Chapter 345 Falling Apart

Coming out of Valentinian III's palace, Luca seemed to have let go of a heavy weight in his heart, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Following Andrew, Luca walked out of Ravenna and entered the military camp. Unexpectedly, he saw a messy military camp with soldiers packing their packages everywhere.

"What are you still doing here? Are you going to die in Gaul? We have lost enough brothers. If we continue like this, we will all die. Only a ghost would want to die in a place that has nothing to do with us."

Before seeing the person, I heard his voice first. I saw that there were groups of soldiers in front of the camp, carrying their bags and preparing to leave. They were arguing and seemed to be dissatisfied with the current situation, until they saw Lu Jia standing in front of the camp and his guards. They stopped arguing and stopped. Everyone's face revealed a surprised expression, as if they had not intended to let Lu Jia see it from the beginning, especially at this time when leaving without saying goodbye was inappropriate.

What surprised Luca was that they were led by the centurions that Luca relied on the most on the battlefield. The centurions who had fought on the front line and risked their lives actually chose to escape when Luca was not paying attention.

The two sides stared at each other. The most embarrassing thing was that more and more soldiers in front of Luga wanted to leave. Hundreds and thousands of soldiers, almost all the soldiers in the barracks came out.

Andrew, who was standing behind Luga, had clearly sensed the subtle change in the atmosphere. He hurriedly stepped forward and shouted at the unruly soldiers with his usual majesty: "Hey, what are you doing? What's the meaning of you holding these packages? Are you trying to escape?" Andrew became more and more angry as he spoke. With a "swish", he drew out his iron sword. The guards behind him also drew out their iron swords and confronted the soldiers of the Ninth Legion who had once fought side by side with him.

How could those soldiers show weakness? They put down their packs, picked up their shields and formed an offensive formation to confront Luca's guards. However, their centurions did not draw their iron swords to fight Luca, which proved that they still had feelings for their leader Luca.

"We are not deserters!"

A centurion straightened his chest and said to Luca. Luca was not moved by their actions. He just stood in front of everyone, motionless, like a statue. This seemingly tense situation, as long as Luca stood among them, was destined not to really take action.

Both sides were restrained by Luca's prestige and the friendship of their former comrades. They did not take action, their faces were tangled, and everyone was suffering in their hearts. However, everyone was in pain and firm in their position, and refused to retreat.

"Why is this happening?" Luka asked himself in his heart. He couldn't understand why the soldiers planned to leave without saying goodbye. He even began to wonder if it was because of his incompetence that he couldn't control the soldiers' hearts, which made them want to leave? He wanted to cry but couldn't, but he kept reminding himself in his heart that he would never let them see his weakness at this moment. He gritted his teeth and acted calm in front of everyone, like a statue, without any emotion.

"What on earth are you doing?" He finally couldn't help it and slowly asked, but even so, he insisted on making his voice calm and calm, like a calm lake without a single ripple. Lu Jia said slowly: "If you want to leave, just leave the eagle flag behind, and you can do whatever you want with the rest."

Luca's words were so cruel and decisive that they blocked all their escape routes and left them with no way to even apologize.

The leading centurions were speechless. Their throats moved a few times, and they wanted to say something but stopped. They swallowed all the words they wanted to say. The flag bearer also thought for a moment, and finally took a step and handed the eagle flag in his hand, which was originally used as a crutch, to Luca in a military manner. Luca took it and said nothing to the flag bearer. He just lowered his head and patiently flicked off the dirt on it.

"I'm sorry, General!" A centurion spread his hands helplessly and said, "This is the closest place to our hometown. We have discussed it for a long time and feel that it is time to go back this time."

"Then go back." Lu Jia still had no expression on his face and responded coldly, as if he was very unfamiliar with the guys in front of him. It was as if he had never met them before, and all of this was very heartless.

"Okay, alright." The centurion nodded and called to the soldiers behind him, "Let's go, let's get on the road. Our hometown is calling us, we must go back." After that, the centurion passed by Luca. Andrew wanted to stop him but was stopped by Luca. They walked north along the dirt road unimpeded.

The soldiers who were still worried were relieved when they saw Luca's indifference. They cast a final look at Luca and then slowly walked past him and followed the centurion's footsteps all the way north. They were going to walk along the ancient stone road all the way to Athens in the Eastern Empire, which was their hometown.

There were only a few soldiers left in the huge military camp, and the remaining ones were reinforcements from the Western Empire, and there were less than 500 of them.

A legion was reduced to a field regiment. Such a huge gap was not small for Luga. He couldn't help but start to worry about the Fourth Auxiliary Legion still in Ludug Gaul, which was basically composed of troops from the Eastern Empire. In this way, he might only have one auxiliary legion and the Fifth Skylark Legion left.

Luca couldn't get over the fact that he had lost an entire legion of soldiers in an instant. For the entire afternoon, he sat alone at the entrance of the camp carrying an eagle flag, while Andrew stayed by his side.

"Why?" The first thing Luga said was, "Why, am I not good to them? In order to protect their interests, all the wealth plundered from the rebel cities was given to them, allowing everyone to make a fortune. However, they still left with enough wealth to allow them to live for the rest of their lives. But they were afraid of having so much wealth. They began to fear death and injury." Luga kept complaining, and it can be seen that he can hardly hide his inner frustration and his incomprehension of these soldiers who are leaving him. This is a world of difference from his nonchalant behavior at the time. I'm afraid he is the real him now.

"Maybe they just want to go home, Luca." Andrew comforted Luca beside him, "After all, they belong to the Eastern Empire. They think they have no obligation to shed blood and sacrifice for the affairs of the Western Empire. And they are eager to return to the Eastern Empire. This is understandable, because they are from the Eastern Empire."

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"The Ninth Legion is now in name only." Luca stroked his forehead and said, "We must now make use of the elders and rebuild the Ninth Legion in a very short time."

(End of this chapter)