Lord Evolution: Starting With SS-rank Skills

It was a few hours until midnight and the battle between Rowan's soldiers and the monster had just ended — quite fortunately, to be honest.

At this moment, the survivor soldiers were seated on the ground of the bloodied battlefield with tired expressions while breathing fast to catch their breath.

Most of the soldiers could be seen sitting beside their dead colleagues, crying. While a few sat alone with traumatized expressions.

Those who came so close to death could not believe their eyes and kept replaying the scene in their head over and over again.

Thoughts like — what if I couldn't move, what if I lost balance and fell down, what if my sword wasn't fast enough to counterattack? — ran through their mind every seconds.

While the soldiers were busy contemplating, Rowan and the captains who were badly injured stood and observed the battlefield with calm but troubled expressions.

Blaze was sitting beside Rowan, consuming the few FF-rank monster cores he stole while Rowan wasn't watching.

He wasn't human and thus was mostly unbothered by the death of the soldiers.

As for Rowan, he was pretty struck by the number of casualties in the just concluded battle.

He had lost more than four hundred men which was more than 30% of the soldiers that entered the battlefield.

'The casualty was more than I expected to be honest,' Rowan sighed and studied the actual report of the battle.

Soldiers - 1577

Casualties - 457

Soldiers left - 1120

It was exactly as he predicted.

Rowan could only sigh.

"This battle wasn't in our favor at all, we lost so many men," Bryce said beside Rowan.

Bryce had a ghastly wound on his right hand, it was a deep scratch which appears to have been afflicted by a pair of sharp claws.

The other captains sustained lighter injuries.

Rowan turned back to look at his captains with a calm expression, "On a short run, yes, the battle was very unfavourable, but take a look at it on a long run; these men would know and understand how to fight and survive monster attacks better at night."

"Most of the soldiers lost their lives not because they were weak but because their fear of monsters at night was still present and holding them back from unleashing their full potential."

"Take a look at Winston, he fought brilliantly because he pushed his fear and other emotions aside and fought with the purpose of surviving. The sooner everyone afapts to that mentality, the better it would be for our people."

Rowan gave the captains a pretty lengthy speech about why he made such a decision.

He could tell from their expression how they judged his situation. Some of them were probably blaming him at this moment for doing so, as they would all be alive and complete if they didn't engage with the monsters at night.

Rowan explanation convinced them a little bit but it wouldn't bring back the dead — they only prayed inwardly that the sacrifice today would not be forgotten.

While these ran through their minds, Rowan turned to the other soldiers and gave a short speech congratulating them for surviving and honoring those who lost their lives.

He ensured to make the cliché and most important promise that none of the lives lost today were for waste.

His speech was deep at some point and even made some men cried, while also boosting their strength to fight more and win in order to honor the death of their comrades.

After Rowan was done giving his speech, he asked the soldiers to move away.

Rowan used his super strength and speed to gather the corpse of his soldiers and monsters into two different positions. Explore new worlds at empire

The monsters are scattered together.

While the soldiers were gently layed on the ground.

He also harvested the monster cores himself which took more than sixty minutes.

After he was done, he made Blaze burn down the monster corpse.

While the monsters corpse were burning.

Everyone gathered around the corpse of their lost comrade and performed their usual funeral ritual before burning the corpse.

The flames from the burning corpse of comrades lit up the night.

Sounds of the soldiers sobbing and swearing could be heard while the flesh melted and burned to ash.

The casualty today was so much, much more than they had imagined.

For the youth soldiers, it was more disheartening but for the older ones who have been in more battles, the pain was pretty bearable.

Rowan feeling at this moment was pretty complicated.

His emotional side wants him to feel and display sadness while his logical part continued showing him the benefits of the death.

Thus, Rowan could only stand in front and observe with a calm expression, the scenery of his soldiers burning reflected in his eyes.

---

After about two hours, the emotional tormoil ended and the soldiers could be seen at this moment relaxing beside their campfires.

They all had their food supply placed in front of them but none of them had have the courage of thought of touching their food.

Other sat down and simply stared at the food or the campfire burning beside them with blank expression.

A few of them had tears dripping from their eyes while others simpe layed their head and stared at the night sky.

None of them seem a little bit motivated.

Rowan observed all these and could only shake his head — their reactions were natural.

Anything lower than this could be considered unnatural.

'Welp, it all happened for character development' Rowan remarked inwardly before turning beside him.

Winston was sitting beside him, eating his meet slowly while observing the others.

'I expected him to react to the death of his comrade, at least a little after our discussion earlier, but he seems immune,' Rowan thought.

Winston seem to notice Rowan gaze on him and he quickly turned to look at him and asked, "Are we still going on a night hunt later?"

"Of course," Rowan replied.

But inwardly he screamed, 'What the heck? You just concluded one hunt and its already passed midnight and you will want another round? Are you even human anymore.'