Using locusts to describe the lords was indeed quite fitting.
Driven by profit, the lords would dare brave even mountains of blades and seas of fire.
Expecting their morale to collapse would be easier than expecting the sun to rise in the west.
As long as the mission rewards were generous enough, the lords could fight to the death without rest.
To Duke Jonathan, this war was an absurd bandit-suppression campaign.
But to the lords, it was a fine opportunity to get rich.
Over the past two days of fighting, every surviving lord had gained something, more or less.
Through Point Exchange, their strength was steadily increasing.
Overall, the lords' gains still outweighed their losses. That was why Jonathan felt as though the enemy only grew more numerous the more he fought.
It was not merely because new lords from the surrounding areas were flooding into the battle.
It was also because the surviving lords were rapidly replenishing their forces.
Of course, the most important prerequisite for profiting from this battle was surviving it.
The lords who died in battle were eliminated, and naturally received nothing.
At its core, these temporary missions were still a means of selection and elimination.
Zong Shen's meteoric rise had caused the regional lords' development progress to fall behind.
In order to balance the region's average development progress, this mission had been issued specifically for lords whose total population under their command fell between 500 and 3,000.
It still followed the same principle: victors rose, while losers were eliminated.
Lords like Zong Shen, who commanded tens of millions of people, were clearly not within the mission's invitation range.
His strength had long since exceeded the expected limits.
Besides, Lentax Great City had already been thoroughly picked clean by him.
Even Duke Jonathan's decision to send