There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

"We will not go with you!"

Finally, the kneeling slave chieftain gritted his teeth and shouted, "We're slaves no matter where we go, we're useless! I won't go with you... I believe... we believe the lord won't kill us all..."

After speaking, he glanced back at the other slaves present, only to find a look of unfamiliarity and fear in their eyes. In my eyes, the kneeling slave had the same look in his eyes; he was futilely trying to gain confidence from others, only to find that no one was willing to believe his lies anymore.

I gave a cold laugh, stomped on his back, pinning him to the ground, rendering him unable to move, crawling on the dust: "You're overthinking it! The second option is also a dead end!"

"I will leave here honorably, but that's the path for the strong! All that's left for you is a dog hole through which you can only crawl by kneeling. You like kneeling, don't you? Then kneel all you want."

I tightened my grip on his back even more: "I want to watch you run away, watch you get caught, watch you be hacked to death, sunburned to death, trampled to death by horses, experience every possible way to die!"

The slave leader on the ground struggled weakly, pounding the ground with one hand in vain: "Madman...madman! Why are you...torturing us like this!"

"Oh? You don't know?" I asked in a pretentious, surprised voice, "In this wasteland, the strong are the only law. You think you can survive by giving up your right to be human? Sorry, what you've given up isn't your right to be human, but your right to survive!"

All that could be heard from beneath my feet was his heavy, shallow breathing. Every time he tried to struggle, I stomped him down hard.

"You're not convinced?" I mimicked a man surnamed Chang who possessed superhuman strength. "Then stand up! Can you even stand up?"

Then I kicked him away, smashed through two walls of the slave quarters, and landed in the wide farmland. Feeling that I had made enough noise, I shouted at them.

"The city walls will soon be breached, and the territory's army will be alerted. You can choose how you die!"

Chapter 346 Buddhas of the Three Worlds

Why did they shout at these people, "Gun in hand, follow me, seize the bunker, and kill Silang?"

Think beautiful.

People who have been kneeling for a long time cannot stand up successfully in one go. When long-term oppression forms a fixed mindset, even if the slave owner's knife falls in front of them to kill them, these people will not have the courage to pick it up and kill a dozen times. Instead, they will respectfully hand the knife back and then lie down in a comfortable position to wait for death.

It's not that they are inherently incapable of resistance, but rather that they have a cognitive deficiency. For them, there must first be a corresponding foundation of strength to guarantee their right to dialogue to a certain extent, and only then can they truly stand up and open their eyes to the world.

Only then will they realize that the ceiling they thought was unattainable is actually much lower than they imagined.

"excuse me!"

I returned to the old man in the floral shirt and suddenly became very polite.

The old man quickly shook his head and said cautiously, "What offense or not... nothing at all..."

I grinned and said, "Of course not, because I'm about to offend you."

Then I struck him on the neck with a palm strike. But I don't know if I didn't get the angle right or if I didn't use enough force, but instead of him falling down as I had imagined, he staggered and crashed headfirst into a haystack by the roadside, yelling loudly. He sounded so energetic that he didn't seem like an old man at all.

The old man in the flowery clothes immediately covered his neck and hid behind his apprentice, crying out, "Spare me! Spare me!"

But to his dismay, his disciple showed no intention of helping. His bald head reflected the sunlight, as if he were about to chant a Buddhist mantra and say, "If you don't go to hell, who will? The Buddhas of the three worlds have already decided, so go on your journey in peace."

"Master, you'd better try to pass out yourself. If the boss does it again, I'm afraid your bones won't be able to be set. Judging from the boss's expression, he's definitely going to cause trouble. If you come out unscathed, we won't be able to explain ourselves."

The bald man had clearly figured out my style. If I were to politely explain things to someone, it would be seen as an attempt to cheat and deceive, to lure them into a trap. But if I were to act without a word, it meant I was determined to achieve my goal, and there was no need for further explanation.

“Honorable guest…didn’t you and the territory reach an agreement? Why did you act on your own?” the old man asked, still unwilling to give up. “Did this fat man offend you? I can report to the lord and have him pay with his life for our friendship!”

Upon hearing this, the fat man who had been howling nearby scrambled over and clung tightly to my leg, pleading loudly, "Don't kill me! I have money! I can pay compensation! Any amount is fine! Please don't kill me!"

I kicked the fat warden away and said in a stiff tone, "Lord? Right now, the one who wants me dead the most is that mad lord of the Loader's Territory, isn't he?"

I pointed my halberd at the distant hill and hall. "Do you think I can't see that this guy was just putting on an act, using forced compromise to end the unfavorable close standoff, preparing to make his move when I'm far away from him?"

"...This...no way?"

The old man's voice began to sound tense, "Will the lord definitely make a move? How are you so sure? If your assumption is wrong, won't it mean we'll be locked in a life-or-death struggle?"

I retorted sharply to the old man, "Is it wrong for me to rely solely on my conjecture without any other basis?! If I put myself, or you put yourself in the lord's shoes, would you allow a ferocious beast to roam freely in your territory without imposing any restrictions?"

"I pose the greatest threat to him when I am very close to him and when I am very far away from him. When I am close to him, I have the ability to take his life at any time, and it will be useless no matter how many people I bring with me. But when I am far away from him, my power will develop rapidly with the help of that person, and next time I will probably bring a large army to invade."

"The time when I pose the least threat and am best eliminated is when I am some distance away, yet within his sphere of influence. Only then can he gather his strongest forces and annihilate me in one fell swoop!"

With a swing of my steel halberd, I cleaved a wooden house in two. The sound of breaking beams and pillars echoed as many disheveled and strangely shaped slaves ran out of the house, shouting and gathering outside the area, looking around with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

"While trapping me in the workshop left me with no way to escape, my indiscriminate killing and destruction would affect the town's manufacturing industry, which he was reluctant to do. When I reached the slave-planting area, the time was ripe, which is why the gray-robed man who called himself the messenger disappeared without a trace, leaving only you, old man, to die."

The old man in the floral shirt turned deathly pale instantly. When he connected the cause and effect, the previous inconsistencies suddenly made sense.

Why would a cruel lord give in?

Why did the dispute suddenly stop?

Why were my demanding conditions accepted?

Why did his announcement disappear without a trace?

"Look here, how perfect this place is for my grave! It has only a bunch of slaves I wouldn't care about throwing away, land I wouldn't care about destroying, and an open space with high walls that leave me nowhere to escape!"

Of course, I couldn't predict when the mad lord would make his move, but being passively attacked is never a good idea. So my choice was to strike first before the enemy had finished deploying, forcing them to act.

The commotion in the distance was slowly approaching; it seemed that the gray-robed man's report and the commotion I had caused had attracted some of the territory's assembled troops.

The terrain here is too complex. If I'm surrounded, the dilapidated houses and rubble on all sides won't just fail to protect me from fire; they'll actually provide excellent cover for an attack. I need to find a suitable place to fight!

"You don't have much time left to knock yourself out. Think it over! Those who don't want to die, come with me! This is your last chance!"

I am like a statue of a war god forged from steel, shining brightly under the scorching sun, radiating a divine glow. I stride ahead, frantically destroying everything in my way, crushing all the buildings around me, and heading straight for the outer layer of the site.

Like that fat guy who wanted to drive a GTR said, even gods are just people; they just did things that humans couldn't do, and that's how they became gods. Besides, the five consecutive hairpin bends on Mount Akina are my key to victory. Natsuki, hold on tight, Uncle's about to accelerate... cough cough, I misspoke, Takumi's about to drift!

What I am doing now is nothing short of mending the sky with one hand in the eyes of normal people. Under the stimulation of this strong and powerful execution, I seem to feel a surge of emotions in my heart, making my soul beat non-stop!

Chapter 347 Besieged on All Sides

The moment I rushed out, the bald man quickly caught up with me. His worship of me made him act without the slightest hesitation; he leaped over the obstacles on the ground in three strides and ran after me over the wall.

The second group to run away with me were a bunch of disheveled slaves. It seems that although these slaves had lost their dreams, at least they weren't dried-up salted fish; they still had the brains to think about which path offered the best chance of survival.

Wait... no, these slaves seem to have a special talent for designing themselves. They're all baring their teeth and claws, using both hands and feet to leap over obstacles, shouting and yelling, looking incredibly energetic. They don't look like they were just a little lost and dejected.

When I looked back, I was furious!

The group that escaped weren't elite slaves at all; they were all seasoned scoundrels and oddballs! Just a moment ago, they were all scrambling around, mimicking Wu Lao Er's stroke with crooked mouths, twitching hands and feet, but now, in this life-or-death situation, they're suddenly full of energy, running around like they're from Wakanda. It made me, the leader, instantly wonder if I was a Hydra captain wielding Thor's hammer!

It seems I underestimated the Gresham's Law effect. This effect doesn't mean that the dregs among these people are necessarily better than the elites, but rather that their example makes everyone realize that if you could just lie around and pretend to be stupid and get by, why bother working hard every day to catch up with others?

The final result was the emergence of these people. It cannot be denied that there were truly perverted individuals among them, such as cannibals and followers of the Sorrowful Wind, but most of them were slackers with strong comprehension abilities. They could be described as the cream of the crop among slackers, able to carve out a path in such a harsh life of slavery.

Therefore, those running ahead that I saw were all scoundrels who usually acted crazy and stupid, but now that they saw that the slave owners had also been overthrown and that the suppressing army was about to arrive, they instantly ran ahead.

The slaves I had placed high hopes on, those who I thought would repent and, under my provocation, shout "Are kings and nobles born with special privileges?", huddled together like a flock of quails, trembling and clinging to each other around their leader to avoid being swept away by the chaotic flow of fleeing people.

Even from a distance, I could hear the slave leader's attempt to rally the troops: "Don't be afraid, everyone... This invader will soon be killed... We are loyal to this territory... Everyone can see that... As long as we don't run away... The lord will surely forgive our sins... Good days are coming..."

Amidst this chaotic and disorderly crowd, I also spotted a disheveled and clumsy fat man struggling to push aside the slaves blocking his way, carving a path for his obese body.

"Fatty, why are you running? Shouldn't you stay here and lead the Imperial Army?"

Hearing my voice, the fat man, who was running, shuddered and gasped, "No...no...we can't stay here..."

He took a deep breath before continuing, "Even if what I did doesn't reach the ears of that madman lord, just based on what happened on the slave plantation today, I know he doesn't intend to let me live! My lord, save me! I'll do anything for you! Don't leave me here!"

This fat guy is quite clever. He immediately saw the situation and ran around like a pro. He even knew how to latch onto the strongest player on the field. A guy like that deserves to be fat and bloated.

The running crowd quickly crossed the sparse fields and, led by me, gathered at the foot of the territory's high wall. Many people, running blindly, collided and rolled on the ground, and for a moment, the whole area was filled with cries of pain.

Just as we arrived at the wall and everyone was searching for a way out, the pursuers caught up with us.

The first to arrive on the battlefield was a group of town guards clad in iron armor and wielding machetes.

With synchronized steps, they smashed through the thin wooden walls of the slave quarters in an instant, violently trampling onto this filthy and disgusting land. Their faces were obscured by their iron helmets, making it impossible to discern any disgust in their expressions, but their heavy stomping revealed that they had come to avenge their previous humiliation.

"Sir...that's where the intruder ran off to! Go after them!"

A relieved smile appeared on the blackened face of the slave leader. He shouted to the town's guards and waved his hands to show them the way to escape!

His face shone with a sacred light, his eyes filled with the joy of the arrival of order and the coming of heaven. He seemed to be able to see their peaceful and humble lives continue, and two lines of aggrieved tears even flowed from his eyes.

The tribespeople surrounding him, as always, supported their chieftain's actions, shouting and cheering so loudly it almost shattered their eardrums.

But the slave closest to him soon felt a sticky, warm liquid on his hand, some of which even spread to his face. When he realized what was happening, he saw his companions falling like wheat being harvested, leaving only pools of blood spreading across the filthy floor…

The slave leader was surrounded in the middle, so he held on until the end, and even in his delirium, he could still see the volley of arrows coming from behind the armored legion.

"Why...why..."

Before he could finish his question, an arrow pierced his thin, bony chest, and the powerful force of the crossbow bolt even dragged him backward a distance.

Then, in the world where his consciousness slowly darkened, he felt the harsh sound of armor clashing against each other, and the unwavering footsteps of the town's guards as they mercilessly trampled over their corpses, while the legion commander's high-pitched voice echoed through the sky.

"By order of the lord, there is no mercy!"

The resolute order to kill traveled across the wilderness to our ears. And this not-so-long distance did not prevent us from observing the massacre taking place there. The slaves gathered around me looked at each other, their previously numb faces now showing fear and panic.

The fat guard rushed to my side, wailing and crying, "Sir! Look! That lord is a madman! He never holds back when he kills! He's not just capable of killing, he'd even bring out cannons to bombard us!"

The armored legion clearly came prepared. Compared to our last encounter, they had replaced their makeshift armor with full plate armor just like mine, and they were carrying sharp machetes that were half a person's height. It seemed they were determined to fight me head-on, using their toughest armor to create an opportunity to kill me.

Meanwhile, the well-protected row of crossbowmen scattered and mingled among the rear troops, waiting for an opportunity to fire their crossbow bolts. Their eyes, hidden beneath their wide-brimmed hats, kept moving, not missing any opening in my defenses.

Their orders were to kill me and these slaves here at all costs!

Chapter 348 Let's call it a 50/50 game.

Faced with the aggressive town guards, I also wanted to give a brilliant pre-battle pep talk like William Wallace, using my eloquent speech to persuade these slaves to rise up in rebellion and pull off a brilliant comeback.

But reality is harsh. Although the number of slaves I rescued was considerable, their overall condition, quality, and physical abilities were inferior, not to mention their tactical coordination and equipment. If a fight broke out, these slaves would probably be defeated within a single round by the lowest-ranking melee-weapon legion of the Loader's Command.

What were the key factors in localized battles during the era of cold weapons?

It all comes down to coordinated battle formations and effective training methods. If orders are obeyed without question, victory is assured in every battle. A bunch of slaves who slack off and play dumb all day are no match for a town garrison that trains daily.

Those truly foolish slaves and those with genuinely flawed minds have already perished under the blade in droves. Those slaves who didn't know to run with me, who frantically tried to escape in place, have become victims of the blade. In the era of cold weapons, it was common to drive refugees and prisoners to charge enemy positions, precisely to use the chaos to demoralize the enemy.

As a territory well-prepared for war, the town's garrison fully understands that at the start of the war, everything in its path is the enemy and must be constantly destroyed, trampled, and annihilated, with its forces aimed directly at the target.

Even if, in their eyes, I am the only enemy.

"Target southeast, 150 paces. Archers, fire at a 45-degree angle!"

Crossbows are most powerful when fired at close range, but their previous combat experience may have made them wary. Instead of engaging in a melee, they started firing from a distance, with armored infantrymen in front of them, using their half-man-high steel cleavers as a defensive barrier.

The crossbow made a tearing sound, and the arrows, gleaming with the cold light of steel, fell from the sky, slicing through the scorching afternoon air.