A lumbering giant stumbled out of its den. Easily ten feet tall, this was no Orc, it was a behemoth. They hadn’t actually seen the chieftain in the flesh when they were scouting, but they didn’t quite imagine it would look like this.

It didn’t look very weakened, either.

Vorn shivered in their spirit. It looked angry.

The Chieftain took only a moment to look them up and down, assessing them.

It clearly found them wanting, as the hulking mass of pure Orcish force came hurtling at them not even a second later.

Rowan was already moving, but the titanic being still clipped him anyway. The Orc wasn’t freakishly fast by any means, especially not for a level fifty, but it was still over twice as fast as Rowan. Not to mention, the dangers of facing an over-leveled enemy were twofold. One was obvious, their stats. The other was less so. Their skills.

This creature had four skills and had more experience with each of them.

Rowan could feel his shoulder creak from the force of the strike, and it barely hit him. This thing couldn’t have been more than two, maybe three times stronger than him, but that was a hard gap to overcome.

The behemoth overshot his position with its last attack, but he could tell that the creature wasn’t feeling one hundred percent.

It was infected after all.

Rowan wasn’t sure if that would matter, though.

With a look of pure malice, the Orc raised his clenched fists above his head, but Rowan was already running. Based on the sinister red energy gathering on its hands and the erratic movement of mana around it, the attack would be large and powerful.

The Orc just gave him a smug look, then smashed his fists into the ground.

Rowan was already a few dozen feet away by the time the attack reached the ground, but once more, that didn’t matter. The red energy in the monster’s hands spread into the ground, cracking and tearing the ground apart into pieces for hundreds of feet. Rowan was not spared, and neither were the Chief’s troops.

Luckily, it did get weaker the farther you were from the epicenter, but the attack still knocked him on his ass and stunned him. He hadn’t felt this sluggish in years. His very being protested moving. The Orc Chief was fast approaching, but he was basically unconscious.

Then, their eyes turned silver, and Vorn managed to fling them out of the freight train’s path. Barely. He still wasn’t great with their new stats.

A few seconds later, in which Vorn just ran for his life clumsily, Rowan took back over. He gave a quick thanks to Vorn and got back to trying not to die. The living tank was still trying to hit them, but Rowan was managing to barely stay ahead. He actually had to predict its movements instead of just relying on the way it influenced the surrounding mana.

He predicted wrong, and the Orc’s fist slammed into his shoulder once more, dislocating and nearly breaking it.

He had to run. That was the only solution.

But he couldn’t.

Not out of a sense of reluctance or anything, he literally couldn’t. This goddamn mountain of muscle was too fast. This might be the end of them.

As if sensing their – or rather, Vorn’s – despair, it redoubled its efforts. Red energy invaded its eyes, making it look more like a demon than an Orc, and then it moved.

It was so fast that Rowan genuinely couldn’t see it. He had to once more rely on the way it was influencing the mana and air currents to predict how it would attack, but that didn’t exactly work well. Sure, he could tell where it was attacking, but he couldn’t meaningfully do anything to prevent the strikes.

Well, he could do one thing.

Roll with the punches.

He stopped trying to dodge, and just focused on minimizing how much it would hurt.

Fist coming at his chest, rotate a few degrees so it would clip his shoulder. Kick going for his knees, jump, and allow his ankles to take the blow. While spinning mid-air from the impact, used his daggers to absorb the impact of a punch, then used the force to send him a few dozen feet away.

A grin was permanently fixed on his face. It drove the Chief mad.

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He was surviving.

No, he was thriving.

Rowan was having an amazing time. He just felt bad that Vorn would go down with him. Nothing he could do about it though, might as well enjoy this fight while he could.

The red light in the chief’s eyes flared again, and he let out an earth-shaking roar.

The Orcs around, the surviving ones at least, each let out their own roar in kind.

All of their eyes began glowing red as well.

Fuck.

It had an inspirational skill? That just seemed unfair.

Rowan knew he would not survive this fight. It wasn’t in the cards anymore. At least while the Orcs were roaring up a storm he had a little time to recover. His Constitution was insanely high, but it could only do so much. It was struggling to keep up with the damage.

Suddenly, he felt a jolt. It was like a spike of pure adrenaline.

A green glow began to emanate from his body, and his healing sped up tenfold. It got him to near peak form before it ran its course.

Huh. Ark did say she could heal, didn’t she? Didn’t she say it would be weak when spread to allies? This was the opposite of weak.

Rowan scanned around for her and managed to find her designated hiding spot. The plan they agreed on stated she would stay far away from camp just in case this exact scenario happened. She looked, for lack of a better word, fucked. Blood was leaking from her eyes and ears, and she was clearly unconscious.

Thankfully, she was hundreds of feet away from the camp. The Orcs had no idea where she was.

Voran hoped.

She already looked wiped out even before the fight started, so that heal she just pulled out of her ass must have truly wiped her out.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t find her after Voran died.

Vorn himself was frantically looking through all his Class options, it wasn’t… It wasn’t looking good.

The Orcs finally finished their synchronous roar. The look in their eyes spoke of an unspeakable amount of hatred. He was beginning to notice a theme with the Chief's skills. They seemed to be rage-based.

Or maybe Orcs were always pissed off? He couldn’t truly tell.

They all ran at him with fiery rage and bloodlust in their eyes.

Rowan let go and let [Movement] carry him how it would.

He flowed like water around the Orcish tide.

A few blades went for his body, but he crouched under them while parrying another blade from behind him. Another blade went for his shoulder, but he could do nothing to dodge it without moving into another attack, so he allowed himself to take the blow. He moved with the blow, making the cut shallow.

Another four weapons were hurtling towards his back while he was still crouched, but he managed to roll sideways to avoid them. Before he could exit the roll, he felt a kick rapidly approaching his side. He somehow used a handspring to jump out of the way, but now he was mid-air.

He didn’t even bother with his eyes, having closed them before the onslaught even began.

He was going to die.

He was going to die… but…

A new thought replaced the grim proclamation

How many can I take down with me?

“Go ahead. I can see the writing on the wall. I opened my Class selection, and there was nothing there that could save us, there’s nothing I can do without taking over, and we both know how that would go... so go all out.” Vorn said, trying to hide his fear, then continued, “It was fun adventuring with you. I don’t regret it. I mean that.”

“Thank you. I agree, I haven’t had this much fun in ages. But… I also enjoyed your company. If we meet again in the next life, I know it will be as friends.” Rowan said sincerely. Perhaps the most sincere he had ever been.

The Orc’s eyes met Voran’s wide grin and manic look and felt something their rage-addled minds could barely comprehend.

Fear.

Faintly, he could hear a *ding*. A System notification.

Not important.

What did matter was the new feeling of strength welling up inside him. He could feel his muscles burning with unstoppable force.

This time, he approached the green tide head-on.

“I am going to die.”

But he was with his Soulmate.

“No, we are going to die.”

And Voran accepted that.

“Our death will be glorious.”

They fully merged once more.

— — —

Ockt’lish was an Orcish scout that just returned from his hunting trip.

What he expected was a pat on the back and some friendly jabs.

What he got was something far more terrifying.

In front of him, he could see his camp under the effect of Chief Urk’lock’s Wrath skill. Use of the skill was a last-case scenario as it would permanently make them weaker until they recovered from the backlash.

But it would always win. The skill was unstoppable. Even level eighty Delver’s had fallen to their red-eyed horde.

But not now.

In front of the tide was one human. And it was winning.

It was covered head to toe in a myriad of wounds, but it was winning. It dodged and weaved, but when it was convenient, it would just take an attack head-on. The Human was slaughtering them. It was winning.

Ockt’lish was terrified. Just by focusing on the man, the Orc could tell that it was level nine, but it moved like a being at level ninety.

Constantly stabbing and slashing, the Human looked like a river of blades.

It fought like a beast backed into a corner.

The Chief was probably still recovering from using his inspiration skill, so he couldn’t join in the fight yet, but maybe that was for the best.

The camp could recover from losing most of their warriors, but a chieftain was damn near irreplaceable.

And as of right now?

The scout wasn’t sure who would win.

Suddenly, the red light faded from Orcs' eyes.

‘Oh no’ was all the scout could think.

Ockt’lish had assumed the skill had only been activated for a few moments at most, but it had already run its five-minute course.

The Human had free reign to attack their weakened forms.

But it didn’t need to. The Orcs just started dropping dead when the skill stopped.

‘What?’ The Orcish scout wasn’t the most eloquent.

It was just the Chief and the Human left.

The Chief gazed at the human with an unnatural hatred.

The human stared right back, but its purple eyes displayed a different emotion. Joy. Unadulterated and pure.

They met in battle, the Human rushing and retreating like a tide.

The Chief’s arms were practically covered in the red Wrathful energy.

The Human dodged and weaved as if it could predict the Chief’s every movement, but it couldn’t get a solid attack in. The Chief, on the other hand, flailed and raged, but he couldn’t land a hit.

The Human dodged another onslaught, but this time, lunged with his dagger. He missed! He stabbed his dagger to the right of the Chief’s neck! The feeling of triumph was quickly turned to dread when he saw the dagger turned ninety degrees, the edge aligned with the nape of the chief’s neck. Before the scout could shout a warning, the titanic Orc punched the Human away.

Tearing the blade through his own throat and breaking every bone in the Human’s chest.

That was fine, though. The Chief could survive a wound like that with no problem, backlash from his skill or not. The human on the other hand… didn’t seem like it would be recovering.

Ockt’lish ran to his Chief’s side to congratulate the behemoth for his victory, but…

He wasn’t recovering! The Chief was bleeding out! The scout attempted to stem the unceasing flow of blood, but nothing was working!

Ultimately, the Behemoth of Wrath died in the scout’s arms.

Ockt’lish was furious, he would avenge his leader!

But he felt so sluggish… what? What was going on? Why did he feel so slow?

He noticed that everyone else in the camp looked sluggish before they died, so maybe he just caught what they had? Was there a sickness going around?

It didn't matter.

All that mattered was avenging his chieftain.

He approached the downed human with fury in his eyes. His curse was acting up even more than normal, he knew with certainty that he would kill this bastard human.

Then, the human sluggishly raised a hand in his direction.

The scout raised an eyebrow. What did it hope to accomplish? He had seen all it could do in its previous fight.

Then, a fireball came screaming out of its palm and incinerated Ockt’lish.

So ended the tale of Ockt’lish.