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The giant sitting on the central stone chair didn’t even turn his head.

He completely ignored the Zerith Chief’s whining, treating his words like nothing more than a stray fly buzzing near his ear.

This giant was the Grand Chieftain of the Gray Marauders... the supreme leader of this entire four-thousand-man Coalition.

And true to his position, he was a colossal mountain of a man or maybe alien.

Standing nearly twenty feet tall, his upper body so wide and thick with muscle that he looked more like a gray boulder than a living being.

His skin was several inches thick and even then his body was covered in deep war scars.

He lay relaxed against his mammoth furs, casually ripping a massive chunk of raw meat off a six-horn bone with his thick yellow teeth, his eyes full of a lazy, heavy boredom.

Initially, when the Coalition was first formed, the two tribes had almost equal power inside the council huts.

In fact, the Zerith had held slightly more influence because of their bit superior background, their usage of brains, and their sneaky techniques.

The Marauders had been forced to listen to them and follow their lead.

But since the recent birth of another Layer 4 powerhouse inside the Marauder bloodline, and increase in power of Marauder Chief, the balance of power had shifted completely into the Marauders’ court.

In the brutal world of the Orrath, raw physical density and high-layer always trumped clever words and sneaky plans.

Now that the Marauders possessed two true Layer 4 titans while the Zerith only had their old, fragile leaders, the Zerith Chief’s voice had been reduced to nothing.

He was just a small partner allowed to follow the horde and pick at the scraps left in the grass. If it wasn’t for fearing repercussions from their background, he would have devoured them long ago.

Of course that was just the Marauder chief’s thinking, otherwise the situation wasn’t that bad for Zerith yet, and they still had considerable power.

As for the Marauders themselves, they usually didn’t bother to plan anything at all. They didn’t understand the complex traps, and they didn’t care about tactical stuff.

For generations, their strategy had been incredibly simple: gather every muscle in the tribe, form a massive mass of weapons, and just rush the enemy with sheer physical power.

And It had always worked for them. Every single tribe or beast that tried to stand against their heavy stone clubs had been thoroughly trampled and ground into the dirt by their weight.

It’s just the situation of this Veynar, the enemy they had eyes this time was a bit different.

Due to her feats of single handedly defeating three layer 4 beasts. Even though they all are Layer 4, the strength of Veynar tribe’s Warchief Veylara was recognized as strongest in this whole area.

A normal Layer 4 can directly contend with a Layer 4 beast, like the Zerith Layer 4 Chief, keeping in mind that beasts are always stronger than these intelligent races around here due to their raw physical power and primal instincts.

So being able to contend and defeat one is already a big achievement. Of course, Maradurer being inherently stronger, their layer 4 chief could contend with at most 2 layer 4 beasts, which is nothing short of a legendary achievement in itself.

But they didn’t know what strange elixir she had taken.

Veynar chief Veylara had been able to contend and defeat three layer 4 beasts at once.

They had heard rumors that the Veynar tribe wasn’t originally from here and used to be a big tribe. At first they didn’t believe it, but later seeing Veylara’s massive strength, they had to believe it.

And if they could get the Veynar, it means they could get this secret to power too, other than better hunting ground. That was the main reason the chief dared to attack the Veynar.

But knowing that they couldn’t defeat Veynar alone, and definitely not directly, Marauder chief teamed up with Zeriths to use their brains and craftiness to slowly break the Veynar and then defeat them.

It’s just the development couldn’t keep up with plans. They got another layer 4 warrior and were approached by another tribe for secret alliance.

...

Veylara’s legend had spread far beyond the Veynar borders.

The story of her defeating three Layer 4 beasts single-handedly had become a whispered nightmare among the Coalition tribes.

No one knew exactly how she had done it... whether it was some forbidden technique, a powerful artifact, or a hidden bloodline from their mysterious origins.

But the fact remained: she had done what no other chief in the region could claim.

The Zerith Chief, a cunning and ruthless Layer 4 powerhouse, had always been wary of her.

He knew that a direct confrontation would be suicide.

Even with his craftiness and planning, Veylara’s raw power and experience made her a monster on the battlefield.

So he had chosen subtlety... using spies, traitors, and slow erosion to weaken the Veynar from within.

The Gray Marauder Chief, seemingly a simple minded brute with a Layer 4 foundation, had been even more cautious.

His tribe relied on raw strength and numbers, but he knew that despite the higher number of their forces, brute force alone wouldn’t be enough against Veylara.

That was why he had agreed to the alliance with the Zerith... their craftiness and numbers combined with his brute force seemed like the perfect combination to bring down the Veynar.

But the Veynar had proven far more resilient than they anticipated.

They had been using everything at their disposal, quick raids on their hunting grounds, spreading rumors, inciting internal rebellion, using beast tides etc.

Including the most recent night raid by sending Zerith, that should have broken them had instead been turned into a humiliating defeat.

So, the Coalition was forced to commit everything... including secret alliances with other tribe... to crush them before they could recover.

The secret to Veylara’s power was simply too tempting to ignore.