Chapter 15: Stopping the fight

-Gorcanak, ork war-boss-

"Boss! Our scouts just spotted the orc army entering the valley, we believe they number somewhere around one hundred"

"Finally! At long last, we'll have a chance to show them all the true strength of the orks!"

My body jumps in excitement when I hear the report from my assistant, I've been forced to wait for far too long to get the opportunity to crush the orcs, the cowardly elders from our village were afraid that a lot of people would die if we started a war with them. As if there was any warrior who would ever be afraid of death!

Not that there's a reason to worry about that in the first place, orcs are nothing more than slightly bigger goblins, they will be no match for a true warrior race such as us.

"A hundred is more than the number of soldiers the orcs should have, I bet that those cowards went to recruit from their civilians because they were too afraid to face us by themselves"

"But boss... didn't we recruit from our civilians as well?"

"Idiot!"

"Ouch"

I smack my assistant in the head for suggesting that we are in any way similar to the orcs.

"We didn't recruit them because we were afraid! We're just trying to give everyone a chance to take part in the fight, do you understand?"

"Yes! Of course!"

"Well then, tell everybody to get ready to go down the mountain, we'll meet them at the center of the valley"

"Right away boss"

I can almost hear my spear telling me how much it wants to skewer the enemy, hehehe, this will be an easy victory.

It doesn't take long until the orc soldiers come into our sight, it appears that they have spotted us as well, as their march suddenly comes to a halt.

"Look at them, they look like a bunch of weaklings, this should be even easier than I thought"

"I don't know boss, our reports said that their average level was around the same as ours..."

"Idiot! Don't you know that a soldier is not supposed to contradict the war-boss?"

"Yes, sorry boss..."

"Tell everyone who's holding a musket to start firing at the enemy"

At the same time, the orcs also open fire against us, but as expected from those clowns, they don't hit a single one of our soldiers, I can only laugh at how bad their aim is. Our side is not able to hit anything either, but that's normal, we're still far away from them after all.

"Alright! Let's charge them!"

I start running at the front of my men, but I can only take five steps before my feet start sinking into the ground.

"What in the world is going on!?"

It's not only me, my soldiers and even the enemy seem to have been trapped by this swamp that suddenly materialized beneath us, but before I can try to understand what just happened something even stranger occurs, our surroundings suddenly become dark as if it was the middle of the night, I would think that it had become nighttime, but I can still see the mountains in the distance being illuminated by the sun, it seems like it's only our surroundings that no longer have any light.

"All of you! Drop your weapons this instant!"

I hear a woman's voice coming from above us, when I look up I see her figure descending from the sky, her long black hair is floating behind her in the air, on her back, there are a pair of wings with a shape I'm not able to tell and of such a dark color that I cannot see the place where the wings end and the darkness begins, she stops her descent and stays floating still in midair, her face has an expression of absolute disdain as she looks down at everyone below her.

"You seem to have come here thinking that you would obtain honor and glory from this battle, but I guarantee you that the only thing you'll get if you insist on fighting is death"

My assistant comes over to me with a fearful look on his face.

"Boss, I believe that is the elf that was at our village earlier, the one so powerful that everyone mistook her for a great spirit of darkness"

I can indeed sense an immense amount of dark mana from her... so she thinks that she can look down on us? She's just like one of those demon lords, thinking that she can boss everyone around just because her level is a little high, I get angrier the more I look at that arrogant expression of hers.

"Maybe she needs a lesson in humility, tell our soldiers to start shooting at her"

"But boss, if I'm not mistaken her level was 508, is it really a good idea to pick a fight with her?"

"So what? With all our soldiers here our total level is probably above 5000"

"I don't think that's how levels work boss... "

"What did I tell you about contradicting me!? Give the order to fire!"

The orcs also seem to have decided to fire at her, however, all of the projectiles stop in midair just before reaching their target and then fall to the ground, the woman doesn't even give any signs to have noticed that we were shooting at her just now.

"Maybe you didn't hear me... DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"

For a moment I fell a strong impulse to let go of my spear, when I look around me I see that some of the soldiers actually did as she said... there's something about that voice that gives a feeling of absolute authority as if anyone who hears it should obey without question, and I don't think it was a spell... just who is this woman?

"If you are not afraid of death, allow me to give you a demonstration"

As she raises her hand, a massive amount of mana gathers above her and a gigantic sphere of darkness materializes on top of her opened palm, a strong wind starts blowing on the entire valley with her as the center and several people are knocked to the floor.

"Obliteration blast"

The sphere is sent flying at an incredible speed and in less than two seconds it explodes against the side of a bare rock mountain in the distance, a cloud of dust covers the area of impact and stops me from seeing the extent of the damage but I notice a few small rock fragments falling close to me despite the distance.

When the dust finally clears... the mountain is no longer there, everyone is unable to move, complete paralyzed by the sheer terror of what we just witnessed, the woman, however, is just standing in the air, seemingly unfazed by the spectacle, I cannot believe that this is something that she can do so casually.

I always thought of myself as a fearless warrior, even if I know that it's not true, there was a part of me that believed that I was invincible. That part of me is now gone, after seeing an overwhelming power that I cannot hope to stand against, all I can think of is that I do not want to die.

- Luna -

According to Arana the reason why these demons are so willing to go to war with each other is because they don't really understand the fear of death, therefore, the most effective way to stop them from fighting would be to make them fear for their lives, and the best way to do that is to show them an incredibly destructive magic that they could not possibly defend against, this should make them think twice about risking their lives in the future, even when the thing that's threatening to kill them is not me.

To be honest, I've been wondering for a while what would happen if I actually used my full power for a spell, and this seemed like a good moment to try, so I used my mana sense to make sure that there was nobody anywhere near the area I was aiming for and fired one of the strongest spells I know.

But the result was way bigger than I was expecting! I thought that at most it would make a hole on the side of that mountain, not blow up the entire thing...

Everyone here is now paralyzed by fear... including me! That was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life! I think that I'm going to forbid myself from using spells of that level in the future...

But now all the demons are just standing there, not knowing what to do... maybe I should remind them again.

"Drop your weapons! Now!"

Oh! It seems like they are listening to me this time, all of the orks and the orcs are letting go of their weapons almost in a hurry.

I'm not very good at reading people, but even I can tell that their fighting spirit is completely gone.

I guess that means that I succeeded in stopping the fight.

forli