Chapter 444: Ancestral Spirit Blood Shadow, Ancient Orc

“Aaaaaah!”

After unleashing his berserker rage, the orc—his physical prowess now elevated to the rank of Great Knight—bared his protruding tusks. With a roar, he swung his massive hammer down without hesitation, crushing the skull of the charging enemy orc, who was a tier weaker, deep into his own torso until he was nothing but a mangled mess of flesh and bone.

“Squelch.”

The sound of a blade piercing meat followed. The enemy, pulverized by the hammer, had struck out with his orc-tooth dagger before dying, his heart devoid of fear. The teeth of the armored ground dragon had been inscribed with special runes by the tribal shamans; even if the wielder’s strength was inferior, the blade easily pierced the skin and slid between the orc’s ribs, burying itself deep within his flesh.

The engravings glowed, greedily draining the orc’s life force. By the time he pulled the blood-and-gore-slicked dagger from his chest, his torso had visibly withered, his stamina severely depleted.

The battlefield offers no respite or time for the wounded to recover. Thus, the next moment, as he threw his head back to let out a roar of fury, a powerful orc who had emerged from nowhere cleaved him in two at the waist with a rusted greatsword.

Blood poured out, but the earth was already saturated, unable to absorb any more. The blood gushing from the corpse had no choice but to follow the pull of gravity, spreading across the ground and pooling into a dark, viscous lake.

“Glug, glug.”

A faint sound of bubbling emerged amidst the cacophony of the battlefield. No fighting orc warrior noticed this sound, so minuscule compared to the din of slaughter—except for the shamans, who were chanting strange incantations.

The bubbles appearing on the pool of blood seemed to be a mere omen. The blood left behind by the fallen orcs began to undergo a bizarre transformation, rapidly overflowing from the blood-soaked soil, breaking free from the earth’s shackles, and gradually atomizing into a crimson mist that rose to mingle with the fog already shrouding the battlefield.

“Agos-tila-ga-mo-e-liu-en-xie-bi-wu…”

The orc shamans chanted at a frantic pace, using a perception born of their bloodline and manifested in their spirits to commune with and influence the bloody mist and the countless life forces accumulated within it, binding them to the “Ancestral Spirits” worshipped by their tribes.

The “Ancestral Spirits” were not ones to refuse such offerings. The blood mist captured by the shamans rushed toward them, condensing and swirling in the air to form a turbulent vortex of gore. From the rapid, incomprehensible chants, they began to shape bodies for their ancestors to descend upon the battlefield.

“Bang! Hiss-screech!”

Massive hooved feet slammed into the ground, the staggering weight shaking the earth. This giant monster—with the skull of a colossal deer for a head, hideous sharp claws, and an upright, humanoid gait—was an Ancestral Spirit of one of the orc tribes, a creature not found in any biological tome.

With enough flesh and orc souls as a sacrifice, one could summon the tribe’s totem: a powerful, ancient Ancestral Spirit brought into the world to hunt, or perhaps, simply to slaughter.

The giant deer-skulled monster charged into the fray. It seemed to possess the ability to distinguish friend from foe; while it did not go out of its way to avoid the orcs, trampling through the berserk ranks without hesitation, it never targeted its allies.

“Swish!”

Sharp claws swept through the air. A nearby orc, along with his armor and the weapon he used to parry, was instantly sliced into ragged pieces, left disemboweled on the spot.

The deer-skulled monster’s hunt continued. Its bony upper and lower jaws snapped open to their limit, and with a swift lunge, it swallowed an orc whole. After crushing him with immense bite force, it let the viscous blood and pulverized meat spray across its body, absorbing the remains to grow stronger and more frenzied.

“Chi-chi-chi!”

The monster let out a short, sharp, rapid cry. It sounded nothing like a deer; it only made the listener feel a bone-chilling discomfort. Yet, on this battlefield, no orc in a berserker rage felt fear. Moreover, there were other entities interested in this deer-skulled Ancestral Spirit.

“Awoo! Boom!”

A violent wolf’s howl pierced the battlefield. Before the deer-skulled spirit could react, a massive white wolf lunged out from the orc ranks like a phantom. It bounded with agile, shifting steps, leaping into the air. Its wolf-maw, lined with razor-sharp teeth, clamped down with violent force, crushing the tough neck of the deer-skulled spirit.

“Chi-chi-chi!”

The deer-skulled spirit let out a shrill, panicked, and furious screech, struggling to twist its body and neck to pry the giant wolf off. But the white wolf, though slightly smaller in stature, possessed superior muscle and more agile movements.

The heavy claws of the deer-skulled monster could barely land a hit on the white wolf, which twisted its body in swift evasion while keeping its jaws locked on its prey’s neck. Even when a blow landed, it left only insignificant scratches on the wolf’s thick, resilient fur.

“Snap, squelch!”

Soon, the deer-skulled spirit’s neck was completely severed. Its massive body crashed to the ground, colliding with the mountain of orc corpses and emitting a dull thud.

The white wolf began to gorge itself on the flesh of the deer-skulled spirit. This refined meat made it far stronger than devouring raw orcs. Sensing orcs rushing toward it from behind, the wolf lashed its thick tail through the air with a sonic boom, sending several orcs flying with broken bones and shattered limbs.

“Woo! Rumble!”

Suddenly, the white wolf Ancestral Spirit sensed something strange from beneath the earth, accompanied by an unnatural tremor. Its fur stood on end; the wolf entered a state of total combat readiness, emitting a long, threatening howl.

Yet, this did not deter the enemy. The ground suddenly collapsed, revealing a massive void. The white wolf, along with a multitude of orcs and corpses, began to plummet into the gaping pit.

Two points of crimson light appeared in the chasm. Upon closer inspection, one would realize that a gaping maw was surging toward the surface at incredible speed. The owner of this mouth was a python, several tiers larger than the previous two Ancestral Spirits.

“Snap!”

The giant snake head burst from the earth, its jaws closing to swallow the deer-skulled spirit, the white wolf, and a vast number of orcs and corpses, dragging them into its belly to be digested. Its snake eyes darted greedily, searching for its next favored prey.

Before it could find one, its gaze locked onto eight spider eyes opposite it. A spider, nearly as massive as the giant python, had simultaneously marked the snake as its prey.

The spider’s limbs slammed into the ground, launching its colossal body into the air. It crashed down toward the python, spraying highly corrosive green venom mid-air, while shooting webs to bind the serpent.

The python retreated into the hole it had just emerged from. The spider landed with a thud, but the python was gone. The next moment, the ground cracked again; the python surged out, its powerful body rapidly coiling around the spider, muscles tightening. The snake’s scales ground against the spider’s barbed, armored carapace, its intent to crush the life out of its foe clear.

However, this spider Ancestral Spirit was clearly far more powerful than the two the python had already devoured. For a time, the two giant beasts remained locked in a stalemate, neither able to overcome the other.

Across the battlefield, similar struggles played out everywhere. Compared to ordinary orcs, the summoned Ancestral Spirits were immensely powerful. But as every tribe summoned their own, a hierarchy of strength emerged among these behemoths. They devoured, fought, and maimed one another. With their arrival, the battlefield became even more chaotic, and the death rate of the orcs on both sides skyrocketed.

By now, the war was drawing to a close. Even with the sheer number of orcs, and both sides blinded by bloodlust, every adult capable of fighting—regardless of gender—had been thrown into the fray. Even the shamans had entered the dangerous front lines to bombard their enemies with sorcery.

But the number of orcs was not infinite. Once the Ancestral Spirits appeared and the efficiency of the slaughter soared, this meat grinder of a battlefield would soon finish off one side entirely. Yet, in that mountain of corpses and sea of blood, no one could judge whether the rebels or the suppressors would emerge victorious.

…

“How is it, Berserker? Are you satisfied with this body? It cannot compare to your former self, but since you chose to slumber from that era and wake in this one, this is all that can be done.”

The white-haired youth smiled at the male orc crawling out from the mound of corpses. His physique did not look as overly massive or brawny as a typical orc.

His muscles were lean and symmetrical rather than explosively bulky, and his face leaned closer to a human’s than to the distinct features of the various orc breeds. However, the intricate, deeply meaningful tattoos on his face were exactly the kind an orc would wear.

“Acceptable. A body as strong as the one I once had is impossible to attain. On a battlefield of this scale, to have a body that has reached the Legendary rank by siphoning blood essence is enough.”

The orc, addressed as Berserker by the youth, ignored the hand offered to pull him up. He appeared to have crawled out of the pile of corpses as if reborn, and should have been weak, but this body had been forged by stealing the life force and flesh of a third of the battlefield’s dead. It possessed genuine power that surpassed the average Legend.

“Is that all it takes to satisfy you? You know, the plan had a slight deviation. This war in the orc kingdom was supposed to be an epic conflict sweeping across several kingdoms. Had we siphoned the blood essence used by the shamans to summon the Ancestral Spirits on such a battlefield, it might have been enough to push this recast body to your former strength.”

The white-haired youth snapped his fingers. Spatial runes danced around him and Berserker as if alive, beginning to construct a complex and massive teleportation array.

“Creak, creak.”

“The strength of this vessel is not the point. Being able to stir the tides of fate and force all those unwilling to accept the truth to follow our lead—that is the key to achieving what we desire.”

Berserker flexed his body. His joints rubbed together, emitting sounds under the pressure of his muscles. His gaze swept across the orcs engaged in their frenzied slaughter, his eyes holding something unreadable.

“Very well. Such a long time has not changed your nature; you remain as rational as ever. Are you ready? Our target this time is to kill the King of the Bloodtooth Empire. Only the unique nature of the orc race requires us to take this step.”

The white-haired youth nodded in satisfaction. The teleportation array took shape, and the distinct spatial fluctuations began to warp the surroundings. Even from a distance, the distortion was obvious. Yet, in the chaos of the battlefield, not a single orc spared a glance at these two existences.

“Heh, I would hope so. But how could such a long slumber not bring changes? Hurry, I must expend great mental effort to suppress the desire to join this chaotic slaughter.”

With a self-deprecating chuckle, Berserker’s neck and arms were suddenly covered in bulging veins, his skin turning a deep, flushed red. The battlefield was awakening the orc’s innate desire for carnage.

“Understood. It is done.”

The white-haired youth nodded. The final spatial node clicked into place as he spoke. Space tore open, pulling the two existences from the battlefield, spanning a vast distance to reach their destination.