Free Web NovelChapter 42: Two Little Piggies
[Update, Wave two incoming]
Ren focused on the cave of the forest lord with keen interest. He could tell that something was happening there, but he did not know what it was.
"Tch, what is happening there? I can sense movements, yet I can’t see any."
WHOOSH!
His words were cut short as a massive spear ripped through the air with the speed of lightning.
Ren sensed it as fast as he could and dodged to the side. The spear grazed his wing. It was extremely fast and powerful, managing to destabilize his entire flight.
"Shit," Ren cursed. He forced himself to stay stable and locked his gaze back at the cave. At the entrance, he saw two orcs standing there. They were both eight feet tall and extremely muscular. They both held massive swords in their hands, and their glowing red eyes locked onto Ren, who was in the sky.
"Oh, so these are my opponents," Ren said.
He had to keep the buff for his own people to ensure they won the battle and, at the same time, move in and handle these two. He was not sure if it was fully possible, but he was going to give it his best.
He watched as the two orcs leaped off the edge and landed on the ground. They bolted in the direction of Ren extremely fast. Their steps caused the ground to tremble.
Ren transformed into his Sovereign Shell and landed on the ground further ahead of where the fight was happening. He had to ensure he did not leave the range even when he moved forward so that his subordinates would not suffer.
"Two little piggies, heading my way, two little piggies about to die today. Two little piggies, come over here and let’s play."
He made his own song as he walked ahead.
The two orcs closed the gap fast, reaching Ren, who was standing there and waiting.
The first orc swung.
The sword came down in a wide arc, and the red energy behind it detonated on contact with the earth when Ren sidestepped, a crater forming outward from the impact point, loose rock and compacted soil launching in every direction. The shockwave from it alone pushed against Ren’s chest hard enough to feel.
He raised an eyebrow.
The second orc was already swinging from the other side, the coordination between them clean and practiced, one high and one low, forcing a simultaneous response from two angles. Ren stepped back, let the high swing pass over his shoulder by a margin that was comfortable enough to be deliberate, and let the low swing cut through the air where his legs had been.
Both orcs landed and came back around without breaking stride.
"Okay," Ren said, rolling his shoulder. "You two actually train together. That’s mildly impressive."
Neither of them responded. Their eyes were locked and burning and absolutely not interested in conversation.
The first one launched itself at him directly this time, no arc, just a straight driving thrust with enough force behind it to punch through stone, the red energy concentrating at the sword’s tip in a tight burning point. Ren deflected it sideways with his claw, the contact sending a spark of energy across his forearm that he noted without particularly reacting to, and stepped inside the orc’s reach long enough to deliver a Claw Slash across its ribs.
The strike dug deep. Three distinct lines carved through the armored hide and drew dark blood that hit the ground in heavy drops.
The orc grunted and swung its elbow back at Ren’s face.
Ren leaned back far enough to let it pass and watched with genuine interest as the wounds across the orc’s ribs began to close, the torn edges pulling back toward each other with a speed that had absolutely no right to exist.
"Huh," he said.
Ten seconds. The gashes were gone.
"So that’s how it is," Ren said, genuinely thoughtful now. The lesser orcs hadn’t done that. He’d killed the one in the clearing without it healing at all. These two were operating on an entirely different tier, and the regeneration was the most inconvenient part of it.
The second orc brought both hands up and swung downward with enough force that, when the blade hit the ground beside Ren rather than Ren himself, the earth split in a line that ran for twenty feet behind the point of impact, a crack wide enough to step into. The shockwave threw dirt and stone fragments in a wide radius.
Ren was already moving through it, using the debris cloud for cover, coming around the second orc’s blind side with another Rendering Claw aimed at the back of its sword arm.
The orc spun faster than he expected.
The sword caught him across the chest with the flat of the blade, and the red energy behind it detonated at contact, not the full force of a committed strike but enough to launch him backward several meters, his feet carving a long gouge in the ground before he stopped himself.
He looked down at his chest. The scale armor had held. There’d be a bruise under it, but it had held.
"Okay," he said, a grin forming. "Starting to feel that one."
They came at him together again, the coordination tightening now, no longer testing him but actually pushing, the red energy at their blades sustaining rather than flaring in single bursts, everything around them beginning to show the damage of what they were outputting. A tree at the clearing’s edge lost its upper section to a deflected swing. A section of the ground between them had been churned into something closer to a crater field than a clearing. Every clash sent energy rolling outward that disturbed the air enough to feel.
Ren kept moving through it, using the terrain, kicking off a boulder to change his angle mid-approach, using the crater lips to drop his level unexpectedly, making the environment work for him in the same way he’d learned to in the headmaster fight, keeping his Rendering Claw doing consistent work on both of them, the deep gashes appearing and disappearing in that maddening regeneration cycle that meant he was spending effort without accumulating damage on them the way he wanted.
The first orc executed a move he hadn’t seen yet, planting its sword into the ground and using the grip to spin its entire body into a horizontal kick that covered far more range than a kick had any right to cover. It caught Ren on the shoulder and sent him sideways, his feet leaving the ground for a moment before he corrected with his wings and set back down.
He rubbed his shoulder.
Both orcs watched him across the wrecked clearing, chests heaving slightly, the red in their eyes burning steady. They were working harder than they’d started. That was visible. But they were far from finished, and they clearly knew it too.
Ren looked at them.
He looked at the regenerating marks on the first one’s ribs, already gone again. He looked at the second one’s sword arm where his last strike had landed, no trace of it remaining.
He thought about the fight so far, the weight of their output, the speed, the coordination, the healing factor that was making his standard approach significantly less efficient than it should have been.
He cracked his neck.
"Alright," he said, his voice dropping into something quieter and more settled than the easy tone he’d been carrying through the whole exchange. The grin faded into something more serious. "Enough playing around." He rolled his arms slowly, his claws catching the light. "Time to take you seriously."
His eyes turned full dragon, and his wings spread out. He raised his hand, and a purple energy glowed at the tips.
