravest among them, and he was felled by an arrow.
They came to fight, not to throw their lives away.
Fighting doesn’t mean dying, and dying isn’t acceptable.
"Come to the east, everyone come to the east!"
Tommy shouted, redeploying the remaining core members from the west line over, but they still retreated step by step.
Faced with the Pope Guards’ high spirits and the trembling pitchforks, the Armed Farmers surprisingly felt a sense of reverence.
Seeing fewer and fewer of Tommy’s core personnel on the western line, the Armed Farmers on the western battlefield realized the unfavorable position and directly surrendered to their relatives in front of them.
They didn’t even hand over their weapons, cheerfully shouting "I surrender," as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their Public Register Farmer relatives.
In an instant, the western battlefield celebrated a great victory.
"Victory, victory!" Buniyan shook Madlan, who was leaning against the manure pile with a head full of blood, crying, "We won!"
Madlan opened his blurred eyes, his vision stained red with blood, but he could still see—
Tommy was in full retreat, while the Pope’s Guards were advancing towards victory!
"That’s wonderful, finally, finally, victory!"
Tears filled Madlan’s eyes, and after shouting the victory slogan, his head tilted and he fainted.
"What happened? What’s going on here? Wasn’t everything fine before?"
Not far from the manure pile, Danji rushed over.
Riding bare-footed, Danji mounted on the horse, witnessed this chaotic scene, feeling that his brain wasn’t enough to comprehend what had transpired.
"Sangpo, let’s go over there!"
Danji shouted to his attendant, but the attendant leading the horse remained unmoving.
"What are you doing? Let’s go quickly, we’re all bishops of the Pope Country, how can we fight before the Pope’s Palace?"
"No!" Sangpo stubbornly held his ground.
Danji dismounted, attempting to seize the reins from Sangpo, but Sangpo wouldn’t let go at all costs.
Pushes Sangpo aside, Danji stepped onto the stirrup, ready to mount the horse, but Sangpo suddenly hugged his waist.
"Master Danji, don’t involve yourself in the factional conflict between Madlan’s faction and Tommy’s faction, you belong to the Royal Guard Knight Order, temple knights intervening in politics is a taboo!"
"What factional conflict, this is obviously a fight!"
Holding onto Danji’s pants and shirt, Sangpo anxiously shouted: "Can’t you see? This is political strife between two bishops, it’s a big tangled mess you can’t manage."
"Have you been brainwashed by court conspiracy stories? Those are all fake, let go of me!"
Distant bell sounds echoed from the bell tower, Sangpo and Danji simultaneously paused, looking towards the gates.
The previously closed doors swung open, under Jeanne’s protection and over twenty Child Soldiers wielding long spears, Horn stepped out of the shadow of the tower.
Under the moonlight, the bloodstains on those Child Soldiers’ spears were clearly visible.
Witnessing the chaotic scene before him, Horn shouted explosively.
A lightning bolt as thick as an arm struck in front of the crowd, marking the ground with a charred imprint.
Scattered electric light, many had their sweat and hair standing on end.
They all stopped their actions, looking towards the direction the lightning came from.
There, His Holiness the Pope wore a Holy Robe embroidered with distorted golden threads, topped with an elbow-length pope’s crown high hat.
"Tommy, do you know your sins?"