The Way to Prove It (3)
"Look closely. Your avatar... has finally achieved an evolution that transcends its rank."
For a heartbeat, everyone tensed. Of course, the only things standing guard at his side for the moment were mindless minions, but that hardly mattered.
Along with Agares’s low, amused voice, the cocoon filling the vast hollow split open with a sharp crack.
And through the seam, enormous legs began to writhe out, armored in what looked like a hard carapace, wrapped in a dense miasma so poisonous it could melt most living things in an instant.
This was not simple growth. Using the stats it had gained as the price of its evolution, it had finally reached Rank 1000—an existence that now stood one step above what it had been before. Everything about it had twisted and sharpened, becoming grotesque and, at the same time, formidable.
Its silhouette still resembled a giant spider clad in armor, not all that different from before, but the thick poison laced with mana seeping from its entire body warped even the air around it, and with it, the atmosphere itself.
"Aren’t you curious? Ascalas is a vast hive connected into one through the Grand Lord. Naturally, the Grand Lord’s growth affects the whole. I do wonder how they have changed now that their very rank has risen."
Agares looked at the Grand Lord as it finally emerged from the cocoon, its massive fangs glinting, and smiled faintly.
As if to say this was only the beginning, the Grand Lord slowly began to move its enormous body.
"See for yourself. What a rise in rank changes differs from one being to the next. By now, the lords who have ascended should all have some breathing room... so you ought to see how they differ from the others."
He murmured the words, watching the spider’s retreating back as it crawled out of the nest, his gaze full of interest.
"They’re falling back!"
"Only for now! Hold your ground and gather the wounded and the dead!"
Under the ashen sky, the commanding voices of officers rang out at full throat, slicing through the cold wind and echoing across the rough northern barrier, even above the shouts of victory.
As a result, the countless soldiers defending the line could not even savor the joy of triumph; they had to hurry to help their injured comrades and collect the bodies.
War was brutal. So was death. Neither of them could completely erase the joy of victory.
There was a limit to how much resolve and zeal could be stoked. In truth, the commanders watching that scene could not fully relax their hardened expressions just because they had held the wall.
There was no telling when the enemy would come surging back. And even then, who could say victory would be guaranteed? Supplies were tight, and reinforcements could not be counted on.
They were clearly growing dry and exhausted, like the winter wind turning colder by the day.
"Keh... Great Chieftain. We failed again."
But the grim expressions were not theirs alone.
"Great Chieftain! The human defensive line is too solid, locked in place against that towering wall. At this rate, we won’t be able to cross it and push deep into the interior before winter comes...!"
He stood well over six feet tall, with a broad, heavily muscled frame, rough red skin, and a harsh, rasping voice. Yet even he—undeniably the image of a fierce warrior—was trembling.
"I thought the same. I wondered if our strength was still a little lacking. But it seems that’s not the case anymore."
"...Yes? What do you mean?"
He flinched at his superior’s response. It was nothing like what he had expected.
After their relentless advance had thrown the northern continent into chaos and ultimately placed it in their hands, they had been repeatedly blocked by human defenses, leaving everyone restless and desperate.
And yet, even after another retreat, the Orc Great Chieftain was smiling.
"It seems our king is about to show us another clever trick."
"Incredible!"
Still unable to make sense of it, he stared in shock as the grinning Great Chieftain suddenly straightened his bent back.
He even tossed away the staff he had been holding. At just that moment, a gust of wind swept by, sending the Great Chieftain’s long beard streaming behind him.
"W-What is happening!?"
He stammered, unable to trust his own eyes. For an orc whose kind kept their physical prime too long and then paid for it with a severe, rapid descent into old age, the Great Chieftain had already begun to age—there should have been no way for him to fight as a warrior ever again.
And yet, standing before him now was the Great Chieftain, his face lined with wrinkles but his back and joints no longer stiff, his body still that of a hardened fighter.
"Do I need to say more? Our king intends to grant us another miracle."
The Great Chieftain held out a rough wooden bottle filled with some unknown liquid.
"This is the king’s true blessing—the blessing that will bring us victory."
"That’s right. Drink it, and be reborn, our warriors."
And that wasn’t all. Every orc warrior who had joined the assault on the fortress also knelt in unison and accepted it.
No one doubted it. The abilities, the miracles, the results their “king” had shown until now—though he was a being almost beyond the orcs themselves, one they could hardly ever see in person, he had always given them a power they could not refuse.
"For the king."
With determined expressions, they drank the mysterious liquid in their hands at the same time. There was not a shred of suspicion or hesitation in any of them. After all, the very people they were now had been made through faithfully following the choices of the king they believed in and obeyed.
This isn’t just some simple stimulant.
The Great Chieftain restrained the emotions surging within him. Because what they had all longed for, once thought impossible, was now drawing near, step by step, with an unexpected stroke of fortune layered on top.
The fact that he, once merely a tribal chieftain, had united all the nearby tribes and emerged from the Demon Realm to become a massive force threatening the surface was only part of that process.
A miracle that completely changes our very foundation! Our essence!
The Great Chieftain watched his soldiers roaring together as they drank and felt the power boiling within them, and he grinned.
This was not simply becoming stronger, nor merely gaining more mana, nor even expanding their senses. This was power that raised their rank itself and changed their very nature.
Those reborn as new beings like this were no longer something one could simply call orcs.
"Advance again, Ur. Go and bring down the humans’ wall!"
The Great Chieftain barked the order at the excited soldiers with a booming voice. As though his command were the blast of a starting horn, the retreating orc army surged forward once more and charged toward the wall.
The balance of power had tilted again, this time by their awakening. And now that balance had begun to tip at a speed that could no longer be matched.
"More blood! More war! That is what our king desires!"
Ur, the orc war captain, was drunk on boiling bloodlust as he thundered across the ground with veins of blue-black fury bulging beneath his skin.
Blue-black steam billowed from his breath, and even the huge ballista bolts fired by the horrified humans were knocked aside by a single swing of his axe.
"Mage corps!"
The humans, thrown into confusion by the sight of the orcs charging like madmen less than a day after their retreat, scrambled in panic. The mages hurried up to the wall, their faces pale because they had not even had time to restore their stamina.
"Do those insane brutes have no intention of recovering their mana or stamina!?"
"Shut up and fire!"
Though they were utterly sick of it, they unleashed their own magic. The spells, transformed into pure mana, streaked through the air toward the orcs.
"All the better. If they’re going to come at us so openly."
One of the mages actually laughed as he watched the spells fly toward the orcs, finding the sight of them charging barehanded with no siege weapons at all foolish.
Until now, the reason they had maintained the upper hand in defense against the orcs had been magic.
The orcs were skilled in close-quarters combat using mana, but they lacked the means to counter magic launched from a distance.
"...Huh?"
But that had only been true until now.
The magic collided with the orcs and triggered several explosions, yet somehow the charging orcs merely looked a little battered; most of them were still running as though nothing had happened.
"You won’t hurt us with that crap anymore!"
Ur, at the head of the charge, roared and kicked off the ground in an instant, driving his fingers into the wall and igniting himself with terrifying speed.
The blue-black veins coursing through his body continued to writhe. The ability granted to them by their rank increase was none other than magic resistance—the very thing that filled their greatest weakness.
"G-Gaaah!"
"Die, you arrogant human mages!"
Ur, who could no longer so much as bleed against ordinary magic and had instead become especially powerful against mage units, clambered up the wall and split the skull of a stunned mage in two with a single axe swing.
The other orcs following behind him also seized the moment while the humans were still reeling, swarming up the wall and swinging their weapons in the same way. In less than half a day, the week-long siege had collapsed entirely, and the balance was broken beyond repair.