"You imbecile!"

As the sound of items breaking spread inside the room, the maidservants lowered their heads more, their faces pale from anxiety.

"I only gave you one order, and you still can’t do it right!" Troy, the chieftain of the Darkmane Tribe, glared hatefully at Bertram, whom he had ordered to keep his son safe. "How dare you return here like a defeated dog? How dare you tell me that if I want my incompetent son and his warriors back, I need to pay their ransom?!"

"I’m sorry, Master!" Bertram pleaded. "I will accept any punishment!"

He looked down at the broken pieces of vase scattered across the floor, not daring to look at his Master, who was currently fuming in anger.

Sadly, Bertram couldn’t possibly escape Troy’s wrath that easily.

A loud slap echoed inside the room as Troy slapped his subordinate’s face without holding back, making Bertram stagger.

"You made me lose face!" Troy roared in anger. "Your incompetence will make our tribe the laughingstock of the entire Borderlands! Tell our warriors to prepare! I will personally crush that bastard myself!"

"M-Master, please wait!" Bertram replied. "The Aslan Tribe has allied with the Grimhowl Tribe! If we attack them, we risk getting into a conflict with Hagen and Gundar!"

"What did you say?!" Troy’s face was now beet red from anger. There were two things that he hated the most in the world. The first was Gundar and the second was Grimhowl Tribe!

Both had been a pain on the back of his neck, but he forced himself to endure because they were stronger than him and his tribe.

Troy forced himself to calm down from his anger before forcing Bertram to tell him everything he knew of this alliance between the two tribes.

"It was the Great Shaman of the Grimhowl Tribe who personally extended this alliance to the Chieftain of the Aslan Tribe, which Leone accepted," Bertram hurriedly explained.

Troy frowned. Gundar was the second-in-command of the Grimhowl Tribe. If he personally offered an alliance to the Aslan Tribe, then it was a serious matter.

However, that didn’t change the great shaman’s position. In the end, he wasn’t the Chieftain of the Grimhowl Tribe. As long as Hagen hadn’t confirmed anything, this alliance was still not set in stone.

"Send a messenger to the Grimhowl Tribe and ask them if they have truly allied with the Aslan Tribe," Troy commanded. "Tell them to leave at once!"

"As you command!" One of Troy’s subordinates hurriedly left the room to carry out his chieftain’s orders.

Bertram lowered his head. He didn’t mind the stinging pain on his cheek because he was more anxious about his Master’s next move.

Troy was very unpredictable. If he wasn’t wary of Gundar’s wrath, he might have already mobilized the army without batting an eye.

However, he didn’t want a repeat of what had happened a few decades ago. They couldn’t risk an enraged Gundar storming their camp and killing the chieftain again.

Troy’s father had suffered such a fate because he had done something that infuriated the great shaman.

The warriors of the camp who tried to stop Gundar had also perished that day. They had been torn apart by Gundar’s bare hands, which made him look like an enraged war god whom no one could stop.

If not for Hagen and his men appearing at the scene to finally beg for him to stop, Troy’s family might have already been long dead.

As such, he both hated and feared Gundar very much.

"Jafar, what do you think of this situation we are in right now?" Troy glanced at the middle-aged man who sat quietly at the corner of the room.

He was none other than the Great Shaman of the Darkmane Tribe, as well as Troy’s second in command.

"I find all of this very unpleasant to the ears, Master," Jafar replied. "You should have listened to my advice to not send your son into this... joint venture with the Bloodtusk Tribe."

"What’s done is done." Troy waved his hand to dismiss the maidservants inside the room, allowing them some privacy. "What I want to know is what can we do about it?"

Only three people were left inside the room.

Troy, Bertram, and Jafar.

The shaman played with his beard as if carefully considering his tribe’s options.

"Regardless of whether the Aslan Tribe is really allied with the Grimhowl Tribe or not, we can’t carelessly make a move against them," Jafar replied after a few minutes of silence. "Even if Hagen doesn’t recognize the alliance, Gundar still poses a threat.

"Since that old bat that refused to die has personally extended this offer of alliance, it means that he thinks highly of the Chieftain of the Aslan Tribe. As such, attacking them now carries a great risk. A risk that we cannot take."

"Are you saying I should pay the ransom instead?" Troy said through barely restrained anger. "A weak tribe asking me to pay them ransom?!"

"A tribe that defeated the Bloodtusk Tribe and their allies is not a weak tribe," Jafar stated. "Sure, they are still far from the level of the high-ranking tribes. But this victory alone is proof that they can stand on their own.

"Also, Bertram’s story intrigues me. A fortress made of stone on Grimjaw Mountain? Even if they brought a thousand more warriors with them, the ending would have been the same."

A fortress could only be bypassed if the tribes had brought their shamans, who all possessed powerful offensive magic to destroy the walls.

They would also need strong siege weapons like a catapult to give them a chance of winning.

The Bloodtusk Tribe had shamans, but their specialty was curing diseases and healing people of their injuries. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Since Ross had been very confident of his victory, he hasn’t brought any of them to the war. Also, even if they were there, they would have just become one of the victims of the traps that Daedalus had prepared for their enemies.

"For now, the only thing that WE can do is minimize our losses by absorbing the Bloodtusk Tribe into our fold," Jafar added. "We should act now before the other high-ranking tribes think that they can steal what is ours to begin with."

"You’re right." Troy nodded. "But since I don’t want another mishap to happen, I need you to personally handle this matter, Jafar."

Jafar stood up. "Might as well. I’d hate it if we got another incompetent subordinate who has no idea what he’s doing to do it. The mission couldn’t be any simpler, yet they still fail in the end. Truly the peak of incompetence."

The shaman gave Bertram a side-long glance before leaving the room.

The Aslan Tribe had piqued his interest. It was not only because they managed to defeat the Bloodtusk Tribe, which was a great achievement, but also because of Gundar.

After all, the Great Shaman of the Grimhowl Tribe didn’t usually care about other matters outside of his tribe.

But since he made an offer of alliance, it meant that the Chieftain of the Aslan Tribe wasn’t an ordinary person.

’It doesn’t matter,’ Jafar thought. ’I’ll be seeing him sooner or later.’

The Great Shaman of the Darkmane Tribe smiled evilly as he prepared himself to subdue the remnants of the Bloodtusk Tribe.

What he and Troy needed was an opportunity to crush their rivals. He would deal with the Bloodtusk Tribe first.

After the situation stabilized, he would then formulate a plan on how to make the Aslan Tribe become their new pets.

Troy and Jafar were secretly biding their time to build up their forces, which they planned to use to become the true rulers of the Borderlands.

His research was complete, and he only needed a few test subjects to test it out.

He believed that once he succeeded, the Darkmane Tribe would no longer have to worry about the Grimhowl Tribe or the Warclaw Tribe ever again.

’Soon...’ Jafar smiled evilly. ’Soon, everyone will know who the real ruler of the Borderlands is.’

He had spent many years sowing seeds in places not even Troy knew about.

And now that they had taken root, and fruits of his labor were almost ready for harvest, he would not allow anyone, not even the Great Shaman of the Grimhowl Tribe nor the upstart Aslan Tribe... to get in his way!