Grommash Bloodcleaver was inspecting the blockade around the human fortress. His patron had ordered him to starve the humans and when possible, kill them. The orcs were supporting the Eternal Dominion in their endeavor to bring Ankhet Sekhmara back. He didn't care much for the politics. He just wanted to kill the humans and advance in his class, the blood berserker. The idea was to block the humans from going out hunting, and when they were too far behind in levels, they would attack. In the meantime, they would send squads to attack the remaining human bases, but most were almost half a day’s walk from this base. He had also ordered some scouts to build outposts so they couldn't be attacked from behind. All in all, the situation was good. Since he united all orc tribes around the mountains under him, his power had skyrocketed. All the beasts that were killed were brought to him, and he used those in rituals to empower his blood. Almost every time he was not hunting, he bathed in the blood of fallen beasts, slowly giving him strength. He was now at Level 42 and could easily kill beasts close to Level 50 alone. He had also ordered to bring the humans to him after they died, but it was not really worth it. Most of the time, they lost most of their blood on the way. The bodies of the humans were just too weak and got otherly destroyed when the orcs killed them, which was a pity for him.

So far, he was happy with how it went. They could build the blockade almost unnoticed and had even managed to kill over five parties who wanted to return to their safe home behind the walls.

They died so fast he could even use some of their blood since their bodies had been almost intact. He wondered what the humans would try. They were just weaker than the orcs in every aspect.

He would see no issue with fighting two parties of humans by himself. He was fast and strong, and his axe was hungry. His spirit weapon also hungered for blood and materials. Grommash had managed to upgrade it two times now, from epic to exalted and from exalted to ancient.

At the moment, the smiths were working on his armor. He had one, but it sucked in battle. It didn't really block many attacks before breaking apart and was not much harder than his skin at the moment.

That's why they only used parts of the armor and enchanted them as well as possible, but that would take time. One of his metal gloves took four smiths over a week to finish. In the end, it was all worth trouble and in the end, no orc was his match. Even with more orc gods giving out their blessings, it just didn't matter. He had his blessing for too long and had accumulated too much for them to catch up anytime soon.

It was not just his armor and political power. It was also his skill in fighting and his spells that made him the strongest. He was confident that he could kill every orc in a one-on-one battle without any of his equipment. He already had been a honored warrior before the system and now he had turned into a true monster noone could face.

When he let his gaze wander, he saw one of his advisers approaching him.

"Great chieftain, I have news," his adviser Tharkul said with a bow.

"What is it, Tharkul?" Grommash answered with a deep voice. What could it be? Everything should be done now.

"All the preparations are finished, and I have 8 groups ready to send out to hunt the last survivors," Tharkul reported.

"Great, do that. Was that all?" Grommash added after he saw that the orc was still bowing. There better was no complications. He really wasn't in the mood for something like that at the moment.

"Yes, the orcs that were sent hunting after that mage have disappeared," Tharkul said, bowing even deeper.

"So he had managed to kill four orcs. Do you have any tracks to follow or find the place where they fought?" Grommash asked. The last thing he needed was an assassin lurking in the dark.

"No, we didn't find anything until now. I just got the report after I left my tent," Tharkul said in fear.

"Don't send the groups out hunting. I don't want to give that guy the chance to pick off more orcs one by one," Grommash finally said after a pause. "Use the manpower to finish our lookouts and position more guards there."

"As you wish," Tharkul said with another deep bow. He had already turned around when a young orc was running at them.

"Great chieftain, adviser," the orc said out of breath, bowing deeply to both of them. "Two lookouts have been attacked and killed."

After this, it was silent for a while until Grommash spoke. "Build new ones near the camp and place the other ring wall we brought behind us. I am not taking any chances here, and do so fast."

"Yes, as you wish, great chieftain," both said, bowing deeply, and disappeared into the camp.

Grommash then turned around and walked into the jungle. He would go on a solo hunting trip. There was nothing out there that could fight him, and he would slay those bastards who were starting to make problems this early.

Thalion was hiding on one of the tree branches and watched in dismay as one of the orcs put out a wall from his spatial ring, with many guards watching.

They even had some kind of earth mage. He was dancing, and something was happening with the earth. After a short rumble, the ground under the wall was rising a few meters, though covered in the same runes as the wall. They were weak in comparison to Kael's fortress, but still strong, and he wouldn't break them in short order. Jumping over it would probably also trigger an alarm.

He could fly over it in his human form, but then they would spot him anyway, so that was not an option.

Before he could make a decision, he saw an orc with red skin that was far bigger than all the others, jumping over the wall and moving into the jungle with a fast walk.

While passing, all the other orcs bowed deeply to that one. Thalion couldn't identify him because then he would be noticed, but that guy was no joke. He passively took a step back into the shadows.

The guy was still over 500 meters away from him while he walked in his direction, and there was no way he would win against that guy.

Thalion contemplated whether he should attack the camp when this warrior was missing, but there were so many orcs on the wall, and this couldn't be the strongest orc. None of the strong humans were running in the jungle all alone. They always had a group that followed them.

That meant there were still stronger warriors than that guy, but it couldn't be that many. Otherwise, they would have already attacked the fortress.

So he would wait for the red one to pass by and then search for other survivors. Maybe with some assistance, he could break through.

He was slowly turning back from the red orc that was moving in his direction. Normally, he would just sprint away, jumping from branch to branch; they were so thick that you could easily move like that.

The problem was that he feared the orc would notice him when he moved too fast. The orc was only 100 meters away at the moment.

When the orc came closer, he stopped, took a deep breath with closed eyes, then looked up directly at Thalion.

"What the fuck?" Thalion thought in shock. "What is wrong with that guy? It must be someone with a blessing or other special means."

Meanwhile, the orc exploded with speed and smashed his giant, brutal red axe that appeared in his hand through the whole tree trunk.

The trunk was over eight meters thick, and the orc smashed through like it was nothing. Thalion got his thoughts together and jumped on a branch from the tree next to him, a blood spike ripping through the wood where he had been standing one second ago.

The orc also jumped up and unleashed a red slash at him that traveled fast. Thalion started running away, jumping from branch to branch.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The orc's attack ripped apart the branch he was standing on and dug deep into the tree trunk.

The crazy orc landed on a branch behind him and jumped after him. Thalion changed direction and jumped down on the ground again, starting to run. There was no way that brute was faster than him.

The red orc roared in anger, and his body started to glow in red light as he sprinted after him. He was almost as fast as Thalion.

To his dismay, the red orc was slowly catching up because Thalion had to dodge the occasional blood spike that was fired at him. He needed to do something, and after a red slash got fired from the orc's axe, he ducked under it and changed direction. The orc was only 15 meters behind him. At that speed, Thalion was beside the orc in an instant and swiped with a claw over his leg, ripping the skin open. He had hoped to perhaps break the bone or rip the whole leg off, but the skin of that orc was so hard he only left flesh wounds.

Then, before he could jump back, he got hit with a backhand swing and the axehead ripped open his chest. Pain was rocking through Thalion's body, but he kept it together and used abyssal bite on the bicep of the orc, ripping a big piece of flesh out.

The orc roared in pain and kicked him away. After Thalion crashed into the tree, three blood spikes were fired his way, and Thalion ducked but still got hit by one in his right shoulder, which didn't stop it either.

Thalion gasped as blinding pain shot through his body as something in his shoulder broke when the spike ripped through. He just turned around and kept running as fast as he could. He couldn't allow his dream to end here.

The red orc was no longer chasing him. He saw how the guy slowly picked up his axe. He probably had dropped it out of pain. His body slowly stopped glowing red. As their eyes met, Thalion saw a storm of uncontainable hate.

Great, now there was Steven, Thorwald, and the big bad red orc chieftain on the list of enemies. What a day, Thalion thought as he disappeared into the jungle.

<--

Sylas stood behind the battlements. The orc blockade was now easy to spot. They had even built a wall behind them. They truly thought that they couldn't be attacked from that side.

Sadly, those green bastards were right, as one mage tried to bombard them with a fireball. Not only did the attack get completely blocked, but the mage was also killed the moment he stepped out behind the shield. They had archers always keeping an eye on them.

They had never seen something like this coming. Kael was blaming himself for this situation because he had invested in more space rather than in more defensive tools.

They were prepared for an attack, but not for people basically camping on the outside. Surprisingly, the orc archers still had the range advantage; their bows were more like mobile ballistae.

Another problem was that Michael was stirring up the people. Sylas already saw a new Thorwald coming.

Michael found a lot of supporters running through the streets, putting the blame on Kael by saying things like, “With him as leader, something like this could have never happened. Who doesn't buy proper long-range defenses first?” Michael even had a group of over 15 people spreading his nonsense and even attacking Kael's supporters. All this time, Michael didn't even lift a finger to help the community in any way.

Today was even a gathering. He was told in Michael's house near the wall, and he would pay it a visit. There was no way he would let something like Thorwald happen again.

He looked out into the jungle with sorrow. Four good friends were probably fighting for their survival at the moment: Evely, Kurgal, Thalion, and his almost girlfriend, Lisa.

Thinking back a few days, he was very happy to be integrated into the system. He had a completely boring job after failing in school. Then the system came, and now he was essential, had superpowers, and was one of the strongest mages in this base. He could almost fly, which was absolutely awesome, and the last days it looked like they finally had a safe home. But within days, everything had turned around; now everything was going down fast. Enough contemplating, he told himself and jumped off the battlement and flew to Michael's house. Their meeting must have gone on for a while now. Until now, no one had argued with that guy and shown that he is full of bullshit. He hoped he could convince some of his followers that Kael is the better leader.

If this approach didn't work, he needed to convince Kael to find a way to get rid of the guy. He and Kai already had some ideas, like assignment to one of the attack groups on the orc blockade in the future, which looked promising. The other options were throwing the guy out or killing him if he didn't want to leave. He didn't like any of them, and that's why he tried to talk some sense into them tonight.

He approached the house, and it was one of the bigger ones. No wonder this Michael probably had one left in his spatial ring before fleeing his old base. He landed in front of the luxuriously designed door that was over two meters high.

He knocked on the door, and one of Michael's goons opened it. "Sylas, what are you doing here?" he said, surprised. "Just here for a talk. Can I come in?" Sylas said calmly, holding back the urge to scream in the man's face about what, in the name of God, they were doing here when they could train for the coming fight or help the builders or on the wall.

"Sure, but Michael won't like it," the man said while stepping to the side.

Sylas didn't respond and just walked through the next door into the giant living room, where, on a small podium, Michael was talking. "What is this?" Sylas thought. The man clearly had a few screws loose.

"I say we need to wait for the appearance of the system shop or many people will die in the coming days. Kael doesn't care about your lives; he only cares about his progress," Michael exclaimed loudly while the twenty people stood in a semicircle around the man listening.

"True, we will die when we attack. What does training do? Did you see those orcs? They are stronger than us. It's not just the strength and durability; their mages are also stronger," a man in the front row exclaimed loudly.

"Oh, and as we have it, one of the nobles of this city is here," Michael said with a grin on his face. "Tell me, why do we have to die against the orcs?"

"First, who is saying you have to die? We are not planning on a front attack at the moment. The only thing we said is to train hard for the conflict to come," Sylas said, trying to stay as calm as possible. "You need to level as fast as you can, or the undead faction will kill us."

"Sure, the undead faction. What can they possibly do to us when we are safe in this base?" Michael said with determination.

"Don't you want to save our fellow citizens who are stuck behind the lines of the orcs?" Sylas said. "Thalion broke through the blockade and is now fighting for us and your families while you are talking here instead of training."

"This Thalion is long dead. There is no way he survived," Michael said with a smug smile. "That arrogant whelp got what he deserved. Now you want to use his stupidity to send us into certain death? Not with me! We should always act with reason."

"What reason to allow you to sit around doing nothing when you could be helping others?" Sylas screamed. "And Thalion and the others are not dead."

"There you have it! Those upstarts just want to use you for their own good," Michael said with an innocent voice, "or they are just too dumb to see the reality."

The room started with murmurs of agreement; then the first got loud and started to insult Sylas.

At this point, Sylas just left. There was no way he was going to stay. It was pretty clear that Michael wouldn't back down; he wanted to take this base from Kael's hands. They needed to plan for the future. There couldn't be another Thorwald.