We weren’t the only people at the Eserian’s border. Hunters and demihuman soldiers from the Houses had decided to leave the safety of Cintre to cull the demons at the forest’s outskirts. Whether they did it for the coin or to protect the farm clusters was unimportant. All that mattered was the number of demons they managed to slay.

I noticed early enough that not a single Tier-1 Chosen had joined the front line. Some stayed way back, bows and magic foci at the ready, but they did not move closer to the Eserian’s dense undergrowth.

The bushes rustled once more, and Jer shifted. His war axes were drenched in dark blood, and so was the rest of his body. He didn’t bother collecting the horns and claws of the demons he’d killed either. All he cared about was the death of his nemesis and the Essence that gave him the strength needed to keep going.

While most demons coming from the Eserian were Lesser Demons, Tier-2 Demons were hiding in the thicket as well. It was just that they weren’t foolish enough to emerge from the Eserian’s safety to face the bombardment of dozens of Chosen waiting for them.

Thus, we had to focus on the Tier-1 Demons that were foolish enough to attack.

My subordinates did well in riling up the demons roaming the Eserian. While they did not manage to stir up many Tier-2 Demons, they gathered groups of Lesser Demons over the course of an hour and guided them out of the Eserian.

Being hungry surely played an important role, but I wanted to believe that my subordinates were the sole reason the shrubs alongside the Eserian’s border stirred.

My subordinates slowed and let the Lesser Demons take over. While I couldn’t sense the full extent of their actions, I knew they had returned to the Eserian to search and rile up more Lesser Demons. How they did that, I still didn’t know, but considering the Trickster Demon had joined them, they had some way to communicate.

Trickster was the only Lesser Demon I’d seen talking in the demonic tongue. He was physically much weaker than the others but made up for his shortcomings with tricks and an abundance of intelligence. And he used most of that to help us clear the Eserian.

Focusing back on the rustling bushes and the Lesser Demons emerging, I watched as bolts made of fire and ice whistled through the air. Arrows coated in a shimmering, radiant light followed suit, digging deep into their targets’ flesh.

Watching no less than 50 demihumans and fae use long-range weapons to eradicate the Lesser Demon threat was interesting, but I felt like I could have done much better with Galea. Unfortunately, I had yet to learn how to incorporate Galea into my Chimera form. And since I didn’t want to transform into the Gale Wolf right now, I had to watch the archers and mages release several volleys of deadly projectiles before it was our turn to move.

The deadly barrage whittled down the Lesser Demon force to two-thirds, which was still enough to maintain a numerical advantage, but nowhere near enough to actually inflict massive damage. Jer was the first to charge. He crashed into the group, impaled one of the Lesser Demons with his horns, and burst through their ranks like the bull he was. I would never tell him that, of course, but it clearly looked that way.

Regardless, I followed suit quickly. Without Burst, I was still more agile than Jer, but I let him take the brunt of the attack. His Bloodline healed him rapidly, and it even empowered him the more injuries he sustained. In exchange, he lost his reasoning the more intensely he fought, but that was not an issue I had to pay much attention to. After all, I stayed far enough from him to stay out of his axes’ way.

Using Blade of Astor against the Lesser Demons made it seem like I was fighting a weak Tier-1 monster. The blade carved through the strongest of the Lesser Demons’ hide with ease. I killed no less than a dozen foes, weaving through their ranks with practiced ease, and subdued just about six—four if one excluded the two Jer killed in rage.

Those that managed to survive were sent back to the Eserian, where they’d meet up with Trickster and the other Lesser Demons, as long as they weren’t killed by the Tier-2 Demons, that is. While most didn’t really take any note of it—or they simply didn’t care—I noticed an interesting oddity among the Lesser Demons emerging from the forest: they were unaffiliated.

I hadn’t seen many Lesser Demons forced into submission, but through my Bond with the Trickster Demon, I learned that there was more to it. The Outsiders of the demonkin were in the outskirts of the Eserian. They had been shoved aside, deployed to the outskirts and the bordering countries and alliances to fight and to die.

Maybe their plan was to use the Outsiders to scout the Forea Alliance and the Zetrian Empire, or they simply did not care about them, but the fact was that the Outsiders died en masse. As for those that were marked by an Insignia, they didn’t attack. They watched in silence, hiding high in the trees.

Trickster kept me informed, which was quite difficult, considering how troublesome communication between us was in the first place, but I learned enough about the Eserian’s situation to know what I had to do. More precisely, I came up with two ideas.

First, I could turn the Outsiders against those marked with the Insignia of a Clan. That, for one, would make things much easier for me. I’d only have to act like a Commander and watch my subordinates fight. Doing so wouldn’t earn much Essence, but the rewards of the Culling Mission were worth it.

Or, second, I could barge into the Eserian and kill the strongest Outsiders to gain the power needed to force the intelligent, marked Demons into submission. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

I could do either... or just both—forming an army and invading those that invaded what was mine.

Mine? I shrugged at that notion and devised a plan.