Mythology: Ragnarok

Chapter 106 Achieving Blood and Bones

Agreed found a good spot to observe, staring greedily at the dilapidated town. Since the town had no food to feed its inhabitants, most of the old beastmen had chosen to kill each other to survive. Even here, only the strong were allowed to live. It was a true hell on earth, and there were as many as sixteen such towns.

When the population of each town exceeds one thousand, the Orc Empire distributes its obsolete weapons and equipment to these old Orcs and gives them a good meal before going on to raid human territories.

"Since I'm going to die anyway, I might as well become nourishment for me." Agreed looked at the town in front of him, and even in his empty eyes, one could still see an indescribable greed.

A despair-like darkness gradually enveloped the sky, and a massacre was about to unfold...

In the pitch-black night, an elderly orc was yawning and preparing to return to his hut to sleep. But just then, as if sensing something for no apparent reason, he looked towards the entrance of the town. With the orc's excellent night vision, he saw a pale skeleton strolling leisurely into the town. The skeleton's pale color contrasted sharply with the night sky, making the orc momentarily wonder if he was hallucinating.

The old orc reacted quickly. He opened his mouth to warn the townspeople, since the appearance of the undead was not a good thing. But before the old orc could shout, he suddenly felt dizzy and then saw his own body. When his head fell to the ground, he realized that his head had been cut off from his body. After that, he died completely, still in a state of surprise with his mouth wide open.

Agreed walked over and drained all the nutrients from the old orc's corpse, then continued forward. Agreed's movements were very elegant and light. Although Agreed's current strength was not yet that of a grand mage, he still had the foundation of a former archmage. Moreover, the orc suicide squads only saw one case every few decades, like 'Kasa', an old orc sword saint who was exiled here. Therefore, in terms of combat strength, these towns rarely had any entities that could threaten him. In addition, Agreed's surprise attack under the cover of night was both deliberate and unexpected, so the result was predictable.

The massacre continued until dawn. Agred patiently identified and killed every orc he encountered. Almost every hour, more than a hundred orcs were brutally murdered. By daybreak, the town had been completely wiped out by Agred, leaving only a pile of flesh to tell the story of the previous night's tragedy.

Agreed looked at the bright red spots that had appeared on his body. This was a very good sign, indicating that he was already moving towards the Blood Bone Realm. Once he entered the Blood Bone Realm, he could truly stabilize his soul and begin cultivating it again.

Agreed groped his bony, sharp jaw with his skeletal hand, making a grating sound. As he felt his bones, he muttered to himself, "I wonder if the remaining fifteen suicide towns will be enough for me to advance to the Bloodbone Realm." The terrifying voice, like the whisper of a demon, foreshadowed the tragic fate that awaited the orcs.

So for the next month, Agreed made a 'quiet and clean' visit to every Expendables town as quickly as possible.

When Agred emerged from the last suicide squad town, his body was completely blood red, signifying that he had fully entered the Blood Bone Realm. Agred familiarized himself with his body, which had become comparable to that of a knight, and said with joy, "Finally, I no longer have that feeling of my soul wanting to leave my body. After a while, once I enter the Yellow Bone Realm, I can cultivate my soul back to the level it was in life. Now it's time to put the cultivation of my soul on the agenda."

But at that very moment, about ten kilometers away from Agred, a group of orcs were riding dire wolves toward the town where Agred was located. On the lead dire wolf, which was clearly a size larger than the others, an orc wearing a bone helmet and iron armor was urging the orcs behind him to speed up.

At this moment, the orc's lieutenant ran to his side and shouted, "Your Highness, take a rest. They haven't had a proper rest for three days. As the eldest son of the orc emperor, you don't need to risk your life for a few useless towns."

The Crown Prince of the Orc Empire showed no sign of stopping. Instead, he reprimanded, "Do you think my father sent me here with five thousand wolf riders? All the scouts in charge of those towns reported that the towns were massacred overnight, and that the souls and life force of all the dead orcs were drained by the murderers. Do you understand what that means?"

The adjutant thought for a moment and said uncertainly, "You mean... the undead have invaded our territory?"

The Crown Prince replied solemnly, "It's much worse than you think. According to intelligence analysis, the destruction of towns with thousands of inhabitants overnight indicates that the one who came here is definitely a high-level, intelligent undead. If he were to spread throughout our country, it would surely unleash a catastrophe of at least a million undead! That's why Father sent me to lead you to search around these towns. We must nip him in the bud as soon as possible! Otherwise, this place could very well become a paradise for the undead, eventually turning into a disaster for the entire continent."

The adjutant immediately shut his mouth, ceasing his rambling and urging the dire wolf riders behind him to hurry on their way, for he too realized the seriousness of the situation and that they could not afford to be negligent.

At this moment, using his soul perspective, Agreed sensed the movement of the cavalry unit from a great distance based on the tremors in the ground. After sensing the danger, Agreed quickly used magic to investigate the location and route of the dire wolf riders.

Argreed looked at the direwolf riders and pondered how to devour these five thousand. Direwolf riders were a very formidable cavalry unit among the orcs (see the wolf riders in the movie "Warcraft"), but by human standards, direwolves were not considered very good mounts.

Aside from the giant dire wolves kept by the Orcish Empire's royal family, normal dire wolves are actually about 30 centimeters shorter than human warhorses. Remember what I said? Cavalry combat mainly depends on who has longer arms. Thus, the shoulder height of a mount is a very important innate advantage in head-on confrontations. This means that, apart from giant dire wolf cavalry, normal dire wolf cavalry can't beat human cavalry in head-on confrontations.

Furthermore, carnivores and herbivores move differently. The dire wolf's forelimbs are not only used for running but also for the demanding tasks of pouncing on and controlling prey during hunts, making them extremely agile. Its forearms have two bones for easy twisting, and it has numerous fingers ending in claws. However, every advantage comes with a trade-off; this inevitably sacrifices running speed. Fortunately, when running, the wolf's spine and even its entire body can extend and retract like a spring, allowing it to take longer strides. But this also means they cannot eat plants that require a cumbersome digestive system to provide sufficient energy; they can only eat meat and easily digestible fruits, which creates a disadvantage and problem in terms of food costs.

Most importantly, the way dire wolves move makes riding on their backs bumpy and unstable. Not only is it difficult to hold a gun steady, but it's also hard to shoot accurately with a bow and crossbow, and you might even be thrown off during a sharp turn. So humans abandoned this mount. But unfortunately, our enemies, the orcs, overcame these disadvantages by virtue of their strong physique and their experience of living with dire wolves since birth.