Atonement 09

The only thing these two troops had in common was their fearlessness of death; they gave off the feeling of being the living dead.

The most terrifying part was that they cared neither for their own lives nor those of their comrades. The Yue army had considered taking prisoners, but the moment one of them was injured, they would either blow themselves up, or the person next to them would draw a blade and kill the wounded comrade without hesitation. Such cold-bloodedness made even the radical Yue army shudder.

They did not even take prisoners themselves. Once, a unit of recruits encountered this army on the road. As a result, the leading officer was killed and his head hung from a tree, while more than half of the recruits died in battle. As for the rest... all of their limbs were broken.

They seemed to know that wounded soldiers would severely drag down the Yue army's logistics.

And in fact, this was true.

The Yue army called them evil spirits, while the Han army referred to them as ghosts.

The ghosts' way of doing things was naturally unacceptable to the Han army, but the two sides reached a tacit understanding: whenever the Han troops encountered this ghost army, they would generally retreat and keep their distance, watching them silently charge, scavenge, and then burn the corpses of their comrades before quietly leaving the field.

However, someone did figure out the origins of this army. Their members were all former lackeys and ragtag troops. No one knew what they had experienced, but some had heard them muttering two words.

"Death" and "Redemption."

Gradually, this elusive army was divided into the Death Army and the Redemption Army. The Death Army was mostly mentally unstable and incredibly noisy, while the Redemption Army was as silent as the living dead.

For the Han army, no matter what they were like, they indirectly accelerated the speed of the Yue army's retreat. Although these two armies had strong combat capabilities, their casualty rate was extremely high. Yet, they continuously replenished their ranks by absorbing ragtag troops. This caused the Yue army to start disbanding the ragtag troops that had originally surrendered, while simultaneously pulling forces back from the frontlines to try and find these two armies for an annihilating strike.

But doing so also gave the Han army, which had been accumulating strength for a long time, an opportunity to counterattack.

Anyone could tell by this point that the Yue army's defeat was only a matter of time.

Yet the two armies they wanted to find could always avoid their main forces, suddenly appearing to take a bite out of them when they let their guard down. The Yue army found this impossible to defend against, but they were utterly helpless.

"Thank you for your hard work," Fang Zhiyi said, looking at the city ahead as the sound of artillery fire faintly drifted over.

Little Hei was too lazy to even speak much: "Anyway, you can play by yourself in the next world, I am done. The work I did this time was more tiring than making me fight ten Heavenly Daos! I want to sleep!"

"It is quite ridiculous. Even though there are more of these ragtag troops than the Yue army, no one dared to stand up and resist. Humans..."

Huang Dali stepped forward: "Commander, please give the order."

Fang Zhiyi glanced back. Behind him was a dense mass of ragtag soldiers. Their eyes were full of numbness. Now, even without Little Hei using his abilities, they occasionally experienced auditory hallucinations; their past sins constantly haunted them.

On the other side, although those madmen tried hard to suppress their voices, a buzzing chatter still leaked out.

"So, everyone, are you ready to embrace death?"

Hearing this, these people raised their heads one after another. Their lifeless faces were gradually replaced by expressions of fanaticism.

"Sinners, this is our final battle. Please perform to your heart's content, for your redemption, and for the great death."

There were no earth-shattering cheers, only a silent march forward.

The madmen on one side could no longer hold back; they shouted and charged out. Even if someone was hit by a stray bullet, no one turned to look. They had been waiting for today's decisive battle for a long time.

Fang Zhiyi always said that everyone would get a chance at liberation, but they were still living in such agony. Now the opportunity was right in front of them. If they missed it, they would continue to suffer forever.

The final main battlefield was like a meat grinder. At this point, there was no strategic layout left, only pure tearing and biting. The appearance of Fang Zhiyi's army dealt a fatal blow to the Yue army. Although they had expected them to show up, they never imagined there would still be so many of them!

Maniacal laughter and silence became the two main signals on the battlefield. When the madmen rushed up to bite into the Yue army's frontline troops, no one expected that the silent ones behind them would actually launch a blanket artillery strike.

"Are they crazy? Their own people are still out there!" The Han army general was dumbfounded.

"General... they really would do it... These people do not care about their own lives, much less the lives of their comrades. In a sense, they are impeccably cold-blooded soldiers..." The staff officer lowered his binoculars and swallowed hard.

After the blanket artillery bombardment, Fang Zhiyi's army seemed to run out of shells. They raised their guns and began to push forward. Dense bullets hit the silent ones charging in the front. There were no cries of pain or screams; the people behind would immediately step up to take their place.

"Madmen, they are truly madmen! Order the troops to draw the enemy's fire!" The Han army commander knew that such an opportunity could not be missed.

Fighting on two fronts, the Yue army suffered a miserable defeat. Just as miserable was Fang Zhiyi's army, where corpses even piled up into small hills, but the remaining silent ones still held their guns and advanced toward their set targets.

The dead comrades beside them all wore smiles of relief on their faces. They believed that they had finally redeemed their sins.

"Historians of later generations have mixed reviews of this army. Some say they were just a bunch of lunatics and psychopaths, using bloody, cruel, and inhumane methods, not even caring for their own comrades. Others believe they were an army of steel, with only their objectives in their eyes. However, the first clear point is that they were all once traitors. No one knows why they acted the way they did, but they did lay a certain foundation for the victory of the war. The evaluation of Fang Zhiyi is also polarized. Some consider him a patriot, while others think he was nothing more than a cult leader."

"Tour guide, did none of these people survive?"

The tour guide fell silent for a moment: "There is actually a rumor. They were almost entirely wiped out in that battle, but a very small number of survivors blended in with the retreating Yue army and returned to the Yue State. Later, multiple terrorist attacks were said to be their masterpieces, though the sources of these rumors are not reliable."

"Why do I feel like they joined a cult?" someone muttered.

"There are folk records saying that the man surnamed Fang knew hypnosis. Do you believe it?"

"Hypnotize that many people? Is he a god?"

"Hard to say. They succeeded every time. Maybe they really had divine guidance. A God's-eye view, you know?"

"If they had a God's-eye view, would they not be invincible? But how could that be possible..."