Chapter 1046: Invasion
Leon frowned in thought. There was definitely a huge secret hidden here, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was.
The Grand Shaman once again vanished without a sound, completely ignoring Leon, who was still in the graveyard.
Leon stared at the spot where the Grand Shaman had disappeared, fully understanding the shaman's feelings. There wasn't a single corpse left in the graveyard. This secret had probably always been the Grand Shaman's burden alone—none of the orcs in the tribe knew about it, not even the chieftain.
He quietly left the graveyard and returned to the tribe. Leon immediately called everyone together—this situation couldn't be handled by just one or two people.
"...That's how things stand. All the orc corpses have vanished. If nothing unexpected happens, those bodies have turned into new undead.
According to the Grand Shaman, anyone who dies on this land will become undead..."
Leon recounted what had happened in the graveyard. After listening, everyone fell silent, deep in thought.
Morgan's face looked especially grim.
"Great, now there are a few hundred more undead, and they're all at least level thirty-five. Their strength just got even more terrifying..."
Dida scanned the room with a heavy expression.
"We're trapped here now. The undead are patrolling the grasslands tirelessly. They won't approach the tribe, but we can't get out either. If we're surrounded by an undead army, none of us will make it out alive."
Someone immediately chimed in from the side.
"And those undead are so strange—they could emerge from the ground at any moment. Who knows where they're hiding? They might just surround us, and none of us would escape. We'd all end up as undead!"
Everyone looked uneasy. Suddenly, Leon spoke calmly.
"Something's definitely wrong here. There must be some special force at work. Orcs don't normally turn into undead. If we want to leave, we'll have to break the undead curse."
Diras's face grew even darker at Leon's words. He sneered at Leon, a trace of mockery at the corner of his lips.
"Hmph, these orcs have been stuck here for who knows how long. Like you said, they've lived here for at least a thousand years and still haven't solved the undead curse. You think you can do it?"
I don't buy this undead curse nonsense. There's gotta be another way out.
Leon glanced at Diras with a blank expression, completely ignoring him.
Diras's face turned ugly, and he suddenly stood up.
"If you all want to sit here and wait to die, go ahead. I'm leaving this cursed place right now..."
Diras stormed out. Someone tried to stop him, but Dida quickly held them back, watching as Diras and the two Shadow Tower mages disappeared into the distance, gesturing meaningfully toward the grasslands outside.
"Since he wants to try, let him try. It's already daylight now, and the undead outside have vanished."
Everyone stood by the window of the high tower, watching as Diras led the two Shadow Tower mages away from the tribe. They all waited quietly in place.
Soon, the three from the Shadow Tower became tiny black dots and disappeared into the grasslands. An hour later, someone keeping watch suddenly cried out in alarm.
"They're coming back! The undead are chasing them!"
Everyone crowded the window, casting Eagle Eye to look out. Sure enough, they saw a massive horde of undead charging toward the tribe, with the three Shadow Tower mages fleeing for their lives at the front.
But just as they reached the tribe's warning perimeter, the rampaging undead army suddenly stopped. All the undead turned and retreated.
Within minutes, all the undead withdrew like a receding tide. The land returned to silence, and even the scattered remains of undead creatures seemed to be swallowed up and vanished.
The deathly aura caused the grass on the ground to rot, but soon fresh green blades began to grow rapidly, erasing all traces.
The three from the Shadow Tower returned to the tribe, their faces still pale with fear. None of them spoke about rushing out again.
Leon wasn't in the mood to laugh at Diras. Frowning, he looked out the window, completely puzzled.
At night, hordes of undead patrolled the grasslands. Whenever they approached the tribe, they would veer away as if blocked by an invisible wall.
At first, they thought there must be some magical device in the orc tribe keeping the undead away. But now, even in daylight, the undead chased the Shadow Tower mages, and just as they neared the tribe's defensive line, the undead abruptly gave up and retreated for no apparent reason.
Most importantly, Leon noticed that the distance the undead retreated just now was different from the distance they retreated at night!
At night, the undead would come closer to the tribe, but during the day, they retreated much farther away. Regardless of the time, the undead stayed outside the tribe's defensive perimeter, meaning the orcs couldn't detect them unless they moved closer.
Orcs are physically strong, and some are powerful warlocks, but all their magic comes from their bloodline.
Humans can easily cast support spells like Eagle Eye, but orcs can't. Their vigilance depends on their wyverns.
But this tribe has very few wyverns—certainly not enough to keep watch at all times.
Leon couldn't shake a strange suspicion—these undead seemed to know the tribe very well, almost as if they were avoiding it on purpose.
Could it be that there's some magical device in the tribe keeping the undead away?
Thinking back to what the Grand Shaman said, Leon grew even more puzzled. One thing was clear—the Grand Shaman definitely knew more than he let on.
There was definitely a big secret behind these undead, but for now, Leon couldn't figure it out.
Just as Leon was racking his brains, a member of the Odin royal family suddenly spoke up.
"In the oldest histories of the Blazeforge Realm, the greatest king was the Blazeforge Emperor. But the most powerful tribe was the ancient Bloodfang Tribe. Back then, they ruled everything in the realm and were its true sovereigns, their strength unmatched."
"But during a great catastrophe, the tribe was destroyed. Only a few survived, and their descendants settled in the Charred Scar. The last orcs guarding the Charred Scar were Bloodfang descendants."
"Sadly, even their last descendants were consumed by the wrath of the Overlord. The Bloodfang Tribe was wiped out."
After hearing this, everyone was stunned.
Bloodfang Tribe...
At that moment, everyone suddenly realized—the orcs in this tribe all had magical markings that looked like blood-red fangs.
No one had thought about it before, since there are so many orc tribes. Besides, the Bloodfang Tribe was said to have been wiped out ten thousand years ago, so no one connected this tribe to them.
Morgan cried out in shock.
"Could this tribe really be the Bloodfang Tribe? That's impossible, isn't it?"
"That's right. The last members of the Bloodfang Tribe were destroyed at the Charred Scar ten thousand years ago. So what's going on with this tribe?"
Everyone looked at each other, completely baffled.
The Bloodfang Tribe is the oldest in Blazeforge Realm's history. Back then, there were two most powerful tribes—the Bloodfang Tribe and the Golden Top Tribe.
The two tribes battled endlessly for control of the Blazeforge Realm. That era was both the oldest and the most powerful in the realm’s history.
Blazeforge Realm was even stronger back then than when the Blazeforge Emperor ruled. Its overall power was at least ten times what it is now.
The eight orc tribes of the Blazeforge Realm today were either insignificant back then—Bloodfang or Golden Top could have wiped them out with a snap of their fingers—or they were outsiders like the Gray Orcs.
Both the Bloodfang and Golden Top tribes have long been extinct. The last descendants of Bloodfang were wiped out ten thousand years ago.
If Bloodfang and Golden Top still ruled the Blazeforge Realm, humans wouldn't even dream of conquering it.
Conquering the Blazeforge Realm would cost and take dozens of times more than it does now.
This history was all but lost in the Blazeforge Realm, but now that it's come to light, everyone was shocked—and even more, horrified.
Now everyone understood why this tribe, with only twenty thousand people, had three Sky Rank powerhouses and over a thousand orc warriors above level thirty.
The ratio of strong warriors to population was staggering—far surpassing even the Golden Orcs who rule the realm now.
But what was truly unsettling was that the Bloodfang Tribe was supposed to be extinct. So what was going on with this tribe? They didn't look like newcomers—they seemed to have lived here for a long time.
Everyone was completely baffled, each person frowning and racking their brains, trying to piece together the truth from the clues they had.
Suddenly, a roar echoed from outside the tower. Surging energy whipped up a fierce wind. Everyone looked out the window—wild winds howled and golden light flashed in the sky.
The war drums thundered, orc roars rang out one after another, and the howls of giant prairie wolves filled the air.
Everyone moved to the window and looked outside. At some point, a group of orcs had arrived outside the tribe—they were all cavalry.
There were three or four thousand of them—mostly wolf riders, with a few dozen riding kodo beasts mixed in.
The orc cavalry had already clashed with the Bloodfang Tribe's riders. The sounds of battle echoed across the land, the light of battle energy flashed repeatedly, and the savage aura seemed to form a crimson blood dragon soaring into the sky.