Chapter 188

The returning campaign party numbered less than ten thousand. Maxi's expression darkened as she stood on a castle turret, surveying the mass of soldiers in the field. Excluding those who had deserted on the way to the Lexos Mountains, the campaign had cost at least five thousand lives.

Though Livadon, Dristan, Wedon, and Balto's Southern Confederacy all bore casualties, Osiriya's Temple Knights suffered the most. As the campaign's spearhead, they had bravely confronted the dragon using divine magic to neutralize its powers, losing over half their number in the process.

Maxi's brow furrowed as she looked down at the bodies of three hundred paladins in neat rows on one side of the encampment. There was not a hint of sadness on the clerics' faces for their departed comrades or joy at their victory. Like gloomy shadows, they silently waited for the departure signal, and their gravity seemed to infect the adjacent Wedonian army.