Only after the brains of the Vanguard Legion returned completely intact and safe did the people below breathe a sigh of relief. This included the junior officers and the refugee representatives who had encouraged the Kingdom to contact the tribe.
Regardless of their individual intentions, anyone with a sound mind would absolutely not want to provoke a conflict, let alone a war, with the tribe at this time.
Although Al's combat equation of "7,000 Khorngors > roughly 30,000 Greenskins > a larger number of human troops" might occasionally hold true on a real battlefield, it wouldn't always be the case.
But even the most arrogant, whimsical radical strategist would never believe that with just the five thousand men of the Vanguard Legion, they could go poke a Beastman tribe numbering in the tens of thousands.
However, very soon, the legion's commanders summoned the representatives and expressed their stance:
Following a unanimous discussion by the Vanguard Legion, the rebels shall be severely punished in the name and law of the Kingdom!
The conscription plan must be implemented!
As for the food problem...
Here, Al played a trick. He only made the promise that "from now on, their supplies will be personally controlled by him" to those settlements whose actions were radical and where the riots were largest. He used this to buy the refugees' hearts, completely tilting the scales of public sentiment toward the tribe.
As for the others whose attitudes wavered and weren't resolute enough, Al pretended not to notice. He continued to let the supply officers, backed by the councilors and elites, exploit the residents there.
Therefore, the legion also made its own adjustments: from now on, in all settlements operating under the supply officer system, a few extra members of the Vanguard Legion would be dispatched to serve as deputies, and one-third of the supplies had to be distributed through these deputies. [This was obviously dividing the profits.]
The councilors and elites naturally wouldn't oppose the resolutions made by the Kingdom's side. After all, the things they wanted weren't coming out of their own pockets anyway; the tribe was footing the bill. Naturally, eating a bit more was best, but eating a bit less didn't matter.
But someone still carefully raised a question:
If we keep doing this, what if the people rebel?
The legion commanders, already corrupted into puppets by Al yet retaining a certain degree of self-awareness, naturally acted according to the extreme ideology Al instilled in them. They abruptly drew their swords and slammed their short-barreled pistols onto the table.
"The Imperials suppress worker rioters, peasant rebellions, and various criminal acts every year, executing at least ten to twenty thousand rebels. We must have that same resolve!"
So the councilors and elites said nothing more. At most, they'd be careful recently not to get screwed over by a refugee rebellion, and that would be fine.
But Al's arrangements didn't stop there.
He manipulated the commanders to dispatch two expeditionary forces to the two nearest settlements that had already converted to the Four Gods and chosen to join the tribe. They marched with murderous intent, adopting a posture of wiping out dissent and enacting iron-fisted suppression.
Then, they were intercepted by the Beastmen before entering the villages.
Following their superiors' orders and instructions, the expeditionary forces initially put on an aggressive front. They intended to arrest all rebels, demanding that all able-bodied men must join the army, otherwise they would be punished as rebels.
They also intended to conscript about a hundred able-bodied women to serve as camp followers for hard labor.
The grain in the warehouses, because it was seized from the supply officers, nominally belonged to the Kingdom and had to be completely surrendered, after which the Kingdom would appoint a manager to handle distribution.
Obviously, the refugees couldn't possibly agree to any of the three demands.
But given the nearly one-to-one ratio of friend to foe, especially with the other side being a well-trained legion, if a fight broke out, the fate awaiting this settlement would be a breach, and everyone being captured for trial.
Al's backup plan immediately took the stage.
The Khorngor Legion, acting as the Everchosen's bodyguards, marched out from behind the settlement. These heavily armored personal guards of Al, wielding heavy weapons, passed through the ranks of the shivering but still resolute refugees facing the Kingdom's army, and stood directly at the front of the expeditionary force.
Wolf packs, Centigors, and Khorngors poured out of the forest, enveloping both flanks of this allied legion. Several Griffons circled in the sky; these proud, noble beasts occasionally letting out soul-shaking screeches.
The earth trembled as a terrifying behemoth stepped onto the battlefield!
The Bloodmother Minotaur Legion advanced together with a Giant, making the entire forest seem to shudder.
The refugees saw it—the Beastman Shaman who always leaned on a wooden staff, wore a tattered cloak, and smelled of a mixture of herbs, flowers, fruits, and dirt. Outwardly looking somewhat eccentric, but full of wisdom, possessing the virtue of helping others, and extending a helping hand to most requests—stepped out from the ranks of the Khorngor bodyguards.
It walked to the front of the two armies, threw back its cloak, and struck the earth with its staff. Fissures appeared beneath the feet of the expeditionary soldiers, throwing their formation into chaos.
Then, it righteously conveyed Al's will:
The teachings of the Four Mothers lead Al to view everyone sharing the faith as compatriots, and he has accepted the loyalty of the refugees. Now, from faith to the secular realm, these people no longer belong to the Kingdom of Estalia, but to the tribe and the Four Mothers.
Using force against them means declaring war on the tribe!
The expeditionary force felt bewildered and uneasy. The commanders had no choice but to announce a retreat, abandoning the reckoning for these two settlements. This incident instantly consolidated and strengthened the sense of belonging and devotion to the tribe among the converts in these two and other regions.
Al once again tirelessly extracted (escaped) himself from the tender embrace of his adoptive mother, goat mom, goat maids, and the widow. He mounted the Griffon girl and, accompanied by his bodyguards, toured the various converted settlements to deepen his influence.
Because of this incident, the tribe also got into a dispute with the Vanguard Legion and the refugee representatives.
In the end, neither side could do anything about the other.
It was impossible for Al—at least impossible right now using the method of corrupting the commanders—to make them acknowledge the legitimacy of the refugees defecting to the Four Mothers. Even if he did, the Estalian Northern Council wouldn't agree to it and would be highly suspicious of everything happening in the Piña Forest.
As for the Kingdom—mainly the refugee representatives and the Vanguard Legion commanders secretly controlled by Al—facing an absolute disparity in power, they couldn't force Al to back down and abandon the converts who pledged their loyalty. So the two sides could only part on bad terms, but a tacit unspoken rule formed.
"Refugees who convert to the Four Mothers and swear loyalty to Al will no longer be touched by the Kingdom. But the Kingdom absolutely does not recognize the legitimacy of this near-treasonous behavior, treating them as if they are already dead."
"The tribe will still distribute supplies to all settlements. For those who haven't yet converted and openly defected to the tribe, the supplies will still be handed over to the Kingdom's side to manage distribution, while also providing some intelligence and support to the Vanguard Legion."
As the Kingdom's (Vanguard Legion's) hardline attitude and demands spread, more and more refugees, while enduring the extortion of officials and facing the fate of being broken up and sent to die, realized that desperation leads to change, and change leads to solutions. They chose to simply rebel. Anyway, submitting is death, rebelling is death, might as well join the tribe!
I'm converting, assholes!
From now on, I'm a tribesman. The Kingdom? Don't know her, really don't know her.
Al played his role to the fullest. Whenever trouble broke out in a place, he would rush there via the ley line tunnels, observe and manipulate the development of the situation, and then continue the process of "Descending from Heaven - Winning Hearts - Receiving Submissions from All Sides." In just a short week, of the refugee population made turbulent and restless by the food and conscription issues, more than half had—at least nominally—joined the tribe and converted to the Four Mothers.
There were also many who maintained their worship of the Goddess Myrmidia. After all, worshiping one or worshiping four is still worshiping. Five Goddesses, maybe they'll get along well?
A small number were still wavering. First, because the supply officers' exploitation hadn't reached a certain extreme, or resources were slightly more abundant than elsewhere, meaning they hadn't reached the point of starving after today's meal. Second, because they were further away, or had many loyalists internally, they were still observing. What if the Kingdom suddenly changed its tune and wasn't so harsh anymore?
Al could only feel regret about this, and then manipulated the Vanguard commanders to issue one brutal, brainless order after another, ruining the Kingdom's prestige among the refugees.
To strike fear into the various regions and consolidate the people's hearts, when the Vanguard Legion raided a settlement that resisted the conscription order but hadn't yet defected to the tribe, Al hesitated on whether to go mediate the matter. He dawdled and delayed for a while, resulting in that settlement having five hundred able-bodied laborers captured alone, with the number of people dying from resistance or execution being even higher than that.
When Al's third child, Master of the Third Legion Barbatos, arrived with her main force, more than half the settlement had already been made jittery and panicked by days of oppression and intimidation (mainly from the Beastmen). The Vanguard Legion, acting extremely, engaged in arson, and many committed atrocities on the ruins, as if venting all the negative emotions from this period onto their own civilians.
In a fit of rage, Barbatos used her spear to skewer three Vanguard soldiers who were assaulting women, executing them via impalement. She then ordered her Khorngor warriors to stop the atrocities, killing any who resisted, which triggered a significant brawl.
Ultimately, the battle ended with the Beastmen victorious. However, during the fight, Al's third child was hit by a musket shot; fortunately, it didn't hit any vitals.
The devout human followers under Al's command—including the Blood Oath Brotherhood and the zealots developed by the Grand Sister—continuously spread this news, triggering massive panic among the unconverted refugees. At the same time, these converts continuously manufactured and stoked emotions and conflicts, causing settlement after settlement to change their stance, convert, and change colors.
The Everchosen himself, watching the continuously increasing green dots and expanding sphere of influence on the All-Knowing blessing, felt pleased but also sometimes ashamed of how despicable his methods were.
However, the great cause of the End Times stood before him.
Al felt he still needed to work harder.
Right now, it was over two hundred thousand refugees.
In the future, there was a kingdom of millions of people, and wealthy neighbors next door whose population was no smaller than his. Furthermore, the Border Princes, the Badlands, the New World, Bretonnia, and the Empire in the North... all waiting for him to conquer.
His eldest daughter Misha entered her little father's palace.
Al sat by the bed. Barbatos was lying on the bed, enthusiastically gesturing with her fists and kicks, recounting what she had seen and heard to her little father. Only when she saw her eldest sister appear did she hastily shrink back under the covers, putting on a weak and drowsy act.
"The people from the Scholar Council have arrived."
Al reached out to smooth his third child's messy hair, casually flicked her smooth forehead, got up, and left with his eldest daughter.
Before leaving, Misha cast a caring yet warning glance at her sibling, causing the commander of the Third Legion to stick out her tongue and obediently close her eyes to sleep and recuperate.
"If the Estalians take a hardline stance on this, not only will we not back down, but we will respond with an even firmer attitude: Either you accept that the matters in the forest are a done deal, or the Greenskins march north, and you humans can go fight them alone!"
Al emphasized his thoughts to his eldest daughter.