Chapter 217: The Only One

The night wore on, and the Feast of Death concluded with every orc in the camp in attendance, including the Eighth-Rank commander and all the Ninth-Rank elites. The guards returned to their posts to watch over the camp, while the remaining soldiers, elites, and commander went to sleep, intending to wake after dawn with their physical strength fully restored for the battle ahead.

Three hours after the feast, with dawn fully upon them, the entire camp was asleep.

The entire camp, in every sense of the word, including the guards who were supposed to remain awake and protect it.

Not a single orc was awake, nor could any other creature be heard moving.

Except one.

An orc over two meters tall, with brown eyes, was dragging two other orcs behind it like sacks of potatoes. Stranger still, it appeared to be only Tenth Rank, yet it hauled along two Ninth-Rank orcs as though they were insects.

No ordinary Tenth-Rank orc could have dragged two others larger and heavier than itself with such ease, but this particular orc pulled them along without a care in the world.

That was not the only strange thing, however; blood poured freely from the two bodies’ necks, leaving a heavy trail along the entire route as what appeared to be one of their comrades hauled them away.

That supposed comrade was, in fact, a complete impostor.

It was Ravian, and he had killed the two orcs at the camp’s gate as soon as his sedative put them to sleep. Fortunately for him, its effects had been doubled by a particular wine the commander had distributed to every orc during the feast.

The wine was never supposed to have been served in the first place, but for some reason, the Eighth-Rank commander had felt that this might be its last chance to enjoy itself with its soldiers, and that it ought to bring out the wine and share it with everyone.

It had no idea where the thought had come from. No one but the commander was permitted to drink that wine, and the entire camp knew it, yet without warning, it had decided to distribute its private stock among them all.

Strange, wasn’t it?

The soldiers had certainly not objected; they had been delighted to enjoy such fine wine before their battle.

And while all this unfolded, a strange being, different from them and unknown to them all, sat in their midst and watched the performance.

A being born of Pride, steeped in Pride, with Pride inseparable from its exalted existence.

Unfortunately for these orcs, that being was here to target them and make them part of its ascension.

It would spare neither the weak nor the strong, neither female nor male; all were equal under the rule of Sovereign Paradox.

Without knowing or expecting it, these orcs had entered history, though their place in it would be as victims rather than heroes.

...

An hour after dawn, the first orc slowly began to open its eyes.

"Hmm?"

It noticed the oppressive darkness around it, along with a few rays of sunlight partially blocked by something. Only a handful of weak shafts managed to slip through, barely providing enough light to make out its surroundings.

Sniff, sniff.

But the Eighth-Rank orc quickly noticed something else, and its expression darkened into a frown.

The smell of orc blood, so much of it that even a veteran warrior like itself found it nauseating.

’An ambush?!’

That was the first thought to cross the mind of the Eighth-Rank orc who commanded this small camp.

It tried to move its body and get up, but found nothing to brace against to help it sit, let alone stand.

The orc leaned to its right, looking for the large, muscular arm that had carried it through so many wars.

There was no sign of it. Only its right shoulder remained where it belonged, while the arm itself was nowhere to be found.

It had been severed.

The orc quickly looked to its left to check the other arm, only to find it in precisely the same state. In that moment of panic, as the rest of its senses snapped awake, pain began to register along its nerves.

"Graaaaah!"

It screamed with every scrap of energy it had left as the pain struck without warning, and contrary to what it had expected, the agony was not confined to its arms. It was coming from both legs as well, and at that realization, it lifted its head slightly to look down its body, only to discover that its legs were missing too.

But that was not all it saw.

As it looked toward where its legs should have been, it realized from its surroundings that it was inside a cave, though that was hardly what shocked it.

What shocked it was what the cave contained.

Orc corpses, dozens of them, heaped on top of one another and strewn side by side like discarded scrap.

Most were in the same condition as the commander, with neither arms nor legs, only their upper bodies left intact. Some, however, had their chests torn open over the heart, the flesh ruined and the once-beating organ ripped out.

It was a massacre: the slaughter of an orc camp numbering one hundred and fifty, an incident that would later be recorded in history with its perpetrator unknown and its consequences disastrous for the orcs, yet a deliverance for humanity. An allied orc force had been wiped out overnight without a single casualty on the attacking side, and humanity’s enemies had been eradicated without a single loss in human ranks.

As the Eighth-Rank orc looked at its murdered followers, it found its lover lying among them. Unlike the others, her limbs had been left intact, but she was dead all the same, killed instantly.

While it struggled to understand why the perpetrator had treated her differently, a young human man came into view, no older than twenty, approaching slowly.

When a few shafts of sunlight fell across him, the orc could finally make out his strange appearance.

Beautiful, lustrous white hair, crimson eyes that gleamed in an unsettling way, and a peaceful expression that held neither anger nor resentment, only pure self-interest.

Then he spoke in a calm, almost hypnotic voice.

"Oh... You are awake already?"