No one had ever seen a battlefield like this.
There was no formation, no tactics. There were no clearly marked ranks, nor legions advancing and retreating in orderly fashion. Everywhere one looked, there was only the most primitive and savage chaos, a brutal melee. All sorts of demi-human races and beasts swung weapons and claws wildly across the battlefield. From the very beginning, the battle had swept across the entire wasteland as though it had completely run out of control. This seemed less like a holy showdown between Order and Chaos and more like a savage brawl within Chaos itself—the two sides tore into each other as though devoid of reason, making it almost impossible to tell which ones were the monsters.
Perhaps, in the eyes of some humans, both sides were monsters.
Yet only those who understood the demi-human races could see that the battlefield was not truly chaotic. Some order, different from that of human armies, had controlled the situation from beginning to end. This order was based on countless demi-human tribes, on tribal leaders headed by shamans and barbarian warlords, and on the primitive laws of animal instinct. The Beast Tide had naturally divided into hundreds of smaller warbands as soon as the battle began. Each warband was a tribe, and each tribe's leader managed their own area according to the strict law of strength. This law had once determined the hunting grounds of every tribe in the Black Forest. As the pack leader led them across the Black Forest, not one chieftain or shaman had forgotten these things that had practically become instinct.
The powerful ancient creatures enjoyed the most opportunities to hunt and the right to challenge powerful foes, so the behemoths charged at the very front, serving as the legion's generals. The numerous and