Chapter 197 — The Beast Who Studies Humans
Silva was not a brute.
Few humans believed that.
They saw his towering body, his claws, his fangs, and the golden eyes of a predator.
To them he was a monster who crushed enemies through raw strength.
A beast.
That assumption was precisely why he had won so many battles.
Silva was not merely a beast.
He was a hunter.
And hunters studied their prey.
Long ago, when he first began fighting humans, Silva had found them amusing.
They were weak.
Fragile creatures with dull claws and brittle bones. Even the strongest human knight could barely match the strength of an average Beast warrior.
And yet—
Humans fought.
They built walls.
They formed armies.
They devised formations and tactics.
They created strange machines that hurled stones across battlefields.
Silva had found that interesting.
But what fascinated him most was not their weapons.
It was their hearts.
Human armies did not collapse when their bodies failed.
They collapsed when their spirits did.
Silva first noticed it during one of his earliest battles.
A human commander had died in the middle of combat.
The soldiers who had been fighting fiercely just moments before suddenly hesitated.
Then panic spread like wildfire.
Within minutes, the entire army fled.
That moment intrigued him.
Because Beast warriors did not fight like that.
Beasts fought until they were dead.
They followed strength.
Humans followed hope.
That discovery changed everything.
Silva began watching humans more carefully.
He studied their expressions during battle.
Their voices.
Their movements.
He watched how they reacted when victory seemed close.
And how they reacted when defeat loomed.
Slowly, he began experimenting.
Sometimes he would allow a small human unit to win a minor skirmish.
Their morale would rise.
Their commanders would grow confident.
Then Silva would strike suddenly with overwhelming force.
The collapse that followed was far worse than a simple defeat.
Hope made the fall deeper.
He learned another lesson during a siege.
Instead of attacking the walls directly, Silva surrounded the fortress and cut off its supplies.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
The human defenders began arguing among themselves.
Rumors spread.
Trust eroded.
By the time Silva finally attacked—
The defenders had already defeated themselves.
Humans, he realized, possessed something remarkable.
They could inspire each other to impossible bravery.
But that same ability could be turned against them.
Hope could become despair.
Courage could become fear.
Unity could become suspicion.
And if a skilled hunter understood how to manipulate those emotions—
Entire armies could be destroyed without ever swinging a claw.
Silva’s strategies grew more complex with time.
One battle became two.
Two became five.
Soon every war became layers within layers.
He planted false information among captured scouts.
He allowed spies to escape with carefully crafted lies.
He orchestrated retreats to lure enemy armies into traps days later.
He struck supply lines just before decisive battles.
He assassinated beloved commanders moments before victory.
Each plan was a puzzle.
Each battlefield a game board.
And human morale—
was the piece he moved most often.
The Demon King’s court soon noticed.
Battles that should have lasted months ended in days.
Human armies collapsed with minimal Beast casualties.
Fortresses surrendered without prolonged sieges.
Soon the title spread throughout the Demon Army.
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Silva, the Beast General.
But among the high command, he was known by another name.
The Mind of the Beast Army.
Because Silva did not merely defeat enemies.
He broke them.
And yet—
There were rare moments when humans surprised him.
Moments when they refused to break.
Moments when they fought beyond logic.
Beyond reason.
Beyond survival.
Silva respected those moments.
They made the hunt interesting.
Today had been one of those moments.
The memory of the battlefield returned to him.
The human knight.
The storm-wielding warrior.
The one who had stood alone.
Silva looked down at the wound across his torso.
Still bleeding.
Still burning.
“…Caelum.”
The name lingered in his mind.
A human who had understood something important.
Victory was not always about winning the battle.
Sometimes—
it was about buying time.
Silva slowly smiled.
“A worthy banner.”
Behind him, the Beast Army marched back toward their encampment.
The battlefield faded behind them.
Smoke drifted across the darkening sky.
The day had ended in victory.
At least—
that was what it should have been.
Something was wrong.
Silva smelled it first.
Smoke.
Not the distant smoke of battle.
Closer.
Fresher.
He stopped walking.
The army behind him slowed as well.
The wind shifted.
And the scent grew stronger.
Burned grain.
Burned leather.
Burned meat.
Silva’s golden eyes narrowed.
“…Report.”
A Beast soldier rushed forward and bowed.
“General! The supply camp—”
He hesitated.
Silva finished the sentence for him.
“…has burned.”
The soldier lowered his head.
Silva resumed walking.
But his pace had changed.
Faster.
When he reached the camp, the situation became clear immediately.
Several supply wagons had been reduced to blackened frames.
Barrels had exploded from the heat.
Sacks of grain lay torn open across the dirt, their contents ruined by fire and mud.
Dead Beast soldiers littered the ground.
The camp had been attacked.
Silva crouched beside one of the corpses.
A clean blade wound across the throat.
Professional.
An elite unit.
“Explain.”
Another officer stepped forward nervously.
“Human raiders infiltrated the camp, General.”
“How many?”
“Unknown… but likely a small elite team.”
Silva’s ears twitched slightly.
“Continue.”
“They were discovered shortly after entering the perimeter.”
The officer swallowed.
“We nearly surrounded them.”
Silva stood silently.
“Then what happened?”
“…Orcs.”
Silva glanced at him.
“Orcish warriors. They charged our line and broke the encirclement.”
Several nearby Beast soldiers lowered their heads.
“Our commander attempted to stop them… but she was killed.”
Silva looked across the battlefield.
Several corpses lay nearby.
Large wounds.
Heavy weapon strikes.
Orcish work.
And the serpent commander lay brutally torn in two.
“And the humans?”
“They escaped with some of the rations.”
Silva walked slowly through the burned camp.
His mind was already calculating.
Destroyed wagons.
Burned grain.
Lost supplies.
Stolen provisions.
“How much remains?”
The officer hesitated.
“…Four days. Five if we ration.”
Four days.
Silva’s mind ran through the numbers.
He had mobilized a large force for this offensive.
Too large for a prolonged halt.
The loss was… inconvenient.
But not catastrophic.
There were still supply lines behind them.
More caravans would arrive.
If necessary, he could slow the army’s advance and wait.
The campaign would continue.
He stopped walking.
“…Selvara.”
One of the officers stiffened.
“The assassin unit has not reported back yet, General.”
Silva’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“She was not alone.”
“No, General. You assigned another operative as backup.”
“And neither has returned.”
“…No.”
Silence fell.
Selvara was not merely an assassin.
She was one of his most reliable agents.
Efficient.
Patient.
Creative.
If she had succeeded, she would have reported.
If she had failed—
She would still have reported.
The absence of a report meant uncertainty.
And Silva disliked uncertainty.
His mind began assembling possibilities.
Target eliminated.
Target escaped.
Target captured.
Selvara dead.
Selvara compromised.
Selvara betrayed.
Each possibility shifted the balance of the board.
Silva closed his eyes briefly.
Calculating.
He had killed Caelum.
But he had lost supplies.
He had lost a camp commander.
And two trusted assassins had vanished.
“…Not profit.”
He opened his eyes again.
“…A slight loss.”
The officers nearby stiffened.
But Silva simply turned away from the burned wagons.
“It changes nothing.”
The Beast Army still outnumbered the defenders.
The fortress could not hold forever.
And new supplies were already on their way.
“We halt the advance for two days.”
The officers nodded quickly.
“Yes, General!”
“Reorganize the supply distribution.”
“Prepare defensive patrols.”
“If the humans attempt another raid…”
His golden eyes gleamed faintly.
“…this time we will be ready.”
The officers hurried to obey.
Silva looked once more at the ruined camp.
The humans had managed to wound him today.
Twice.
Once with steel.
Once with strategy.
His smile slowly returned.
“Interesting.”
Then he began walking again.
The game was not over yet.
And Silva… would be hurt for the third time.
That evening, Silva waited.
The hour when the supply convoy should have arrived had already passed.
The camp remained quiet.
No rumble of wagons.
No scent of fresh grain.
No exhausted beasts pulling carts along the dirt road.
Silva stood inside the command tent, arms folded, golden eyes fixed on the map spread across the table.
“…Report.”
A Beast commander stepped forward.
His posture was rigid, but the tension on his face was impossible to hide.
Silva noticed immediately.
“General,” the commander began, lowering his head slightly. “The supply convoy has not arrived.”
Silva did not react.
“Explain.”
The commander hesitated before continuing.
“…We have lost communication with the back line.”
The tent grew silent.
“Since when?”
“Yesterday, General.”
Silva’s gaze sharpened slightly.
“Our messenger from the rear supply line did not arrive at the expected time,” the commander continued. “I believed the delay might have been caused by injury or an accident along the road.”
A reasonable assumption.
Silva allowed him to continue.
“So I dispatched another messenger from this camp to confirm the situation.”
Silva already knew the rest.
“By normal procedure,” the commander said carefully, “the report should have returned by noon today.”
His jaw tightened.
“But the camp was attacked shortly afterward. The raid forced us to reorganize immediately, and I had no opportunity to confirm whether the messenger returned.”
Silence settled inside the tent.
Silva did not move.
But inside his mind, the calculations had already begun.
Rear messenger missing.
Forward messenger missing.
Supply convoy absent.
Which meant—
Both directions had lost contact.
Silva closed his eyes for a brief moment.
If the rear messenger never arrived, the supply line might already be compromised.
If the messenger he sent forward had also vanished—
Then there was no confirmation of anything.
No information.
No certainty.
Only absence.
Silva slowly opened his eyes again.
Which meant one thing.
He could no longer wait for supplies.
Four days of rations remained in the camp.
Perhaps less.
Enough for survival.
Not enough for a prolonged campaign.
Silva studied the map once more.
The fortress.
The human army.
The stolen rations his enemies had taken from the burning camp.
If he waited—
The humans would gain time.
Time to reorganize.
Time to recover their morale.
Time to distribute the supplies they had stolen from his army.
The balance would shift.
Silva’s claws tapped once against the wooden table.
Something was wrong.
He could feel it.
A faint distortion in the flow of events.
Pieces were moving somewhere beyond his sight.
He could not yet see the hand moving them.
But uncertainty crept quietly into his mind.
And in Silva’s experience—
Whenever that feeling appeared…
His instincts were usually correct.
Silva inhaled slowly.
Then spoke.
“…Change of plan.”
The commanders straightened.
Golden eyes swept across the tent.
“If we wait for supplies, we lose.”
The statement was simple.
Absolute.
Silva turned back toward the map.
“Prepare both battalions.”
The commanders stiffened.
“General… you intend to attack tomorrow?”
Silva nodded once.
“Yes.”
The hesitation in the room vanished immediately.
Orders were already forming.
Silva stepped toward the tent entrance, the cold night wind brushing through his fur.
Beyond the camp, the distant fortress stood beneath the dark sky.
Tomorrow morning he would mobilize everything.
Two battalions.
A crushing assault.
Before the humans could strengthen their defenses.
Before whatever unseen hand was moving the pieces could act again.
Silva’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“…Tomorrow,” he said quietly.
“…we end this.”
