Chapter 16: Wealthy Barbarian Tribe

The Night Tribe's cavalry advanced like a torrent of steel, slow yet resolute, as the Barbarian Warriors continuously fell.

The gap in equipment was displayed to its fullest extent in this moment.

"Those who surrender will be spared!"

As Night Battle tore through the frontlines of the Barbarian Race, the morale of the entire Barbarian Tribe's warriors plummeted to absolute zero.

Turning his horse around, Night Battle stared at them coldly, looking very much ready to launch another charge if they didn't surrender.

Hudson, who had luckily survived the recent clash, first glanced at the corpses littering the ground, then looked at the panic-stricken Barbarian Warriors around him.

"We surrender!"

After a moment of hesitation, he cleanly and decisively chose to yield.

In this land, so-called dignity and honor were hollow illusions; only their Lives were of utmost importance. Therefore, knowing full well that resistance meant death, the vast majority of people would choose to surrender.

The law of the jungle was the rule of this land. Surrendering here was neither rare nor shameful.

Hearing this, Night Battle couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief inwardly. He quickly ordered his men to disarm them of their Weapons.

In the round of slaughter just now, the combined death toll of both sides was only slightly over three thousand. The losses weren't actually that significant, but the spirit of the Barbarian Race had been completely broken.

Thus, after choosing to surrender, they put up no pointless struggles.

...

Meanwhile, far away in the Black Earth Base, Su Xingyu also received the news. He personally led twenty thousand warriors to head over, preparing to take direct control of the Barbarian Tribe.

Although the Barbarian Race was defeated, their losses were not major, and there was still a population of several hundred thousand waiting to be dealt with.

Night Battle was decent at waging War, but expecting him to handle these administrative affairs was a lost cause—he simply wasn't cut out for it. So, Su Xingyu had to step up himself.

Moreover, with hundreds of thousands of people, a miracle of the Divine Spirit was necessary to properly win over their hearts.

To deal with the Barbarian Tribe, Su Xingyu had sent out almost all the warriors of the Night Tribe, leaving its current defenses at an all-time low.

However, the surrounding factions had already been annexed by him, so leaving around ten thousand men to guard the home front was sufficient. Besides, with the mobility of the cavalry, even if something unexpected did happen, rushing back wouldn't take much time.

It took nearly two days for Su Xingyu to arrive at the first base of the Barbarian Tribe with his grand army.

To prevent any mishaps, Night Battle had not gathered the Barbarian Race from the two bases together. Instead, he guarded them separately and had even filtered out all the barbarian chieftains.

When Su Xingyu arrived, Night Battle was already waiting outside the gates.

The perimeter walls used by the Barbarian Tribe were made of wood, making expansion relatively easy. The tribe covered a massive area, comparable to four Giant Tiger Tribes.

"Clan Leader, I won the battle," Night Battle said with immense pride, immediately going to greet Su Xingyu as he dismounted.

"You did well." Su Xingyu smiled, not holding back his praise, before asking, "Where are the members of the Barbarian Race now?"

"There are too many of them. Fearing they might cause trouble, I've split them up and locked them away." A smile surfaced on Night Battle's face as he explained, "But please rest assured, Clan Leader. I have people deliver food to them every day; they won't starve to death..."

"Take me over to see them," Su Xingyu chuckled lightly.

This barbarian base held over a hundred thousand people in total. After defeating them, Night Battle had divided them into three groups and locked them up.

Having stripped them of their equipment, Night Battle wasn't the least bit afraid of them starting a riot, even though his own forces were vastly outnumbered.

Furthermore, after losing the command of their chieftains, these simple-minded Barbarian Warriors didn't have many ulterior motives. They all obediently stayed in the prisoner-of-war camps, awaiting the victors' disposition.

As for the Barbarian Tribe, although Su Xingyu intended to annex them, he didn't plan on relocating the entire Barbarian Race here back to the Night Tribe.

For one, the population was simply too large. With hundreds of thousands of people, just solving the housing issue would be a massive headache if they were all moved back.

Secondly, even if he did move everyone back, he would still have to transfer other people over eventually. After all, the mineral veins and plantations here required caretakers.

Shuttling people back and forth would not only be a huge drain on resources but also extremely troublesome.

So, before coming here, Su Xingyu had already made arrangements for the Barbarian Tribe. He planned to take those chieftains back for re-education, then integrate the elite warriors into the Night Tribe's army, and finally relocate a portion of the Night Tribe's clansmen to the Barbarian Tribe.

A mere Barbarian Tribe should be fully assimilated within half a year to a year.

Taking a year to absorb a Barbarian Tribe of several hundred thousand people—Su Xingyu considered this an incredibly lucrative deal.

Thus, that very night, Su Xingyu replicated the routine he had used a month ago, demonstrating to this group of barbarian natives exactly what the mighty power of a Divine Spirit looked like.

If he had shown this during the battle, the Barbarian Warriors might have felt the might of the Divine Spirit even more intensely.

However, Su Xingyu felt that displaying it after conquering them would yield a better Effect.

A Divine Spirit ought to maintain an air of mystery and shouldn't participate in every little skirmish; otherwise, their prestige would diminish.

After sufficiently intimidating the Barbarian Warriors, Su Xingyu opportunely brought up the various welfare benefits of the Night Tribe. Relying on the Night Tribe's history of rising to power, he made them realize that the Night Tribe was fundamentally different from all those previous tribes.

With a stick in one hand and a carrot in the other, Su Xingyu had them firmly under his control. It wasn't long before large swathes of Barbarian Warriors pledged their allegiance to the Night Tribe.

As for the chieftains, Su Xingyu took the painstaking effort to review every single person's stat panel. He kept those with high Loyalty to continue managing the Barbarian Tribe, while he planned to send those with low Loyalty to develop the Blood Red Forest.

The Blood Red Base had only recently been established, and it was currently suffering from a severe shortage of labor.

Su Xingyu stayed in the Barbarian Tribe for five days before finally sorting out the placements of all personnel.

Meanwhile, the losses and gains from this assault on the Barbarian Tribe had also been tallied up.

There wasn't much to say about the losses—casualties were entirely normal in War. This time, the Night Tribe had held the advantages of timing, terrain, and unity, yet they still lost over a thousand soldiers. The Barbarian Race's side had suffered even more significantly, with their troop casualties exceeding five thousand.

The gains, on the other hand, were exceedingly bountiful. First was the population: the Barbarian Tribe alone had three hundred and thirty thousand people, not to mention their other vassal tribes. Once all of them were completely absorbed, the total population of the Night Tribe would surpass a million.

Aside from population, there were the resources. The Barbarian Tribe controlled a Blood Spirit Flower plantation and two Blood Crystal Veins, both of which were medium-sized. In addition, there were two small Refined Iron Ore Veins. They were, in short, obscenely wealthy.

Of course, those were just the resource sites; their existing stockpile was also substantial. For instance, they had three hundred thousand units of Blood Crystal Stone and twenty thousand Blood Spirit Flowers. These were all goods the Barbarian Tribe had prepared to trade with passing merchants once spring arrived, but now, it all fell into the Night Tribe's lap for free.

With these resources, the Night Tribe's strength would undoubtedly rise to another level.

Having finished dealing with the affairs of the Barbarian Tribe, Su Xingyu temporarily couldn't leave just yet, but Night Battle had to return to hold down the fort.

However, before returning, there was still one more thing he needed to do.