When Blade Tusk led 250 soldiers to the designated battlefield and prepared to form ranks, scattered figures of hostile Trolls could already be seen within the distant forest.
But whether it was fortunate or regrettable, these seemed to be merely small advance detachments of Trolls. After seeing the Tusk Tribe's orderly formations, they did not mindlessly charge in for a wave of attack.
They withdrew back into the forest instead, seemingly intending to wait for the main force before launching an assault.
Though Blade Tusk was somewhat disappointed that he could not first eliminate part of the enemy's living strength, he did not order anyone to charge into the forest. He merely directed the soldiers to continue forming up where they stood.
Besides these most elite soldiers, the tribe should originally have possessed as many as 167 hunter squads, a total fighting force of 1,670 Trolls.
But because of earlier mistakes by the decision-makers, fifteen of those squads were now in Nomen, while thirty were in Finae.
Another fifteen had set out three days ago and were currently on the road to Nomen; thirty more had departed a day ago and were at this very moment heading for Finae.
In other words, only seventy-seven hunter squads remained at Headquarters.
Of those, thirteen squads had been crippled in their previous skirmishes, and the number of Trolls who had fled back was less than one-third of a full squad.
Another seventeen squads were scattered across the northern hunting grounds, with no way to contact them at all.
A further thirteen squads were spread throughout the southern hunting grounds, likewise impossible to contact.
Therefore, aside from 250 soldiers, the forces the tribe could immediately use against the enemy were—
Only the thirty-four squads without hunting assignments, along with more than forty survivors who