The overall situation continent was different depending on who you talked to.

  If the conversation was brought to the common citizen in most nations, then they would likely talk about the increased tension but how it was different when the enemy were Goblins.

  Back when a fight was going to potentially start between the Humans and the Demi-humans, the tension then was so intense that it caused a different type of weight to fall on the shoulders of the people.

  The situation is different now.

  The tension is still very much real, since that would always be the case when any type of military or war related situation was involving multiple nations at the same time.

  But for the most part, no one was overly worried about the situation. A bunch of troops were being gathered to eliminate a bunch of Goblins. That was the main sentiment among most of the common populace.

  Asking one of the soldiers heading to fight on the other hand would result in talks very typical of any individual going off to fight a war where there was no room for mercy.

  Since everyone involved from all parties were not new to war, and were also of sufficient strength, there was no one stressing or crying about the situation they faced, but war was war.

  What did it matter how strong they were if their enemies were just as strong? Some of them would not be coming from this war. Even if they absolutely destroyed the Goblins, it would not come without casualties.

  This was something all of them knew.

  Whether it was fighting people in their own respective races, against another, or now being sent off to fight Goblins, the fact that some of them would die wouldn’t change.

  War was war.

  And there were multiple facets to war.

  One that a few specific forces on the continent were learning would include them in ways they hadn’t expected.

  The Shadows of Verdan, and the members of the Black Wolf Tribe were now learning that their roles were far more important than they thought it would be.

  And that wasn’t to say their roles wouldn’t have been important before, but it mostly going to be reserved to scouting the enemy, sabotaging the enemy, and a few effective assassinations where possible.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Now they were still going to do all of that, but having to counter opposing assassins for some reason wasn’t in the plan of attack. It was odd. For any force on the continent, planning various degrees of subterfuge and counter intelligence practices would be standard.

  It was the same reason why the Black Wolf Tribes were trying to scout Human lands at the same time, and why the Shadows of Verdan had assigned a squad to watch those same Black Wolves.

  It was expected for those respective parties to teams that make their money in the dark.

  And it wasn’t just those two.

  If you were a major nation, then you likely had a spy or intelligence division of some sort. It was standard.

  Yet…for some reason, the idea that the Goblins would have their own such division was collectively ignored.

  Perhaps a layman might think that was a stupid oversight, and if Goblins could reach the Seventh Tier, then they could have spy divisions, but that ignorance would be due to the fact they didn’t know the trade.

  Years…it took years for someone to master the art of maneuvering the dark. Even the word dark or shadows didn’t necessarily mean they only operated in the nights either. No organization would be worth a damn if they could only move during the night.

  One had to also know how to both disappear from the reality of others when it would be the easiest to be seen, and to also blend into a place they would otherwise stand out in.

  It was truly hard to imagine that the Goblins had reached a point in their development of this type of force, where they could outwit the likes of the Shadows of Verdan and the Black Wolf Tribe.

  That was the surprising part.

  The Goblins having a presence in the dark wasn’t the surprising part. Even the most rudimentary races and groups, had scouts of some sort, let alone an intelligent race that produced Tier Sevens.

  What was surprising was that they were able to come and go in the Human lands without explicit notice.

  So now both groups were moving to correct their oversight. Groups of individuals were now scouring every nook and cranny for signs of Goblins. Every report no matter how small it was being investigated.

  Every scent was being traced, every mention of the color green was being looked on with scrutiny, and nothing was spared their senses.

  Yet…all of them were left with far more questions than answers.

  The Goblins.

  There are no more signs of them.

  Even after ramping up operations to the maximum and actively looking for the Goblins in question, there were still no signs of them at all.

  Of course, it wasn’t a matter of knowing where the Goblins went off to. That was mostly guessable. The Goblins could have went in any one direction, but it was highly likely that they returned to their home in the north.

  The problem was that their weren’t any significant signs of where the Goblins had visited. Apart from a stray report about them showing up in a somewhat rural village, and the Black Wolves catching a whiff of their scent, there was nothing else to point to their existence.

  Which means there was nothing to point to exactly what they had managed to learn from being in the Human lands.

  And so the Shadows and the Black Wolves both made similar decision and decided to move outwards.

  If the Goblins had departed from their lands, then it was time to go an explore their own. Now that all parties were aware of the existence of such skilled Goblins, it was time to see if they would actually hold up when they were being pressed.

  When the shadows they were used to seeing now contained sleeping daggers.

  The War in the Shadows has now officially begun.