Weeds are tenacious, but when the land they depend on is eroded by the abyss, they can no longer survive.
But human beings are very fragile. Let alone demons, even a small illness or disaster may directly crush or even crush an entire family to death.
But such a fragile human being can never be wiped out by demons.
Or a stinky ditch that even demons don't want to go near, or a basement so deep that even hellhounds can't smell it.
There are also the deep mountains and old forests that the demons have no time to patrol, and the cold rivers and water islands that they dare not approach.
In short, although this county has been occupied by demons for a long time, humans have never been extinct.
Even those patrols that go out to hunt for humans will occasionally be attacked by humans, otherwise there would be no need for the patrols to increase in number.
The thick smoke of ordinary campfires may not attract these hiding humans.
But someone must be able to recognize the smoke rising from a farmer’s home, and someone will definitely come to check it out.
Although Xu Lai is not from this world, he still has great trust in the characteristics of human beings.
It only took less than half a year for the demons to occupy this land. If they were given another three or four years, they would not be able to reach that level.
He had all the flags found in the camp, whether they were the original imperial flags or the eagle flags representing the Eagle Kingdom.
Put all the flags you can find at the highest point.
Of course, even so, others will not trust easily.
But as long as they can send someone over to take a look and see that all the people moving around are humans.
It’s not like demons have never used humans to deceive people. People who are greedy for life and afraid of death have existed since ancient times and have never been eliminated.
However, it is almost impossible to find so many humans, and even angels, to act with.
Sure enough, less than an hour after Xu Lai settled in the farm, someone sneakily came to contact him.
What Xu Lai didn’t expect was that the person actually emerged from the farm.
It turned out that a large hiding hole was dug underground under a manure tank on the farm.
Because of the smell of the cesspool, the hellhounds have never been able to search this place, leaving the more than 20 refugees here to survive by saving food.
At first, these people hiding underground thought they were demons from hell, so they searched back to the farm.
But this time, they felt that the demons' search took too long, and they were worried that the underground passage would be discovered, so they cautiously came out to explore the situation.
As expected, these people were brought to Xu Lai.
When Xu Lai told them that although he was neither from the Western Empire nor from the Empire, these people seemed surprised.
In their impression, the empire has a vast territory, and there is a feeling that the whole world is nothing but royal territory.
Seeing that Xu Lai was nobody, these people seemed very reserved and did not dare to say anything.
Until Xu Lai told them that although he was not from the Empire, he came to regain the homeland of mankind.
The land under their feet, no matter which empire it once belonged to, has always belonged to mankind.
They didn't care where Xu Lai came from. The moment Xu Lai and his army appeared, they were already recognized as their saviors.
These people had to stay underground for who knows how long. They didn't dare to eat the food they had stored, and they only kept the minimum necessary to avoid starving to death.
Now that he was rescued, Xu Lai didn't need them to do anything. He let them eat first before talking about anything else.
After all, these people are the surrounding aboriginal people. They know where people may be hiding, and they may also be in contact with refugees from other places.
According to what they said, everyone around them was making preparations in advance before the hell army came.
They dug this tunnel a long time ago, otherwise it would be too late for the hell army to come.
People in the city can still rely on the city to defend themselves, but those outside the city must either pack up their things and leave their hometowns, or they can only find ways to hide.
Hiding in the city is not a good idea. This is the key target of the hell army. The nobles in the city are still thinking of ways to escape.
Some town mayors, nobles, and knights in the countryside were all thinking of their own solutions, and many mercenaries in the city also took advantage of the chaos to escape.
These people are now also the main force resisting the demons in hell. However, with the continuous hunting of the demons, the rebels have rarely come out for activities.
The demons have the advantage in the sky. Even if they sneak out at night, the demon army will take advantage.
When the hell demons first occupied this land, small groups of troops came out to attack almost every day. Today, almost half a year later, no one has heard anything about the resistance.
Although there is little hope, even if the rebels cannot be found, there is still hope of recovering more refugees.
It was easy for Xu Lai to defeat those demons, and even restoring the terrain transformed by the demons was not difficult.
The most difficult thing is that large tracts of land have to fall into desolation because there are not enough farmers.
With a small population, not only does the land become abandoned, but it also leads to many problems such as no one occupying the land, making it impossible to defend it if it is occupied, and it cannot be defended if it is defended.
Insufficient population is a hard problem that must take enough time to solve, and this time span will take at least 15 years.
Moreover, the population can grow exponentially. Every time a population is found and rescued now, the number of people that can be increased in the future will be even greater.
Xu Lai demolished Thorn City, but not too many people could immigrate from the other side of Hanjiang River.
First, the problem of hell cannot be fundamentally solved, and ordinary people are not willing to return to the tiger's mouth.
Secondly, immigration from one or two cities alone cannot solve the fundamental problem.
Just when Xu came to Brilliant City and the earldom, thinking about future plans, around one o'clock in the afternoon, battle reports from all over the place had basically gathered here.
First of all, Brilliant City, which Xu Lai is most concerned about, has been successfully captured by Brandy, but it took a little longer than Xu Lai expected, and it is the latest battle report to arrive.
The casualties are not serious. The morale of the demons in the city is extremely poor. If there were not some fire demons, flame trolls and other mid-to-high-level demons, Brandi might have captured them without any damage.
However, if there are less than 200 casualties in total, we can arrange for the angel army to be resurrected in a unified way at night.
Many demons in the city escaped, and nearly 3,000 of them were probably annihilated, but about 5,000 were captured.
In addition, many living humans were found in the city, some of whom had defected to the hell camp, and most of which were slaves and imprisoned sacrifices.
The devil's sacrifice cannot be stopped easily once it starts, because the most resource- and energy-consuming stage is the stage when the sacrifice is started.
It would be okay if the process is slower, so there will always be a considerable number of sacrifices in the dungeon in Brilliant City to ensure that the sacrifice ceremony will not be interrupted.
The sacrifices will give priority to humans captured outside. If the number is insufficient, slaves will be used to make up the sacrifices.
The slaves in the city are not only responsible for providing various services to the demons, but also are food and spare sacrifices for the high-level demons.
Only those humans who defected to hell from the beginning will hold some managerial positions.
After all, the number of demons is actually far less than that of humans, and most demons are chaotic creatures. They lack logical ability and their management is a mess. This is excellent news. There are still a large number of living people in the city who will help Xu Lai solve a lot of troubles.
There are even many rebels here who have not yet had time to be sent to the altar.
There is no doubt that after Brandy occupied the city, he destroyed the altar and released these people as soon as possible.
However, as soon as these people were released, the first thing they did was not to hunt down the escaped demons, but to capture the humans who had taken refuge in hell.
At any time, traitors are the most hated.
Xu Lai thought for a while and sent a message to Brandy, asking him to control the situation in the city and not let the conflict escalate.
It was not that he was reluctant to let these traitors die, but he was worried that they would not be able to control their emotions when they first came out, which would escalate the situation or be taken advantage of by someone with ulterior motives.
You know, hundreds of innocent people may die just from a stampede when there are too many people.
The most important thing now is to appease the people's emotions and not let any more innocent people die because of this.
At the same time, he also asked Brandi to completely open the city and let the rebels leave. It would be best to send representatives to talk to the leaders of the rebels.
The rest of the battle reports came from Tahan, Roland and Jian Yuan.
According to Xu Lai's order, they led the cavalry to hunt down the demons to the maximum extent within Xu Lai's specialized coverage.
These battle reports are relatively simple, recording the number of demon patrols each killed and the number of escaped demons.
However, the battle report showed that the one who killed the most enemies was not the most powerful Tahan, but the weaker Jian Yuan.
It wasn’t that Tahan wasn’t fast enough, or that he wasn’t strong enough, but that the demon was on the run and had no will to fight.
A demon that only cares about escaping has no fighting power at all.
Not to mention the top heroic knights, even the ordinary knights brought by Roland, Jian Yuan and the others, or the nomadic army composed of herdsmen who joined the army soon, are also invincible.
At this time, the competition is no longer about the ability to kill enemies.
Anyway, Tahan and Charles's troops are elite, and Jian Yuan's troops are more than ten times more numerous, so the efficiency of killing enemies is not low.
On the contrary, as a scout knight and promoted to general, Jian Yuan gained a special ability similar to pathfinding, which made it easier for Jian Yuan to spot the fleeing demons.
In addition to the devil, Jian Yuan also brought an unexpected surprise to Xu Lai.
Not only did he discover the fleeing demons, he also discovered a rebel base.
Compared to outsiders like them, the rebels know better the patrol routes of demons and the places where they often station.
Sulfur is a necessity for demons, and transforming terrain and cities also requires a large amount of wood, ore and other basic resources.
There must be demon troops stationed near these minerals, as well as a large number of human slaves.
At the same time, high-level demons are not used to resting in private houses. They each have different habits.
For example, fire demons and balrogs like to soak in volcanic magma, while wing demons like to be stationed near volcanic craters.
High-level demons are not used to doing everything by themselves. There must be low-level demons around them who are responsible for guarding and serving.
The entire county has only been renovated about one-third, and major cities, especially castle cities like Brilliant City, have basically remained the same.
Brandy did not encounter any decent resistance in Brilliant City because most of the few high-level demons were away on vacation.
Xu Lai came so quickly that Mathias did not have time to fully assemble his troops.
Therefore, there are many devils who rest in the wild and take vacations.
Relying on these rebels, Jian Yuan was able to accurately find the one inhabited by a large number of demons among the volcanoes one after another.
According to the battle report, Jian Yuan killed nearly 10,000 demons in one morning plus one noon alone.
Even if the cavalry is more efficient, there are still many demons who still maintain good morale because they did not participate in the war.
So, Xu Lai directly reported Jian Yuan's performance to the entire army and awarded him a great achievement.
At the same time, Jian Yuan's battle report also made Xu Lai realize the importance of military speed.
Although he is confident of defeating the enemies in the entire earldom, he still needs to attack one city after another after the enemies are prepared.
It's better to take advantage of the fact that the demons are leaderless, confused among themselves, and have low morale, and launch a big wave.
So, in the afternoon, Xu Lai sent an order to Jian Yuan, ordering him not to return, but to take the rebels he found and be responsible for annihilating the demons in the entire earldom.
After Xu Lai reaches level 43, his hero ability covers a wide range, but it is impossible to cover the entire earldom.
Giving such an order to Jian Yuan will inevitably put him in certain danger.
Therefore, Xu Lai gave another order to Erwei and Tahan, ordering them to lead their troops to join Jian Yuan.
Of Xu Lai's three generals, apart from Elvi who sometimes gets hot-headed, Tahan and Jian Yuan are both calm enough.
Elwee is just assisting, covering them in the air, and has to report back to Brilliant City in the evening.
Even if Elvie is impulsive, she does not have the time to act impulsively.
The appearance of the Angel Legion did not surprise Jian Yuan. He had long known Xu Lai's character and was unwilling to put his own people in danger.
But for those rebels, the appearance of the Angel Legion not only increased their morale, but also brought them real hope.
They were accidentally discovered by Jian Yuan before. After they learned of Jian Yuan's intentions, they were naturally willing to cooperate out of their hatred of the devil.
However, they do not recognize Jian Yuan's leadership relationship. After all, although Jian Yuan has many people, they are not the same force as them, and they cannot even be counted as a complete camp.
The resistance army is a force of its own, and there are even two human heroes in it.
The most they can do now is to cooperate with Jian Yuan to eliminate the demons near Brilliant City.
Where to go from now on, the leader of the human resistance army must first talk to Xu Lai.
If we can't reach an agreement, we might have to drag someone else to work alone somewhere else.
But as soon as the Angel Legion appeared, most of the rebels simply knelt on the ground.
Angels are warriors of the God of War, and are usually considered to be the embodiment of the God of War's will.
If it were normal times and everyone could think rationally, angels would also be loyal to others.
At this time, most ordinary people will subconsciously think that these angels are here to help and save them.
In fact, Elvi and the others did almost the same thing.
Jian Yuan brought these rebels not in the hope that these rebels would have any combat effectiveness, but in the hope that their intelligence would help him find more demonic strongholds. (End of this chapter)