Even in the Winter with the Snowstorm (3)
“It’s just a tad bit more vicious than we are, and a little bit bigger! Do not back down!” The Orc Noble bellowed, and his warriors responded by letting their fervor flow freely. This bravado did not diminish the strength of the Ogre, however. It swung its meaty fist into an Orc’s head, which exploded in that single punch. Another Orc went flying with a simple kick. In an instant, five Orcs lay wounded or dead around the ferocious hulk of the Ogre.
I was awed and terrified by the difference in strength between these two species of monsters. Another Orc got its head pulped as the Ogre lifted its prize to its mouth, its fat chin shaking as it tore into its meal with its jagged teeth. The Orc Warrior’s body convulsed as its upper torso was consumed.
“Oghho gho gho, ogho oghoho!” Came the terrible noise, almost a chuckle, as the Ogre continued chewing on the corpse. The Orc Warriors who were still charging at it stopped dead in their tracks. The Orc Noble now charged at the monster, his halberd aflame with red energies. The Ogre flung its chew toy to one side as it prepared to meet this new threat. The Noble Orc came rushing on, dodging the corpse that had so casually been chucked at it. The halberd came down, and the Ogre swung its fist. Flesh met iron, yet the halberd just bounced off, so hard was the Ogre’s hide. The Orc Noble took control of his weapon, rotating it in a half-turn as the Ogre swung its fist once more. The halberd thrust past the arm into the Ogre’s armpit, yet once more, the weapon failed to penetrate the rugged skin, even with the power of the Orc’s fervor strengthening the blade.
Only a slight lesion, a minor swelling, could be seen where the halberd’s blade had fallen.
The Ogre had by now become angry, swinging at its foe in a berserk rage. The Orc Noble dodged these attacks at a dizzying speed. I admired the fact that he still managed to channel his fervor while executing his defensive movements. By observing him, I knew that he possessed greater skill than the Orc Noble I had killed. His skill with the halberd was superb, and his application of battle fervor subtle.
Suffice it to say; this Orcish specimen had prickled my fascination.
“Have no fear! He is just a single beast!” The Orc Noble shouted, bolstering the morale of his troops who regained their fighting spirit and charged once more into the fray. This time, though, they attacked with more cunning, circling the Ogre and only attacking if there came a gap in the hulking monstrosity’s defenses. These Orc Warriors were hard-pressed, and even by using their fervor, not one of them could even wound the Ogre. Still, their assault was enough to distract the Ogre’s attention from his real foe.
“For the King!” The Orc Noble roared as he thrust his halberd with all his might, his battle fervor glowing brighter than at any prior point during the battle. Blood spattered as his blade cut into the thick shin of the Ogre, the cut itself being about as deep as a human hand is long.
“Seize the opportunity!” He commanded his Orc Warriors, who stabbed into the wounded shank of the Ogre with spears and swords, soon causing the single cut to become a great ragged wound. Still, this beast who was truly a Lord of the Mountain did not kneel, and did not supplicate himself before his foes. No, the damage that had been done to him only angered him more as his rampage grew in intensity. The Ogre now swatted its arms out in random arcs, his mighty blows catching a few unlucky Orcs full-on before they could escape before its wrath.
My attention was wrenched away from the brutal melee by something that grabbed onto my collar. It was Adelia, her head half-buried into my chest as she stared into my eyes, her face still that shade of ghostly pale. She was trembling, her face filled with anguish. It was her eyes that caught my attention, for they were a sickly shade of yellowish-red.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered as I realized what was happening to her. I had forgotten all about poor Adelia. The smell of blood was thick on the air, and it was this smell that now threatened to unleash the maniac I held in my arms. “No! Have patience,” I commanded her. The auras of [War Mania] and [Butcher] weakened around her, yet did not completely disappear. “Be patient now. Wait a little, and then you can run wild.”
She buried her face into my chest once more, and then her hissing breath slammed through the thick fur and armor that I wore. Between her mouth and my heart, there danced that sickly yellow and red light, which marked her true nature. Her body trembled like an aspen in the wind, though not out of fear: No, she was shaking, gripped by a peal of lunatic laughter. I got goosebumps just being close to her, and I knew then that there was a new monster upon the mountain.
I felt the chaos that was her being, the chaos she could never hope to control. I felt that chaos against my breast. I knew then that I should have left her at Winter Castle, yet now was not the time for such idle regrets. As I held her head within my grasp, more men came up behind me. They looked at the snowy clearing in open wonder. Even the Rangers were surprised by the scene before them.
“The north truly is an amazing and strange place,” Ehrim Kiringer commented. I understood his wonderment, for before leaving the royal capital, even I did not imagine that monsters such as this Ogre existed. We could not afford to be surprised, though, for the thing still lived. The Orcs had by now become desperate, focusing all their efforts on at least taking its leg and thereby crippling it. It roared in defiance, clearly unfazed by their futile efforts. Suddenly, Adelia’s red aura began to shine brighter and brighter, her eyes flashing and taking on sickly, yellowish hues. Ehrim’s expression hardened as he saw this.
“What the hell? That’s horrible,” he muttered. It was merely the essence of her existence, for she had inherited from the day she was born the aspects of a predator whose hunger was endless. She was a natural [Butcher]. Adelia began to glow more and more within my grasp.
I then understood what was happening. She was reacting sensitively to the energy of another [Butcher], that beast who gored his way through so many Orcs. I hugged her tightly, and she, in turn, held fast onto me. She knew it was not yet time for us to intervene, so with the last vestige of will that she had, she prevented herself from jumping into the fray.
To attack now would be folly, for we had not yet seen the Ogre’s true essence. Let him sate his appetite on the Orcs.
“Go get him, boys!” the Noble Orc commanded. The Ogre twisted its mouth into a cruel roar; its face stretched into a most ferocious and bestial grin. It flew at its foes, and the Noble Orc rolled out of its way as he once more summoned battle fervor into his halberd. His maneuver had been of no use, though, for the Ogre had other targets in mind. In a whirlwind of motion, the Ogre had stormed into the largest grouping of Orc Warriors, tearing them apart by teeth and claw. Orcish limbs scattered through the air as the Ogre tore into them, shaking its head like an enraged bull. In a matter of seconds, ten Orc Warriors had lost their lives. The Orc Noble had not even had a chance to thrust his halberd at his behemoth foe before the thing had torn into the next group of Orc Warriors.
Truly, the butcher’s festival had begun in earnest. The remaining Orcs struggled to face such madness and launched themselves at the Ogre, heedless of their own safety. They could not even scratch it as it once more tore through Orcish flesh like a child tearing the wings from flies.
“And you came here to kill something like that?” Ehrim asked me incredulously. His doubt was natural, for the Orc had revealed its essence as a [Butcher], an essence that was on par with that of a [Sword Master]. The thought that I, as a [Sword Expert], could kill this being was absurd, at least when viewed through a conventional lens.
I knew, however, that sometimes one had to take great risks to reap great rewards. Improvement did not come through doing the expected; no, only by facing the impossible could the quality of a knight truly improve, like facing the beast that rampaged through the clearing.
“Prepare yourselves, it’s almost time for us to intervene,” I said to my comrades. The Orc Warriors who had charged into the clearing had numbered about a hundred. Less than twenty now remained. The Noble Orc yet lived, but the Ogre ignored him, choosing the softer targets of his warriors rather.
“You are a beast without pride!” The Orc Noble roared as he once more charged at the Ogre. The thing turned his back upon the Orc Noble, loping after some of the remaining Orc Warriors. I clucked my tongue, for it was evident that the Ogre’s apparent disregard of his foe was rather a cunning trap to ensnare the greatest threat. As I had expected, the Ogre continued its charade. When the Noble Orc charged in for a strike, the Ogre swiveled about and grabbed the blade of the halberd in its hand. The Noble Orc increased the fervor within his weapon, managing to cut the Ogre’s palm and draw some blood. The monstrosity still held onto the weapon, though. The Ogre reached toward his trapped foe.
Red speculation and the sickly green flesh of the Ogre met, and then: A flash of gold.
It was Adelia, who had escaped my grasp. The Ogre had not even given her a second glance, the slim little human who dared to charge at it. That in itself had been its gravest mistake. The human that this Lord of the Mountain had considered as an insignificant gnat was, in truth, a true descendant of the King Of Giants, the monarch of that great race that had ruled this world in ages past. The sword she wielded had been bathed countless times in the blood of those very giants, and seeing as the Ogre was also a scion of that extinct race, her blade now hungered to taste his flesh.
Her excited voice rang clear in the winter air:
“Into a river flowed the blood
The land, enriched by flesh.”
With these words, the golden aura of that auspicious sword bloomed brightly. Its murderous intention toward the hulking abomination that stalked the clearing was strongly felt. Adelia had uttered a passage from the [Psalm of Gaebyeok], compiled by Geomhu. The Orc roared its fearful shock as it realized far too late that this small woman was the natural, ancient enemy of its vile kind.
The karma and the giant-slaying sword of Adelia now bore down on the beast, and even if the sword had known greater wielders in the past, it still cut into the Ogre’s with ease.
“Kwaaaaaggggg!” the beast roared as a thin red line appeared on its back, almost as thin as a strand of silk. This cut soon bloomed bright red, though, and blood spurted from a wound that was, in fact, a deep, deep cut. And as the blood fountained, Adelia cackled with pure glee. The Ogre continued to bellow and roar, yet the victor had already been determined.
“With the blood of the giant
And the flesh of its back
I shall remake the earth anew.”
Another passage from the [Psalm of Gaebyeok] flowed from me then, yet I soon had to stop in my recital. I could not handle the raw power of the remaining verses and was so forced into silence. As I struggled to deal with the pain that such a half-poem had left in my heart, a brilliant flash of light lingered upon the tip of my blade.
* * *
Ehrim Kiringer could not believe his eyes.
The slender woman, who had for some unknown reason been included in their party, had struggled in her ascent of the mountain. Now this same woman had cleaved through the hide of the Ogre in a single swipe of her sword. A hundred Orcs and their channeled battle fervor had struggled to inflict a single wound upon the beast, and even then, it had decimated them all. As the blood spurted from the Ogre’s back, the woman who was drenched by this arterial spray stood there, her bloody grin stretching wide upon her face. He struggled to take in her bizarre appearance.
Even if the Ogre had roared in his face, Ehrim was unsure whether he could have snapped out of his dazed state of complete surprise. Slowly his hand edged to his blade, yet before he could even draw it, he saw the Ogre’s fingers, each as thick as a human wrist, severed and flying through the air. Adrian stood before the monster, and his brilliant fiery blade had severed its digits.
“You are just the beginning of my journey,” Prince Adrian said as the beast gave off another furious, pain-filled roar.
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