Chapter 513 Barbarian Invasion 5

tens of thousands of people against 3,000 people, Aetius's army was struggling under the huge disadvantage. Aetius tightly grasped the scepter in his hand, secretly thinking: Did he do something wrong?

“Boom…”

A loud noise pulled Aetius back to reality from his own world, and he quickly looked up.

All I saw was the last watchtower that had been erected suddenly collapse to the ground. The soldiers on top of it screamed and fell from the top of the tower, landing heavily on the ground, raising a large cloud of dust. Then the collapsed watchtower buried their dead or wounded bodies.

Faced with the pressure of tens of thousands of people, even the elite legions from Caesar's era would not be able to withstand such a blow, let alone this simple defense line of only 1,300 people.

Soon, even Tereus himself was unable to stop the retreat of the soldiers, who abandoned their defenses and dragged what weapons they could carry, such as spears and iron swords.

Retreating soldiers kept passing by Tereus's horse on both sides. As an officer of the overseer and their commander, Tereus found it even more difficult to control such a retreating situation.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Therese had to retreat in order to preserve his strength in order to build a second line of defense.

The soldiers were defeated one after another, and the barbarian army was charging all the way. The chaotic Roman line could not stop their attack at all, and Roman soldiers on the front line kept falling down.

"Where is your centurion?" Tereus asked a defeated soldier.

"Dead, chopped to death with an axe!" the soldier answered truthfully.

Tereus was too lazy to waste time on this soldier, so he grabbed another soldier and asked, "Where is your centurion?"

"Dead! Dead a long time ago!" the soldier replied in a crying voice.

Tereus asked seven or eight soldiers in a row, and their answers were surprisingly consistent. When he looked up again, he saw that none of the retreating soldiers were wearing horned helmets. This further confirmed Tereus's guess that all the junior officers had been lost.

"Centurion! Centurion!" Tereus rode his horse and led the cavalry guards through the battlefield, looking for the soldier with feathers on his helmet, because that was the centurion of the army!

After much difficulty, Tereus gathered ten soldiers wearing centurion helmets and told them: "From now on, you are centurions!"

The ten centurions who heard the news looked at each other, and it was obvious that they were delighted. It turned out that promotion on the battlefield was the fastest.

The ten of them looked up at Teris with determined eyes, as if if Teris were to command them to return to the battlefield and launch a suicidal attack on the barbarian army in front of them, they would probably do it without hesitation!

"I now order you to reorganize the army. We must build a second line of defense before the enemy arrives!" Tereus's order made the ten centurions nod heavily in response.

"Quick, form a defensive line! Form a defensive line!"

Seeing the soldiers retreat, Aetius' heart felt like it was hit hard, causing his entire heart to stop for a second.

In his eyes, he saw the barbarians surging like a tide, roaring towards him, and the Romans who stepped forward to resist were like vulnerable saplings, being swallowed up by the roaring and rushing waves of barbarians.

"Captain of the Army! Captain of the Army!" Tereus shouted and rode his horse to Aetius' side. The retreating soldiers passed by Aetius on both sides and stopped at the newly formed defense line.

Their faces were filled with fear. Everyone looked at Aetius' back timidly, praying in their hearts that Aetius must see the situation clearly and retreat early! "What is the current situation, Tereus?" Aetius asked in a deep voice.

"The barbarians are launching a full-scale attack, Sergeant!" Terris gasped, apparently having been on the road for a long time. "The junior officers on our frontline have suffered heavy losses, and the morale of the soldiers has dropped to the point where we can no longer continue!"

"It seems that I made a wrong estimate!" Aetius kept hitting the palm of his hand with the scepter, as if punishing himself. His carelessness in estimating the enemy forced him to swallow the bitter fruit of failure.

But this failure and loss was so insignificant in the overall situation. Aetius quickly came out of his loss. He turned around and looked at Tereus and said, "Order the soldiers to retreat, and recall the 14th Twin Legion and the 8th Comrades Legion. Tell the commanders of those field regiments that we are in trouble!"

Faced with an invincible force, Aetius made the wisest choice. He led his soldiers away from the battlefield quickly, even though his ears were filled with the cheers of the barbarians behind him.

In the Governor's Palace of Augusta-Treville, Luca led the officers of Belgian Gaul and sat on one side, while Odysseus, the envoy from the Senate, led his entourage and sat on the other end.

The two sides faced each other, and Luca and Odysseus had friendliness written all over their faces. This was not the case. After all, Luca's war against Britannia a few years ago had made the workshops in the Great Sequanorum Province and the Belgian Gaul Province a lot of money, and as investing nobles, they also made a lot of money.

Anyone would be jealous when seeing people around them making money, let alone those so-called greedy people in the Senate.

Flavius ​​Luca once became the spokesperson for war in the Senate. No matter how big or small the war was, he always made the corrupt imperial machine turn, and there was always a hidden momentum of conquering the world.

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"Come on, speak freely!" Lu Jia spread his hands and gestured to the group of young elders in front of him. "I think this must be the first time we meet. Let's have a good chat today and see if you have any questions for me, a relative stranger."

The elder nobles smiled at each other, but no one asked a question, as if they were too shy to ask and were afraid of embarrassing this young but superior soldier commander.

"After all, they are newcomers to the Outstanding Class. They are still somewhat in awe of the God-like Excellency!" The oldest Odysseus smiled and opened his mouth to dissolve the cold atmosphere. He smiled and explained to Luca: "It seems that they still respect the elders. As the leader of the envoy group and a colleague of the Senate, I will ask first!"

Odysseus was silent for a moment, the smile on his face disappeared, replaced by seriousness. Seeing his expression, Luga couldn't help but sit up straight, thinking that this guy must have some difficult questions to answer.

"As you have seen and witnessed with your own eyes!" Odysseus said first, "the barbarians entered from the Rhine Line and invaded the area now defended by Aetius."

"Is there anything wrong with that?"

"We saw these barbarians when we were rushing to Augusta-Treville. We just watched from afar. There were tens of thousands of them. Can you tell us exactly how many people there are?"

"Oh, that's a huge number." Luca said with a smile, "According to the report of our scouts, their number should be no less than 50,000. Of course, the number of soldiers who can fight is 30,000 to 40,000. After all, they are barbarians, and the brave women will always pick up the iron swords dropped by their husbands and join the battle."

"But..." Odysseus interrupted Luca's boasting and changed the subject, "I heard that it was you who let these barbarians in. Mr. Luca, if this news is true, then this is a big deal."

As soon as this question was asked, the whole scene became awkward in an instant. Even the elder nobles behind Odysseus stopped smiling. They sat up straight and pricked up their ears to see how Luca would explain this question.

(End of this chapter)