Al looked at his subordinates. He now had a fighting force of roughly two hundred. As long as they didn't run into a main army, they should be able to clash with the imperials.
Regrettably, the blessing the Bloodmother bestowed did not give him anything like full plate armor like the Chaos warriors. Otherwise Al figured he could try decapitating an imperial general.
While marching, they encountered a pleasant surprise.
Some scattered beastmen from before came looking for them and joined Al's forces. Now there were one hundred and thirty-seven ordinary beastmen alone, including twenty-seven wolfmen. These fierce, fast beastmen could be used as excellent scouts.
From Al's observation, wolfmen could run quickly on all fours, but their daily movement was mostly upright. Their endurance wasn't enough for carrying riders on long marches, so training them into wolf cavalry wasn't practical.
There were the most common horned beastmen:
Those with horns on their heads, strong furry arms, and hooves for feet. Some had noticeably longer ears and teeth. Otherwise they looked no different from humans. With some dressing up they might even be able to pass as ordinary humans.
Al was considering whether it would be possible in the future to operate openly as a beastman mercenary band in civilized cities. Wasn't the mercenary band Alina used to belong to mostly beastmen?
Before the End Times, beastmen were mainly divided into several groups: the weak but more agile Ungors who could use tools, the stronger main-force Gor, and the largest and most special Bestigors.
Simply understood as: goblins, orc boys, big orc bosses.
There were also branches like minotaurs, centigors, razorgors, and so on.
After the End Times, under the mysterious influence of the All-Things Shepherd, Ungors, Gors, and Bestigors gradually converged, differentiating into the largest group with humanoid appearance and slightly lower intelligence—the horned beastmen, who basically looked like horned, hooved humans.
As well as various subspecies like goatmen, rabbitmen, wolfmen, crowmen, and so on. They were widely distributed, from far Cathay in the east to the Witch-King's Dark Tower in the west, north to Kislev and south to Lustria. Their clans existed across the vast world.
In combat they mainly relied on hordes of horned beastmen warriors, powerful minotaurs as heavy infantry, strong and swift centigors as cavalry, plus scouts and anti-cavalry wolf packs. There were also harpies as aerial units. A few tribes with Shepherd shamans could tame monsters like griffons, manticore, and trolls.
Although they were no longer as cruel and strong as when they worshipped Chaos, the discipline brought by wisdom could somewhat compensate for that weakness. Moreover, there was no longer the Chaos phenomenon where a single wind from the Realm of Chaos would spawn hundreds or thousands of corrupted beastmen from the woods. Instead, with settled farming and external trade income, the overall beastman population was steadily growing.
After all, without Chaos influence, the Old World had plenty of undeveloped virgin land. After the ferocious greenskins all went to Athel Loren to live reclusive lives, there were no species in the forests that could truly compete with beastmen as natural enemies.
If life became too hard they could drag their families to civilized lands. As long as it wasn't an extremely xenophobic region and they guaranteed no Chaos corruption (few people remembered that condition anymore), and they were proper orderly Shepherd believers, many cities were still willing to accept this group of strong, simple-minded, low-intelligence laborers who were very easy to exploit.
Although these beastmen were not as strong or bloodthirsty as their ancestors, because they had wisdom and discipline, they had more possibilities.
Savagery might dominate for a time, but the world would eventually return to the track of civilization.
But the ultimate test was winning the second End Times and preventing the destruction of the world.
Calculating the personnel currently under his command, Al made a simple division:
The rage-tainted beasts were organized into one squad, serving as his and Alina's personal guard. In battle they would be responsible for protecting Al and cooperating with the centaur girl to break through enemy lines. These powerful guys, if they grew a bit more, would already qualify as monsters. The greatswords in their hands could easily chop off heads and split bodies in half.
The beastmen excluding the wolf packs—one hundred and ten—were divided into four companies of twenty-seven each. They were allowed to elect three leaders per company (one main, two deputies) responsible for battlefield command. Two of the smarter-looking ones were picked to stay near Al on standby.
The wolfmen numbered exactly twenty-seven—nine per company, forming three squads total. They would act as scouts, spreading out far ahead to observe the environment.
With the map, the moment enemies entered these wolfmen's alert range Al could detect them, preventing the force from blindly charging into ambushes or inexplicably running into the main enemy army.
The three centaurs were all Shepherd believers, but they had clearly been won over by Alina's ferocious heroism in battle. During the Bloodmother's blessing they had knelt before Al to swear loyalty. They belonged to the personal guard and, when necessary, would be sent to follow Alina in breaking enemy lines.
Finally there was the lone minotaur.
No discussion needed—use it directly as a monster. If the number of minotaurs grew later they could be equipped with heavy armor and used as a heavy infantry legion. A full-armor monster of that tonnage charging would be something few forces in the Old World—except perhaps the Dragon Emperor's champion peasant spearmen of Cathay—could withstand.
The remaining Chaos beastmen refused to accept leadership from anyone except Al and Alina, so he would command them personally.
Al was used to doing preparatory work first. Although his forces couldn't be called strong and well-equipped, they were at least better than nothing. He couldn't help feeling a small surge of secret joy in his heart.
What do you mean?
I already have an army.
I still need to keep working hard.
Although altogether they didn't even equal two unit cards in a game, Al felt this was already a decent force by average beastman tribal standards.
Advance four!
After linking up with Thar, if he knew the will of heaven and submitted, laying down arms and coming with proper courtesy, he would not lose the position of the Eternal Champion's right-hand and left-hand man.
If he raised an army without cause, clinging to the old ways and resisting heaven's mandate, under the great trend he would inevitably…
"?"
Alina stopped.
Al was startled.
A commotion arose among the beastmen ahead. Several beastmen who looked like leaders ran anxiously to the centaur guards and raised something in their hands toward Al.
Several yellow wasps lay dying in the beastmen's palms.
Thar!
Al's pupils shrank.
"What exactly happened?"
He immediately questioned the beastmen.
"Chief… chief, the Great Shaman's bee swarm suddenly collapsed. We've lost our direction!"
The beastman's face was full of panic. He looked at Al with hopeful eyes.
Bad news!
Something had probably really happened on Thar's side.
Al's heart wavered. If Thar's group had already been hunted down and annihilated by the imperials, then they would be completely isolated. In the Pina Forest they would be fighting alone with no allies and no base.
Food crisis would soon follow. The old tribe had been burned. They definitely couldn't count on stored supplies. Even if it hadn't been burned, Al wouldn't dare return easily.
At that point this force of roughly two hundred would quickly fall apart. No matter how much the Chaos beastmen feared Al and the centaur girl's authority, hunger would drive them to attack and devour each other. The morale of the beastmen who had just won a battle and witnessed a miracle would immediately plunge to rock bottom.
Reality wasn't a game. No matter how powerful an army was, unless it had completely transcended mortal limits, it still needed supplies—especially Al's patchwork ragtag force.
Alina looked toward Al, clearly leaving the decision to him.
Advance or retreat?
What if Thar was fine?
What if it was just that his bees had simply died?
Wouldn't that mean losing a very good opportunity to integrate the Revelers tribe into his own faction's foundation, or at least gain partial leadership?
But if Thar's group had already been completely wiped out, charging over would mean walking straight into the imperials' pocket…
Al's birth mother was human, but he had been born in a beastman tribe. The latter naturally recognized him as one of their own. With the extremely thick Chaos aura on his body, he had basically said goodbye to any normal chance of entering civilized society.
Besides beastmen, only skaven and true Chaos followers might accept someone like Al.
The key point was that the New Four Gods he served were in a seesaw relationship with the old Four Gods—whether east wind overwhelms west wind or west wind overwhelms east wind. On the fundamental stance that the outcome of the End Times decided the survival of the New Four Gods, they were naturally opposed.
Therefore Chaos factions—at least those not loyal to the New Four Gods—could not be considered.
Skaven had never been in the choice range from the beginning.
Moreover, Al not only had no choice, the best choice was right beside him.
He had to seize this opportunity.
Otherwise who knew how long he would have to wait for another chance this good. The End Times was brewing. Chaos could afford to wait. He could not.
"Follow the last direction the wasps guided us—full speed ahead!"
"Send all the wolf packs to the left, right, and front. Expand the scouting range by half. We must find either Thar's group or the imperial army as quickly as possible!"
Al gave the orders to the alpha wolf and the beastmen leaders with a grave face.
His heart was cold as iron, but his blood was slowly beginning to boil.
The Bloodmother was watching approvingly, expecting him to move forward.
Al already understood: ahead there was probably a long-awaited battle waiting for him.