164 Going from an infestation to a plague

High above in the skies, Leilade would see some unknown creatures warily drinking the water in the large river. Obviously no meat-eaters, they nonetheless possessed enough spikes on their body to protect themselves. Like larger armadillos, the plates under their stomach were visibly thinner than the ones on their backs. How could she see that when it should be impossible to spot it from where she stood?

Well, the half-eaten creature that was getting swallowed by the huge crocodile was the reason. Apparently, the harmless herbivores were right to be wary of the river, as many things were lurking inside it. The blood that was tainting the water began to attract more and more of them, but the crocodile was apparently strong enough to repel most of them. One of his kin did try to battle for the food, but it was over in an instant, with both of them leaving in opposite ways.

For the spiked armadillos, it only meant that they could noo longer drink here, as they had seen the movements under the water provoking countless ripples. Just as they left, another group of creatures appeared, and another one, and another one. As she floated, she could see all types of animals, mammals or reptilians, seeking the liquid of life. Some were attacked by aquatic monsters, others by the same predators they feared on the ground.

From the books of the dwarves, there was previously some human tribes that lived in those desolate plains. Traveling like nomads, they hunted and gathered fruits while managing to trade sometimes with the Iron Kingdom. But it had ended way before the Age of Darkness when the first orcs were spotted. Comparing the frail physique of the humans to the resistant body of the orc, it was easy to see who would be the best at surviving in this place. And with the scarce resources, if the former could repel monsters and non-intelligent creatures, it would be hard against anything with half a brain.

As she was thinking this, she spotted something standing on top of a creature. The mount looked like a deformed hyena, similar to the wolves that lived in the Wild Mountains near Massalia by its size. Just this thing could kill a human by itself quite easily. As for the rider, he was nearly two and a half meters tall, only barely smaller than Kardel. Wearing a crude armor with many red and blue paintings on it, he dismounted, allowing him, the rider and his mount to both drink.

Another crocodile began to approach, aiming at the hyena. But the other party was clearly aware of it, as soon as the attack began it had already jumped back. Suddenly appearing in the open, the reptilian barely had the time to blink before his skull was split open in half. Pulling off the axe that still had dwarven inscriptions on it, the warrior put it in the river. Cleaning the blood of it, this time, no monsters were attracted by it. Not all blood tasted the same, and apparently, it was proven right at this very moment.

The hyena had not waited long before grabbing the corpse away from the water and beginning to eat. After waiting a few additional seconds, the fighter put his weapon on his back and interrupted the meal of the other monster. Efficiently cutting the stomach of the crocodile, he immediately gathered all the meat he wanted, before putting it in a leather bag. Letting the rest of the corpse to the visibly displeased hyena.

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Approaching the two, their reactions were well in the range of her expectations. Gazing at the massive axe that was pointing at her, she definitely confirmed it had been taken from a dwarf. As for the armor, after observing it carefully, it seemed to be the same. Only that the monster took more care about his weapon than what he was wearing.

"Er' pickin' fight wiz ME?!! I'll bash you' skullz!" The joy of communicating with an orc, something she never regretted. Not that they did not become great warriors, quite the contrary. But, the number of orcs commanding anything but their peers was close to zero, in the Demonic Empire. For some peculiar reason, even the translators always had an issue with their speech. As they were incoherent when they forgot a letter in their words and when they added one.

Throwing at him a bubble of water to make him stop speaking, she could see that if his armor had paintings on it, his body also had a few. Making it a bit tricky to get what she wanted. As expected, her magical bubble instantly exploded after making contact with the monster, making him act even more arrogantly. "YOU THINK YOU CAN COM' FOR ME HEAD? YOU THINK MAGI' CAN KILL ME?"

Charging at her, she did not dodge at all, letting the axe fell on her frail body. Well, frail body was a manner of speaking, since she didn't have a real body in the first place. And when the orc looked at the two parts of Leilade that were merging into one once more, he was completely dumbfounded. "MAGI'! Gorgutz is the biggest and the baddest wa'boss. I will join Gorgutz with you' HEAD!"

Shouting this, she could see the faint light of mana surrounding the body of her opponent. The traces of red and blue that were previously just mere decorations began to shine brightly, as even his axe looked stronger, sturdier. The power of thoughts. Like she explained to the Archmage, as long as one had access to mana, the soul could use it to create magic. the only reason some could not do it was the same issue that plagued Davion, the orodil. The inability to connect with mana, even when his entire body was made of it.

As for the orcs, the way they did was quite funny, to say the least. Things like casting a fireball or just a flame were incredibly hard, as it was an abstract creation. Something that had no existence before the spell. However, if it was something to harm their opponents or strengthen themselves, they had almost no equal. Right now, his belief in being big, strong and invincible made him like that. The more they were at thinking the same thing, the stronger the effects were.

Because he was alone, it only made very small changes, as his axe was still capable of injuring truly Leilade. Even an artifact created by the dwarves to kill the other survivors of the Demonic Empire, the Dark Gods of the legends, was not enough. So why a simple orc warrior could do something more? Ensnaring him with her shadows, she began to meticulously remove his armor. Each time she did that, she could see the paintings beginning to dim until no traces of mana could be seen.

With his belief of being strongly crushed, of course, his magic was destroyed as well. Penetrating his head and searching for his memories, she located the location of his tribe. Looking at the nearly omnipresent memories of victories, feasts and bountiful meals, it was obvious that they were not a very small tribe. Otherwise, they would have been defeated more often. Starring at the hyena that had seen its master being absorbed by mere darkness, the monster felt that its legs had turned into stone.

Normally, it should have attacked Leilade as soon as the orc had begun his assault. However, for some reason, it felt that anything attacking the dark floating thing would not survive. Turning the usually ferocious predator into something not any different than a harmless kitty. Even now, as Leilade approached, half of his instincts told it to flee as fast as it could, and the other half kept telling it that if it showed its back, it would die. Because of those mixed thoughts, Leilade did not need to catch up a fleeing creature to silence the last witness.

Only races that called themselves intelligent or were controlled by a superior being far away tried to repress their basic instincts, making it a bit cumbersome. Otherwise, any monsters that would even felt a hint of her presence, or even the one of Kardel and Ymir for all that mattered, would immediately panic. That was more or less the same effect dragon could produce, or anything that was of the same power. But with the humans first, and the spiders next, it had been a long time since she could enjoy the feeling of uncontrollable fear in the eyes of her enemies.

However, as she examined the crude memories of the orc, that were far too focused on eating, she had to acknowledge the impossibility of her task. Even if those vast plains were called like that, vast, big, large or any adjective that would be similar, it was just a subjective point of view. One could call a wolf big because he was one meter taller than the rest of the pack, but if the same wolf was compared to a dragon, it would be reduced to tiny. Therefore, the big tunnel network had barely taken her a day to be completely cleaned.

But it wouldn't be the same here. First of all, tunnels were easier to roam in when you were a soul, as you didn't care about all the stone blocking you. After that, none of the spiders would be able to even remotely harm her or impede her progress. As for the orc shamans, they would definitely be able to slow her down, by how much was the only question. And she will already have a hard time finding the tribes in the first place, as they rarely stayed in the same place.

"Well, it's not like they often attack the dwarves anyway."

"So, the Empress of the Underworld will give up like that?" Hearing the strangely familiar voice, the one interrupted in her thoughts couldn't help but feel something off all of a sudden. Turning back her sight into her very soul, she noticed that the mud statue was now accompanied by a lot more. Starring at the well-defined faces, she recognized all of them. Some were undead, other humans, a few elves and many other races.

"Yes, what do you want me to do, waste my times running in a circle inside something large enough to encircle all the human nations and still have a place for something else?" Seeing them logically brought back the memories of those that had fallen. Like Malakov was not the first lich she personally created, Akama was not the one in charge of the Death Corps at first. Even if he belonged to the first batch, he was actually one of the worst.

But unlike his peers, he was extremely stable when casting magic, often losing parts of the soul he tried to save but never making a mistake in the process. Even if it seemed to be extremely easy when some watched Leilade do it, it was not less dangerous than meddling with space and time like Candaith did. In fact, in some situation, it could even be considered as worst. After all, the caster didn't necessarily have to test his portal, while the mage manipulating the soul couldn't let someone else handle it.

If one mistake was made, the soul or a part of it could try to search the closest host available. Meaning the one trying to save it. If it was the complete soul, it was extremely easy as they were countless counter measures researched over the years. But if only a very small fragment of the decaying soul infiltrated the caster, it could do that unnoticed. And over the years, if more and more of those tiny fragments were left unchecked, the moment a foreign soul attacked, it could attack from the inside the very soul of the caster.

In a way, what she did to escape the spell of Candaith was no different than the thing that killed many of her disciples. But unlike them, those fragments all belonged to her. As for whether she previously did a mistake, she betted on the fact that she was Leilade Octavius. Someone that saved a Demon Emperor, more than once. Meaning that she wouldn't make a mistake.

"Maybe, it would be fun to see new things." Almost sneering, the main personality couldn't help but belittle those words. "Sure, like we never saw any orcs before. Or such a barren and desolate plain. What do you want? Truly?" Instead of answering, the white soul kept sculpting more statues. Starring at the mute fragment of her mind, she put her sight back on the familiar faces that surrounded her.

Even now, she couldn't feel any magic in them, meaning that they were no magic totems but just mud statues. Created by the mana in her body, yes, but they were just that. Virtual representations of small sculptures. Even then, the feeling that something was off compelled her to not let anything strange meddle with her control. Raising her hand, she methodically reduced each and every one of them into nothingness, strangely making her feel even more empty than before.

Instead of being mad, the other one just calmly picked up her book once more, letting only one statue still standing. With her own face on it. Because of this, it was spared, as the situation was weird enough, even for Leilade. Thinking that she had already lost too much time with her, the dark soul looked at the outside and saw once more the large empty land extending under her, before returning to the kingdom of the dwarves. Or more precisely, to the peaks above it.