It was rainy season.

The mutant greenskins’ encampment had been built on a broad, flat hill.

There were a few higher hills around, but they were steep — not the sort of place a large band would linger in for long.

“Move.”

Nereus and I met each other’s eyes.

Dawn had not yet lifted its head.

We climbed the hill overlooking the mutant greenskins’ camp, every soldier holding his breath.

We hid among the scrub and looked down at the encampment.

“That has to be over a thousand.”

“A thousand. Not insignificant. The group we wiped out back then was what, three to four hundred?”

“The group you wiped out was about that size. The one I destroyed was twice that. That damned Kal… never mind.”

The camp was considerable.

Hundreds of resin torches burned without flickering out even through the morning mist.

Crude barricades were set up here and there, blocking the flattest approaches.

Hobgoblin skirmishers patrolled the camp with torches and spears.

Dark red veins stood out around their eyes.

“You see that?”

“Yeah. I see it.”

I switched my Bio-Radar from passive deployment to combat deployment.

Woom.

The world tilted for an instant as every movement within roughly 1.3 kilometers etched itself into my head as white outlines.

I probed deeper into the greenskin camp through the Bio-Radar.

One orc warrior registered.

Four arms, a mouth on his belly.

A clear mutated beast.

“Look toward the center, lower part. Can you reach it?”

“Center, lower… ha. It really is a mutated beast. Four arms.”

Nereus closed his eyes and followed.

He found it cleanly, he muttered.

I scanned the camp a little further.

Rafts?

A pile of woven bamboo rafts lay to one side.

I began to understand why only one mutant ogre had crossed before.

Because it was rainy season the water had risen; a large band would have had difficulty moving.

“Did we say we could withstand that weird roar?”

“Yes.”

Nereus rose and drew his Thunderclap Sword.

“Sir, that’s dangerous. We should watch a bit longer before moving—”

“You’re not my adjutant, and you opened your mouth without being asked?”

Jo cut Nereus off.

“Jo!”

I clamped my hand over Jo’s mouth and wrapped my body around hers.

Whoosh!

Nereus’s fist flew and stopped short in front of my shoulder.

“What’s this?”

“She’s my adjutant. If you want to scold someone, scold me. Don’t raise a hand without permission.”

“Do you actually think siding with that brat is the right call?”

“Whatever he does, I’m the one who takes the blame. Forgot already who graduated top of the intake?”

His teal eyes shimmered like a lake without a bottom.

I did not look away.

“Then discipline him as you see fit. I’m going down first. If you’re not quick, I’ll kill them all — take the credit however you like.”

Crackle!

Scarlet sparks flared at Nereus’s temple as he spun about.

“Sir. I apologize.”

Jo glanced at me.

“It’s fine. Talk to me next time.”

Complicated business.

We had moved together and therefore had to show mutual consideration.

An adjutant must not meddle with another commander.

A thousand is not a number to charge recklessly.

But the Blue Knight’s specialty was the charge.

Nereus wasn’t wrong for wanting to exploit shock tactics before the sun made us visible.

And Jo wasn’t wrong to try to stop a Blue Knight from blindly charging a thousand beasts.

“He’s one of the nastier ones among us. At times like this just let him be. We’ll do our part.”

Crackle, crackle!

Nereus set the operation in motion.

Half his soldiers set up ballistae; the other half donned heavy armor and prepared to charge.

Cracklecrackle!

He used Neural Acceleration and Body Fortification.

“Everlasting, like lightning! May the Thundering Star and the blessings of all stars be upon House Astreios!”

Rumble!

With Thunderstep his great frame launched as if he were flying.

Even unmounted, his speed outmatched a cavalry charge.

Cracklecracklecrackle!

Scarlet currents sketched a single streak through the darkness around him.

“My word.”

“He’s incredible.”

The soldiers gaped as Nereus shot across the darkness and onto the greenskins’ camp in an instant.

Boom!

The barricade blocking the main gate shattered and flew skyward.

“Look at me! See! Now!”

Nereus swung the Thunderclap Sword and cleaved four mutated hobgoblins in a single stroke.

Rumble!

He pressed the advantage and began to smash straight through the camp.

“Kyrie! If you think I’ll hand you the glory, that’s a needless courtesy!”

His roar shredded the night’s silence.

Really a monster of a man.

I took the javelin Jo passed me.

“We start, too. Heavy armor troops charge with him; ballistae, prepare to fire.”

“Yes.”

Honestly, I was grateful.

He drew their attention so well.

Although night was dark, the greenskin camp was bright with torches.

Thanks to the Bio-Radar’s expanded range most of the encampment lay in my palm of vision.

I saw the mutated orcs charging toward Nereus.

Arms numbering three, four, even five.

One had huge arms sprouting from its back.

All were covered in dense, dark red veins; their eyes were wild.

I found a cluster where five overlapped.

I used the Endowment to Projectiles authority I’d received upon ascending to the Starseat.

Crackle!

White electric sparks danced along the tip of my javelin.

I lifted one leg and drove it forward, throwing the javelin.

Skreeee!

The white electric flash on the tip pierced three mutated orc warriors and, keeping its current, impaled the belly of a fourth.

“Kraaagh!”

The fourth, skewered through, tried to pull the spear out.

Cracklecrackle!

Current ran from the spear; black smoke rose from its belly as it collapsed.

“Oooooh!”

“What was that just now?”

“There was a white line all along it!”

“Kyrie! Kyrie! Kyrie!”

The soldiers chanted my name.

“Hah.”

I smiled with a clear, simple pleasure and took the second javelin.

It felt good.

The fight continued.

A third of the soldiers Nereus and I had brought fired ballistae from the hill; two-thirds, armed with spears or heavy armor, stormed the camp directly.

I threw javelins at the orcs with mouths in their bellies.

“Uuuuuugh!”

Whenever a ribcage burst out and a white outline appeared on the Bio-Radar, I threw a javelin at it.

My nerves took a strain; my arm ached some, but the results made it worth it.

[“Wooooah… Kraaaargh!”]

The mutated orcs could not unleash that strange roar; they were stabbed, electrocuted, and fell.

Without that roar even a mutated beast was only somewhat stronger than an ordinary beast.

“Hahaha!”

They could not stop Nereus.

Every swing of his blade cleaved an orc’s waist; every kick shattered a hobgoblin’s skull.

Whew.

I breathed out in relief.

This looked like a manageable victory.

Thud.

I thought so until I felt the ground-shuddering thumps from the far side of the camp, where my Bio-Radar didn’t yet pick up movement.

“Kyrie!”

Jo yelled at me in alarm.

“Take the javelin and follow me!”

I led a few senior soldiers and descended the hill toward the camp.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Huge footsteps shaking the softened, rain-soaked soil until it began to slip.

A mutated ogre.

“Oh, oh?”

“Ogre!”

“No, no!”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Our soldiers reacted differently from Nereus’s.

Nereus’s men were fairly composed.

But my soldiers had already experienced that mind-rending roar.

The 117th Centuria soldiers took a step or two back without realizing it.

“Kyrie! How do you train your soldiers like this?”

Nereus roared from the front lines.

“Pull the men back!”

“What?”

“I said pull them back! Don’t you remember? If a mutated ogre’s roar rings here we’re all dead!”

This time I roared the same.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Mutated ogres rose over the hill toward the camp.

Though impossible to see with the naked eye in the darkness, they showed on my Bio-Radar.

There were three.

One at 3.5 meters covered in black veins, one five meters tall with two heads, one six meters tall with a mouth on its belly.

That one — the belly-mouthed one — charged this way.

Ribs more than a meter wide split left and right.

“Javelins!”

I threw every spear I had.

Skreeee! Skreeee! Skreeee!

The Endowment to Projectiles made each javelin cut the night as a white streak.

Every one lodged in the ogres’ belly mouths.

Crackle! Crackle!

The bolts spat current.

Electricity pouring from bolts embedded in flesh was lethal.

“Wooooooaaar!”

The six-meter monster writhed, its split ribs clattering like centipede legs.

“What is that!?”

Nereus checked late and leapt skyward.

He ran up the ribs of the mutated ogre and reached its neck.

“Argh!”

He leveled the Thunderclap Sword under its jaw.

Rumble!

He unleashed Thunderstep.

Thud!

Exactly the move I’d described before.

“See!”

He’d been preparing for this, it seemed.

The six-meter mutated ogre convulsed and toppled backward.

No matter mutation or whatnot, once the brain was pierced and cooked by electricity it could not hold.

“Concentrated fire!”

“Shoot!”

Jo and Nereus’s adjutant did not stand idle.

They focused the ballistae that had been dismantled and brought along into firing; the bolts were stake-thick.

Skreeee! Skreeee! Skreeee!

Even a five-meter, two-headed ogre could not withstand a hail of those bolts like a porcupine.

One bolt pierced the neck of the large head; another pierced the small head.

The five-meter ogre dropped to its knees.

That was the end of it.

[“Woooooooaaaaaar!”]

The 3.5-meter ogre roared up at the sky.

No.

The dawn, which had lightened briefly, seemed to darken again.

An intangible black mist-like wave rose from the ogre’s maw.

“Ah!”

“Ugh!”

“Argh!”

Soldiers fighting fell over, their eyes rolled back.

A thousand mocking tendrils and sky-darkening feathers and blinking red eyes and boiling, infinite foam rose in my vision.

“Garrk!”

A goblin tried to lift its thigh-armor and stab my knee.

“Shit!”

Thunk!

I smashed its skull with my fist.

I checked the battlefield with the Bio-Radar in a hurry.

It was the worst.

The same thing was happening across the battlefield.

“Aaagh!”

“Ugh!”

“Argh!”

Soldiers who had been on a winning roll were stabbed by goblin knives and felled by orc axes.

“Those damned spores!”

Nereus raged, but it didn’t look like he could reverse the situation by sheer force.

“Huuuuugh!”

The 3.5-meter ogre drew another breath.

“Javelins!”

I reached out sideways.

“All used up!”

Came the reply — not javelins, but words.

“Damn!”

I rifled my waist and ran forward.

I found daggers.

I used the Endowment to Projectiles on them and threw.

Skreeee!

Daggers were weaker than javelins, but the 3.5-meter ogre was weaker than the five-meter one.

Crackle!

“Kaaaargh!”

When a dagger plunged into its neck and spat current, the ogre trembled all over.

It exhaled the breath it had taken.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

I used the opening to draw the Thunderclap Sword.

Ballista fire can’t be relied on now. The moment that thing went off I couldn’t count on the soldiers to help. I have to do something myself.

Right hand on the Thunderclap Sword, left hand I charged the spare weapons with Endowment to Projectiles and hurled them.

Skreeee! Skreeee! Skreeee!

I threw a short saber the size of a forearm, two awl-like daggers aimed at gaps in armor, a work karambit for butchery, a two-span war-hammer for smashing helmets, even the emergency dagger I hid by my ankle — every spare weapon I had.

At 3.5 meters I could have reached with Thunderstep for a killing blow.

But I could not Thunderstep and throw at once.

Until I could reach him with one Thunderstep, I had to keep preventing him from roaring again.

“Huuuh!”

“Krak!”

“Huuuh!”

“Krak!”

The 3.5-meter mutated ogre inhaled toward a roar and then coughed the breath back when struck by a thrown dagger; this repeated.

Nereus, berserk, swept away the surrounding orc warriors and hobgoblin elites; the mutated ogre’s roar had silenced even the ballistae and our men.

At the center of the greenskin camp only the ogre and I remained.

Skreeee! Skreeee! Skreeee!

Every time I threw a dagger the Endowment’s power flashed white and tore the darkness.

Ha ha ha.

Each time the mutated ogre exhaled the black wave dissipated into the mist.

Fifty meters.

I threw the last dagger.

By now I was used to throwing; my wrist alone could send things true and fine.

Forty meters.

I saw an orc warrior running up behind me.

I could have cut him down in an instant, but if I did that the ogre would roar again.

“Kyrie!”

Nereus threw his own Thunderclap Sword into the orc’s back and felled him, then drew his short saber.

Thirty meters.

“Huuuh!”

The ogre sucked in a full breath.

As the black wave began to spill from its mouth like fog.

Rumble!

I slammed my foot and used Thunderstep.

I aimed the Thunderclap Sword at the ogre’s neck and swung.

Chapter 33

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