"A proxy," Belladonna caught on.

"Feels so," Leo said, "If this giant... The Exiled Chieftain succeeds in sacking the region, Vorath sweeps in, claims the territory, and takes the gold. If the giant fails and is slaughtered by us... Vorath throws his hands up and says, ’He was a banished rogue. He acted alone. Not my problem.’"

It was a brilliant, cowardly political manoeuvre. It meant Vorath was testing the waters without risking his own neck. It was an assumption, but in Leo’s mind, it was a certified fact.

Leo drew his broadsword. The steel hissed softly in the crisp air.

"Too bad for him," Leo said, his lips pulling back into a predatory snarl, "I don’t play politics with animals."

He then turned to his vanguard. There were Twenty of the best killers from the Blackfang Bandits, plus two of the deadliest women on the continent. He was more than sure he could take care of these Zarth Beastmen.

"Shadow," Leo whispered, not wanting to alert the perceptive ears of the beastmen he is about to slaughter, "You take the three that are on watch."

"Bella. You take the Chieftain. But don’t kill him, incapacitate him before finding someone else to play with."

"And you, Master?" Belladonna asked, her eyes filled with a bit of confusion.

"I," Leo said, his Draconic Bloodline humming, demanding tribute, "am going to do some farming."

And with that without giving a righteous monologue to the Blackfangs behind him, Leo raised his fist, "You are no longer the Blackfang Bandits who laughed as you watched your fellow bandits get killed."

"We have evolved. We are a family now."

"Those beasts in front of you have killed so many of your family members you had a meal with, drank ale with, and shared a woman with."

"They have dared to knock on our doorsteps, and they think they can come for your heads, come for your queen, come for me."

"Now I don’t know if there is hell after we die."

"But today, I want you to show them hell in this godforsaken forest."

"What they did to your brothers, do it ten times... hundred times worse."

And with that he slashed his fist downward like a knife. And without a war cry, the ambush began with utter, silent devastation.

Shadow vanished from beside Leo. In the blink of an eye, she was already standing on the branch of a massive tree. She rustled through the canopy of the trees without making a sound until she was standing right above the Zarthian perimeter guards.

Without wasting a breath, she dropped like a falling star. Before the two towering, tattooed Gorilla-beastmen could even look up, she landed gracefully on the shoulders of the first.

Shink!

Her twin daggers drove downward with surgical precision, sinking to the hilts directly into the ape-like giant’s eye sockets.

He didn’t even have time to scream. The blade severed his brain stem instantly.

As his massive body crumpled, Shadow kicked off his falling corpse, backflipping through the air and throwing a third dagger that buried itself into the throat of the second Gorilla-beast guard.

Two Level 20 Zarthian Gorilla-beasts were dead before the first drop of their blood could even wet the soil.

Shadow didn’t stop. She moved like a blur, melting into the shadows and reappearing a fraction of a second later behind the thick trunk of an ancient oak.

The third guard, a hulking Rhino-beastman with a thick, leathery hide and a massive horn protruding from his snout, was standing with his trousers undone. He had just pulled out his cock to relieve himself in the bushes.

Shadow stepped out from the gloom, and without a warning with a flick of her wrist, her blade flashed low.

SHLICK!

The Rhino-beast’s eyes slowly grew wider in absolute horror as he watched his manhood get detached from between his fingers and fall towards the ground in slow motion.

The pain didn’t even hit his sluggish brain as his severed manhood hit the grass with.

PLOP!

Finally when the pain hit him, and he opened his mouth to scream because of the pain and the shocking sight in front of him, Shadow’s dagger slashed horizontally across his thick, grey neck.

A wet, horrific gurgle tore from his ruined throat as dark blood sprayed in a violent arc, spraying the tree in front of him.

He collapsed to his knees, clutching the gaping wound in his neck with one hand and the root of his cock with other as he drowned in his own blood.

But the sudden spray of crimson caught the attention of a fourth beastman who had wandered over. It was a lanky, scale-covered Snake-beastman. His slitted, reptilian eyes narrowed at the sight of the dying Rhino-beast.

"Ambush!" the Snake-beast hissed loudly, his warning echoing through the quiet woods just a second before Shadow’s thrown dagger buried itself directly between his eyes, dropping him instantly to the forest floor.

But the warning had been sounded.

"Now!" Belladonna roared, a sound that shattered the forest’s stillness like a thunderclap. there was no need to be covert. They still had the surprise element which they cannot lose by being silent and slow.

The Bandit Queen kicked her warhorse into a frenzied gallop. The beast screamed, charging down the steep ridge.

Behind her, the twenty Blackfang Elites surged forward, a tidal wave of polished steel and dark leather.

The Zarthian camp erupted into chaos. The massive beastmen, a chaotic mix of Tiger, Bear, and Gorilla variants roared in their guttural, harsh tongue, scrambling for their massive bone clubs and crude iron swords.

But Belladonna hit the camp’s centre like a crashing meteor.

A massive Dire-wolf, its jaws slavering with human blood, leapt at her horse, aiming to tear the mount’s throat out.

Belladonna didn’t flinch. She stood up in her stirrups and swung her massive serrated Greatsword in a devastating, two-handed horizontal arc.

The heavy blade sheared through the Dire-wolf’s thick neck muscles, cleanly decapitating the beast in mid-air.

A fountain of hot, foul-smelling blood sprayed across the clearing. The headless wolf crashed into the dirt.

Its rider, a giant Wolf-beastman covered in coarse grey fur, fell with it. Before he could even push himself to his paws, Belladonna’s warhorse trampled him, the heavy iron-shod hooves crushing his lupine skull with a sickening, wet crunch.

The melee joined. One hundred hulking beastmen against twenty elite bandits. It was a chaotic, bloody grinder of flesh and steel.

But Leo did not charge the centre.

He was a just a Level 12 adventurer among hundreds of Beastmen and Bandits more powerful than him.

And this was his opportunity to farm as much EXP as he could to level up. His growth has been too slow, and thanks to that, there was a constant sword hanging by his neck to chop his head off.

And a battlefield full of high-level beasts and grunts was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Leo skirted the edge of the fray, his eyes scanning the chaos, until his gaze locked onto a Razor-backed Boar.

The beast was the size of a wagon, its back lined with razor-sharp bristles, its tusks long enough to impale a man whole. It was bucking wildly, trying to gore a Blackfang rider.

Just then the system chimed in

[Target: Razor-backed Boar (Level 15)]

"This is a good start." Leo finally made a move as he closed the thirty-yard distance in less than three seconds.

The massive boar turned its head as he felt a presence behind him, and its small, red eyes locking onto the new threat.

As the boar turned his head towards Leo, wanting to impale him with its tusks, Leo slid forward, dropping to his knees, sliding through the mud directly under the beast’s massive, plunging tusks.

As he slid underneath its chin, he gripped his broadsword with both hands and thrust upward, driving the blade deep into the soft, unarmoured flesh of the boar’s throat.

He used the beast’s own forward momentum against it. The blade ripped a massive, three-foot gash down its gullet and chest.

Hot, steaming blood dumped over Leo like a waterfall.

The boar screamed, its front legs collapsing. It crashed into the mud, twitching violently as its lifeblood poured out.

DING!

[Hostile Killed: Razor-backed Boar (Level 15)]

[EXP Gained: 800]

Leo rolled out from under the dying beast, completely soaked in its blood and its intestines dangling around his neck.

But this was just the beginning, wiping his face, Leo decided to find another target.

And soon he spotted another Zarthian grunt, it was a Level 17 Ox-beastman, injured, clutching a bleeding arm from a slash from Blackfang Bandit.

"Easy!" Leo smirked as he lunged at the Ox.

The Ox had already spotted Leo long ago. As soon as Leo lunged at him, the horned brute turned, raising a bone club.

The Ox-beastman swung the club down in a crushing overhead strike.

Leo twisted his body mid air as he effortlessly dodged the heavy club as it smashed a crater into the ground.

Leo landed on his feet behind the Ox, as he quickly turned and drove his elbow into the beastman’s kneecap, shattering the joint with a sound like a snapping tree branch.

"Mooooo!!!"

The Ox-beastman howled in pain and dropped to one knee. The Ox was now at the perfect height as Leo spun, bringing his broadsword around in a clean, brutal decapitation.

The beast’s horned, heavily-tattooed head flew right into the bonfire.

DING!

[Hostile Killed: Zarthian Ox-Beastman (Level 17)]

[EXP Gained: 900]

"Next," Leo muttered, his blood boiling with the thrill of the slaughter.

For the next ten minutes, Leo became a scythe cutting through the wheat.

He systematically hunted down the Dire-wolves and the scaled reptilian mounts, utilizing his superior speed to avoid their massive attacks.

He picked off the weaker Zarthians Beasts who had already been injured, wounded or being distracted by attacks from the Blackfang Bandits.

[EXP Gained: 750]

[EXP Gained: 900]

[EXP Gained: 300]

[EXP Gained: 450]

[EXP Gained: 650]

[...]

[...]

The blue notifications rained down in his vision, a cascade of golden EXP numbers filling his peripheral sight. He felt the condensed power within his core swelling, expanding, hungering for the breakthrough.

Meanwhile, Belladonna was already in the centre of the camp, a duel of titans was shaking the earth.

Belladonna had found the "Exiled" commander.

Chieftain Kraven, the exiled Lion-beastman giant, roared in fury.

His magnificent golden mane was matted with blood and dirt. He swung the massive, rusted iron ship’s anchor like it weighed nothing. The heavy chain rattled ominously.

Belladonna parried. The impact of the iron anchor against her serrated greatsword sent a shockwave through the clearing that blew out the nearest bonfire. Sparks showered the combatants.

"Puny bitch!" Kraven bellowed, his voice a deafening, feline roar, "I will crack your bones, chop your limbs off and then fuck you until you bleed to death!"

"There is only one man who can touch me, you ugly beast!"

"And you pussy face kitty ain’t him."