An hour later, Grim's efforts to arm his skeleton soldiers finally concluded. To his surprise, he discovered that when these skeletons were hit, they seemed to display a tiny spark of thought—or maybe it was just their instincts kicking in. Through a rather physical training session of sparring with each other, Grim finally managed to teach them how to wield bamboo spears effectively.
Of course, this "training" came at a cost. Half of the painstakingly crafted bamboo spears were destroyed before they even saw real battle. Grim and his soldiers had to return to the bamboo grove to make more. With his skeleton squad now properly armed, Grim marched them out of the forest, weapons in hand, ready to search for living creatures.
After a thorough search and several encounters with wildlife, Grim finally caught sight of human activity by midday. On a hilltop, a dozen skeleton soldiers stood motionless while Grim, hiding behind cover, peered cautiously down at a small wooden fort.
The camp wasn't large and looked rather makeshift, but numerous figures were moving around outside. Armed with iron blades and dressed in leather armor, they were undoubtedly a group of bandits—a special type of soldier known as Brigands.
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**[Name: Brigand]**
**[Rank: Tier 1]**
**[Talent: Plunder (Gains 1 gold coin for each creature killed)]**
**[Attack: Low]**
**[Defense: Low]**
**[Speed: Low]**
**[Description: Brigands like to block roads and set up camps, convinced this will bring them fortune. Instead, they often end up facing government forces bent on their destruction.]**
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Grim blinked in confusion, staring at the bandits' stats. *Talents? Wait, regular soldiers can have talents? So why don't my skeletons have any?* His skeleton soldiers were already bare-bones in terms of attributes, and now it seemed they'd even been shortchanged in talents. The person who made these skeletons had to be cutting corners; did they even have a proper production license?
Suppressing his frustration, Grim observed the camp for a while and assessed their numbers. Outside the camp, he counted about a dozen bandits on guard, with more swapping in periodically. The most he saw at once was nearly forty.
Grim wasn't sure if there were more bandits hidden inside, so he estimated their numbers at forty. With his fifty skeletons against forty bandits, Grim had a slight numerical advantage. But given the vast difference in combat capability, a head-on fight would spell disaster. If he were going to fight them, he'd need to rally all his troops to maintain any advantage.
In battles, numbers could make or break the undead, and with his troops' poor quality, losing the numbers game wasn't an option. Grim had no doubts that each bandit could take on at least two of his skeletons, maybe more if he were being realistic.
With a quick wave, Grim led his skeletons back into the forest, disappearing from sight. He planned to return at night—his undead forces excelled in darkness, unaffected by the lack of light. Night assaults were their domain.
This bandit hideout was too valuable to ignore; Grim needed the soul energy to upgrade his skeletons. Once he got back to his base, he planned to gather all his soldiers and launch a full assault at nightfall.
As for leaving his base unguarded, Grim had already made up his mind. If he won, all would be well. If he lost and all his soldiers were killed—well, there wouldn't be much point in worrying about the base then. It was victory or bust.
Back at the base, Grim "trained" the remaining skeletons by having them beat each other with the bamboo spears until they all learned how to use them. When night finally fell, a force of one hundred skeletons stood ready, armed with bamboo spears and led by Grim.
Skeleton No. 1 carried a spear as he marched at the front, proudly bearing the flag. Grim disguised himself as an ordinary skeleton, blending into the middle ranks. By the time they returned to the bandit camp, the world was pitch-black, as if the darkness itself were swallowing the landscape. For Grim and his skeletons, however, the green flames in their eye sockets illuminated their surroundings in shades of gray, providing them a clear view.
Grim observed the campfire-lit bandit encampment from the shadows. Only a few guards remained at the gate, and Grim knew he just had to wait. Skeletons didn't feel cold or fatigue; they could wait in the dark as long as necessary. But the bandits were only human. The longer he waited, the weaker their defenses would become.
In the silent night, Grim's hundred-strong skeleton army stood behind the hill like statues, each holding their bamboo spear without so much as a twitch. Across the way, the once brightly-lit bandit camp was gradually plunged into darkness as one torch after another extinguished. The bandits at the gate slouched with exhaustion, and the camp grew quieter by the hour.
By three in the morning, the dead of night, every torch in the camp had been extinguished, save for a few faintly glowing embers by the gate. The remaining guards looked half-asleep, swaying on their feet.
This was the downside of human troops: their combat effectiveness fluctuated with their morale and physical state. At their peak, they could exert up to 150% of their strength, but in moments of weakness, their fighting ability could drop by up to 50%. And when morale was low, they might even flee in terror mid-battle.
On the upside, human soldiers also had the advantage of surrender. If overwhelmed, they might choose to join the winning side rather than fight to the bitter end. With a bit of luck, a human Lord could amass troops in a snowball effect, capturing enemy forces and converting them to their ranks.
The undead, however, were different. Lacking emotions and sentience, undead soldiers were indifferent to victory or defeat. No matter the odds, even if an army of a million marched against a lone skeleton soldier, that skeleton would still raise its weapon without hesitation.
The undead followed their own rules, without fear, without surrender.
Meanwhile, other factions' troops fell somewhere between the extremes of humans and undead. They didn't experience morale shifts as dramatically as humans, but they also didn't get an adrenaline boost in times of high tension. In a way, human troops had the greatest potential for performance swings, depending largely on the Lord's skill in managing and motivating them.
The undead, on the other hand, would perform the same under any leader, whether brilliant or clueless. Their strength remained constant.