Chapter 47
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Era of Upheaval (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Drgon, you will take command of 10,000 troops and hunt them down as swiftly as possible. The Supreme One has decreed that we must crush them before they can rebuild their forces."
"The Supreme One...! Understood. I will wipe those bastards out without fail."
Orc Great Chieftain Drgon. Though his rank was below Gorzan's, he was still a subordinate of Urmark, a fierce warrior brimming with unwavering loyalty and battle lust.
Drgon soon led his forces out, charging across the plains day and night.
His goal was the complete annihilation of the ants before they could fully recover their strength.
"What in the world?!"
But what he found was only the gruesome remnants of corpses that the ants had already carted off or devoured, along with mountains of shattered gear beyond salvage.
The ants had sensed their approach long ago and begun their retreat.
"These vile monsters... We must chase them down and slaughter every last one!"
Drgon, seething with rage, naturally drove his troops even harder in pursuit.
Even if they were foolish kin who failed to recognize the power and glory of the deity Urmark, they were still fellow orcs.
Moreover, these were the very people they needed to persuade and civilize in the future to forge a great empire across a unified plain. Seeing them slaughtered like this was infuriating.
"Great Chieftain, their numbers are definitely not that high. They haven't recovered their forces yet!"
Just as human mages used familiars to scout wide areas, orc shamans could read the vibrations and flows of the earth.
Drgon nodded at the shaman's report, realizing the nomadic horde hadn't yet rebuilt its army.
"We can't give them time. We must avenge our kin and etch the Supreme One's name into their flesh!"
His spear-wielding declaration boosted the morale of all his orcs.
Though the prolonged chase was wearing them down, their momentum remained fierce.
"Great Chieftain! Over there—some of them are attacking a village!"
"Those filthy scum... Hurry and save the village."
In the midst of it all, they spotted ants dispatching a raiding party to assault a nearby orc settlement, igniting their fury.
The village under Mogor's command, having lost many warriors in the recent defeat, was weakly defended. Those who hadn't evacuated were on the verge of being overrun and massacred.
"Charge!"
Drgon issued urgent battle orders and mounted his massive steppe wolf, galloping forward at full speed.
His battle aura boiled hot, enveloping his body.
This was the blessing of the Heart of Struggle, bestowed by the Supreme One Urmark upon his subordinates.
Any orc who truly understood its worth would never refuse its call.
"Where do you think you're going?!"
Drgon swung his spear, piercing the head of a blade-wing ant variant in one strike.
The raiding party that had ambushed the village was a detachment sent by the nomadic horde to secure as much food as possible during their flight.
They had nearly overrun the poorly defended settlement, but Drgon and his orc band's sudden charge turned it into a chaotic melee.
"Drive out the enemy and save our kin!"
Drgon then directed his troops to repel the mere hundred or so raiders.
A few warriors fell to exploding venom from bomb ants, the scythe-like forelegs of mantis ants mounted on their backs, or the charges of decapitation ants, but their numerical superiority overwhelmed the raiders in short order.
"Do they even know fear?"
Judging escape impossible, one decapitation ant went berserk, intent on taking at least one more down with it as it lunged at Drgon.
He regarded it with cold eyes, aimed his spear, and hurled it in a single motion.
This spear was no ordinary weapon.
It was a divine relic personally delivered by Gorzan, crafted by the deity Urmark himself.
The spear pierced the decapitation ant's body and returned to his hand.
It was the moment the village was fully saved before total collapse.
"With my son among them, not a single warrior who followed Great Chieftain Mogor has returned. We thought those monsters would finish us off too... but you saved us. I don't know how to repay this grace."
"Fighting the monsters of that wicked outer god is something we must all do together. But if we stay here, who knows when they'll return. Why not join the Supreme One's fold now?"
The chieftain of the rescued village bowed before Drgon, his face etched with exhaustion that aged him years.
Drgon naturally attempted to incorporate the tribe under Urmark's banner.
"Is there truly a chance for us as well?"
"Of course."
At the chieftain's weary agreement to follow orders, Drgon grinned, brandishing the divine spear Urmark had granted.
Gathering allies one by one like this was precisely what Urmark desired most. And earning merits in that endeavor naturally brought commensurate rewards.
"Great Chieftain, every tribe around here must be under threat from those monsters."
"We'll save them all and lead them to the divine. At the same time, we'll pursue the enemy to the end and exterminate them."
Watching the tribesfolk pack their belongings and livestock before fleeing southwest toward Urmark's gathering forces, Drgon declared with grim resolve.
He was justice itself. True justice in repelling evil foes and saving his kin.
No cause could better rally and unite them.
"You want to join us?"
"Our tribesfolk have already evacuated, but there are still others who haven't. We must save them."
Several days had passed since Drgon's forces appeared as saviors, rescuing multiple villages in peril.
It wasn't just stragglers they saved.
Defeated remnants and wandering warriors began trickling in, joining his band one by one.
"I want to become a recognized warrior like you, Great Chieftain."
"Good. The Supreme One always favors courageous warriors."
The same held true this time. Drgon smirked at the young orc warrior who had sought him out alongside his comrades.
A spirited young warrior was always a valuable asset.
If he survived and grew stronger, ascending the ranks wasn't impossible.
That was the very creed Urmark emphasized to his subordinates.
'Already 20,000. They're growing too, but so are we.'
The game of cat-and-mouse across the vast plains with the nomadic horde continued.
While dragging out time on the move, the horde laid eggs, reared larvae, and devoured prey to swell their numbers anew.
Yet Drgon's expeditionary force had nearly doubled by absorbing routed soldiers and volunteers.
As the moment to settle the score drew near, a variable struck amid the gloomy sky unleashing a downpour.
"Now's our chance. Catch them while their feet are stuck and annihilate them."
"Let's go—kill the enemy!"
Drgon made his decision. He would pursue the horde at full speed and end it.
Thus, the massive orc legion accelerated and finally caught the horde's tail.
'That's right—you can't run forever!'
Perhaps realizing they could flee no longer, the horde turned from desperate flight to frontal collision with the oncoming orcs.
"Kill the queen! She must be where the eggs and larvae are!"
Drgon threw himself into the fray.
As the strongest warrior blessed with the divine spear, commanding from the rear wasn't right.
'Where is it? Where's the egg-laying queen?'
Joining the front lines, Drgon desperately scanned the field.
The horde's defensive tactic, now on the receiving end, was to clump together.
The swarming tens of thousands of ants formed a single colossal mass.
Even the smallest worker ants were the size of large dogs, while the biggest dwarfed bulls.
Kill one, and another surged from above or below to tear at warriors with jaws or sting with venom.
The orcs had to find and breach to the queen within that monstrous blob.
One would think they'd crush or tangle their own legs and backs in such a pile, but the hive-minded variant ants moved without a single error.
'Found it!'
At last, Drgon spotted something through a gap in the mass.
Numerous worker ants were hustling eggs and larvae into an emergency burrow in the earth.
"Great Chieftain! We can't break through that insane wall!"
But the living barricade of layered ant bodies meant amateur breaches invited sprays of venom, piercing stings, or rending jaws.
Even incorporating their own dead into the wall left even the bravest warriors hesitant to charge head-on.
"...Follow behind me. Have you forgotten whose blessing we bear?"
Drgon steadied his breath and gripped his spear anew.
His warriors' eyes widened at his intent to lead personally.
"Sound the horns. We're making history now. Who do you think watches over us?!"
His smirking words cut through the screams and shouts as horn blasts echoed across the battlefield.
No great orc warrior would retreat at that sound.
"Charge! I'll show you His power right now!"
Gripping a leash in one hand and spear in the other, Drgon surged ahead at the vanguard and unleashed the true might within the divine spear.
Subordinates panic amid the intense storm of demonic power.
The stubborn ants faltered momentarily as demonic power swirled around Drgon in a vortex fierce enough to unsettle them.
As the spearhead piercing their defenses, the power he unleashed didn't just empower him—it bolstered all who followed.
"What is this?!"
"Shaman! Is the Great Chieftain's power some kind of spell?!"
"No, this isn't shamanism. What in the gods' name is it?!"
The charging warriors were stunned, and the shamans recoiled in shock, insisting it wasn't their magic.
Indeed, the force Drgon wielded now was from a divine relic infused by the deity Urmark himself.
A power beyond the low-grade Edelion on the Divine Community.
"Who cares—it's good for us!"
"Charge!"
Either way, it was the sturdiest support they could ask for.
'Yes... perfect for slaying the enemy before us.'
Drgon gritted his teeth, thrusting his charging spear forward and erupting a massive azure force that obliterated the swarming ants in an instant.
'What the hell. Total cheat.'
"Yes...!"
Jin-hyuk and Urmark, watching from afar, could only gape in shock and cheer at the heroic, jaw-dropping scene.
Venom sprays, stings, jaws, razor claws—all melted away like snow before flame, shattered and repelled.
"It's over!"
Bursting through the living wall in one go, Drgon hacked at ants still lunging with azure demonic power rippling over him, reaching the queen in a flash.
The nomadic horde's queen, dwarfing all others and even laying eggs from her abdomen at this moment, glared with crimson eyes from within her helmet-like head armor.
"What is this...!?"
Expecting a one-hit kill, Drgon watched in disbelief as the queen's carapace split open like a backplate, revealing four massive scythe limbs that slammed down at him.
Unforeseeing combat prowess in the queen, he barely blocked the strike with his spear.
'What power!'
He reeled once more from her strength.
The nomadic queen, having poured every resource into her own body, surpassed even their strongest hornet ants.
Four scythes hammered down relentlessly; weary, he could only desperately parry with sweeps of his spear.
"Nngh... Even if she holds here, it's meaningless. My warriors have already breached the defenses."
Though he failed to slay her outright, Drgon forced a grin at the sounds of his warriors' fervor behind him.
He wasn't wrong.
Indeed, the orc warriors, morale sky-high from his display, flooded the ants' formation, slowly pushing them back.
Buy just a little time, and they'd swarm in to finish the queen together.
"...Huh?"
Asmora orders the arriving forces to annihilate the enemy.
But in that instant.
Drgon froze, staring past the queen looming over him at something in the sky.
Asmora rejoices that she could protect the horde thanks to the great being's aid.
A colossal something streaked across the sky at high speed.
No mere scout.
Elongated bodies unlike typical ants, twin pairs of wings—multiple massive monsters, several times larger, dove in unison from altitude.