Hiarbas watched his army collapse with a shocked and almost deranged expression.
"My king, we must leave before the Romans arrive," said a Numidian general with an urgent voice.
"Impossible, I cannot lose!" roared Hiarbas with an expression distorted by disbelief.
Hiarbas's trusted guards ignored his unstable mental state and quickly mounted him onto a horse while Hiarbas continued muttering the word impossible.
The clone army had won the battle.
The Numidian army attacked with an almost unstoppable momentum at the beginning, which later gradually diminished.
The difference in combat strength and military equipment between the clone soldiers and the Numidian infantry was too great.
A single attack from a clone legionary could end the life of a poorly equipped Numidian soldier.
The difference between both sides became noticeable after nearly an hour of combat, and the demoralized Numidian soldiers began deserting in large numbers without looking back.
The Numidian light cavalry also became demoralized after witnessing the infantry's retreat.
The flight of the king of Numidia signified the complete defeat of the army.
The clone soldiers advanced rapidly, confronting and eliminating any enemy in sight.
Bloodlust had consumed every trace of reason within the clone soldiers, and the most direct consequence was the desert covered red with blood and filled with corpses.
The clone soldiers advanced and managed to capture the enemy army's supplies.
Hiarbas had escaped, but the greater part of his defeated army scattered throughout the desert.
A total of 8,630 clone soldiers died during the battle, and the casualties of the Numidian army were left to the speculation of historians.
Septimus estimated that the casualties of the entire Numidian army were around 20%.
The Numidian infantry was a mob of warriors from different tribes who fought out of obligation to their tribal leaders and king.
An infantry force from a semi-nomadic and poorly equipped society only served to intimidate the enemy with its great numbers when victory was almost certain, but in an intense battle against an elite Roman army with a strong will to fight, they were the first to flee.
The clone army organized itself to take control of the enemy's supplies and to clear the entire battlefield.
The corpses had to be inspected in order to collect military equipment and valuables. Everything had to be done before the desert sand completely covered the corpses.
Regardless of the fatigue caused by the battle and the suffocating climate, the clone soldiers organized themselves to cover the entire battlefield.
On the other hand, the allied tribal leaders had to be monitored. At the beginning of the battle, Septimus gave them missions far away from the caravans with the objective of preventing a possible betrayal.
Nearly 1,000 clone soldiers were tasked with protecting the supply transport carts while the clone army confronted the enemy.
The intention was to prevent a possible attack from the tribal leaders, and fortunately, the lack of water consumption and the cowardly attitude of avoiding battle by the tribal leaders caused them to remain calm and not attack rashly without knowing the final result of the battle.
The clone soldiers spent the entire afternoon requisitioning enemy supplies and clearing the battlefield.
Septimus could feel the fatigue and exhaustion of the clone soldiers.
King Hiarbas managed to escape because Septimus lacked reliable cavalry to pursue him, and the chaotic battlefield mixed with the sand made it impossible to locate where he was hiding.
In the middle of the desert, the clone soldiers built an improvised camp out of wooden carts, and Septimus arranged a rotation of clone guards as sentinels.
The camp's defenses were strong because Septimus believed it was highly likely that the Numidians who had escaped would return to attack again.
Among the supplies looted from the enemy were the provisions and water necessary for the Numidian army to survive in the desert.
Without water, the Numidian soldiers who deserted only had the option of dying, and Septimus understood that once they realized the situation, the probability of the fleeing Numidian soldiers returning was very high.
Night arrived quickly, and just as Septimus expected, the Numidian soldiers arrived in small groups with the intention of surrendering.
Septimus had overestimated the enemy's will to fight and their ability to navigate through the desert.
The greatest killer of the Numidian army during the war was the endless desert, which caused many Numidian soldiers to become lost.
Fortunately, a large portion of the soldiers were not very far from the battlefield and managed to return and find the Roman camp.
Many Numidian soldiers also had the misfortune of becoming lost forever in the vast desert.
Time passed quickly, and after a good rest, the clone army had recovered much of its fighting spirit.
On the other hand, throughout the entire night, the clone army captured numerous groups of unarmed enemy soldiers who proactively sought to surrender.
The number of Numidian soldiers who surrendered reached the astonishing figure of nearly 20,000 people.
The less than 20,000 Numidian soldiers were gathered like cattle by the clone army.
Septimus coldly looked at the enemy soldiers with ragged clothes and numb faces who were piled together and sat across the vast desert with tired and numb expressions.
The Numidian soldiers who fled and later returned realized that due to the lack of supplies and water, they would not be able to escape from the Sahara Desert.
Surrendering meant living as a slave, but it was better than dying in the vast desert.
Septimus observed the prisoners for a brief moment before making a decision regarding their fates.
With a thought from Septimus, the clone soldiers lined up and separated the prisoners into small groups of between 200 and 300 prisoners.
On the other hand, the allied tribal leaders who had remained on the sidelines during the previous day's battle also returned with fake smiles on their faces, showing respect to Septimus and congratulating him on his victory.
Septimus ignored the allied tribal leaders; it was a waste of saliva to speak with dead men.
Upon observing the division of the prisoners into small groups, the tribal leaders became excited, believing that a new slave auction was about to begin.
The first group of prisoners was taken 1 kilometer away from the camp under the gaze of the tribal leaders and the other prisoners.
The clone soldiers tightly tied the prisoners' hands.
Dozens of clone soldiers carrying thick clubs slowly approached, their footsteps on the sand reverberating in the minds of the Numidian soldiers.
With a dull strike and the sound of a tree branch breaking, the first clone soldier used the thick club to strike the knee of the Numidian prisoner.
A painful groan came from the Numidian prisoner's mouth, and afterward, more and more groans of pain began to sound.
Septimus intended to break their knees and let the desert do the rest of the work.
A quick death for the enemy could not ease Septimus's resentment over the constant harassment he had suffered during the last few days, and the best revenge would be to break their knees and let them die in despair throughout the vast desert.
The clone soldiers removed the ropes they had used to tie the prisoners and left them to crawl across the sand with their knees broken.
The same scene repeated itself in three other places, and the clone soldiers constantly went back and forth with groups of prisoners each time, repeating the same task of breaking their knees and leaving them to crawl through the desert.
Among the supplies, there were not enough ropes to tie up nearly twenty thousand prisoners, and the clone soldiers could only improvise by reusing the same ropes.
The first to realize the abnormality of the situation were the tribal leaders.
The Romans were taking the prisoners into the desert in groups, but when they returned, they did not bring back any prisoners and instead came back to collect another group of prisoners, constantly repeating the process.
An ominous premonition invaded all the tribal leaders present, and some ordered their warriors to secretly follow the Romans.
After three hours, the truth came to light, and the tribal leaders learned of the Romans' actions.
On the other hand, hundreds of Numidian prisoners had been abandoned in the Sahara Desert with their knees broken.
Septimus had enough time to break the enemy prisoners' knees, but he did not have enough time to try other kinds of more interesting torture games.
The water in the Numidian army's supplies was sufficient to advance toward the city of Thala.
It should be noted that during the battle, the clone soldiers avoided using the 10 elephants because Septimus considered them more useful in a siege battle.
The siege of fortified cities limited the clone army's abilities too much, and the war elephants could be more useful for bringing down a city's gate.
A dozen clone soldiers with hammers, metal stakes, and chains could make use of the elephants' brute strength to bring down a city's gates.