Black blood spilled over the ruined walls and pillars. Black blood splashed on the dry drains and fountains, followed by the half of a torn greyhound, the rocky beast crashing on a drenched soil. Drums of war played over the melee.
A human stemmed the tide. Weapons skimmed his skin, missed by a hair as he plunged into his enemies. A boarish head went flying but the body still moved to strike, hit again and one more time until the mass collapsed.
And this was a sideshow.
Morning had come over the ruins of Chalt. The stench of stagnant waters battled with that of charred bodies and the growing massacre.
Who knew a dying realm still had this much magic to spare.
Orcs by the hundreds poured out of the towers and temples, from the tunnels and drains, to form masses that stormed the center of the ancient city. But the human was nowhere near it, still pushing through reinforcements that diverted to him.
Another swing of an iron axe cut in his coily hair.
He striked back, pierced the assailant twice and blocked another attack from the side. His sword curved down and up, cutting the beast's leg then plunging in his heart, shattering it clean.
In truth the human was still immensely powerful, hardly threatened even by the dozen that pressed on him from all sides. But he still instinctively avoided their attacks and, at their rage, was deploying a frenzy of his own.
One more orc struck, he pushed him off the ledge and to the terrace below, jumped after him to crash among a hard of greyhounds that broke their chains to lunge. One spin to meet them and send them scattered, bashing on the wall and ground.
His foes were jumping after him, forcing him back before falling to the iron sword that broke on their hide.
A second later, he had picked a flail.
Another, and another, and another one fell before he could breathe again. His focus had been such that for a few seconds the realm had stopped to exist around him. But now the last of his enemies had crumbled, leaving him in sweat.
He had barely grazed the enraged horde that still fought further ahead, behind more small temples and pyramids.
"Eh, bone dragon?" The human found the breath to ask his pendant. "The hell is going on here?!"
"You think yourself the center of the realm? Maybe you are, little lamb, maybe you are. But those puppets have yet to realize it."
"Cool story bro but I want to know what they are fighting!"
"See for yourself. But before you go, a word of advice: look at the blood you spilled."
It took him a second to understand it literally. One look and he saw that black blood boiling, fuming below. Even on his arms and trousers the blood was evaporating to mist.
That suggested a blood sacrifice.
"Calisle is right." My voice appeared in turn, catching the human off-guard. "The horde is killing its own to summon larger creatures."
"How long have you been listening?!"
"If you intend to beat the horde, forget the small fry. Find their leaders."
"Follow the blood, little lamb. It flows liked threads tied to the casters."
With but only his senses, there was little the human could achieve in that regard. But the tattoos on his body were ominous. Maybe he had means I was not aware of.
Regardless, he decided to press on. Down into the now mossy ruins and toward the fight ahead.
"Yes," the mocking voice of the wyvern resonated in my small hideout, "this may be our chance. This fight may give us the tremor we need."
"What is the horde fighting that warrants sacrifices?" I wondered aloud.
There was no doubt that the human would be able to prevail against the whole of Chalt. He still dwarved the whole of them a thousand times and some. And while nothing was certain, I doubted there was much the horde could do to change those odds.
But I would not take chances and if whatever those orcs were fighting proved dangerous, weakening myself with an anti-magic sphere would not be wise.
"You would waste the occasion for petty doubts? This killer instinct of yours, unwilling to share prey, is a double-edged sword. Let go of pride, the humans' haven is at reach."
Outside, the human had stumbled upon renewed resistance. In a broken street betwen two temples, with a canal inbetween, he found several dozen orcs streaming in that saw him on the steps above.
Spears and javelins darted vainly at him.
He wanted to leap in, remembered our words and, with a smirk, decided to run away. Roars followed his flight. His pursuers too slow to catch up.
But the drumming had changed its rhythm, got closer and when he emerged on the other side, not far from the main battle he found three rows of orcs in iron armor, carrying heavy shields and halberds.
This was the horde's elite. That they could have such heavy armors, not rusted by the mana drain, was in itself a marvel. But their stature was also a head above their peers.
And they all bore three horns on top of their tusks.
Taunt! They slammed their shields and compelled the humans to come face them. Taunt! They slammed again and he forgot all about good sense, went to meet them with his flail.
Before the two sides clashed, the realm shook under their feet.
Earthquake? Not a spell, an entire plaza was crumbling, taking down another pyramid with it. The cracks opened all the way here, forming faults from which muddy water gorged out.
No matter, the orcs lowered their halberds and charged. Their armors cracked under the flail, unable to resist those swings. But his enemies had the reach, were willing to step back and used their shields. Bash! He avoided a shockwave that made the ground burst in debris.
The human threw his weapon away and breathed.
Punch! The hit went through the shield, to the arm and then the shoulder, all the way to the orc's neck and made it crack! The beast stumbled back, shook off and came for more, saw another one crumble at his feet.
Their shields turned useless, they had no choice but to drop them and lunge. But their halberds could not catch the dodgy human who kept hammering them with kicks and punches, staggering them and causing wounds to burst inside their metal.
That only made the orcs grin and plunge on him in mad dashes.
Behind them the ruined plaza was getting filled with a choking smog turned black by the particles of blood that weighed it down. Muffled screams of rage and pain reached them in waves.
He fell another one of those colossi, blocked two halberds and felt a third graze his side. The human snatched that weapon, spinned and plunged the iron head straight through a cuirass.
The black blood that gashed was already boiling in the air itself, siphoned by the ever-growing sacrifice.
The cry of a massive beast dominated their fight. From behind the temples a giant mass of stone and moss stood up.
Moss slime.
For however weak slimes were, they were high-mana creatures that had succumbed to the drought fairly quickly. Used for craft, they could absorb it and shapeshift, and catalyze. This one was using the terrain to grow and hide the blood magic that really drove him.
A newborn with the memories of hundreds and their shared hatred.
But the human could not even get to that monster yet. He still had to contend with that troup of orcs whose ranks had by now reduced to little. And still they came at him with the same zeal and joy for combat.
He fell back in one hop, then another, lunged and the halberd shattered against the iron plate. The orc, hit, shook and fell. There was little left of him inside the metal.
With only three of those left finally the teenage human conceived of letting go, only for a roar, taunt! To convince him otherwise. They pointed their weapons at him and he showed them his fists, then charged.
The last one crashed before him after both of his arms were gone.
The human calmed down, breathed hard and looked around. The fog was expanding, reaching him and engulfing him like the rest. He could still see the surroundings, but only as vague shapes.
He could see the summoned beast, followed by another giant with tusks, plunge into battle, only to be snatched and dragged down. Six meters tall creatures had collapsed within seconds and were now squirming on the ground against a beast of untold power.
I broke of my trance, got up and started to run.
There were plenty of monsters who could allegedly reach that level of potency. But to reach that level required pretty much all the mana a city or a dungeon could afford, and the horde was already using most of that.
So there were actually very few monsters able to cause such destruction.
Earthworks! Not to move faster but to probe the ground in search of ritual patterns. The few I found were weak ones from the horde. The rest was scrambled by the fighting out there, the blood sacrifice disrupting all flows around.
"Master!" I called the pendant. "Get back, it's getting dangerous!"
"Ah no, not you too! Nzinga, just call me Nzinga!"
"Seal your magic and watch for magical patterns! Some monsters can use your own mana against you!"
"I'll be fine, don't worry!"
Yet he listened and, rather than rush head first into the screams, chose to get around them in search of the casters. I had trouble tracking his movements, being busy running myself, but the pendant still let me follow him mostly.
The head of the giant mammoth went rolling past him like a boulder. It crashed on a temple and nearly collapsed it.
Then, some giant shape flew by him like a ghost and I knew exactly who that was.
"Master, leave now! You can't beat her!"
He decided to press on instead, after that shape and up the vast paved street. Orc bodies were strewn around, torn to shreds. Black blood was pouring down in streams, meeting his feet.
There was a fight ahead, that ended before he could reach it.
So all he got when he approached was the giant shape of a snake, in the fog, busy feeding on the corpses around it.
It was a courtyard full of broken pillars where the horde's shamans lay mangled along with their escort. Devoured bodies in a sea of black blood that drenched the walls and columns.
And in the middle of it, busy devouring the horde's king, was a blood snake whose feral eyes fell on the human.
The king felt from her maw and crumbled into pieces like salt.
She hissed!
The snake opened her maw wide and let out a feverish hiss, a mad rage unbound.
Having anticipated the blood sacrifice, Muasin had evolved into a blood snake herself and now own a thousand corpses. She rose above the human, lunged and got met with holy spears! Not even she could dodge the rain of light beams that hammered the ground.
Hit! Hit! And with this I had my opening, fell on her with my hammer, missed by a little and cast: moon beam! She dispelled it before the massive ray had her turned to stone.
"Muasin!" I screamed.
Haste! Inferno! And now, merge! I was going to teach her just how puny our fights had been so far, the laughingstock of an era of warriors. As her own spells finished and blood spears fell on me, all boiled around and the black blood burst into flames.
The snake screeched like never before!
Merging spells, the way it was actually done. I could not lie, there was catharsis in watching my sworn enemy squirm helplessly in that furnace.
"The hell is this?!" The human behind me asked.
"Stay back!"
As if this was over. This was Muasin. The most dangerous monster of the realm, by far.
And from the flames three of her emerged.