Severe Loss

In this 10000 man human army, there were about 2000 Rank 1 Practitioners of all kinds of Paths, and the rest were around 8000 Rank 0 Practitioners, this was excluding the 20 Rank 2 and 2 Rank 3 Commanders.

Even through they suffered losses during the first month of the expedition, they still stood strong at around 9000 men, and most of the deaths were from Rank 0 fodder, they were just too fragile in this environment.

But right now on the battlefield, even through Rank 0s still died the most, Rank 1s were giving them a good chase.

"Ahhhhh, Captain!"

Even if they didn't see the actual process of how their Captains died, once a cold body dropped in the ground, their team members were shocked, after all they spent a month together on the line of life and death, struggling to make a living.

But no matter how shocked they were, the waves of Beasts never stopped and once they lost the protection of their Captain, the Rank 1 Beast leading a pack of Rank 0s was like a wolf let loose among sheep, it was a bloodbath.

"Stand your ground, don't let these mounts step over our pride."

It was the voice of a Rank 2 Commander. In fact every once in a while, these kinds of voices were heard all over the place, and the strange thing was not even one Rank 2 died yet.

The Blood Slaves were already award winning actors, they didn't value people lives anymore, the only thing that mattered to them was serving their Lord.

-Devil State: 70% Complete-

Lucien was still immersed in his massacre and the amount of blood that was actually on his hands was mind-blogging. Killing a Captain almost meant he killed their whole teams, and he was already eating his 50th heart, and if their teams didn't have a second Rank 1, they were doomed.

'I was a bit wrong it seems, the amount of Souls absorbed matters to the Devil State, but it's negativity and the deed that actually push it forward, even if it's meaningless, if the deed is extremely cruel, it will push forward the completion. Those kids back then weren't worth much points, but the deed itself probably pushed the Devil State 20-30% forward.'

'If I was tempted to end these people in an even more cruel way, the State would get completed faster, but temptation has no hold over me.'

Screams and blood sprays came from all around him, but it was as if he was not affected at all, not even a drop of blood could be seen on him. The state of the war was getting increasingly bitter and the moral of the human army was plunging, too many of their teams lost a Captain in a mysterious way, which scared them into thinking that a terrifying beast was in their midst, one they couldn't see or fight.

It was obvious that they wanted to run, but because of orders, that was not an option.

'Hehe, the more you want to run, the easier for me to kill you off.'

Once he ate the 100th heart, the aura around him was frosting over the ground he stepped on and the evil presence was permeating the whole battle field, everyone could feel it subtly. If he was withing their sight, fear would spread inside their bodies, no matter how brave they were.

-Devil State: 90% Completed-

'This is it, even if some teams had more than one Rank 1 Practitioner, I have probably killed with my hands or with the claws of the Beasts more than 400 people, it's almost 1/20 of the army that entered the battle, any more and it would be too risky.'

Lucien exited the Devil State, since if a Rank 3 Commander came back, they could probably see him past the Darkness, the strength of a Rank 3 Soul was not something he could hide from. He already knew the battle was almost over, due to the loss of morale, the Beast Slayers were being slaughtered, and only 6000 were left at this point.

So while shuttling here and there and killing some Rank 1 Beasts, Lucien pondered on his winnings.

'My Soul has probably hit the cap of Rank 2 already, there were just too many victims. Even if I count only the 100 that died in my hands, even if they were barely Rank 1, it is a 5 point increase in Soul per person, so 500 in total.'

'All Existence, what happened with the rest of what Soul Devour steals during the conversion?'

-It is all stored inside the Crimson World in the form of Soul Energy, once the cap is broken through, a rapid growth in Soul is possible-

'That is good, I will keep all the Soul Energy that is gathered during Rank 2 and get a big boost once I break through Rank 3.'

"To all humans, retreat back to our homeland and let's see if they dare chase us."

By the time the sentence had ended, the Rank 3 Practitioners reappeared on the battlefield. The giant Beast also popped in the middle of the battlefield. It had some chunks of it's body missing, but they were regrowing incredibly fast, once it was visible it let a low roar. One of the Rank 3 humans was missing an arm and had a large claw mark on his body. The other lucky commander only slightly injured.

Once they reappeared not a single one of them attacked the lower ranking beings and just stood there glaring at each other, as if nobody else mattered.

The armies slowly pulled apart, with the Beasts being a bit unwilling, but still obeyed the orders from the giant Beast. Once they were out of reach, the armies started retreating and the battle was over just like that, with the human side leaving the mountains with only half of what they had on entry, but each and every one in the army was now a tempered warrior, much stronger in mind than when the expedition began.