Whatever they wanted to do, no matter the profits, they had to hand over 94 percent to the Shepherd and his steadily expanding commoner army.
The Beast had not died. Instead, he had taken up residence in the Shepherd's heart. They had unleashed a colder, more ruthless monster.
It was not as though they had never resisted, but they simply could not defeat him.
With the god-given artifact, the Shepherd's strength stood in a league of its own. Moreover, his methods had become harsher and more targeted during this period.
As for the nobles who obediently cooperated, the Shepherd turned a blind eye. But whenever anyone resisted during this process, he was delighted.
He would announce that he was targeting only the one who had jumped out most eagerly.
And at first, he would indeed deal with only that one person.
Given how lawless the nobles had once been, it was absurdly easy for the Shepherd to find evidence of their crimes.
And what if there was no evidence? To the Shepherd, the very existence of nobles was a sin.
In any case, he truly dared to kill people now.
Under such methods, the fragility of the noble alliance became painfully obvious.
When disaster struck, everyone flew off on their own. They would only ever sweep the snow from their own doorstep.
The nobles appeared powerful, but any individual noble was actually nothing special.
Against the Shepherd, they had no particularly good solution.
And the assistance the other nobles could provide was limited.
Besides that, the nobles had once joined forces to disobey orders. They had even wanted to seek out the Nia God and strip the Shepherd of the power in his hands.
Or simply refuse every command from the Shepherd and treat him as though he did not