The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

The Eighth-Rank orc surveyed the devastation a single human had wrought in an entire orc camp without suffering so much as a noticeable injury.

Its gaze then fell on its strongest followers: the three orcs who had wielded the giant wooden shield, the axe, and the spear, along with the fourth and strongest among them, who had just been killed by an axe flying out of nowhere. They had been the strongest Ninth-Rank orcs in the camp, poised to advance to the Eighth Rank once they fulfilled the conditions of Will.

How had a single human, whose soul energy was unmistakably Ninth Rank, reduced them to such a miserable state?

The orc’s gaze returned to Ravian, who remained strangely motionless, while the surviving soldiers held their ground now that their commander had finally arrived, waiting for its next move.

They kept glancing between the bodies and their commander, searching its face for a certainty none of them seemed to possess anymore. Their silence made the losses harder to dismiss; they had watched these four die, and now they were waiting to see what their commander would do.

The Eighth-Rank orc opened its mouth, its jaw cracking with fury.

”Did you do this to my followers, human?”

Despite its anger, its voice remained low and controlled, carrying through the space the retreating orcs had cleared and echoing heavily into the forest.

But the white-haired human did not answer immediately; instead, he seemed to be staring blankly into the air before him, apparently unconcerned that someone an entire rank above him was speaking, which only fueled the orc’s anger.

At that moment, however, Ravian really was concentrating on something else entirely.

[Ding!]

[The Host has eliminated a target that meets the requirements for Records absorption!]

[Confirmed: the Host possesses sufficient information.]

[Revealing basic information!]

[The Host has eliminated one of the Seeds of the Fourteen Taboos!]

[Taboo: Desire]

[Seed Type: Low-Level]

[Records absorbed!]

[Two additional lives obtained.]

[Additional lives: 11]

Ravian stared at the System windows for a while, stunned by what he was seeing.

Was it joy? Pure shock? Or stunned exasperation?

He could not quite tell, but a moment later, he turned from the System windows to the orcs surrounding him, his eyes bright with renewed excitement and bloodlust.

He had been furious that he could not escape this nonsense when victory seemed almost impossible, no matter what solutions he devised on his own, and even more furious that his additional lives had fallen below the minimum required to ascend to the Eighth Rank.

He had arrived with ten additional lives and already spent one discovering how easily the commander could kill him. Seeing eleven now stirred an eager calculation in his mind, even with the memory of that blade passing through his neck still unpleasantly clear.

But now, after receiving this reward, Ravian remembered that he was surrounded by more than danger: he was also surrounded by opportunities to improve his fighting and collect a large number of bodies to consume, pushing his physique toward the next level. And perhaps, just perhaps, if he were lucky enough—a possibility he automatically dismissed—he might find another Seed of the Taboos, absorb its Records, and gain even more additional lives.

Who knew? He might eventually emerge from this predicament alive, with a wealth of resources for his ascension as well.

While Ravian was still somewhat lost in thought, he suddenly felt the air being violently drawn away around him, as though it had fled at the sight of an approaching disaster, and he quickly ordered the Sovereign Pride windows to disappear.

He immediately saw the reason for that sensation.

A dark green axe, almost as large as an adult orc, was plummeting straight down at him like a meteor.

”Oh, Shit!”

Ravian immediately leaped several meters to his right, and before he could land, the enormous axe formed from dark green aura slammed into the spot he had occupied a moment earlier.

Boom!

A heavy blast thundered through the undergrowth, sending birds fleeing from the trees and wild animals scrambling away from the orc camp, all apparently in agreement that they would never return.

Cough, cough, cough!

The orcs watching from a distance coughed as dust completely obscured their vision in the wake of the deafening explosion caused by their commander’s attack on the human intruder.

The female orc Ravian had targeted with the axe earlier frowned as she tried to peer through the dust drifting across the entire clearing, searching for the terrifying human who had entered their camp and begun slaughtering them without warning.

She tightened her grip on her sword and listened for an order, trying to distinguish footsteps beneath the coughing. The commander was somewhere ahead of her, but the dust had swallowed its outline as completely as the human’s, and its presence offered her less reassurance than she wanted.

A sharp crack came from behind the commander’s tent, followed by the scrape of metal against wood. She could not see what had made it, and the footsteps that followed were lost among the shuffling of the soldiers.

And when the dust finally began to settle—

”Argh!”

She heard a male orc groan, and that voice sounded like... the commander?

She quickly turned toward the sound, but before she could even turn all the way—

”Kaaagh!”

”Aaagh!”

Several more cries reached her ears, some deeper than others, some abruptly cut short, and as the dust thinned in front of her, the first thing she saw was exactly what she had been looking for.

”See you,” Ravian said, swinging the axe he had retrieved from the tree behind the tent, splinters still caught beneath its iron head.

”What—”

The female orc could not even finish her sentence, much less raise her sword or attempt to dodge, before the axe severed her head and her body collapsed to the ground.

Ravian bent down and picked up the long sword she had carried.

”This will do,” he said, examining it carefully.

”Haaah!”

A deep roar erupted behind him a moment later, followed by a powerful gust that swept away the remaining dust, and Ravian turned to face its source.

The Eighth-Rank orc came into view holding its heavy sword, the weapon still vibrating from the swing it had just delivered with all its strength to clear the dust from the entire area. Such was the power of a fully grown orc who had reached the Eighth Rank as an aura refiner.

With the dust dispersed, a fair-sized cut was visible across its right knee, clearly inflicted by an axe; its shape matched the blade Ravian still held.

Blood had begun to creep down its shin, and the sight held its attention longer than the pain. It had struck first, with enough force to throw the entire clearing into chaos, yet the human had used those moments of blindness to slip within reach, wound it, and withdraw.

The orc fixed its gaze on him, its fury held beneath a deadly calm, though Ravian could still make out an unmistakable trace of dismay.

It was bewildered that a human had managed to attack it through dust so thick that even it had been unable to see clearly.

Unfortunately for the orc, Ravian was no ordinary human. He was a vindictive human with an ability called Absolute Focus that heightened his senses to an absurd degree, and sight was naturally among them.

Yet the Eighth-Rank orc did not charge like a raging bull; it had recognized Ravian’s cunning and knew that an enemy like this could not be underestimated or faced recklessly, even if he was far weaker.

For the moment, it kept its anger firmly under control, until its gaze moved beyond Ravian and took in the full extent of the carnage.

All of its elite Ninth-Rank followers lay dead across the clearing.

”What? When did he—”

The Eighth-Rank orc stopped mid-sentence when it spotted one particular Ninth-Rank female orc lying headless on the ground, and from that moment, its composed expression became utterly blank, as though it had lost the ability to show emotion.

Ravian noticed its gaze drop to the Ninth-Rank female he had just killed.

Its eyes lingered where her head should have been, then moved to the sword Ravian had taken from her. For several breaths, it seemed unable to look anywhere else, even with the human standing directly before it.

’Hmm? Was she his lover?’ he wondered as he studied the orc’s expression. ’Looks like it.’

Ravian felt a fleeting pang of pity for the Ninth-Rank female, whose supposed lover had been foolish enough to leave her unprotected despite standing on the same battlefield, letting his attention stray from her safety while an enemy was within reach. He had none to spare for the commander itself.

He had found an armed orc camp hidden on human soil, and to him that was explanation enough; whatever they had planned here, he doubted it involved leaving the humans beyond the forest in peace.

”You brought her to a battlefield to attack innocent people who had done nothing to you,” Ravian said without sympathy, shifting his gaze from the female orc’s corpse to the Eighth-Rank orc. ”Being here was a choice, and you have to bear all the consequences.”

He spoke with utter coldness and meant every word, making no attempt to provoke the orc into a reckless attack.

But the Eighth-Rank orc did not seem to care about any of that; it released its sword, and dark green aura gathered in its empty hand, taking the shape of an enormous axe as the same glow flared around its feet.

Then—

It moved so fast that it seemed to vanish, reappearing only a few inches from Ravian with its axe—longer than Ravian was tall—already swinging with all its strength, its teeth clenched as it poured every shred of spite and hatred it could muster into that blow.