Whoosh!
Jessy immediately fled into the distance after she managed to get a grasp on the situation. The plan had fallen flat, and her fellow spy, who had been even a bit more powerful than her, had died instantly. She couldn't stay here!
"Not so fast, dear," a voice came from behind her suddenly.
Jessy felt shocked, and fear raised its ugly head as she realized that she didn't recognize this beast's voice. The terrifying thing was that she hadn't felt the presence of this beast before. This meant that this beast was very likely even more powerful than her!
BRRR!
Thick walls of earth rose in front of her, cutting off her path of retreat. Just with her experience alone, Jessy was able to feel the hardness of these walls, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to crush through them in a timely manner.
Additionally, there was a bigger reason why she didn't continue. Right in front of her, on top of the newly raised wall, sat a beast casually.
"Why don't you listen to what I have to offer?" the small badger said casually.
This was the same badger that had welcomed Gravis when he had been in his first invasion. This badger was the master of the mantis that acted as the Commander of that one defensive line.
How did all of this happen?
When Gravis asked the Empress for an opponent, she had thought about something. In the last ten years, the number of spies had risen significantly. This gave her two options to consider.
Either the sea beasts had always had so many spies previously, and they were only now managing to uncover them, or something in the sea beasts' conduct had changed drastically in the last couple of years.
The Empress had enough knowledge to deduce the correct answer. If the sea beasts always had had so many spies, the battles wouldn't have been so even over the past few centuries. Spies gave an incredible amount of intelligence, which would allow the sea beasts to triumph more. Because of that, the Empress was sure that the sea beasts just recently started pushing in more spies into the land beasts' territory.
Another reason that made her come to this conclusion was the average outcome of the battles that had been happening over the past decade. For hundreds of years, the battles between the land beasts and sea beasts had been even. The land beasts won a battle, and then the sea beasts won a battle.
This entire dynamic changed a little more than ten years ago. Right now, the sea beasts were winning more battles than they were losing, which hadn't happened in an incredible amount of time. The fact that the sea beasts won more battles broke the entire balance in the war. Something like this didn't just happen randomly.
Interestingly enough, the reason for the sea beasts' higher number of victories wasn't their power. In actuality, it was more about the place and the styles in which the battles have been conducted.
When the land beasts attacked, the sea beasts often had a minor edge in numbers and power. If that happened in only one battle, one could simply attribute that to bad luck. Yet, that had been happening for a frightening number of battles.
There was only one explanation that the Empress could think of. There had to be a great Commander and strategist in the sea beasts' ranks, someone that knew a lot more about war than nearly every other beast.
Due to that, the Empress started to change her approach. In the beginning, when the balance was still there, she could get away with not handling things perfectly. Yet, now, every decision had bigger and more far-reaching consequences. If this continued, the sea beasts might gain an additional, huge chunk of the continent.
The Empress remembered Gravis' tales and had asked him more about how humans fought wars. Gravis had told her more about how human societies functioned, and he also told her that the strategies that the sea beasts used were unusual for beasts.
Beasts cared more about the individual than about the greater collective. Due to that, when an Empire attacked, they sent in about as many troops as the enemy had. If they managed to come out victorious, they would get a lot more powerful beasts.
Yet, humans thought and fought differently. To humans, everything was about resources and numbers. Humans weren't as willing to send in an army that would be about equally as powerful as an enemy. They would send in an army slightly stronger or overwhelmingly stronger, depending on what their goals and resources were.
The sea beasts' way of fighting resembled the human way of conducting a war way more. It was almost like an experienced human was leading the sea beasts.
With all of this considered, the Empress asked Gravis how he would deal with spies and traitors. Judging by what Gravis had told her and by how he had described the humans' way of thinking, she saw that their war style had a certain advantage.
Humanity's way of conducting a war was safer than the beasts'. They would take way less risky battles but would immediately overwhelm a weaker force. Due to that, there would be many times fewer casualties in these wars. Of course, the drawback was that there wouldn't appear so many really outstanding humans. After all, the battles were safer.
Additionally, even though traitors and spies existed for beasts, their number wasn't nearly as high as if they were humans. The sudden increase of spies supported the fact that someone very familiar with the human way of doing things helped the sea beasts.
Gravis told the Empress that humans wouldn't directly kill the traitor or spy but feed them false information to lead the enemy into an ambush. Another usage of spies would be to use them to find even more spies. After all, the spies generally knew the other spies.
After a lot of talking, the Empress told Gravis her idea. The striking squad had an unrealistically high death rate. Such an elite squad shouldn't have so many casualties, and all of this reeked of a traitor in the squad. The Empress was 90% confident that the silver wolf was a traitor. Yet, instead of confronting him, she decided to change her approach.
Gravis would enter the squad.
Gravis was the juiciest bait the Empress could offer to the sea beasts. Gravis' Battle-Strength was monumental, and killing him would probably be worth about as much as killing an Emperor. The sea beasts wouldn't be able to withstand such a juicy bait.
Additionally, it just so happened that the silver wolf had an affinity towards lightning. As long as Gravis was there, the silver wolf wouldn't be able to do anything to him. Additionally, not the entire squad could be traitors. This meant that the silver wolf needed to get another companion to guarantee success.
A level three King would be too weak to guarantee success. Because of that, the Empress would be sure that the silver wolf would either get a level four King or a level five King to help him. If it were a level four King, Gravis could kill the wolf and get the opponent he wanted. If it were a level five King, the badger that had secretly followed the squad would deal with them.
This was how all of this came to be.
Yet, one last interesting thing should be explained.
What did Gravis think about the fact that the sea beasts suddenly started conducting war like humans?
Funnily enough, Gravis was probably the only being inside the land beasts' camp that knew the reason why everything had changed so drastically.
His father had told Gravis that there were absolutely no humans in this world. Was his father wrong? Definitely not! What human would be able to hide from him? Even if this Heaven tried to hide the human, the Opposer would easily notice.
So, the only connection that this world had to humans was Gravis. Only knowledge originating from Gravis would be able to make the sea beasts' conduct so human-like.
When Gravis heard all this, he genuinely felt happy.
Why was that?
Because such a Commander and strategist had to be supremely intelligent, a sea beast, and would have needed to have been in contact with Gravis for an extended period of time.
There was only one beast that Gravis could think of when he thought about it.
Gravis felt really happy.
This was the best proof that Orthar was alive and doing very well.