It was the first time they were all working together, and while at first he asked himself why this was even going to work... he had to say he was surprised with the outcome so far. Having someone else that the orcs have to worry about on the battlefield is very good.

Not only does it halve the enemies, but it also destroys their formation, as one team may have more of one kind of Orc fighter. And then came Lucien, who allowed them to fight more recklessly, creating walls and saving them from powerful attacks way before they hit them.

Of course, this wasn’t turning out to be easy in any way, with most of the Beast Humam troops either dying or being overwhelmed; there were more orcs than ever trying to take them down, to the point that having to fight three at a time was normal.

...

And he could see that this was getting to the boys, both Lucien and Kade looked to be pushing their bodies to their limits, to try and help as much as they could, that they weren’t useless... but if they continued, they were going to damage their own bodies... he needed to find a way to fasten the process.

...

And I mean, his students were pushing themselves to their absolute hardest; it would be disrespectful if he didn’t do the same.

Aether took a deep breath, as he was surrounded by a group of orcs, at first Luicen had tried to cover his back, so that he only had to worry about those in front of him, but Aether told him to let go and help Kade.

...

The first swing came, out of the many that were to come. Aether quickly reacted to it, dodging it before kicking the orc in his leg from the side, and thrusting Voidpiercer in his head.

[You have killed a Reader Fragment, Orc]

Yet, as the first died, Aether noticed something... the ones he had seen cornering him weren’t the last ones, no, more and more were coming, seeing that unlike for Kade, there weren’t any stone walls appearing. They considered him an easier prey to hunt.

"...I’m offended." He said, as the metal heads of two axes came from his head, from different directions, leaving him only a small patch where he could dodge, one that he normally wouldn’t have time to sense and find before he was hit... but that was only normally... at this moment, he wasn’t normal.

Taking a step back into that safe spot, he didn’t wait for the axes to fall, as he threw his blade in the air, making it come back to him in the air, and in the process, wrapping around the necks of two orcs.

That was when he forced the chains to retract harder, making them come closer, where he kicked one, and he unhanded one’s weapon. But without his own weapon, he couldn’t kill him. So he made his place redo its path and fall back into his hand faster than they could require.

He felt another attack coming, so he grabbed the hand of the one he had kicked and pulled him into the attack, the axe of his fellow man cutting his body in two, as he dashed forward to finish the weaponless orc.

[You have killed a Reader Fragment, Orc]

’Damn, is this not easy...’ His brain was on overtime; he had to notice and make the path of so many attacks, so they never caught him in a bad position, but it was becoming exhausting. If it wasn’t for his advantage of being at night and having his senses increased, he wouldn’t be able to do something like this ever. It would be crazy.

But here he was...

...And yet as many as he killed, they never seemed to stop, they kept coming, over and over again, more and more as if there were infinite, by what it seemed, if this continued, he was bound to make a mistake, and it was the same story of the orcs... if he made a mistake, he was dead.

...

And yet... he was slowly starting to doubt that he was going to be able to do this.

He was covered in blood, the blood of those he killed, flowing from his forehead into his eyes; it had even painted his hair red.

His eyes felt slower, like they couldn’t handle it.

Something needed to change.

...

...

...

Kade clenched his blade, delivering a series of slashes to an orc, before taking a deep breath, one that felt more needed than optional, yet he had not noticed the orc coming from behind to attack him... luckily, Lucien had stopped him just in time, and alerted him.

’Damn it.’ The boy exhaled, fire burning his lips uncontrollably, as he waited for the wall to come down, so that he could deliver a thrust right to the heart of the orc.

...

Speaking of thrusts, he had no idea what was going on with Aether; he was covered in Orcs... and yet, he was alive, he knew that, because he could hear his voice from time to time, plus... the pool of blood that came from under all of them told an obvious story: many had died.

’A monster...’

A Will-less, but one that could rival the strongest Will-users one day, or at least, in his opinion.

...

He clenched his blade, dashing forward to help his master, as Lucien stopped any other orc from attacking him from the sides, and stopped him from getting to Aether. As he arrived, he delivered a big slash to the wall of orcs that were guarding his master, catching their attention, and giving Aether and opportunity to strike, and of man did he take it.

Not even a second after the slash, he saw his master’s blade through the back of the head of an orc, before going back and striking another.

...

...

It was a sick battle. One that could break any warrior mentally, either from fatigue or many other reasons, as there were far more than enough to do so. A battle that never seems to end, and that made you push yourself to an overwhelming amount just to survive, not win, but to be able to leave the battle and say you survived. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

The sheer amount of blood on the ground can make someone sick, the scent getting in your nose constantly, as you step and dodge in the blood of those you have killed. Truly, a sight to not see.

And yet... they had done it... they had killed all the orcs in the first group.

Aether fell to his knees. He was lucky his mantle didn’t get dirty, or else he was going to have to find a way to get orc blood off his mantle. His hands rested on the ground as he took a deep breath; his body needed a rest; it needed time to regain itself.

And Kade wasn’t the best either. The boy walked up to him, collapsing against his body. Aether felt it trembling, which made him wonder just what the body had done to his own body, for it to shake so much.

Even Luicen looked done, hardly able to move, limping over to them, and lying in front of them.

This battle had been one of the hardest they had had in their lives, so he needed to let them rest... but was it one of the hardest he had seen... hard to say. Really hard to say. It was the one where he had probably forced himself the most, but not the one where he was closest to death, or where he had lost the most hope.

And it probably had to do with the fact that these guys weren’t the strongest. If the majority weren’t Fragment, and then a small group was Echo, then the outcome of the battle would have turned out differently.

Knowledge Rank — [Echo]

>1414/2000- knowledge shard

Would anyone even think this was real if they told them he was a Reader... though, this only proved his point; it was truly impossible to just hunt Reader Fragment, sure, it was something you could do, but this battle had been a prime example; he had exhausted his body, almost died, and only won because of help. And only to make some progress, he still had a long way to go to reach the next level.

...

Well, at least now, the only thing that remained was to kill the Orc King, and as much as he wanted to get those shards, since he couldn’t be that low of a rank, he was going to let the Lion kill him, not only did they have a conflict they needed to solve on their own, but he also, didn’t think either him or his students could fight.

...

And yet, then he suddenly heard something fly into one of the destroyed houses.

And when he looked to see what it was... he stared in terror.

As he saw the Lion King in a horrible condition, and now unconscious.

The horror also didn’t stop.

As the Orc King had finally entered the battle.