With the flight of the Samnite and Lucanian soldiers, the chaotic battle in the mountains turned into a hunt led by the clone soldiers.
For 2 consecutive days, the clone army carried out a pursuit throughout the entire mountain and killed a large number of enemy soldiers.
Septimus wanted to eliminate as many enemy soldiers as possible to prevent them from representing a threat to the region of Campania.
Pontius managed to escape, but the soldiers of his tribe suffered a large number of casualties, with no possibility of gathering an army again.
On the third day, the clones cleared the battlefield and collected the armor and weapons from the corpses.
The corpses of the Samnite and Lucanian soldiers, and of the dead clones, became a banquet for the crows and mountain animals that roamed the area.
The three legions had lost 3,453 soldiers, with a large proportion of soldiers dying from various snake bites, poisonous insect stings, or accidental falls.
The mountainous region of ancient Italy was a wild area with a great abundance of fierce animals and a complete ecological system with little human interference.
The clone soldiers withdrew from the mountain in groups while transporting various weapons and armor from the corpses.
The greatest limitation Septimus had for the formation of a legion was the lack of weapons and military equipment; inefficient mining in the iron mines drastically limited the production of military equipment to arm the clone legions.
Septimus could replicate infinitely, but without weapons the clones would have to use wooden spears to face the enemy or stone weapons, just like the savages of the tribes in the Balkans or present-day northern Europe.
The war in the mountains of the Campania region ended, but the siege battle of the city of Praeneste was about to begin.
Septimus's speculation came true, and Norbanus together with Marius the Younger gathered in the city of Praeneste.
Marius the Younger used his father's influence to form six legions and took shelter within the walls of the city of Praeneste with a large number of nobles and citizens who were enemies of Sulla's regime.
The city of Praeneste became the last bastion in Italy controlled by the populist faction.
Fortunately for Septimus, the city of Praeneste did not have a large amount of supplies to sustain the recent large increase in population, causing that a prolonged siege would be more efficient to conquer the city.
The eight clone legions built a wall and a camp around the city.
Septimus had no intention of attacking the city by force and repeating his previous mistakes.
The two previous forced sieges in the city of Rome caused a large number of losses to the clone army, and the benefit achieved was not sufficient.
Isolating the people of the city of Praeneste would cause them to starve in a few weeks.
Sulla desired that all the people who supported Marius and Cinna be dead.
Septimus did not oppose the idea of massacring the entire city.
At the top of the city wall, the two generals, Marius the Younger and Norbanus, observed thousands of soldiers in black armor and the banner of three decapitated heads impaled on spears.
Everyone knew that the war was lost, including the Roman soldiers who protected the city of Praeneste.
Unfortunately, Sulla desired revenge and would not accept the surrender of the nobles who supported Marius and Cinna.
The army in black armor was known for its cruelty and savage acts.
The soldiers preferred to escape rather than surrender to the army in black armor, and the nobles also knew about the senseless cruelty of Septimus.
Surrender was not an option for the vast majority of people inside the city of Praeneste.
The city of Praeneste breathed an air of despair and imminent doom.
Some nobles resigned themselves to the cruel reality, seeking to numb themselves with wine and women.
Marius the Younger sighed deeply; he knew that the situation was desperate, and it was only a matter of time before hunger defeated the will of the city.
Food reserves would only last two weeks at most, and many nobles refused to reduce their lifestyle.
Norbanus also knew the situation but could do nothing, and his political experience and prestige could not alleviate the lack of food within the city.
In less than two weeks, the city of Praeneste would collapse from within like a house of cards.
On the other hand, Septimus had no intention of launching an attack against the city.
The fortifications of the city of Praeneste were very solid, and the city was not very large, causing that the soldiers of the six legions protecting the city could easily cover all the walls of the city.
The soldiers of the clone army were in charge of building a solid wall around the city to prevent the enemy from escaping hunger.
The situation of the siege of the city of Praeneste was stable, but on the side of Lucullus and Pompey, the advance was smoother.
Most of the cities and villages that were attacked by Lucullus and Pompey represented little threat, and their fragile defenses could not prevent the siege of an enemy army.
The military talent of Pompey stood out and he became a rising star, gaining immense fame by first defeating three Roman legions consecutively and later sweeping through dozens of small cities in Italy.
Pompey's methods were cruel, and he showed little mercy toward the enemy, almost always using any method to achieve his objectives.
One month passed quickly.
The city of Praeneste slowly opened its gates, and hundreds of people and unarmed soldiers came out, advancing slowly with a gaunt expression.
The men, women, and children of the crowd were malnourished, and their steps were slow and without energy.
Septimus observed the crowd from the wooden wall, and with a thought, the clone soldiers aimed their crossbows at the crowd that was slowly approaching the wall.
The crowd approached to within 40 meters of the wooden wall, and hundreds of arrows fell like rain upon their heads.
There were no screams or lamentations, and the people fell easily under the rain of arrows.
The gate of the wall slowly opened, and hundreds of clone soldiers marched out in formation toward the open gate of the city of Praeneste.
A clone centurion leading two hundred soldiers headed toward the corpses of the crowd that had been riddled with arrows with the purpose of killing the survivors.
Sulla wanted a massacre, and Septimus had the intention of fulfilling his desire.
The city of Praeneste was desolate, with small mounds of charred corpses every 200 or 300 meters.
The city's food lasted less than a week, and the extravagant lifestyle of the nobles contributed to the excessive consumption of grain.
Norbanus and Marius the Younger did not have the same determination as Cinna and Marius when facing a crisis or imposing limits on the nobility.
When the food ran out, the soldiers inside the city devoted much of their time to looting the little grain from the civilian population, causing the famine to arrive quickly.
The population inside the city devoted itself to hunting rats, and when the rats became extinct, there were occasions of cannibalism.
Criminal gangs within the city wanted to take advantage of the siege to make money by selling food at high prices, but the problem was that they did not have grain to sell.
The unscrupulous criminal gangs began to sell human flesh as if it were animal meat, causing the limits of the city's morality to break quickly.
Unfortunately, the common population did not have money to buy the meat sold by the local gangs.
Hunger became a strong driving force, and with the gangs taking the first step, the situation of people disappearing worsened rapidly.
The soldiers who protected the city were also affected, and many legionaries who entered the city or patrolled alone began to disappear without a trace.
The problem of cannibalism within the city became so serious that Norbanus had to take measures.
The patrols pursued the criminal gangs, and the corpses were piled up to be incinerated to prevent them from being used as food.