The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

It took the orc sitting by the pot a moment to grasp what had appeared beside him, and that moment was all Ravian had before danger began closing in from across the unfamiliar camp.

’No, seriously...’

’System, could you please check again whether there’s another curse inside me that I somehow failed to notice?’

[Scanning...]

[There are no curses of any kind, Host. This is your natural luck.]

’Fuck! I’d rather have another curse I didn’t know about!’

Ravian silently cursed his luck as he watched drool spill unchecked from the orc’s mouth. Whether that was because of the creature’s bone structure or because it was hungry, he couldn’t tell, but that wasn’t the question he should be thinking about right now, was it?

The creature dropped its meat and rose, reaching for a club lying on the ground before letting out a shout that other voices picked up among the tents.

Ravian moved before the orc could fully straighten and planted his palm against its upper chest, intending to shove it out of the way. The result was far more violent than he expected; the orc slammed into the pot and tipped it over the fire, splashing broth across the coals as the stand buckled beneath its weight.

Ravian stepped back from the splashing liquid, feeling the strain of the journey more clearly now that he had tried to move. Void Traverse had consumed far more soul energy than he was accustomed to spending in a single burst, yet his body could still surge forward with enough force to leave the orc he had shoved unable to get up.

That was hardly enough to reassure him. He was in the middle of an entire camp packed with orcs, after all!

Across the fire, an orc raised a short spear and hurled it at him; Ravian swerved out of its path and drew his daggers, then immediately had to bring up an arm as another attacker charged out from between two tents.

”Graaah!” the orc roared as it rushed him.

The black blade met a wooden axe haft, sending a jolt through Ravian’s hand before he drove his shoulder into his opponent’s chest and stabbed it at close range. The orc collapsed against him with its full weight, forcing him to wrench his dagger free and shove the body away, losing the time two more attackers needed to close in.

He had never fought like this before; no, he had never been in this kind of fight at all.

He knew how to stab someone when he created an opening for himself, and how to exploit an unguarded moment or a mistaken assumption, but he had no method for moving between weapons coming at him from different directions, nor a stance to return to after each strike that would keep his feet planted where he needed them for the next swing.

When he parried a weapon with his right hand, his left lagged behind, and when he lunged forward, he found that he had exposed part of his back to another opponent. Meanwhile, the number of orcs around him only kept growing.

A club struck his shoulder, sending pain deep into his muscles, but he caught the arm that had delivered the blow before it could withdraw and violently hauled its owner toward him. The orc collided with another of its kind, and Ravian seized the opening between them to force his way through.

The basic Void-grade Sovereign Pride Physique gave him strength he had yet to learn how to use. He could lift a body heavier than his own and hurl it into another attacker’s path, but he needed an extra step to regain his balance afterward, and that step nearly brought him onto the tip of a spear thrust from behind.

He pulled away before it could pierce his back, its tip leaving a slit in his coat.

’I need to get out before they all gather around me,’ Ravian realized as he watched two more orcs take the place of every one that fell.

He activated Absolute Focus and tried to organize what he saw into a picture he could work with. There were fires in the center, a wagon loaded with timber near the lower side of the clearing, and a rough barricade of logs surrounding parts of the camp, leaving narrow passages for movement.

Between all of them, more orcs kept emerging from the tents.

Some were unawakened, and he had already seen what his fists could do to their bodies; even the Awakened were crushed mercilessly beneath his blows, but the movements of others carried a pressure he knew well. A broad orc bearing a massive axe emerged from behind the ranks, its aura settling heavily over the camp with a weight Ravian recognized almost immediately.

Ninth Rank.

Another appeared carrying a wooden shield reinforced with iron, and Ravian then detected a third aura near the passage leading out of the camp, where a long-spear wielder stood watching the commotion before moving.

These weren’t merely hungry orcs gathered around a fire; they were a company whose members were falling into their roles even as they woke in alarm.

The axe wielder raised a hand and barked a brief order, changing the way the orcs nearest Ravian advanced. Some began to slow down, and he found himself facing weapons meant to hold him in place instead of enemies all trying to reach him at once.

He charged toward the side he thought was less crowded, only to find the shield bearer waiting for him.

Ravian punched the wood and heard a crack near one edge, but the shield tilted beneath the blow, diverting the force past its wielder instead of driving it backward as he had expected. A moment later, its lower rim rose and struck him in the jaw.

The taste of blood filled his mouth.

He took a step back as he raised his dagger, then summoned the gray flame he had successfully formed in the Archive, confining it to a small spot at the tip. The flame flickered for a moment, so he focused on it and clarified his intent before thrusting the blade toward the flesh exposed beside the shield.

The orc pulled back in time, and the flame touched only the edge of a leather strap before another blow struck Ravian’s wrist and extinguished it.

He saw a tiny section of the strap disappear beneath his flame, but he had no opportunity to take advantage of it; the axe wielder stepped into the space the shield bearer had left and forced him to duck sharply beneath a swing that passed close to his head.

Ravian tried to strike back from his crouch, only to find that his feet couldn’t give him the drive he needed.

He had read the axe’s path correctly and had the speed to dodge it, but getting his body into the right position afterward? He could hardly have done a worse job.

A sweeping blow from the shield caught him from the side and sent him flying, his arm barely intercepting it before it could crush his ribs and midsection.

He struck the side of the wagon, its wooden rim digging into his back, then used it to push himself away from the spear bearer’s thrust toward his chest.

’This is bad. At this rate, I’m going to die here,’ Ravian realized as he watched the orcs toy with him.

He could kill them with sheer strength, and they seemed to have realized as much, which was why they refused to let him fight any one of them alone. They had placed the shield bearer at the front to absorb his blows with that absurdly sturdy shield, while the others seized the openings between those moments to attack and prevent him from preparing a powerful strike.

’Void Traverse.’

[Insufficient energy available to activate Void Traverse.]

The response was almost exactly what he had expected, yet anger flared in his chest sharply enough to disrupt his breathing.

He had paid the price of getting here and had nothing left to pay for leaving.

”Kwahahaha!”

”Kwahahaha!”

The Ninth-Rank orcs’ laughter rang out as they regarded Ravian like a lamb surrounded by a pack of wolves.

”Damn...” Ravian said as he realized where this was heading.

The orcs’ laughter did not stop when Ravian raised his head from beside the wagon; instead, the shield bearer’s grin widened as it advanced, reassured by the axe wielder and the spear bearer moving on either side of it.

Ravian spat out the blood that had gathered in his mouth, feeling the sting of the small cut inside his lip, then tightened his grip on his daggers as he studied the three faces that seemed convinced his fate was already sealed.

The pain was real, and so was his confusion, but something about the situation failed to add up when he considered it again. He had taken enough blows to bring an ordinary man down several times over, yet his arms still responded, his legs still supported him, and his body had lost none of the strength that had sent the first orc crashing over the pot; what kept him from using it was his belated attempt to deal with each weapon individually, as though he knew how to do that in the first place.

’Damn you all, you’re really starting to piss me off.’ Ravian was furious, though his expression betrayed none of it.

His pride only intensified the anger inside him, yet it also kept that anger from contorting his face.

The orcs, however, were not going to like what came next.