Chapter 1045: Gone
The Grand Shaman's face was pale, his lightning wounds growing ever more severe. Crackling arcs of electricity danced around him, as if his body possessed a fatal attraction for the thunderbolts from the sky, drawing them down in a frenzy.
Standing behind, the Grand Seer looked pale as well. The rhythm of his strikes on the Bimon War Drum had slowed considerably.
When the Grand Chieftain risked everything to withstand a blow and severed both arms of the Purple-Eyed Demon Overlord, the two Purple-Eyed Demon Overlords finally faltered. Without hesitation, they used the Evil Moon Projection to escape.
The last remaining Unicorn Demon Overlord dared not continue fighting. Abandoning the lesser demon overlords without a second thought, he fled alone into the canyon's black smoke and vanished.
With their hands freed, the Grand Chieftain and Grand Shaman personally struck down all the lesser demon overlords who tried to flee.
The battle was finally over, but both sides suffered heavy losses. Of the four Demon Overlords, one was dead and three were gravely wounded. Every lesser demon overlord was slain.
On the orc side, the Grand Chieftain was badly hurt but not in mortal danger. The Grand Shaman had drawn too much lightning—he could spit thunder just by opening his mouth. At this point, Leon finally understood how the Grand Shaman's lightning wounds had come about.
The Grand Seer, who hadn't seemed to fight directly, had actually expended the most. Even his once-bright eyes had grown cloudy. Whether chanting war songs or beating the Bimon War Drum, all required soul power. He was the one who had paid the highest price.
Of the thousand-plus orc warriors—each above level thirty—only a little over six hundred made it back alive. The losses were devastating...
Leon watched the returning orcs in silence. Even back in the Blazeforge Realm, the battles had never been this brutal. Every one of these orcs had fought with the conviction to tear their enemies apart, even at the cost of their lives. The fight hadn't lasted long, but the losses were staggering.
In the Blazeforge Realm, battles between humans and Blazeforge orcs could drag on for a month, and the number of high-level casualties—those above level thirty—wouldn't come close to this. Even among those above level thirty-five, more fell in this one hour than in three months of fighting there...
Watching the Grand Chieftain return to the tribe, Leon's eyes were full of doubt. He had Hubert deliver some Elixirs of Life.
These blood-soaked, death-defying warriors had earned everyone's respect.
It wasn't just Leon—others also offered potions to help heal the wounded.
"This is an Elixir of Life. Drink it, and it will heal your wounds."
Seeing the Grand Chieftain's confusion, Leon explained.
At once, the Grand Chieftain grinned, shoved the whole bottle into his huge maw, and crunched it down—glass and all.
"Impressive. I can already feel my wounds healing, though it doesn't taste great... a bit tough to chew."
Leon couldn't help but twitch. He didn't bother explaining that the bottle wasn't meant to be eaten. With orcs this sturdy, they could probably digest a chunk of iron if they tried...
"Grand Chieftain, what happened? You all..."
Leon pointed toward the canyon, confusion written all over his face. It wasn't just him—everyone wondered what was up with those Demon Overlords.
The Grand Chieftain shot a vicious glare back at the canyon.
"Those filthy, evil demons crawl out every so often. If we don't crush them, they'll threaten the tribe—and they just keep summoning more demons, growing in number. Today wasn't bad, though; we managed to take down a Demon Overlord."
Protecting our home is every orc's duty. We must fight those filthy, evil demons to the bitter end!"
Leon pondered, not pressing further. He watched the recovered orc corpses, and suddenly, something struck him.
Next, the wounded orcs returned to heal. With the potions from the humans, their recovery sped up immensely—especially with Leon's Elixirs of Life, which worked wonders.
The Grand Chieftain had a thirty-centimeter patch of flesh torn from his back, bone faintly visible. But after taking the Elixir of Life, the bleeding stopped, and new flesh began to grow. With his constitution, he'd recover in less than a day.
The tribe was bustling. The orc corpses were sent to the Orc Ancestral Cemetery behind the settlement.
That night, Leon quietly left his room, casting a stack of spells on himself: Invisibility, Mana Suppression, Flight, Silence Barrier...
As Leon slipped out the window, there was no trace of magical energy or sound—just a faint breeze. Unless a Sky Rank master happened to be nearby, he would be almost impossible to spot.
He snuck into the back hills and quickly found the cemetery. Earlier that day, Leon had sent Hubert to help out. As an orc, Hubert was easily accepted by the tribe, and he had no trouble locating such a key place as the cemetery.
The cemetery was imbued with the power of orc ancestors, guarding the grounds. Ordinary orcs couldn't enter unless it was time to lay a clansman to rest.
None of that could stop Leon. He took out the Death Tome and uttered three runes. Instantly, a two-meter-high opening appeared in the transparent barrier shrouding the cemetery—silent and sudden.
Entering the cemetery, Leon frowned.
The cemetery stretched for at least two or three kilometers. The hillside was crowded with burial mounds, each marked by a simple gravestone—mostly just a name, with a few describing the life of the deceased.
Strangely, this vast, eerie cemetery was far larger than the tribe should need. Yet there was no chill, no trace of deathly aura anywhere.
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If you closed your eyes, it felt like a barren mountainside—no sign of life, but no scent of death either.
Even orcs who don't turn into undead, their bodies should naturally give off the aura of death. That's something no living creature can escape.
The souls of orcs return directly to the earth, but even if their bodies don't become undead, they should still decay and eventually merge with the land.
Yet here, in this vast cemetery, there was not the slightest trace of deathly aura. Leon, with his innate nemesis-of-the-undead ability, was naturally sensitive to death energy—but now, he couldn't sense even a hint of it.
He cast two detection spells, but got no results.
Following the cemetery path, Leon found a patch of fresh graves—obviously dug today, matching the number of orcs who fell in battle.
Standing before the graves, Leon's gaze grew deep. He uttered a rune, sending a ripple through the air that slowly sank into the burial mounds.
Seconds later, the results came back. Leon's expression shifted, a look of "just as I thought" crossing his face.
The graves were all empty!
There were plenty of burial goods, even brand-new clothes lying wrinkled in some graves—as if the orc had vanished, leaving only the garments behind.
Every grave was sealed, covered with a totem at the entrance. Unless you broke it open by force, there was no way to dig it up.
But now, the orc corpses had all disappeared. Leon checked another grave with a detection spell—the results were the same. The burial goods were there, but the orc's body was gone.
Leon stood before the graves, frowning at the untouched burial mounds that were empty inside, silent for a long time.
Suddenly, a faint spatial ripple appeared nearby. Leon turned alertly—and saw the tribe's Grand Shaman materialize in midair.
The Grand Shaman, looking melancholic, walked up to the new graves and muttered to himself.
"Just as I thought... they're all gone."
Leon understood. The cemetery was huge and tightly guarded, yet the orc corpses had vanished. There was no way the orcs didn't know—at least the Grand Shaman was clearly aware.
The Grand Shaman gazed at the graves for a long time, then sighed softly and turned to Leon. He didn't ask how Leon got in, nor did he accuse him of trespassing.
"Looks like you've figured it out."
Leon nodded.
"When we encountered those orc undead, I knew something was off. Orcs rarely become undead—let alone in such huge numbers. It's not normal."
The Grand Shaman nodded and, after a moment of silence, pointed at the ground beneath his feet.
"This land can no longer embrace the orc people. It is tainted by evil power—our souls can no longer return to the earth, nor find rest within it."
It devours all the dead—orc or otherwise. This evil land consumes everything, its strange magic keeping our souls from returning and finding peace."
Leon listened in silence.
The Grand Shaman pointed sadly at the cemetery.
"You must wonder why our cemetery is so large—far beyond the scale of our tribe."
Let me tell you: over a thousand years ago, our tribe ruled these vast steppes. The grasslands were our pasture—herds of cattle and sheep stretched to the horizon, Kodo Beasts roamed like mountains, and the giant wolves of the plains were only worthy as mounts if they were above level thirty-five. As for wyverns, only those above level thirty-five were fit for riding; the rest were mere beasts of burden.
Our tribe had over a million qualified warriors. On these steppes, no living creature could threaten us.
But now, you see what our tribe has become.
The grasslands are barren. The rabbits, once as numerous as weeds, are nowhere to be found. Herds of cattle and sheep have vanished, and the once-plentiful Kodo Beasts, giant wolves, and wyverns are now so few, they can barely form a single squad.
Counting every child and toothless elder, our tribe now numbers just over twenty thousand.
We are prisoners of these steppes. In a few decades, our tribe may be wiped out forever—trapped here until extinction."
Though the Grand Shaman was a Sky Rank powerhouse, his eyes were full of pain and despair. Orcs do not fear death or suffering, but this slow extinction—watching their race fade away—is the greatest torment of all.