As a commander of troops and as a soldier, Aziz had never expected to ever feel distress at the fact that so many troops had survived crippling injuries. It was not a sentiment that he ever thought was possible; no normal person would consider death as preferable, when compared to medium and heavy injuries.

There was clearly a first for everything, however.

“…that’s the total list.”

“Eighty-three percent with heavy injuries, ten percent entirely crippled, and seven percent unwounded.” Marie’s hands trembled slightly as she took the report. “Medicinal supplies all out of stock.”

Major Xi nodded in silence. “We’ve been working to rotate the troops here into the forward camps and to retrieve the injured ones, but progress is very slow. Thankfully, the demons have stopped attacking our camps, since there’s nothing of value there anymore. If they really wanted to, all these men would have died.”

“Morale is very low, ma’am,” said one of his captains. “Most of these people haven’t had a change of bandages, let alone any medication or poultices to stem bleeding. An order to expand territory would be nothing short of fatal for these people.”

Aziz fell deep into thought. The main issue behind all those injuries could be chalked down to one reason — the demon Demigods were able to take the field. The Demigods of the Five Lands, save for Gaius, had not taken a single step into the Wildlands. They could fly there, true, but the fear of being surrounded by the Demon God’s familiar spirits was deterring them from venturing into enemy territory alone, without fire support.

To make things worse, their artillery hadn’t made a move into the Wildlands either. The East, North and the Republic did not want to send such valuable assets in, especially since no Demigods or Paragons were willing to provide protection for them. The War Council wasn’t wrong in this regard; if the enemy captured artillery guns and turned them on the Five Lands…

“We clearly won this war, so why are we having so much trouble trying to invade the demons?” Major Hans grumbled.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Major Xi pointed up at the black dome. “It’s that damn thing over there. It just made invading the Wildlands so much harder.”

Aziz didn’t quite agree, though. Black dome or not, the invasion of the Wildlands was bound to be a near-impossible task. The demons were capable of reviving over and over again — if they really wanted to destroy supplies, it wasn’t a hard task.

They would just need to keep dying until they succeeded. Their deathless nature meant that they could rampage over and over again, engaging in suicidal behaviour to bring down as many enemies as possible. If the demons hadn’t showed restraint and refrained from killing and wiping out those powerless camps, the entire invasion would have collapsed a day or two after it started.

Personally, Aziz wouldn’t have minded such an outcome, if not for the fact that the price was virtually the lives of everyone sent here. If the entire invasion had indeed collapsed, the Five Lands would have been forced to view the demons as a persistent threat, one that would last even if the Demon God was defeated. Disgraceful actions like pillaging allies and intercepting their convoys would never have occurred.

He breathed in sharply.

Was it possible that Pauline was hoping for a total annihilation of the troops at the warfront? That could account for why she hadn’t ordered the Lords to support the invasion, and it would also explain why support from the Republic had been so lacking for the troops here.

The demons were clearly sparing them, but if Pauline wanted the reverse to occur…

Aziz clenched his fist. He knew where the Minister of State was coming from. She was thinking about a future beyond the demons, a future that would hopefully be conflict-free. Pauline knew that the best way to bring about such a future was to have the Five Lands unify themselves in the face of a common threat, and there was sufficient proof to show that such an approach would work. In the run-up to the Great Divide’s fall, the Five Lands had worked together with an openness that Aziz had never read about in his books.

If the Demon God hadn’t been defeated this easily, if the tides of war didn’t change that quickly…

All that was now water under the bridge, though. The best opportunity for an unprecedented unity throughout the Five Lands had passed. Unless another threat, a threat on the level of the Demon God and the Demon Sovereign he’d witnessed at the Conference of the Four, appeared, the Five Lands would continue their scheming and plots against each other. The act of pillaging allies in the past, now, and in the future, had created animosities that could be lit up by those who wanted an excuse for war.

“Attacking is no good, then.” Marie muttered. “A recommendation to withdraw, at least until the black dome falls, sounds the best idea course of action to take.”

“At the same time,” Aziz added, “this would increase the pressure faced by the other nations. Particularly the Southern Assembly. The only issue is if the State Council would listen to our suggestions or not.”

“Tell them that the soldiers are probably going to revolt if an order to attack was passed down,” said Marie. “And then tell them that a massive drop of morale would be inevitable, unless the prevailing circumstances change, thereby clearing the soldiers and officers of any guilt.”

“That’s not devious enough,” Aziz replied. “We should also aim to guilt-trip the State Council. Tell them that they have no business in dictating objectives until they go down personally to experience the conditions there.”

“Good idea,” Major Xi chipped in. “And then expose them to the threat of Demigods, and see what they think.”

“Hmm…maybe we should kidnap…err, lure the kids of important officers over to the Wildlands,” said Aziz. “And then force their parents to enter the Wildlands to find them. After that, we’ll tell those parents that their children have been conscripted, and…”

Marie and the other officers stared at Aziz.

The colonel glanced at them, nonplussed. “What?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so…scheming,” said Major Xi. “You seemed like the honest type.”

“But he’s quite a devious person, though,” Marie replied.

Aziz glared at the two of them, and then rolled his eyes. “For some reason, I don’t know which insult is worse.”

The others laughed.