After Shira left the Spire, she immediately flew to the south. She realized that she didn't have any time anymore. The Leader had said that Silva was already more powerful than her, and, for once, she believed him. It would only be a matter of time until Silva challenged her. After all, Silva was ready to take this risk for his Camp.
Like this, Shira left the Tribe, and she wouldn't return until she had killed three Lords. If she intended to start right now, she would have flown to the west. After all, they had a direct neighbor there. Yet, she wouldn't go there in her current condition. First, she had to wait for her head to regrow. That would probably take some hours.
A day later, Gravis gathered the whole Tribe and told them about his new program. The reactions were mixed. The Lords grew excited when they heard that. Initially, they had believed that there wasn't enough food for everyone. Yet, this solved the whole issue.
The Spirit Beasts, on the other hand, didn't like this at all. An invasion was the easiest way to become more powerful. After all, a powerful commander would kill the enemy and keep them alive.
But why didn't the Spirit Beasts know that it was better to go through life and death tempering? After all, hadn't there been a devastating war some days ago?
The reason for that was simple. Every Spirit Beast, except for around ten from the Sea Camp, were new members. Every old member of the Land Camp had either died or become a Lord. They had seen the effect of tempering. That was why they were so excited.
The new members hadn't seen that effect yet. That was why they were unhappy about this development. A lot of them went to complain to the Oracle or Elder but without success. Yet, the Elder and the Oracle were able to alleviate their worries somewhat.
When the Lords went wild, a lot of Spirit Beasts would become homeless. When that happened, most of them would join the River Tribe. Like this, there would be enough food. Sadly for the Spirit Beasts, the new recruits had to go through a real fight to join the Tribe, just like them. This meant that they weren't easy targets.
This put the Spirit Beasts before a choice. There was no easy way to power anymore. They either had to go through perilous fights or leave the River Tribe. There was no restriction to leaving, and all beasts knew that.
Because of that, over 30% of the Spirit Beasts left the River Tribe to join another Tribe as Prey. At least, if they managed to join another Tribe, they could leech some food from the wars. Yet, the remaining 70% decided to stay.
These 70% now knew that there was no easy way out anymore. They couldn't wait anymore and hope for a lucky invasion, and since they had no other way anymore, they immediately went wild with challenging others.
By now, there were a lot more new members. With one dedicated beast, Liza, overseeing the entire process, one new member after the other appeared. Because of this, even though nearly all Spirit Beasts of the River Tribe had died two days prior, there were more members now than ever before.
As soon as the Lords went crazy, there would be a gigantic influx of new recruits. Gravis had already foreseen this development and ordered the fungus to create 20 more arenas. They would need them all soon.
Meanwhile, the Lords asked the Elder and Oracle how they should proceed exactly. Gravis had informed Orthar and Morn about how he wanted things to be done, and they relayed the information.
Gravis didn't see a bigger territory as an advantage but as a liability. If the territory were bigger, fewer beasts would congregate in one spot, and therefore, there would be fewer fights. On top of that, they would need to send more beasts to overlook the borders.
Because of all these reasons, Gravis informed them that they would only annex the one territory to the west. Currently, the River Tribe was in the southern part of the continent. To the south was the ocean, while to the west and east were some fringe territories.
Gravis informed the two that a width of 1500 kilometers was more than enough. As soon as the territory to the west was annexed, they would only expand to the north. They needed to get closer to the core of the continent to find better food.
On top of that, if the territory were too big, beasts would take longer and longer to get from A to B. Because of that, they would only expand north and keep their current width. After some annexations, they would also move their headquarters further into the continent.
They would still keep the southern territories at that point, but they would only send some Lords to keep watch. Finding these Lords was actually not that difficult. At some point, a beast would feel comfortable enough to remain at its current level. These beasts wouldn't want to fight anymore and endanger their life.
So, Gravis decided to make use of these beasts. As long as these beasts became Lords, they could remain in these territories and rule over them like they were their own Tribe. As long as they kept the steady stream of new sea recruits going, everything would be fine.
In actuality, to these beasts, this was even better than actually having their own Tribe. If they had their own Tribe, they would need to be careful of beasts that became powerful enough to overthrow them. In that case, they would never dare to let another Lord rise.
Yet, they didn't need to care about that with their new status. As soon as a new Lord rose, they would just be sent further inward.
Gravis had planned this whole thing out. He would make a long street going far into the continent. As the number of recruits grew, and as the average strength of each soldier increased, he would create multiple checkpoints along the way. As soon as a beast reached the next Rank or level, they would progress to the next checkpoint, if they wanted.
Yet, all of this was far into the future. Right now, the Lords had heard something very interesting from the Oracle and the Elder. The whole expansion into the north only referred to the territory. It didn't mean that they couldn't attack other Tribes to the east and west. It just meant that the Tribe would just leave these areas empty.
This meant that the Lords had no boundaries. As long as they attacked a Tribe alone, they could go absolutely wild. One Lord could even just continue going in one direction until they became a level two Lord.
Additionally, some uninformed Lords from other Tribes or the ocean would notice that a new territory had opened up. Then, they may decide to invade that land and expand their Tribe or create a new one. At that point, the food would have basically restocked itself without them having to do anything.
The last rule only entailed that they should advertise the River Tribe after killing the Lord. This was not hard. In the case that the Lords found a powerful territory with more than one Lord, they had to report to the Elder or Oracle. After all, they wouldn't be able to take such a land solo. Though, if they were confident, they could try it anyway.
After hearing all the specifics, nearly every Lord shot off into the distance. They all scattered and tried to find a direction where no other Lord from their Tribe would go. After all, it was first come, first serve.
Meanwhile, the Lords of the neighboring Tribes had no idea that an apocalypse was coming. No Tribe expected that some newly conquered territory at the edge of the continent housed over a dozen Lords.
Meanwhile, these Tribes only had one Lord with average Battle-Strength.
There were only so many neighboring territories, and in total, there were more Lords from the River Tribe than there were territories neighboring them. Because of that, faster beasts would arrive first. Slower beasts noticed that someone from their Tribe was already fighting and just continued running further away.
If the neighbors were already busy, they could always go to the neighbors' neighbors.
And with that, the River Tribe expanded with ridiculous speeds.
