102: Chapter 102 Converting Human Lives into KPIs

This was no drill, much less a tactical feint.

These were three hundred heavy armored cavalrymen, a destructive force capable of flattening a small town, and their target was the solitary watchtower beneath his feet.

"My Lord!" Evelyn's voice turned sharp with extreme tension. "They're circling around! It's their reserve, elite heavy cavalry! Our flanks have no fortifications, and the main force of the convict army is pinned down at the front by their infantry! Once this cavalry reaches the walls, in five minutes—no, three at most—our defense line will be completely pierced! The entire front line will collapse!"

She spoke rapidly, every word squeezed out through gritted teeth.

As a battle-hardened knight, she knew better than anyone what this meant.

This was a "decapitation" tactic on the battlefield, a fatal blow that discarded all trivialities to drive the sharpest spear straight into the heart.

However, Levi did not look back; even the hand holding the telescope did not tremble in the slightest.

He leaned forward slightly against the cold embrasure, like a madman admiring a storm from the edge of a cliff.

Evelyn's warning was like an insignificant breeze blowing past his ears, failing to stir even the slightest ripple on his calm surface.

The gale whipped his flaxen hair, and the firelight outlined a cold, hard silhouette on his profile.

In those dark pupils reflecting the distant torrent of steel, Evelyn saw no trace of fear or panic. What she saw was an emotion that made her skin crawl—excitement.

It was the kind of excitement, mixed with cruelty and anticipation, that a chess player shows when their opponent finally steps into a meticulously laid trap.

"My Lord!" Seeing no reaction, Evelyn couldn't help but take a step forward, almost pleading, "Please order the defense line to contract! We still have a chance to hold the castle; they haven't brought any siege engines, as long as..."

Levi finally moved.

He slowly lowered the telescope and turned around.

He didn't look at Evelyn, but instead cast his gaze toward the messenger standing at the ready nearby, responsible for relaying the highest commands.

"Bring that over." His voice wasn't loud, yet it was like a sharp blade, instantly cutting off Evelyn's anxious words.

The messenger immediately picked up a crude, simple cylindrical megaphone made of rolled tin from the corner.

It was a gadget rushed out by the dwarven engineers to ensure orders could be transmitted more clearly down the mountain.

Levi took the megaphone; the cold touch of the tin refreshed his spirit.

He didn't walk to the embrasure; instead, facing the few messengers beside him, he brought the megaphone to his lips and issued a command in a clear, steady, and emotionless tone that would have made even a devil look twice.

"Relay my 'Special Reward Order'."

"Attention all units: a new high-value performance target has appeared. Coordinates: battlefield left wing, moving towards the castle proper."

"Target characteristics: both man and horse armored, wielding lances and heavy swords, charging in a dense formation. Yes, that group of tin cans you see."

"Reward details: For every heavy armored cavalryman killed, by any means, upon confirmation by a battlefield Supervisor, personal points will be multiplied fivefold! Bringing back a helmeted head is equally valid!"

"Supplementary clause: Any team that can capture a complete set of heavy armored cavalry equipment—including the warhorse, full plate armor, and weapons—all surviving members of that team will be directly restored to Freeman status after the war and granted a Second-Class Pioneer Permit for Blackstone Territory! This order takes effect immediately!"

As his voice fell, the top of the watchtower plunged into a dead silence.

The hands of several scribes holding quills froze in mid-air as they looked at Levi in disbelief.

Evelyn was even more thunderstruck; her mouth was open, but she couldn't make a sound.

Personal points multiplied fivefold...

Restored to Freeman status...

Second-Class Pioneer Permit...

Evelyn's head was buzzing.

She knew what a Blackstone Territory Pioneer Permit meant. It represented land, tax exemptions, and the chance to become a superior; things these prisoners wouldn't even dare to hope for in their dreams.

Levi was now equating it to a set of armor, hawking it as openly as cabbage in a market.

"Mad... He's completely lost it..." Evelyn murmured to herself, feeling the world spin.

This wasn't commanding a war; this was pouring a whole bucket of boiling oil directly onto the filthiest, most greedy kindling of human nature.

The messengers were also stunned by the order until Levi's cold gaze swept over them. They snapped out of it and scrambled toward the communication channels to pass down this insane directive.

Behind the lines on the middle of the slope, Graham Byron cut down a Northern Army infantryman trying to slip past him with a single sword stroke.

Scalding blood splashed across his face. He wiped it away nonchalantly with the back of his hand, revealing a face made demonic by smoke and bloodstains.

The flagbearer beside him suddenly waved the flag vigorously, signaling a series of complex and urgent messages.

It was a combination of signals he had never seen before, but the color of the flag itself—a blood-like deep red—already said everything.

This was a "Special Reward" of the highest priority, personally issued by the Lord.

Immediately after, a messenger came scrambling from the rear, screaming desperately, repeating Levi's order.

"...Restored to Freeman status! Granted a Second-Class Pioneer Permit!"

As those last few words were roared from the messenger's raspy throat, the breathing of the convict Supervisors around Graham—whose eyes had already begun to flicker with thoughts of retreat—instantly became heavy.

Graham was stunned.

He slowly turned his head to look at the torrent of steel that had already circled to the flank and begun its devastating acceleration.

The night wind carried the thunderous sound of hooves clearly to his ears. That sound no longer represented death and fear; instead, it had turned into the seductive whispers of a devil tempting one to fall.

A set of armor... equals freedom?

His heart, long since hardened like stone by hatred and despair, couldn't help but throb violently at this moment.

"What the hell are you still standing there for!" Graham reacted suddenly. He grabbed the messenger by the collar, pulled him close, and glared at him with bloodshot eyes. "Roar the Lord's words out! Make sure every bastard who isn't deaf hears it!"

He turned around and roared at his Supervisor team, who were equally lost in shock and greed: "Everyone! Spread this news across the entire battlefield! If any of you bastards are a step too slow, I'll turn you into performance targets first!"

The order spread like a plague along the chaotic defense line.

"Listen up! New reward! Kill one heavy armored cavalryman, and your points are quintupled!"

"Snatch a complete set of equipment! One set! And we can regain our freedom!"

"And a Pioneer Permit! We can have our own land!"

At first, it was just a commotion in a small area.

The prisoners who were fighting for their lives against the Northern infantry paused for a split second.

Their eyes looked past the enemies in front of them, casting toward the charging torrent of steel on the flank.

Fear?

No, that had long been worn away by hard labor and the threat of death.

Fatigue?

In the face of the words "freedom" and "land," what did a little fatigue matter!

Their eyes changed.

It was a greed purer and more naked than that of a wild beast.

Like a pack of hyenas that hadn't eaten for three days and nights suddenly seeing a group of walking meat covered in tin.

In the next second, a scene appeared on the battlefield that would drive any military textbook author insane.

"Roar—!"

An unintelligible, primal howl erupted from the depths of a chest.

Cayden!

He and his heavily depleted squad of fewer than ten men unhesitatingly abandoned the few infantrymen they had already suppressed and broke away from the line like a pack of mad dogs.

They ignored the blades striking from behind, letting their comrades be cut down as they charged diagonally toward the accelerating torrent of heavy cavalry without looking back.

Their goal wasn't defense or obstruction—it was hunting!

Cayden's action was like a signal.

"Damn it! That armor is mine!"

"Get lost! Don't block my way!"

"Freedom! Freedom!"

Hundreds upon thousands of prisoners spontaneously broke away from their struggle with the infantry.

They threw away their heavy shields and discarded the unwieldy spears, carrying only mining picks, short swords, or even sharpened wooden sticks to form "hunting parties" of various sizes and no formation.

They tore themselves away from the main battlefield like countless muddy streams, desperately pouring into the area the steel torrent was about to pass through.

They used their own bodies and the crudest weapons to form suicidal human barriers.

One prisoner roared as he slammed a thick, sharpened wooden stake into the path of the cavalry charge. In the next second, he was smashed to pieces by the massive impact, but the stake successfully caused a high-speed warhorse to stumble and fall.

The heavy armored knight on the horse was thrown violently, rolling several times on the ground.

Before he could even get up, at least twenty prisoners with bloodshot eyes pounced on him, their mining picks and hammers smashing frantically at every gap and joint in his armor.

There was no tactical coordination, only the most primitive biting and scrambling.

"The head is mine!"

"You damn well get lost! I saw it first!"

Two men started brawling over who would be the first to smash open the helmet. The knight seized the opportunity, drew a short sword from his side, and pierced one of their throats.

But it was meaningless. More prisoners submerged him; the dense clanging sounded like blacksmithing—dull and frantic.

The heavy armored cavalry of the Northern Army was completely bewildered.

They had expected stubborn resistance, arrows, and traps, but they never dreamed of encountering this.

These enemies weren't an army at all; they were a bunch of lunatics!

A pack of bandits who feared no death just to snatch their equipment!

Their proud massed charge, its core advantage—unrivaled impact—was quickly dissipated in this messy, unorganized, individual-based frantic biting.

Their formation was shattered by these suicidal human barriers.

The three-hundred-man torrent of steel seemed to have charged into a swamp made of greed and desire.

Every step forward was dragged down by countless reaching hands, and every step came at a heavy price.

"Hold the formation! Don't get bogged down! Charge through!"

The knight officer leading the charge roared hoarsely, trying to reorganize the ranks.

But his voice was quickly drowned out by the prisoners' frantic howls and the dense noise of weapons hammering against armor.

He speared a prisoner lunging at his horse's legs, but three more immediately grabbed the warhorse from the side, using their body weight to pull it down.

At the moment he fell from his horse, the last thing he saw were countless eyes turned blood-red with greed.

At the rear of the battlefield, the Northern Army vanguard commander Rayton, the man known as the "Ice Tundra Wolf Cub," watched this hellish scene with eyes nearly bursting.

His trump card, his proudest heavy cavalry, was actually being dragged down by a group of miners in such a primitive and barbaric way!

This wasn't war! This was a scramble in a slaughterhouse!

His command, his tactics, his proud Knightly Battle Codex learned from the Imperial Military Academy, all became a joke at this moment.

This enemy force didn't play by any rules at all. Their morale, their will to fight, seemed entirely built upon a madness he couldn't understand called "KPIs."

He had lost.

The moment he ordered the heavy cavalry to bypass the main battlefield, he had already lost.

But he was not reconciled!

A bloody rage surged to his head, incinerating the last of his remaining reason.

He whipped his head around, his blood-red gaze locking onto Graham Byron's general flag on the distant slope, which represented the enemy's command center!

He attributed the root of all this to that commander who was waving flags and shouting in the rear, driving these lunatics with rewards!

If only he killed him!

If only he cut down that flag!

This absurd farce would end!

These hyenas, having lost their master and their rewards, would turn back into the sheep they once were, ready for the slaughter!

"Aaaaaah—!"

Rayton let out a beastly roar as a visible, pale-green halo of Battle Qi erupted from his body, instantly enveloping his entire suit of armor.

As the Battle Qi flowed, the warhorse beneath him let out a pained neigh, its speed and power forced to their absolute limits in an instant.

He abandoned his command, abandoned all the guards around him, and broke away from the chaotic battle alone.

He, along with his warhorse, transformed into a green meteor, ignoring all the prisoners trying to block his path along the way, charging straight and unstoppably toward the fluttering general flag on the slope in a resolute and tragic manner.