Orc warriors had been rendered senseless by the sudden catastrophe. Before they could even regain their bearings,
this time the Death Knights struck them.
It was because Damon had taken four Death Knights out from Increcia in advance and positioned them among the group. Brandishing Death Blades wreathed in a spine-chilling light, they plunged into the midst of the Orc warriors.
"Simply absurd. To think we must face mere Orc rabble……."
"Let's finish this quickly……."
As if to prove that they were indeed Grand Master-class, the Death Knights relentlessly cut down the Orc warriors. The densely packed Orc warriors fell in droves, as if they were blades of grass being reaped. Nothing but mangled corpses remained in their wake.
Some Orc warriors tried to block with their shields, but it was useless. The Death Blade enveloping the Death Knights' swords cleanly cut through both the obstructing shields and the armor alongside them. A single slash was enough to sever the bodies of three or four Orc warriors. Needless to say, the flesh beneath the armor was severed as well.
A few brave Orc warriors thrust out their glaives, but they could pose no threat whatsoever to the Death Knights' bodies, which were protected by top-grade artifacts.
Behind them, Winslet was swinging his battle axe every which way, beheading Orc warriors. He fought fiercely, as if venting his frustration at having been unable to distinguish himself for so long. Though he couldn't demonstrate power on the level of the Death Knights, the sight of an Orc warrior's head being cleanly severed and rolling across the ground with each axe blow could only be described as a spectacle. The imposing sight of Winslet rampaging with astonishingly precise and ferocious movements was enough to leave the opposing Orc warriors dispirited, unable to even muster the will to counterattack.
The squad members weren't just watching, either. They too rampaged like madmen, cutting down Orc warriors.
"How dare they devour humans……."
"This is our answer for that."
They poured out relentless fierce attacks. Under their onslaught, countless Orc warriors were hacked to pieces. Unlike yesterday's ambush, the danger level of this battle was not very high.
Because the areas swept by Damon and Schreckheimer's magic were raked over once more by the Death Knights and Winslet, nothing remained for the squad members but the simple task of dispatching Orc warriors who were still breathing. It could be described as a one-sided slaughter, but the battle dragged on for quite a while due to the sheer number of Orc troops. Nevertheless, the force numbering fourteen hundred was inevitably annihilated before long.
With half of them wiped out in an instant by Damon and Schreckheimer's preemptive strike, and their ranks completely shattered by the Death Knights and Winslet, the Orc warriors were massacred without putting up a proper resistance even once. As the battle turned overwhelmingly against them, the Orc warriors in the rear finally gave up.
"Chiik. F-full retreat!"
They scattered in all directions and fled frantically. But the party had no leeway to pursue and exterminate them—they were overwhelmed simply cutting down the Orcs who stood to fight. Even so, the number of resisting Orcs steadily dwindled, and before long, the battle concluded. Not a single one of the fourteen hundred Orc warriors remained standing. The great Orc army had been annihilated in moments, and only a handful had escaped.
"Is it over now?"
"I didn't know battle could be so tedious."
The squad members gasped for breath. Every one of them was drenched head to toe in blood. The Death Knights and Winslet, on the other hand, showed little sign of fatigue. They were similarly covered in blood, but due to the nature of being undead, there was no reason for them to tire.
"How exhausting."
Damon too had noticeably paled. No matter how great a 9th-Circle Archmage he was, casting magic repeatedly in this manner could hardly be easy. But he betrayed no sign of it and trudged off to one side of the battlefield.
There, over fifty Orc warriors were still alive, standing blankly. Among them was their commander, Kreug. He had been paralyzed since the early stages of battle, his blood points suppressed by Damon's Magic Missile. He was together with the fifty-odd squad leaders who had partaken in the human-flesh feast.
"Has the time for execution come?"
Damon looked down at Kreug leisurely. When he grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him up, Kreug's face stiffened rigidly. The emotion rising in his eyes was none other than terror. There was no way he could not feel terror toward an opponent who had swept away fourteen hundred in an instant.
"Chiik. J-just who are you?"
Damon smiled a triumphant smile and glared at Kreug. "You fool. If you had let us pass obediently, you wouldn't have ended up like this."
At Damon's slight gesture, the squad members and Winslet began ambling about and cleaning up the battlefield.
"From now on, I will hold you accountable for blocking our path. I trust you're prepared to die?"
Kreug remained silent. True to an Orc warrior unafraid of death, he was already prepared to meet his end.
"Chiik. Kill me."
He shouted with some bravado, but Damon didn't bat an eyelid. He already knew well how to deal with Orcs.
"I have no intention of granting you a clean death. You must pay the price for obstructing our path. Hmm. What should I do? That's right. I'll simply make it so you can neither live nor die."
Damon flashed a gruesome smile and drew a dagger.
"Sharpness."
After casting the spell to sharpen the blade, he began ruthlessly carving up Kreug's entire body.
"Chieeeek!"
Kreug's screams of agony rang out plaintively. He couldn't endure the skillful flaying of his flesh. Damon was carrying out the so-called *lingchi*—death by a thousand cuts. It was a terrible punishment of flaying the flesh bit by bit from the entire body with a sharp knife, making the victim suffer excruciating agony until death. The essence of lingchi was to avoid major blood vessels and vital points as much as possible, keeping the victim alive for a long time to maximize the suffering, and Damon was more than capable of carrying it out. This was because he had mastered various torture techniques since his time in the Central Plains and was well acquainted with the structure of the human body. Thus, there was no problem whatsoever in disassembling Kreug.
Before long, Kreug's arms were revealing gaunt bones. Because his blood points were suppressed, he couldn't move and had to endure the extreme agony in its entirety. Such was the terrible pain that the screams bursting from Kreug's mouth gradually turned into groans. Blood spurted intermittently from the severed vessels.
Pffft, pffft.
Due to the repeated bleeding, Kreug's consciousness gradually grew hazy. None of the Orc warriors' squad leaders had been spared; all had their blood points suppressed by Damon's Magic Missile. From the beginning, Damon had no intention of letting those who had eaten humans die easily.
Glancing over the fifty suppressed Orc squad leaders, Damon realized he couldn't do this alone. Thinking he had no time, he signaled the Death Knights with his eyes.
"You lot, help out too."
The Death Knights standing idly nearby approached and joined the Orc disassembly(?). They too had once been human, so they couldn't possibly harbor good feelings toward Orcs that had devoured humans. Though their skill inevitably fell short of Damon's, they demonstrated their abilities in their own way and set about disassembling the Orc squad leaders. They peeled away flesh while taking utmost care not to sever the victims' windpipes. Soon, the screams of the Orc squad leaders began to resound there in a chorus.
The squad members were focused on cleanup, with Winslet at the center. This was because some of the Orc warriors struck by Damon's Magic Missile hadn't fully died. Groans flowed from everywhere, so the squad members ran about concentrating on dispatching survivors. Along with a gruesome sound of tearing flesh, a blue-steel longsword was plunged into the heart of a fallen Orc warrior. The trembling Orc couldn't endure long and dropped its head. The members who had finished him off roamed about seeking more prey.
Among them, Winslet's work was the most thorough. He ran about mercilessly severing the necks of fallen Orc warriors and piling them in one place, making no distinction between corpses and the wounded.
"That's not a bad method."
Seeing this, the other squad members began copying Winslet. They showed no mercy whatsoever. Their fury toward the Orcs who had eaten humans was that great. Soon, Orc heads began piling up like a mountain on one side of the village.
Kreug, with his bones completely laid bare, finally couldn't endure and weakly dropped his head. All the blood in his body had drained out, drenching the floor. Watching this, Damon smacked his lips as if regretful.
"Judging by his fortitude, I thought he'd last quite a while, but he's weaker than I expected."
Whether due to a difference in skill, the Death Knights had already finished two and were beginning their third disassembly. Damon glared at them.
"Hey, the whole point of lingchi is that the longer you keep them alive, the more effective it is."
"You damned bastard. We're doing our best. If you don't like it, do it all yourself."
Having been thoroughly cursed at, Damon let out a bitter smile and approached another suppressed squad leader. The Orc squad leader standing before Damon turned pale with fright. Having seen his commander Kreug dissected alive, he was completely out of his mind.
"Ch-chiik. S-spare me."
Damon's eyebrows twisted into an inverted V. "This damned bastard dares to use casual speech on me?"
Without a second thought, Damon began his dissection. As the sharp dagger dug into flesh, the Orc squad leader's desperate screams burst out. Due to the misfortune of falling into Damon's hands, the Orc had to suffer far longer than his comrades. Disgusted gazes poured in from the squad members cleaning the battlefield, but Damon paid them no heed and immersed himself in the dismemberment.
"Is this one next?"
The third squad leader standing before Damon had become quite docile. He seemed to possess at least enough intelligence not to repeat the previous squad leader's mistake.
"P-please, s-spare me. Chiik."
Damon nodded as if pleased. "You've got a decent attitude. So, do you know why I'm going through all this trouble? If you guess correctly, I'll spare you."
The Orc squad leader's eyes rolled quickly. Looking closely, those being tortured were all squad leaders who had eaten villagers. After much deliberation, the Orc squad leader decided to be honest. Being an Orc with a simple way of thinking, he didn't try to think too deeply.
"Ch-chiik. Because we ate humans?"
"Wrong. The reason you are being tortured is simple. It's because you dared to block our path."
Damon shook his head and immediately began disassembling. Stripping off the armor to leave him naked, Damon plunged the dagger into the Orc squad leader's chest without hesitation. Thanks to Damon's skill in cunningly picking out only the areas where nerves were densely clustered, the Orc squad leader began shrieking at the top of his lungs like the comrades before him.
The cleanup was neatly finished. The fourteen hundred Orc warriors had all been reduced to a state where their heads were separated from their bodies. The heads were gathered and piled together separately, while the bodies lay scattered messily around the village. The fifty-odd Orc squad leaders too had died with their bones and organs completely exposed. They had truly paid a steep price for eating humans.
Damon wiped the blood from his hands and face with a handkerchief and looked around at the group. They were all drenched in blood, their faces full of exhaustion.
"Is everyone finished?"
"Yes. We cleaned up thoroughly. We counted the heads—exactly one thousand three hundred and seventy-one. It seems about thirty escaped."
"Good. Truly foolish creatures. To think they asked for death of their own accord."
Damon deliberately turned away without even looking toward where the villagers were.
"Let's go."
Just then, an urgent voice caught at Damon. It was the village chief.
"A-are you simply going to leave?"
The villagers had watched the group dealing with the Orc warriors with expressions of shock. What had unfolded was nothing short of a shock to them. They knew well how strong and cruel the Orc warriors were. They had been so terrified that even when villagers were taken, they hadn't dared to even think of refusing. They had never imagined rebelling against the Orcs, yet an unimaginable event had occurred right before their eyes.
"M-my goodness……."
The Orc warriors they had feared so greatly were not invincible.