When the other Orc Lords heard about Yargul’s actions, they all took it as an act of war, preparing their armies in “self-defense.” The Skull Lord cursed Yargul for doing what he did, fortunately, he managed to ally himself with the Trident Orc Lord, named for her unique weapon which was obviously a trident. She was in charge of the coasts of Occasus, ruling over a massive orcish fishing empire who constantly fought with the pirates under the Third Pirate Lord. It was her territory that the humans would first invade once they obtained the help of the Librarian.
But because of the civil war, she had called most of the clans she ruled over to gather, numbers were a great factor in orcish warfare. Orcs weren’t really tactical, mostly using swarm tactics to overwhelm their opponents. So most of orcish battles were won through greater numbers, sometimes literally crushing the enemy under the weight of thousands of orcs. But this civil war would introduce the first strategic geniuses of all orcs, intelligent orcs given the chance to survive in this relatively more peaceful era.
It would also be the first time in which magic would be used in proper orcish warfare, not small raids and battles that clans fought every day. No, this was orcish warfare, where literally millions upon millions clash together upon the battlefield for days on end, the bodies forming what would one day become hills covered in grass and young trees. In fact, the Occasus of now was far different than it was a thousand years ago, what were once vast plains of grass were now hilly terrain, made entirely from the corpses of countless orcs.
As orcs were combat-ready in just five years, warfare between orcs could last for decades between just two clans, resulting in millions of casualties from two clans whose populations did not exceed five hundred thousand. So a civil war between orcs could easily last for millennia with casualties reaching the billions and perhaps even trillions, the sheer amount of corpses changing the landscape as they knew it. From the observers, the Surveyor knew just how severe the changes to the terrain could be, in fact, some of the new mountains on Occasus which reached the height of a thousand meters were made by the corpses of millions of orcs. Granted this wasn’t from an actual war but sacrifices for the Sword of Korbus, the Orc King personally going out and slaying millions of these orcs to feed the Blood-Eater.
But even the slaughter of millions hardly put a dent in the orcish population as their numbers bounced back after the slaughter. That just goes to show just how large the populations of the orcs were and how fast they reproduced, their rate of reproduction is only rivaled by that of the Crimex which none can match. Speaking of which, Auster had been eying the continent of Occasus, sending more and more of their sky turtles to transport Avem which would spy on the continent. Most of the world was looking to Occasus, ready to swoop in at the right moment. And as always, the Surveyor’s observers kept watch over the entire world, watching over all.
Oblivious to all this, the two orc lords who had allied with Orzal declared war upon the Skull Lord and the Trident Orc Lord who had allied with him, now two sides of roughly equal numbers and strength. Even though Yargul was powerful enough to kill an orc lord, just one powerful orc couldn’t change the tide of battle in orcish warfare. What could one do against millions upon millions of orcs?
Now committed into the war, the Skull Lord wasted no time in absorbing the orcs of Orzal’s city into his army, sending a few clans to reinforce Yargul who he set up to be the leader. Meanwhile, the forces opposing them quickly gathered into a large army, the likes of which had not been seen since the time of the Calamity one thousand years ago. A force of seven million had already gathered with more on the way, countless supply lines forming from many cities in order to feed this great army. However this army would not go unchallenged, another great army was being prepared by the Skull Lord and Trident Lord.
Currently, their forces numbered in just five million although two million more were coming from the coast and more were being collected from the clans the Skull Lord had hired. Meanwhile, Yargul had taken the two million orcs he had under his command and marched to meet the enemy, he had decided upon a warpath and he was going to see it through without any hesitation. He abandoned Orzals city for the most part, although he left a single clan behind to keep the city. He didn’t bother with supply lines, his orcs could deal with not eating cooked meat for a month or two.
Speed was key right now, they had to strike before the enemy had finished forming. This would make it easier to slaughter them, an unprepared enemy was always easier to kill than one prepared to fight you. And speaking of unprepared enemies, he knew that there were homes of two clans nearby and that their warriors wouldn’t have moved out by now. These clans weren’t under the Skull Lord so they were prey, prey that could be hunted. Of course, Yargul wasn’t going to go for the big fish right off the bat. But a group of two clans was a pretty good target. This was Yargul’s plan for now, to deny the enemy the forces of more clans
But he had to move quickly, he had to strike before the enemy joined with the main force. He and his orcs marched on grassy plains and thick forests, leaving a trail of destruction and barren land as they devoured just about anything in front of them. As they didn’t rest, they were able to arrive far quicker than the enemy would have expected, thus making their attack a complete surprise. Yargul had taken Orzal’s city just two weeks ago and no one could have imagined that he would have already abandoned it after a single day. Not even the Skull Lord knew that he left as Yargul hadn’t alerted him.
So the first of the two clans was not prepared to fight as a force of two million were sighted at the horizon, breaking out into a sprint as they beheld the enemy’s camp. The enemy orcs quickly mobilized to defend their home but they lacked the momentum that Yargul’s army possessed, quite literally run over as they were knocked to the ground. Meanwhile, Yargul armored himself with stone as he began the slaughter, pulling ahead of the rest of his orcs as his attacks did not distinguish from friend or foe.
He became nigh invincible, slashing down orcs with his axe and pulverizing them with his fist. With his strength and momentum, he managed to break through the gate of the crude wooden fort that protected their border, his orcs pouring through the opening. The inside of the fort became a free-for-all, orcs nearly indiscriminate from one another as they fought, their bodies littering the ground.
Once they finished, Yargul allowed his orcs to stay for thirty minutes to loot the place of weapons and consume what food was around before he went on moving again, aiming to destroy the clan entirely. So he split up his force of two million into twenty groups which would spread out through the clan’s territory and kill all that they found. They would rest at the last village they had destroyed and when morning came, the separate groups would march to attack the next clan, they would reunite there. With the plan decided on, his forces split up and went from orcish village to village, killing everything in their way and burning everything down.
When the moon rose that night, its soft silver light shone upon the corpses of dead orcs and the smoldering remains of tens of villages. Joining them were eight hundred of Yargul’s army, the element of surprise had prevented his forces from suffering too many losses. After gathering at the main village, some orcs fell asleep right then and there while others went on to either loot corpses or enjoy themselves with other orcs or with the slaves they had let live. Meanwhile, Yargul lay in the bed of the house he had claimed, reliving the past five hours in his head.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
When the day came, Yargul awoke as he always did, greeted by the smell of corpses beginning to rot. He snorted briefly and stood up, slinging his axe over his back.
He exited his house, shouting, “Loot what you can, we move out at two hours from now!”
There wasn’t a lot of movement, a lot of orcs were still sleeping and Yargul let them sleep, they had earned it. But the orcs that were awake to hear his command began to move, fighting to grab all the best loot. Yargul himself did not join in this however, he had no need of armor and there wasn’t a single weapon here that was superior to his axe. Instead, he just made a fire and began to cook the flesh of the dead orcs, consuming three corpses. Cannibalism really wasn’t a great taboo among orcs, it wasn’t done all the time but it was still fairly common. When an hour passed, he began to kick the sleeping orcs awake, he knew that they still needed to eat before they could march.
He planned to repeat this several times until his army was too small, this was necessary in order to keep only the strongest in his army. Although all of the orcs under his command had gone through combat, Yargul knew that it was not enough. War was a completely different thing than some raid or squabble between clans, war was something that could engulf hundreds of clans and hundreds more. War was something that one couldn’t truly prepare for until one experiences it.
When the two hours had passed, he then began to march once more, the other nineteen groups also heading towards their next target. He and his forces stormed through the enemy, reaching them by nightfall and slaughtering the unprepared enemy. The sun rose to greet the remains of a once flourishing clan and with Yargul’s orcs on the move once again.
As Yargul and his army wreaked havoc in enemy territory, the Surveyor was simulating its fight against End. It had consulted End on this matter, reviewing her memories on this matter as any observers that happened to be in a two-mile radius of their fight was destroyed by her very presence itself. It couldn’t use its previous self’s memories as it was destroyed by End so it could only rely on End. Of course, End was rather surprised and curious as to why it wanted to know and the Surveyor was very blunt. It said that it was to prepare for the time when either End’s seal broke or her true self happened to send another fragment.
And it wasn’t as if she had a choice, as she was now she stood no chance against the Surveyor who would and will take her memories by force if she refused. So she willingly gave up her memories about the fight in which the Surveyor was able to deduce its previous self’s thoughts during the fight. It first analyzed every detail of the fight before it put itself in the actual battle, simulating various ways of defeating End. With the benefit of hindsight, the Surveyor finally thought of another method to defeat End with ease, it was somewhat surprising that its previous self had not thought of this before. It was to teleport both it and End outside of Agleon and in space where it could draw upon the limitless energy of Darkness. Using that energy, it would be able to create enough of the Absolute Mirror with ease and seal End.
It also used this battle to better learn how to fight, it was not as foolish as to believe that it would no longer face any threats to itself. There were still plenty of gods in existence that possessed the power to destroy it should they go all out. Not to mention that both Light and Night existed, two potential enemies that it had to be guarded against at all times.
Granted that not all of its opponents would be as powerful as End but it had to consider its offensive capabilities more seriously, it couldn’t afford to fight another close battle again. So it began to review its offensive capabilities, mostly mortal spells but there were several others that it could use, such as Absolutes. There were a myriad of Absolutes in the world and one of them was one called Absolute Division, a tool that Darkness created to divide things. It could be described as the sharpest knife in all of existence, capable of cutting through all things although technically it did not cut. It merely made a space in between whatever it was that the wielder wished to divide. Even the Absolute Mirror was helpless before it as it merely made a space between objects, there wasn’t any energy for the Absolute Mirror to reflect.
It divides all things, even the immaterial such as energy. It divides things absolutely and nothing can withstand it, even Darkness’s flesh would temporarily be divided until it flowed together once again. This could certainly be used as a weapon, as not many living things could survive having both their body and soul being divided, such a wound perhaps is too great for even gods to survive.
But the Surveyor hesitated to use such a powerful weapon, should it mess up in its control of Absolute Division, it would cause great destruction as it would slash apart not only worlds but dimensions themselves. It was not something to be used so easily, not to mention that the energy cost was rather high, just five seconds of usage would drain more than half of its energy. After all, the cost to divide things absolutely was not cheap.
It did possess other abilities too, such as the attack capabilities of the Subjugator. It had seen memories of its battle with End as well and learned how to wield its immense power. However as it did not possess unlimited energy like the Subjugator did, it could only use a fraction of what the Subjugator was capable of. But that fraction was still more than enough to deal with most beings and theoretically, it should be possible for it to slay a god within a single strike.
It, as Yargul understood, that power was necessary. Power was not only necessary to protect itself but to procure knowledge that it otherwise is not able to access. And that would simply be unacceptable, its duty was to gather knowledge and being too weak to gather it was no excuse.
It had just finished its simulation when it suddenly sensed something arrive. It was on one of the floating cities of the Alliance, a being that was not of this world had arrived.
—TRANSMIGRATOR—
A white man kneeled on the ground, his eyes closed expecting death. This man was Erwin Rommel, one of the most skilled generals under Hitler in World War II. He was accused of betraying Hitler and thus the Fatherland and when given the choice of a public trial or suicide, he took suicide. When he obviously wasn't dead, he looked around him, seeing the strange people around him.
He muttered, "Was zum Teufel?"
Obviously, those gathered did not understand and one attempted to get close, Erwin taking a step back. He was still trying to figure out just what happened, was this Hell? It most certainly wasn't Heaven. He took a good look at his surroundings and decided that this wasn't Heaven nor Hell but some other place. What that happened to be he didn't know and right now, he couldn't afford to care about.
Two humans in light metal armor appeared, wielding spears which put him on edge. He unconsciously reached towards his hip but his Luger wasn't there and so without any weapon to defend himself, he raised his hands in surrender. He knew when he couldn't fight back. One of the guards said something but he couldn't understand, it wasn't like any language he had heard before. As he puzzled over this, the guards stepped nearer and he didn't resist, he felt that these people were not savages, they would not kill him.
As they escorted him away somewhere, he saw an elf, his eyes lingering on the elf's ears. If this was Hell, this was the strangest Hell that he had ever heard. It was more like those fantasy worlds in fairy tales, although not as perfect it seemed. The people he saw before him looked like they had gone through hardships, much like his people before Hitler had come to power. Seeing them, he suddenly felt an affinity for them, they reminded him of his people. Perhaps he would do to them what Hitler had done for the Deutschland, perhaps he could help them.