Crashing into the first ogre, he was inside its guard before the bulky humanoid could draw its weapon back to strike. The sound of his palms meeting where the ogre's head used to be was like thunder. Blood splattered his face and chest, but he was too busy controlling the raging Energy moving through his body with the help of Crystal.
Pushing the headless corpse into the one behind it, he moved to the left and slapped the club of the armored ogre's hands while taking the hand-to-hand stance Eku had taught him so long ago. His hands raised to frame his head palms towards his enemy and knees slightly bent.
The ogre bellowed something about his mother and a mountain goat before drawing its arm back and sending its massive fist toward his left shoulder.
Closing his left hand into a fist, he used his knuckles to move the incoming fist off his shoulder as he stepped in and hit it with his right elbow where he guessed its solar-plexus would be. The ogre crumbled in on itself. Leaning so far forward, it almost fell over.
Having the ogre to his right already from the elbow strike, he took hold of its greasy hair with his right fist and brought its head down to meet his rising knee. Ambros felt the face of the ogre crumbling and let the dead weight drop to the ground as he brought his hands up to his head and took a step back to his right, giving the ogre behind him a donkey kick in the stomach that sent it tumbling into the ogres besides it.
Quickly checking that his kick had bent and broken to the ogre's breastplate, it now acted as a funnel into its stomach. Blood gushing to the ground from the open wound.
He met the next ogre from his right with a slap to the right ear before it could swing its sword. Sending the hulking beast to the ground, not dead, but at least it would be dizzy for a few moments.
Kicking its side, he sent it tumbling towards the feet of the others, making their way towards him. Some fell, but quite a few just stepped on the fallen one. They were ending its life in their rush to reach the front line. Now, they just had to make their way through Ambros first.
To his delight, Crystal had been right. He was trying to force the Energy, not let it do what it naturally wanted. Witch was helping him. It had his signature on it when it entered his meridians. It was him as much as his mana. Maybe more so since the Energy seemed almost alive in its potency. More rigid but potent.
Guide, not force. It was far from easy, but each time, breath and step gave him more insight. The training Eku had instilled in him made sense in a way he had not previously been able to understand. He missed the grumpy old dragon man now. He missed Whisper more than he liked to admit. Sending a forlorn tug at the bond that was still there, telling him she was somewhere far to the northwest.
The ogres without any armor seemed to be giving him a wide berth at the moment, which suited him fine since the armored once still gave him some experience points. He felt strangely weaker and stronger at the same time when he lost his levels but gained more attributes. It was a strange feeling.
Battle Award
750 Exp
1,200 Sp
3 Qp
That brought him to level 3, at least. Slipping under the blade of an oversized crude sword swung at his neck, he could feel the wind on the top of his head as it passed over him.
He took a long step towards the ogre, trying to bring its sword back for another swing. He kicked out and hit it between the legs. The foul smell as the ogre bent over, roaring straight at Ambrose's face while it held its mangled organ, was almost worse than getting decapitated. Ambros brought his right elbow down on the back of the ogre's head. Ending its misery. The back of its helmet dented into its skull.
Using the fallen ogre's back as a springboard, he threw himself at the leftmost ogre of the group of five that were coming at him.
Hitting its chest, he quickly had his fingers around its throat and squeezed until he heard a crack. He wasn't sure what he broke in there, but it stopped moving as they both hit the ground. Picking up the club the ogre had been dragging with it, he gave the hardened piece of wood and metal a swing, testing its weight.
Bringing the club back behind his head, he hurled it with all his might at the closest ogre's chest. It hit like a wrecking ball. Throwing the ogre several steps down the slope and into another group of armored ogres. Ambros didn't see what happened to the club after it hit, but at a guess, he doubted it survived the impact any more than the ogre had.
“Three to go.” He thought while running towards the rightmost one, Avoiding the oversized sickle that the middle one had swung at him by a hair. Slapping the side of the ogre's blade coming down on him. He took another step to the right as the massive sword hit the ground before hitting the back of its helmet with the flat of his hand. Hard.
The ogre went crashing to the ground even as Ambros was clotheslined by the leftmost ogre, bringing them both to the ground.
Finding himself on the bottom, he drew in his legs as the ogre tried to get its large hands around his neck. With great force, he pushed both legs at its belly, sending it flying back as he continued the motion and rolled to his feat. Standing up, he felt the back of his head where he had hit a rock harder than he liked. There was no blood.
Ducking back, evading the crosscut from the scratch wielder, he stepped back into the swing and hit the back to scythe, bringing it too far out of line for the ogre to get another swing in before he was inside its reach and kicked its right knee straight on.
He could hear the cartilage and the popp the kneecap made as the ogre bellowed in fury. Still standing on one leg, it swung the back of the scythe towards Ambrose's middle. Stepping into the swing to keep the last of the functioning ogres between him and the scratch wielder, he used to handle of the scratch to pull himself up to the ogre's head and delivered two devastating hits with the bottom of his left fist, caving in the helmet and crushing the ogres skull.
Throwing himself forward with the momentum he already had from the swing, he hit the last ogre in the chest with both feet. Just managing to bring his feet back to the ground as the ogre was kicked on its back.
Running forward, he was there to stomp on its head before it could get its bearings. Ending another life.
The next group was still a few dozen steps downslope, followed by the main body. Hundreds of armored ogres, and somewhere inside the blob of the large round beings, he could feel another Adept.
This was going to be a dirty fight. He wasn't sure how his mana would work now that he technically was inside the ogre holds walls, but his mana pool was still riddled with open tears. Mana leaked out into his body even as it was replaced just as fast by his Awakened Mana Core and natural regeneration. If his body hadn't been so used to mana already, the saturation his body had been going through now would have killed him long ago or mutated him horribly.
Battle Award
1,500 Exp
2,400 Sp
6 Qp
At least that brought him to level 4. Now, he just needed to figure out how to stop the armored ogres from turning this part of the offensive to a pulp while dealing with another adept. Fun times for everyone.
From his position, he noted that the left or southern part of the assault was moving ahead of the northern part. The consecration of ogres was denser at the corner of the wall by the northern assault. That was the problem for the strategus Eurycliedes and the rest of the command. His current job was not dying.
Then they were on him. Armored ogres by the dozens. Ambros kicked a spray of rocks at the closest ogre's face. Slipping past its guard to deliver a devastating blow with his left elbow as he went past it, blocking the swing an ogre with spiked shoulder guards as he hooked its right foot and made it lose balance for a moment. A moment was all it got as a roaring ogre was mid-swing, aiming for where Ambros had been and hitting it in the head with a war hammer.
Thrusting at where he thought the kidney would be with the palm of his right hand at an ogre that almost took his head with an axe, he felt the armor give under his hand, and it allowed him to follow up with a quick second hit into the now exposed side of the ogre's belly. The things shrieking could be heard across the battlefield. Plucking the battle axe from the limb fingers of the ogre, he brought it around in an arch and decapitated the ogre, kneeling while holding its stomach.
Swinging the battle axe in a short chop to his left took off an arm reaching for him, but the blade of the battle axe broke off when it deflected off the armor covering the ogre's chest.
Without turning, he flicked the axe behind himself, hopeful that the ogre he had spied out of the corner of his eye earlier was still heading in the same direction.
He continued forward and hit the ogre he had taken the arm off earlier with the palm of his hand under the chin. Down it went, either unconscious or dead. He didn't have time to check as he was beset from both sides by two more armored ogres.
While his Energy almost felt endless now, he knew his body was suffering small damages. He simply wasn't refined enough in his techniques to take full advantage of Energy while fighting. The basics he had down, but there was a limit to how much further he could stretch himself no matter how helpful the Energy was now that he had stopped trying to force it into patterns.
There was also the thought running through the back of his head. If he could utilize the Energy like this, with an almost never-ending supply, why didn't every Adept he had met do so? What price would he need to pay for this when all was said and done?
Even as he thought this, he allowed even more Energy to course through his body, guiding it to the appropriate sinews and muscles. Reinforcing his bones as he sopped, deflected and attacked. Changed the center of his gravity with a thought while he was in the middle of an attack or defense. He was moving like the wind and hitting like an out-of-control freight train. Never still, always moving.
Ambros was reaping a heavy toll on their armored ogres long before they could reach the lines of the humans fighting their less-armored brethren. He could finally see doubt starting to show in some of their eyes. Taking three quick steps forward, he hit an ogre on its wrist with the side of his hand, intending to take its club. Then he went flying.
Laying curled up on his side, the pain made breathing difficult, but he somehow managed. Bloody hell, that hurt. Nothing seemed to be broken. The Energy had somehow flown and helped stabilize his ribs without him asking it to. That was the only bright side of his current situation.
Looking down the furrow his landing had made on the slope, he started crawling back the way he had come on all four. He had to get the plate number of the truck that hit him before it got away.
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He shouldn't have bothered. Before he had managed to crawl his way more a few steps, a shadow could be seen at the other end of the furrow. A few moments later, Ambros stared wide-eyed at the ogre entering the furrow it had created with Ambros.
Like Kreizog Bigbelly, this one certainly was big. What it didn't have was a jutting belly. No, this was all muscle. He could actually see the twelvepack the ogre had on full display. Its armor only covered part of its chest, lower legs, shoulders and head. To top it all off, it had spikes sticking out of its armor. Now, that had to be inconvenient. Strangely, the System didn't announce the ogre by name.
It was a juggernaut of an ogre, and sadly, it was walking towards him. To his surprise, it stooped a few steps away and said, “The Provider says you must die, Ambros Mardux, the traveler of worlds. Your might is known among us. You would have made a great bull. Now, your life will serve as my path to power, ” With that, the ogre blurred in his vision, and he was airborne again.
He carved a path through the ogres, making their way up the slope before he managed to arrest his momentum. Standing up, he saw he was surrounded by armored ogres. Standing to his left, he saw a particularly fat ogre with a thin, wide drum resting on the top of its belly with straps on its back stabilizing the drum.
In anger, he backhanded the ogre's head, sending it flying and snatched the drum before breaking it over his knee. By the gasps and howls of outrage around him, he figured he was about to be dogpiled. However, nothing happened.
The quiet didn't last long. He barely managed to dodge and roll as a spiked fist flew through the air where his head had been a moment earlier. The juggernaut was flushing red in anger from what little he could see of its neck and through its eye slits. Fury may be a better description going by its eyes.
Bringing himself into the stance of a hand-to-hand fighter again, he stood ready for the next blow. Almost too fast to follow, but he did catch it. Sending the fist to his right with a slight push under the ogre's closed fist. Retaliation was not happening at the moment. Ambros bearly moved his leg in time to avoid turning it into splinters and ducked under a haymaker before jumping back from a knew heading towards his face.
Going down and low, he tried hooking a leg behind its heel and tripping up the massive ogre. It was useless as he found himself gasping for breath again a few steps up the slope as the ogre bore down on him with a great roar.
Cursing all rocks, especially the one that had hit him in the kidney, he used the Energy to flip himself a few steps further up the slope, getting away from the middle of the pack. Walking backward up a slope was surprisingly difficult, but he managed a few steps before the juggernaut was on him again.
Starting to consider ways to escape as he was ducking and waving between the wild swings of the large ogre, he did manage to hit it in the belly once, and a particularly hard hit to the side of its neck. The latter actually made it pause for a moment before it continued laying into him.
Ambros was starting to feel like a tenderized piece of meat, and the ogre showed no signs of slowing down. Its momentum was impressive, to say the least.
Through clenched teeth, it spat out, “You will fall human. The children of Orcus will rule the lush land of your weak kin. If your forefathers had not made the foolish trade with the new gods, you would have already proven your worth to rule!”
He wanted to laugh, but he could barely keep up with the ogre as it was. However, the frustration was growing in its eyes. Ambros could tell it hadn't expected this to last as long. Deciding to try something dumb, he jumped a few steps back, and just as the ogre took a step forward to lay into him with its left fist, he summoned the fabric of a tent in its face from his dimensional bag.
Spluttering before it started bellowing in anger, Ambros didn't give it any more time and started landing heavy strikes with the heel of his hand and elbows against its head. Faster than he thought he was capable of, he sent the blows raining on the head of the now reeling ogre.
It wasn't enough. It freed itself from the fabric and backhand Ambros into a boulder. Still standing but wheezing from the blow and the unpleasant landing, he watched as the ogre took hold of its batted helmet and tore it off its head.
The juggernaut of an ogre was missing an ear, its nose was flat against its left cheek, and he could see several teeth missing when it opened its mouth to poke at the caved-in right cheekbone. That it didn't so much as flinch didn't make his confidence in winning this fight rise.
He didn't know if it would heal as fast as he did, so Ambros attacked. A knee to the hip, followed by a succession of strikes to its already battered head to throw it off balance. He got a hit in under its chin that made the ogre's eyes glaze over for the first time, but then it seemed to get back into a fight, and he was dodging and deflecting again to keep the sudden and no doubt messy death at a hands breadth.
It was growing more cautious now as their fight kept on going. He noticed their clash had created a no-man`s land on the battlefield a few hundred steps wide. On each side, ogres fought humans, and the battle was close to a standstill. The armored ogres stood downslope and simply watched the fight, which he was grateful for since they would have quickly turned the tide.
After a particularly savage exchange of blows that sent them both reeling, the ogre spoke again. “You may call me Triguruk, son of Druuruk. It is good that you know the name of your slayer, human. I will eat your heart to add your strength to mine.” For the first time, Ambros answered. “I doubt that's how it works, Triguruk, but you do you. Personally, I prefer not to be slain. It just doesn't seem right since one of my nicknames is the Reaper. Would be bad for business.” Triguruk seemed less than impressed because he started trying to push the spikes on his leg armor into Ambrose's side and front with some fast, powerful kicks.
He was running out of steam, and Triguruk seemed as fast and powerful as when they started, even if he looked like someone had put him through the meat grinder. Then again, Ambros doubted he looked much better. At least he still had all of his teeth. At the thought, he barred his teeth and sent a grin at the ogre. Triguruk retaliated by trying to smash his fist into Ambrose's face.
No, he needed to end this now. He needed to rest soon. He had learned a lot from this fight that he needed to be digested. Probably more than the training he had received from Eku and the constant stream of adventurers he had sent to smack him around. It was time to end this one way or another. He hoped it ended in one way, not the other since that would leave him dead again.
Moving to the side as the ogre charged at him again, he quickly traversed the mess they had made of the already difficult landscape. Spotting a somewhat flat boulder, he ran to it and waited for Triguruk on top. The ogre didn't let him wait for long.
As the ogre jumped up on the boulder and charged at him with a great roar, he summoned Ogre Slayer for the first time and with sadness in his heart, he swung it at the charging ogre's right flank. It would be the weapon's last service to him. It simply wasn't made to withstand the forces involved in this.
Unsurprisingly, the ogre took hold of the shaft of the pole axe as it buried itself in its torso, under its outstretched arms. Triguruk looked at Ambros with disdain as he broke the shaft with his hands as if it wasn't there. It was all the distraction he needed as he was up and inside the ogre's arms, summoning one of the bone golem blades and thrusting it with all his might up and into the ogre's muscled stomach.
Triguruk gasped as the blade sawed its way up and into his torso, finally looking down at Ambros with wide eyes. Not giving the ogre a chance to retaliate, he swung up and behind the massive ogre and brought the second blade down on the opening between its helmet and breastplate. It wouldn't have been possible if the ogre wasn't already looking down, but the sliver between the armor and the helmet was all Ambros needed.
Standing back, he watched the back of the mighty ogre before him topple forward with a thud, burying the first of the bone golem blades deeper into its body.
Battle Award
9,250 Exp
14,800 Sp
37 Qp
“Well, at least the System is consistent,” he thought, wondering if Triguruk would be angry that his death wasn't worth more to the System than any of his armored brethren. It did bring him up to level 14.
Looking down on the massed armored ogres still standing downslope and not moving, Ambros heard a cheer coming from the human lines, and looking around, he saw they were cheering him. Then again, it had been a rather visual fight. “Damn, he was tired, but there was still work to do,” Was what ran through his mind as he hurled himself at the static armored ogres.
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Eurycliedes stood on the newly erected command platform atop the captured northeastern tower. Well, the rubble that it used to be. Companies 9 to 12 had successfully taken the breach in the wall and were holding back the remaining ogres behind hastily erected barricades along the north side of the wall. The number of enemies on the wall was light compared to the ogres packed on the downslope going from the former wall and into the ogre hold. He had little to fear on the flanks at the moment.
He took note of companies 1 to 4 being further down the slope than companies 5 to 9, but there was little he could do about that as long as what he thought to be the remaining ogre elite were standing in the middle of the slope and watching a fight between Ambros and possibly the biggest ogre he had ever seen.
The amount of destruction the two were creating in their battle was turning the entire center into an irreversible stretch of land for the citizens, and ogres for that matter. He was still a bit in awe at the speed and might the two were exhibiting.
While he was aware that something special had happened to Ambros when the world turned white, this was a demonstration of martial might on a level he wasn't sure even the entire eastern army could match yet. While he had more knowledge about what happened during advancement than most, he was simply unprepared to see it happen in front of him instead of reading about it.
It was frightening to think that single individuals could become that powerful, and from his understanding, Ambros was just starting his journey. Imagine his might in a few hundred years. Were humans really supposed to wield that much power? He would have to give this more thought. Maybe he could ask Ambros over some warmed wine later when they were done taking over the ogre hold.
Turing his focus back on the things he could do something about, Eurycliedes noted that they were almost ready to send down the 9th, 10th and 11th companies. The 12th would stay and engage the ogres on the wall.
It would be his hammer hitting the amassed ogres from the side and the back. All in all, things had gone well for the forces of Agera. They were close to a one-to-one trade with the ogres, almost an unheard-of number when facing the ferocious mountain-dwelling ogres.
Thiry thousand Agerans had paid with their lives so far, but they had slain the same amount of ogres. He also got a message informing him that a collum of another hundred thousand citizens would be joining the Eastern Army within a week.
The 5th to 8th companies were starting to push down the ogres faster now. Looking up at the sun, he knew time was running out, but if they could at least get a foothold at the bottom of the slope before it became too dark, he was hopeful about the outcome of this battle. Not to say he would start any celebrations until the goose was on the table, so to speak.
Suddenly, Ambros was standing on a large, flat rock in the middle of their battlefield. He hadn't even seen the man move. The ogre was close on his heel however. There they stood. Almost a symbol of the battle raging around them, and for some reason, Eurycliedes felt the outcome of this would decide the outcome of the day's battle, as if the gods were watching and judging who was worthy.
Fists clenched on the railing, he watched Ambros bring his great pole axe around in a cut he would have missed if he hadn't been watching closely. He stopped himself from shouting in celebration as the axe head bit deep into the ogre's side. It would be unseemly for the commander to display such emotions during a battle.
His mood dropped and turned into an ice-cold lump in his stomach as he saw the ogre take hold of the pole axe shaft and snap it like a twig, but then, somehow, Ambros was standing right in front of the ogre and stabbed the larger of them with something that looked like a curved sword. The next moment, he saw the man standing behind the ogre with another curved sword.
Eurycliedes could feel the entire battlefield stop, watching what was unfolding. He heard one of his adjuncts gasp as the sword suddenly stood out of the large ogre's neck.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Everything was still. Not a single clash of weapons or warcry was heard. Then the ogre toppled over, laying still before Ambros.
Feeling his heart beating again, Eurycliedes released a breath he didn't know he had been holding. He almost jumped at the shout of joy coming from his side. As he was about to reprimand the adjunct, a cry was taken up by the troops, and soon, the only thing that could be heard was the shout of cheering citizens. They were cheering their champion. They were letting the hero that had stepped out of times of old that they had witnessed.
To his surprise, Ambros didn't stop but moved like lightning against the armored core of the ogres. Eurycliedes wasn't about to let this slip by. Turning to his still celebrating command, he said, with a clap of his large hands, “Send the 9th to 11th company against the ogre's flank. It is time we clean this up, matriarchs and patriarchs.” Pointing at Ambros, he continued, “We have been given a great boon on this day. Do not waste it.”
They were soon enough in order, to his satisfaction, as he watched the march of the companies about to give the ogres an unpleasant evening. Yes, he would need to ask Ambros to talk over some warmed wine later. The man had firsthand knowledge about the things he had only read about in the most secure parts of the palace. If he was being fully honest with himself, he craved that knowledge. It represented a different route his country could have taken all those thousands of years ago, and he was, for the first time, really questioning if the path they were on was the right one.
With a final shake of the head to clear his thoughts, Eurycliedes watched as the flanking attack was devastating the still reeling ogres and Ambros looked to be clearing out any armored ogres that hadn't already begun retreating towards the hold.
Yes, the cost of today's battle was terrible but less than it could have been. Much less. There was also the matter of the citizens that would need to start rotating to have their attributes distributed, but that was a matter for when the hold was theirs.