One man. Could one single man change the fate of a battle ? I was convinced that it was possible. At the very least, considering the circumstances, I thought I was able to decimate the Orc army.

The Orcs didn’t use Magic at all when fighting due to their extremely poor control of it. They didn’t use sword techniques of the Way of the Swordsmanship like Hell or Tras either. What they relied on was merely their destructive power and raw strength, which was more than enough to beat most weaker races, especially the Dwarves.

But I believed that Magic was a far greater power that was underestimated. And I had the most powerful type of Magic as my asset : Creative Magic.

I mentioned it before but my current strength was only about 80% of my total power due to my constant pain on my left side. Even then, 80% is still an incredible number to me.

After leaving the council house, I used Wind Magic to fly above the gates of the city and I faced the army of Orcs.  It seemed like most of the soldiers had gathered in front of the entrance and were waiting for something.

The one that looked like their leader, considering his more flashy armor, took a few steps forwards and brought what looked like a horn to his mouth. A few seconds after, an echoing voice could be heard throughout the entire city.

“I am Kar’Ballor, first general of Orcia Groupius ! This is an announcement to the Dwarves inside of Crevasse : surrender now and open your gates if you wish to live ! You are surrounded and cannot hope to defeat us !”

“Ha, ha, ha. I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

I landed a few meters away from the Orc and approached him without him noticing. I was now standing a mere 2 meters in front of him. He finally took notice of me when I spoke up, looking surprised.

“A human !? Who are you ? What are you doing here ? Are you on the Dwarves’ side ?”

“Indeed, it looks like I am. You may call me Joker.”

“Whahahaha ! What a dumb human ! And what do you want ? Are you the messenger to tell us they surrendered ?”

“Ha, ha, ha. If anything I would be the messenger of your death.”

“What are you gonna do ? You’re alone against an army of 85,000 Orcs.”

“Watch and pray. Pray for your life.”

I lifted my right arm and about 500 Orcs on my right fell into a giant pit made by combining Creative and Earth Magic.

I lifted my left arm and a wave of about 800 Orcs was exterminated by a fireball of such size that one could have thought it was shot by a dragon.

These two actions decimated quite a lot of Orcs in a mere 5 seconds but also depleted my Mana quite a lot. However, I still had more than enough to keep fighting.

Kar’Ballor looked astonished but he quickly regained his mind and ordered his army to charge.

The Orcs army was approaching very fast, considering how close I was but I had planned such an event and used Gravitational Magic to push them away, all at once. What I did was emitting gravitational pulses from my hands to push the Orcs away. I also cast a magnetic ball in the air that attracted quite a lot of Orcs to it before blowing up and annihilating all kind of life that was stuck to it.

“Prepare yourself. This is nothing compared to what I have in stock for the Porcephone Empire. The Orcs will just serve as the appetizer to accomplish my revenge before I unleash my full wrath upon the Porcephone Empire.”

***

The battle continued to be one-sided like that for a good hour. By then, about 75% of the Orcs had been decimated and I still had not been scratched at all. This was because none of them were able to approach me due to my constant magnetic waves.

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Surprisingly, Kar’Ballor was still alive. I had not been targeting him specifically so one could just say he was lucky not to get caught up in one of my attacks.

However, I was starting to get concerned. My Mana had dropped significantly low due to the constant use of Creative Magic and I could feel I had about 8% of my total Mana left.

At this rate, I would run out of it before I could kill all of them. This wasn’t looking good. It seems like I had overestimated my sustain…

What saved me was the fact that Kar’Ballor did not know that. From what he had just witnessed, he seemed to be considering me like some sort of monster that was too much for the Orcs to handle. That bluff was all to my advantage though, because he used his horn and ordered the remains of the Orc army to fall back.

After a few minutes, the Orcs were nothing more but a sight on the horizon.

It was a good thing that Kar survived. He would be able to tell the other Orcs leaders about how fearsome of an opponent I was, or so I hoped.

Anyway, my deal with the Dwarves was not done. I had promised them to win them the war, not only this battle. The Klug continent was huge and so was the Orc army. And this battle today showed clearly one thing : even I cannot take on their whole army at once. I needed to get some allies.

I could not possibly count on the Dwarves’ help. They were terrible fighters, hence their current losses against the Orcs. But my poor control of Shadow Magic made me unable to create a portal to go back to Aldenaf at the moment.

Now that I thought about it, there was currently no way for me to go back to Aldenaf. That was kind of a stupid move from me… Even if Wahnsinn had built an army for me, what was the point if I could not go back to get it ?

This was indeed a troublesome situation for me. I headed back to the council house and announced the Orcs’ defeat. The Elder Dwarves couldn’t say a word because of how amazed they were. They offered me to stay at an inn for free, which I gladly accepted. It was still better to be hosted as an important guest rather than having to murder one or two people to get into a room for free.

For a few months, I kept fighting for a few villages under the control of the Orcs. These little battles were quite easy for me but when I feared having to go up against the main force of the Orc army; I was not sure about my chances of winning. Actually, they looked very slim.

Despite this, my reputation among the Orc and Dwarves started to grow little by little and the “Dark Joker” had slowly become a name feared by many and said with respect by others. It seems like some Dwarves considered me to be some kind of deity while some Orcs thought I was a reaper, a messenger of death. That wasn’t too far from reality in my opinion – especially considering half of my body looked more like a skeleton than a normal human.

Despite this, I realised that even though I boasted being pragmatic, I had failed to plan what I should do in case of me not being able to go back to Aldenaf. Besides, me going up against the entire Orc army was reckless as well.

Even then, I did it because I knew I had the potential to succeed. And the luck I needed to defeat them was on my side. After all, the ally I was looking for presented itself five months after my one-man war against the Orcs started.

An ally that would change the outcome of the future battles.