Elijah took the monster’s life and looked around the room. What a mess. Three dead orcs were lying around, small puddles of blood forming where they lay. He looked down and traced the yellow pungent blood covering his whole arm with his eyes before they rested on his mace.

If not for the approaching grunts of more orcs, he would have thrown up for sure.

Chapter Begin

Elijah barely managed to hide again before another group of orcs entered the room. They clearly had noted that something was wrong judging by the sound of their hurried steps reaching Elijah’s ears. Root had managed to hide as well but the orcs’ angry shouts directed toward Timber’s general direction let him know that his minion hadn’t managed to hide in time.

The ground trembled under the heavy footsteps of multiple orcs rushing at Timber and Elijah felt the connection to his minion break under the joint attacks of several orcs. He gave Root the command to stay in its serpentine form and ambush one of the orcs if they approached its position. Elijah considered using his mace to resummon Timber but decided against it. The weapon would be more useful in a fight if he integrated it properly into his fighting style. He would try.

His grip around the shaft of his weapon increased and Elijah held his breath as he strained his ears to listen for their position. There was no way he suddenly gained the ability to make a definite assessment of their numbers based on the sound of their footsteps but he was sure there were at least three of them. His eyes rested on the blood coating his arm and weapon as he waited. The orcs started looking through the room and as Elijah hoped, it sounded like they had split up.

He didn’t dare risk taking a peak from behind the bed he was leaning against at first, but after a few seconds, he got a ridiculous idea. What the hell am I even doing? He thought as he turned around, laying on his stomach. He had long abandoned all hesitation when manipulating his own body but what he did next felt weirder than everything he had done before.

His vision shifted as his eyes grew out of his face. They resembled antennas as they grew upwards, stopping just above the edge of the bed to grant him a view of the whole room. This is ridiculous. Elijah couldn’t help but think of the absurdity of this idea but the fact that it had worked quenched every thought speaking against it.

Elijah almost pulled his eyes back in surprise because of the unexpected proximity of one of the monsters. It was only a few feet away from Elijah and would indeed have spotted him if he hadn’t used only his eyes. The green monster carried a wooden club and fortunately had its back turned to him. Four more orcs walked around the room, searching for whatever killed their kin and unlike the unarmed first group, they all carried wooden clubs. Which Elijah would absolutely abuse.

Two of them stood further away than the rest while one of the orcs was hulking toward Root’s position. The last one was near the entrance to the goblin’s tunnel system and even got on all fours to look for any trespassers into their territory. Now was the perfect opportunity to strike.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Elijah’s eyes snapped back into place and after a short disorienting sensation, he turned around and pushed himself up, stepped on the bed, and shot forward. He met the nearest orc with a [Devastating Blow] powered overhead strike of his mace to its head. The wooden club changed trajectory midair and landed in Elijah’s hand while he stormed toward the two orcs furthest away. Elijah worked as an excellent distraction for his minion which slithered forward and bit the orc that was heading in its direction in the leg.

The three remaining orcs noticed the commotion and saw Elijah approaching them. One of them threw its club at him. The weapon flew so fast, that Elijah barely had time to react and pushed it off its trajectory. It missed him by a few feet.

Before its brethren could imitate the attack, Elijah pulled with his abilities at his mace and the club in his hands. He managed to catch the three orcs off guard and pulled himself across the cave in a matter of seconds, closing the distance by a large margin before he was close enough.

Two golden eyes grew on the wooden club as Elijah resummoned Timber before he hurled it toward the orc on the right which had abandoned its weapon a few moments ago. [Wooden Thorns] flew toward the other two as Elijah closed the remaining distance, his mace still being pushed away by him to carry him forward. Before they knew it, Elijah was on them.

While Timber fought against the right orc, Elijah shot three more [Wooden Thorns] at the right orc and leaped forward to take care of the monster in the middle. He hadn’t expected the orc to react in time and grab his leg mid-air before it flung him against the wall. How strong are these idiots? A wooden club smashed into the wall, narrowly missing his head and sending debris flying around. Elijah was glad that they weren’t that smart and lacked any trace of a proper fighting style. They only knew brute force. Even his minions could outsmart them.

He glanced at Root fighting against one of them in the distance. It looked like his minion had slipped under its shabby clothes and gave it hell. Diverting his attention during the fight nearly proved fatal as Elijah barely managed to throw himself aside to evade an orc literally running into the wall to squash him. Sylph’s Grace working overtime here. He saw the other orc was about to do the same and hurriedly sent his mace into its side. Elijah got up as the orc stumbled for a few steps before it landed face-first in a stone bed. A lucky shot with [Wooden Thorn] impaled its eye as the orc tried to get up. It lost all strength and planted its face into the same spot again.

Another stream of essence accompanied the one he just got but Elijah had no time to check which minion had won its fight. He locked eyes with the last orc he had to take care of. It roared. And Elijah’s spike-formed hand shot forward to impale its heart. The orc hadn’t expected Elijah’s arm to stretch all the way and the shock was apparent as it looked down at the hole in its body with wide eyes. With a thump, it fell to its knees before it kissed the floor, another stream of essence entering Elijah.

He turned to the ongoing fight between the last orc and his two minions as he considered what to do next. I should regenerate my mana before I enter the next fight. Elijah glanced at his status. He probably had enough mana to carry him through the next fight as well but he wanted to take a rest after all the fighting against the army of goblins and the two groups of orcs.

He had accumulated a few scratches, bites, and bruises during his delve up until now and wanted to take a short break to recover. When his minions defeated their opponent, Elijah had them collect all the wood in the cave and used it to increase their size before he retreated into the tunnel.

Root filled out the entrance to the orcs‘ cave while Timber reformed its body to protect Elijah from behind in case any goblins decided to come over and take a look at this part of the rift.

An hour later, Elijah continued his delve.