Day six of the march brought them to the edge of what had once been heavily contested territory.
The border between the Demon Empire and the no-man's land that separated civilizations was marked not by walls or formal boundaries, but by absence.
Villages stopped. Infrastructure ended.
The landscape transformed from managed demon territories into wild expanses that neither empire claimed but both had fought over for decades.
Four hundred miles of this stretched before them.
Empty lands scarred by warfare, dotted with abandoned Radiant Empire outposts from their occupation months prior, still patrolled but no longer fortified to the extent they'd once been.
Liam's victory at Ashard had caused their withdrawal. Now his army would march through the vacuum that withdrawal had created.
"We need to increase pace," Zara reported during morning command briefing.
