As the battle raged down below, a shadowy figure orbited Agleon, absorbing the ambient dark energy surrounding it, slowly regaining what it had lost in its fight with Light. However, this was not enough for it to replenish the dark matter it had lost, it needed something... more. It couldn’t use Darkness’s own flesh as it would have to use Absolute Division and such a thing required an enormous amount of energy to control, otherwise, it would leave irreparable damage
It began to wonder just how it was going to, suddenly sensing something moving through Darkness’s flesh, a large piece of matter. It was a comet, roughly seven miles in diameter and right now just a brief shining light in the distance. Curious to see this moving light and yet sensing no sort of life from it, the Surveyor went to investigate, discovering that it was merely reflecting light and was not actually emitting it itself. When it finished studying the comet, it began to devour it as something this large was bound to produce a suitable amount of dark matter.
As it devoured the comet, mortals over countless worlds saw the comet being devoured, watching as the small light in the sky began to disappear, being swallowed up by the darkness around it. Countless questions were asked as to what was happening, what did this mean? Many took it to be an ominous omen, of hard times to come. Others of a more... unsavory sort took it as a sign that their respective dark gods were going to act.
But to the orcs, they didn’t particularly care, most didn’t even know that a comet was being eaten in the heavens above. The Surveyor finished consuming and converting the large comet into its own flesh, replenishing roughly two-thirds of the matter it lost. It looked around to continue to devour matter, seeing an asteroid belt around a planet far off in the distance. The Surveyor moved towards it, intent on devouring a portion of it in order to become far more powerful than it once was.
It was careful to eat all around the multiple rings of the planet, making it so that the rings still appeared to be solid from a distance while it continued to gain matter. It finished devouring what it needed to and decided to return to Agleon, having doubled the matter it had started out with. It was powerful now but it was still lacking in strength, Light was still far more powerful than it. But now it would have the excess matter necessary to use Absolutes with more freedom, if it met Light again it could cover itself in Absolute Mirror, thus making it immune to her attacks.
Of course, this would most likely cripple its offensive capabilities but it did not need to defeat Light, it only needed to survive. It could survive just about anything with its Absolute Mirror although it could not ignore what End had done in their fight, she has made it so that her destructive energy destroyed the momentum of her hand, thus allowing it to pierce the Absolute Mirror. It reflected her destructive energy but not her hand whose momentum had been destroyed.
It was an ingenious idea and one that the Surveyor wasn’t entirely sure on how to confront, it had no doubt that such a thing would happen again but wasn’t sure how it would deal with it. It supposed that with Absolute Division it would be able to separate End into multiple pieces and seal those smaller pieces. Once it had done so, it would be able to scatter them or keep them in its separate dimensions, thus keeping her sealed forever until the day came that the Surveyor was able to destroy her. But it was thinking too far ahead, it was fine to prepare but not to obsess over it.
Right now, the events on Agleon were of more importance. It then returned to Agleon’s orbit, enjoying the rich ambiance of dark energy before descending, falling towards the part of Agleon that was in shadow so as to cover its descent. It landed somewhere in Ortus and it thought that as it was there, it might as well investigate what things its observers had failed to pick up.
It wandered throughout the entirety of Ortus with multiple selves, exploring the places which the observers were too weak to do so, encountering many strange and wonderful things. It stumbled on old dragon caves, the very aura of the dragon—potent despite its age—keeping the fragile observers from entering. These great tombs were often filled with the greatest treasure, their grandeur able to put the treasuries of the greatest nations to shame.
All these sights the Surveyor quietly recorded into its Library, taking care not to disturb these places, leaving them as it had found them. It continued to move on, eventually finding what appeared to be an ancient temple of sorts, created by ancient beastmen which appeared to be in worship to an old god, its name illegible from wear over time. But as there was still a statue in rather good condition, the Surveyor just memorized the appearance of this god, perhaps it would help it in the future.
The appearance of said god was inhuman, something... strange. It was an amalgamation of many different creatures, some sort of reptile, a wolf, a deer, and some other unidentifiable creatures. Possessing deer antlers, a wolf’s snout, reptilian scales and tail with what appeared to be a lion’s mane. This thing possessed three sets of legs and was slightly serpentine in shape, able to use its back two pairs to move around as its third and foremost pair were longer, stronger, most likely used for attack. The Surveyor did not recall seeing this god in Light’s domain so either it was a fallen god, a child of Night, or it had long since been dead.
But such knowledge wasn’t too important, it would eventually find out sooner or later and if it didn’t, it wasn’t too much of a loss. The Surveyor just explored the rest of the ruins and stumbled on a strange artifact, one that it studied closely, making sure that it could replicate it in its entirety before leaving the ruins. The artifact appeared to be a stone eye of sorts, four inches in diameter, symmetrical and possessing a strange design for the irises. It was a diamond with arrowheads accentuating each of the diamond’s corners while at the center of this diamond was a perfectly round circle.
It was fascinating to behold and as for the abilities it possessed, it would investigate later in a more appropriate environment. If it were to begin testing here, it had no doubt that it would attract unwanted attention. It continued to explore the majority of Ortus, watching over the creatures living in the Austerian Empire. Life appeared to be well, as Auster had ceased trying to push its borders and began to focus more on itself, the Crimex being used to build great cities and work the infrastructure: managing the sewers, maintaining roads, and keeping the streets clean of trash.
The lives of the average citizen was luxurious, with personal human pets that had been bred over the centuries to be perfect in their duties. They were the personal servants of the beastmen and other citizens of Auster, these humans likely what the human slaves back on Occasus would become. These humans had become lesser than animals, they almost couldn’t function without an order, they didn’t even speak anymore, they did know a few replies to a certain command, like “Yes, Master,” “Yes Mistress,” and other such small phrases.
And because they were carefully bred and carefully raised, all the human slaves were the finest specimens of their race, each beautiful and pleasing to the eye. They were treated well for Auster had reached such an age of prosperity that they could afford doing so, mostly through the expendable laborers that were the Crimex. Indeed, these were a fascinating people and the Surveyor wondered if it should leave a mark on a child here, to watch it grow up in this sort of environment.
It was busy with Yargul on Occasus but that was of no huge concern, it could keep one self here and used the other to watch over Yargul, thus maintaining watch over two different subjects. It surveyed all of Auster for a suitable host and eventually found one, a child forming in the womb of the Seventeenth Queen of the Emperor. It implanted its mark on it, leaving a portion of itself to watch over the child when it was finally birthed. With that done it returned to the Library, beginning to transcribe all of its memories into the Library.
As the Surveyor increased its Library, Yargul had adopted a rather strange way of fighting, increasing the stone armor around him until he resembled a large stone ball, rolling around on the battlefield killing both friend and enemy alike. The assassins could do nothing against him and he was able to wreak havoc to the enemy, nearly running over the Trident Lord but also freeing her at the same time. This entirely unexpected method of attack was of such surprise to the enemy commander who actually took a moment to clap briefly, applauding Yargul on his ingenious solution to being surrounded.
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He quickly dodged an attack from the Trident Lord and continued to retreat, using his spear expertly to deflect the Trident Lord’s fierce attacks. He gave out a call and what spear orcs survived immediately rallied to him, using their spears to keep her at bay while they retreated, surrounding themselves in friendly orcs once more. The Trident Lord cursed and was about to throw her trident when a rumbling sound was heard. She immediately threw herself to the side as Yargul rolled into the enemy, crushing many into a bloody pulp, although the commander had dodged with ease.
Sensing that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish any of his goals with Yargul rolling around, the commander immediately sounded a retreat, his previously organized orcs breaking formation and scattering. They disappeared into the surrounding forest and although the Trident Lord’s orcs tried to give chase, they stopped when she commanded them not to, if they followed the enemy they would most likely fall into another trap.
Seeing as Yargul was still rolling about, the Trident Lord shouted, “Hey, you can stop that now!”
Yargul continued to roll around a few more times before the stone armor fell apart and sent him tumbling over the bloodied ground. He landed face first and slowly got up, sitting back down as he was too dizzy.
He groaned, “Fuck me, I’m not doing that again.”
He fell on his back and continued to groan as the Trident Lord chuckled, taking a seat herself. They both began to relax as the orcs began to loot the bodies of the dead, Yargul eventually recovering as he sat up.
“Yup, never going to do that again.”
As he stretched, the Trident Lord said, “I suppose I must thank you for helping me.”
Yargul glanced at her and said dismissively, “Huh? Oh, okay.”
Being blunt he said, “I wasn’t trying to help you just so you know, I couldn’t control myself, I couldn’t even see. I just tried to continue rolling, hoping that I was hitting the enemy.”
The Trident Lord chuckled, “Yes, I guessed that rather easily.”
Yargul then stood up and slung his axe over his shoulder, creating a small hook of sorts from stone in which his axe could rest without impeding his movements. He began to walk, inspecting the orc corpses around him to find the most suitable to be eaten. Some ways away, he found a body which suited his interests and he promptly sat down, tearing off an arm and biting deeply into the flesh. He moved on eating most of the orc’s body except the guts, even cracking open the skull to slurp out the brains. In addition to the meat, he also consumed the bone marrow, breaking the bones to suck it out, spitting out bone shards every now and then.
He soon finished in his meal and went in search of another body to eat, as the meat wasn’t cooked it wasn’t particularly filling. After consuming one more body and half of another, Yargul was full, wanting to fall asleep right then and there but the Trident Lord made sure to drag him back to camp, it wasn’t safe to sleep out here in the open. They returned to their home base, to think of a way to push past the blockade that the orc commander had set.
Finally, it was decided that they should split up their forces between them, twenty-five million for Yargul and twenty-five million for the Trident Lord. They would push two different areas, forcing the orc commander to choose one of them to block. Without his leadership, the orcs under his command were nothing and could be trampled underfoot. As for the army that was held up by the orc commander, it would be his or her job to kill the commander and join the battle as quickly as possible.
This was decided and word was soon relayed to all orcs under the two lords. The next week was spent organizing the orcs into two great armies which began to march on the orc commander’s blockade from two different directions, forcing the orc commander to choose one of them to block.
Observing this from its observers, the Surveyor was fascinated, just how would the orc commander deal with this? Surely, an orc such as he would have some sort of plan for this outcome, it is impossible that he hadn’t thought of this possibility. Indeed, the Surveyor was interested in the outcome of this war, it would be the first proper use of tactics that it would see in this entire war, Erwin had been rather disappointing as of late although that could be attributed to the orcs being unable to produce proper tacticians. But after his defeat, the Surveyor was sure that he would never underestimate his enemy again and perhaps, it would see him use the tactics of this so-called “Earth.”
—ORC KING—
“Sire, when will you make your move? The orcs are restless, they want war.”
I waved my hand dismissively.
“Not yet General, not yet.”
He said, “Forgive me sire but even I feel that we have been too passive, we should just defeat those that dare go against you and return to the Capital.”
I sighed, “This isn’t just about me asserting my strength, it is about seeing which among the Orc Lords has the power to replace me. After all, it is good to know your enemies and this war is the perfect chance.”
The General said, “Sire, there can be none who can rival you, your might-”
“Spare me the chatter General, there will be one and I sense that this battle shall reveal the one who can become the new Orc King, particularly this Yargul fellow. After all, I do not recall any legends speaking of an orc who was capable of using earth magic, he’s one of a kind and the power of Agleon is not something to laugh at.”
The General was doubtful.
“Sire, do you really believe what the legends say about the elves? If Agleon was a god, wouldn’t she have intervened by now?”
I chuckled.
“You do not believe General, but I do. For is not evidence before us? Yargul has power over the earth and with it he has maintained his title of ‘Invincible,’ not many orcs have achieved such a status and none at so young an age, at least in recent memory that is.”
The General snorted, “Forgive me sire but he’s just some young upstart, against you he is nothing.”
“Not yet General,” I said, “Not yet. He has potential however, I don’t think even my feats were as great as his when I was his age. Not to mention that he possesses two magic abilities, that isn’t something you see every day.”
The General seemed to want to continue more on this matter but he was aware that doing so would most likely earn my ire so he stopped, merely nodding.
“As you say.”
He excused himself from my presence and I smiled, it was nice to be strong sometimes, you were had access to many privileges otherwise denied to you. But it was rather lonely though, something I’m sure that all the Orc Kings preceding me had also felt, there were none to challenge us so we could only turn to the next best thing, feeding the Sword of Korbus blood. I too have fed this blade blood and I wondered just how much blood it would drink, no, whose blood would it drink?
I asked these questions as I studied the bloodred blade which only said that it was hungry as it always was. I told it what I had always told it, that it would be fed soon and that it had to be patient. Of course, just as all the times before, it didn’t care and continued to tell me to feed it until I cut my arm and let it feed off my blood, silencing the sword’s thirst for a moment. With the sword pacified, I replaced it in its sheath and stood up, deciding to go out for a walk.
My bodyguards tried to attend to me but I waved my hand, gesturing that they stay in place. I didn’t need them to guard me, there weren’t any living creatures here that could threaten me. Once outside the ancient dwarven city, I began to wander throughout the forest, not really looking for anything in particular.
Then, some ways far from the dwarven city I stopped, saying, “Come out, it’s only you and me now.”
There was silence following my words but when I next blinked, I saw a dark shadow standing in front of me.
“You know its rude to stalk someone.” drawing my blade, I continued, “And rude people should be punished.”
The dark figure saw me draw my blade and cocked its head curiously, looking at its tendril of an arm before it looked at me again, matter beginning to pool where its hand would’ve been and forming a shadowy sword. That thing and I had a staring contest to which I finally conceded, only because the damned thing had no eyes.
I sheathed my sword and said, “I don’t suppose you will tell me what you are will you?”
The thing’s sword melted back into its body and it then took a step backward, promptly disappearing into a tree’s shadow.
I snorted, “Thought as much.”
I continued my walk, this time keeping an eye out for the shadows around me. That thing reminded me of the stories that I was told as a child, about strange creatures of shadow which had kept us from invading the human lands, things that we orcs just couldn’t triumph over. And although I must admit the thought of those things filled me with fear, it also filled me with excitement.