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Woodman's Path: Chapter 38

Elijah felt his stomach growl as he continued to spy on the orcs. It’s been twenty minutes already. Should I just attack? He discarded that thought when one of the high orcs finally noticed that something was off. It threw a glance toward the door, startling Elijah with the sudden look. He pulled back his head and waited for a reaction, a shout, or anything else. Only after what felt like an hour did he dare to stretch one eye around the edge.

The high orc was approaching with two orcs while the rest kept looking at the door.

Chapter Begin

Elijah immediately retreated to one of the other caves but didn’t have enough time to run far with his slow minions so he slipped inside a room closer to the main room than he would have liked. It was packed with weapons and acted as the armory of this stronghold.

They can use these weapons too, I should be careful. At least most of these are made of wood or have wooden components I can manipulate. He commanded Timber to stand at the entrance to lure the group of three into the armory while he hid behind one of the many stone walls the weapons leaned against.

Seconds later, the high orc stormed into the room, its eyes fixed on the six-foot-tall fleeing minion. Elijah waited for the other two orcs to follow inside before he jumped into action. Need to take care of them before the other orcs come.

He used the small wall as a stepping stone and leaped toward the high orc, taking it by surprise while Timber restricted its arms. He had reformed his mace into a huge thorn and added two grips for his hands which he now rammed through the high orc. With Elijah’s additional weight and the force he put behind the attack, the deadly sharp spike went straight through the monster’s body and got stuck in his minion’s wooden body, destroying a part of its abdominal area.

Timber didn’t even flinch and wrapped its wooden arms around the neck of the weakened high orc. The monster couldn’t turn around to face Elijah, each movement sending blinding pain through its body as it tried to get free from the wooden entanglement. Elijah left the giant thorn inside the high orc and turned around to face the two remaining orcs.

They hadn’t stopped moving while Elijah wounded their comrade and charged at him, driven by fury. On his command, Root shot forward in the form of a seven-foot-long serpent and met the charge of one orc. Wooden fangs sunk into the leg of the orc and sent it tumbling. It landed on the attacking Root and accidentally stopped its next attack aimed at the orc’s neck.

While the minions were fighting their enemies, Elijah confronted the third orc. Wooden clubs turned into thorns as he sent one [Wooden Thorn] after another at the orc. It blocked the incoming projectiles with both arms, sacrificing them to reach Elijah. By the time the orc reached him, it was barely able to move both arms because of the wounds it had accumulated and tried to bite Elijah instead.

After evading the attack, Elijah pulled a club to him and caught it before he struck the orc with it. The orc replied with hits of its own and managed to leave a few bruises on Elijah’s body before it fell lifeless. Elijah let out a silent groan. My whole body is hurting. He looked at the high orc’s corpse. The strongest was the easiest to defeat, what a surprise.

He threw aside the club and gripped the giant thorn with both hands, pulling it out of the high orc’s body. The weapon’s tip was covered with yellowish orc blood and left behind a trail of blood drops as Elijah moved to the door and peered around the corner. Their roars didn’t draw any other orcs in. Are these monsters just that stupid or is the rift somehow manipulating their behavior? There’s no way a group of forty orcs wouldn’t notice their numbers going down by more than half. Probably. It’s not like I’ve ever seen them before. He shrugged before he walked through the hall only to stop when the rest of the orcs turned around the corner.

Elijah, Root, and Timber stood opposite the remaining four high orcs and the eight regular ones. The group of monsters was surprised for a moment. I’m screwed. Elijah thought as he swiveled around and ran away.

The roar of twelve monsters filled the entire hall as Elijah ran forward. He was able to keep a good distance from his pursuers but it was obvious that they would catch his minions soon. At his order, they stopped running and turned around. Root slithered forward in its serpentine form, snaking around the legs of the orcs while Timber dropped on all fours and took on the same form as Root. His two minions managed to stall the orcs but the high orcs jumped over them and continued their pursuit of Elijah.

Elijah glanced at his four pursuers as he ran down the hall. What should I do? At least I only have to take care of these four first. Three more orcs decided to ignore the minions and follow after him. Great.

More of them wanted to avoid the fight with Root and Timber but they neglected their defense and were punished with bites in their legs and feet. Elijah felt how the minions morphed their bodies into five-foot-tall humanoids with wooden horns and spiked arms. There’s no way they can take care of five orcs on their own. I have to hurry while they stall them.

Maybe I can use the first room with the stone beds to hinder their movements a little. Elijah thought of different ways to take care of the seven enemies on his tail and settled on the idea of fighting them in the first room. The armory would provide them with weapons and while Elijah would be able to manipulate the wooden weapons, he doubted being able to fight them all without taking a single wound. I’d rather be beaten than cut.

Elijah’s high constitution and the resulting weight of his body were to his disadvantage in this case as it looked like the monsters slowly caught up to him. He shot a few [Wooden Thorns] to slow down his enemies and surprised himself when three shots connected despite his expectations. He only hoped to slow them down but two thorns impaled the thighs of an orc and a high orc respectively while a third thorn tore into another orc’s throat by sheer luck and left it gasping for air before it died. Another five shots missed their targets but served the purpose of slowing down the enemies. They were even more careful after seeing Elijah kill one of their comrades with such cruelty.

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Their more cautious approach benefited Elijah as he reached the first room of the orc’s stronghold without much difficulty if the six orcs and high orcs hunting him didn’t count.

After reaching the room, Elijah jumped from one bed to another before he arrived at the center. He stood on a stone bed and glanced at the corpses that still lay on the ground from his first encounters with orcs before he faced the current group of enemies. This fight is going to be hell. He thought as he looked at the weapon in his hand. He had kept the thorn-like form of his former mace and considered changing it back to a mace. The orcs decided for him and attacked him, not giving him any time to change the form of his weapon.

The first high orc lunged forward, trying to grab Elijah’s body to keep him down but Elijah jumped back to evade the attempt to catch him and wanted to ram his thorn into the monster that now lay in front of him. Another high orc interrupted Elijah’s attempt at killing the first one, forcing him to jump back again. Before he dodged the first attack, Elijah pulled at the wooden club an orc carried and smashed it into the back of the second high orc's head, stunning it for a moment. The orc stumbled forward into the fourth high orc, surprised by the sudden movement of its weapon.

Elijah almost grinned at the sight of the fourth high orc smacking the head of the orc but stopped paying attention to them as the first high orc had pushed itself up already and moved in for another attack. The other two regular orcs joined the assault, attacking Elijah from both sides, left and right. He managed to evade them all but received a blow by the second high orc against his side in mid-air which sent him flying a few feet.

The third high orc was already on him and narrowly missed Elijah’s face, trying to land a kick on him. I need to reduce their number or I’m going to get overwhelmed soon enough. He activated [Devastating Blow] and landed a hit on the monster’s groin. The creature fell into a world of pain as it fell to the floor, unable to move. Elijah flinched internally as he heard the high orc’s pained wails but didn’t hesitate to kill it with a [Wooden Thorn] against its forehead. The thorn barely managed to penetrate its skull but Elijah helped with a flex of his will, sending the thorn deeper into its head.

The fact that the monsters only charged at him from the front displayed their low intelligence. They never took advantage of their numbers by surrounding him and even if it looked like they were about to, Elijah always kept moving.

Another high orc died when it put too much force behind a punch and missed Elijah who readily took the kick to his side by a regular orc to use the opportunity to get rid of one more enemy with another [Devastating Blow]. As he stumbled back a few steps, Elijah felt how Root got unsummoned. Timber was still fighting against the other orcs. They’ve killed only two of the five so far. He blocked another fist from a high orc before he replied with a punch of his own. I need to kill these four as fast as possible.

The high orc blocked Elijah’s attack and lunged forward to slam its meaty fist into his face. It did not receive this satisfaction as Elijah leaped over to another stone bed and took advantage of the higher position the construct offered as he met the attacks of the two remaining orcs with his own. He threw the wooden spike in his hand against one of them and used his wood manipulation to accelerate the weapon to tear a hole through the monster’s torso before he threw himself away from the incoming strike of the last remaining orc and landed on his back.

He hadn’t seen the high orc's attack coming and groaned in pain as the beast stomped onto his chest. It felt like a weight plate falling on him but ten times worse. The high orc intended to end the fight with that attack and its foot stayed planted on Elijah as it increased the pressure, its foot as big as Elijah’s ribcage. Cracks formed on the ground and Elijah felt his chest cave in a tiny bit. While it hurt like hell, the properties of his wooden body saved from him being crushed under the immense pressure the high orc exerted.

Seeing Elijah endure the pain, the monster tried to increase the weight by stepping with both feet on its enemy. In the short moment, its leg was in the air, Elijah’s hand gripped around the leg and he put a good amount of mana into lengthening his arm. While he didn’t manage to blast or pull the enemy away as he had intended, Elijah’s maneuver caused the high orc to lose its balance and land face down on the ground.

He pushed the high orc’s leg off him and frantically rolled away to avoid the blow of the other high orc. The last remaining orc tried to slam its fist into the lying Elijah but fortunately, his strength barely sufficed to block the attack with both hands. He created a small spike from his palms that stabbed into the orc’s fist and bought him enough time to get on his feet.

Oh, come on. Elijah groaned internally when he saw both high orcs lunging forward at him. He shot two [Wooden Thorns] at each of them and made his fists more compact before he used the diversion to hit one of them with a [Devastating Blow] in its face. A few teeth flew out of its’ mouth and the high orc fell to the ground. The other high orc wanted to take revenge for its comrade but Elijah evaded three of its strikes by relying on his perk Sylph’s Grace before another [Devastating Blow] powered fist landed on the last high orc's nose.

The high orc landed with a thud next to the other unconscious high orc as Elijah turned to the last remaining enemy. The lone orc was dumb enough to carry out its attack on Elijah but it lay on the ground not a minute later. Elijah had used his hardened fists to pound the orc’s body with heavy blows. It died after the fourth punch but Elijah kept hitting, using its body as a punching back to vent his anger at all the orcs and high orcs he had fought.

After killing the two unconscious high orcs, Elijah stepped out of the room and walked down the long hall leading to the main room. Both his minions got unsummoned during his fight but they managed to take care of four of the five orcs they had stalled. I’m going to take care of the last orc before I look for the boss. Can’t imagine that there are more orcs or high orcs around.

Elijah’s exhausted breathing and footsteps were the only things to be heard in the empty caverns of the orc fortress. He decided to keep his weapon in the form of a giant spike and was relieved to find that he could float it beside him without any problems. He was too exhausted to carry anything now, and the simple application of his wood manipulation barely cost him any mana.

After thirty minutes, he still hadn't found the last orc. He had checked every room, walked from cave to cave, and even resummoned Root and Timber to have them help him but the orc was nowhere to be found.

The main hall was now empty. Elijah had defeated every single orc and high orc to reach this point and after resting for another hour, he felt ready to take on the rift boss. Let’s see where the last orc ran to. I’m sure he told their leader about my presence.

After a last glance at the serpentine forms of Root and Timber and the thorn hovering next to him, Elijah pushed open one of the halves of the giant wooden door that led from the main room to the next before he stepped through.