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29. Orcs Be Driven
🕑 Added 2025-02-04 20:00:08 +0000 UTCAll around was chaos and death. The smell of smog, gunpowder, blood, burned flesh, and exposed entrails with piss and excrement was thick in the air, but the profane stank of Fel overpowered them.
My ears were constantly ringing with the deafening echoes of explosions from artillery–magic or otherwise–and the resulting shockwave and tremor shaking the earth and air—things. My inhumanly acute senses picked them up with utmost clarity from the kilometers away.
But it was hardly the whole picture. It simply was the flashiest and loudest. Blades were clashing against blades, armor smashing against armor, and shields against the two above while under a hail of weaker spells, arrows, spears, and bullets.
Topping this shit cake with its shit cherry, accompanying this demented concert of wanton destruction, was a sordid chorus of agonizing wails, curses, and enraged screams.
And I was part of it.
It made my heart thump powerfully, and my blood boiled in excitement and fury; I both hated and loved it. But unlike with the centaurs those years ago, I was focused. I knew what to do.
Yet still, it all happened so fast.
It was a measly three hours after our little encouragement pitch. My presence didn't change the initial plan; I was an added factor—a safety net of sorts.
Planning had been ready and perfected far before I was here. It had begun being crafted the moment both outlander forces decided to cease uselessly murdering each other three days ago. Well, almost four, but that was the same.
On that point, I couldn't blame Medivh even if the fact they kept mindlessly killing one another until a few days ago was his fault. Fuck him and his oracle role-playing sticks.
My place–chosen of my volition–in that plan was simple: to fight at the head and assure the success of the vanguard with the Horde while the Alliance was making sure to hold the backline so we would not be swallowed, overwhelmed and isolated by the Warsong clan.
It was for Thrall to capture his 'brother' Grommash Hellscream in one of Jaina's Arcane magic devices. I had little clue how it worked, but the sorceress seemed confident it would. I trusted her judgment, the Kul Tiran princess was no moron, but I remained dubious.
And if it didn't, at worst, killing and reviving the Warsong Chieftain to purge the Fel from him once in a safe area was an alternative. I just needed a relatively complete body. Limbs were optional.
It was a straightforward plan, but there wasn't a need for a more sophisticated approach. The Warsong orcs were the meat shields and bulk of the local Burning Legion's force, and we had to grind them to paste and raze their camp to get to Hellscream.
If we succeeded in capturing him, the next objective was to send the leading demon–who wouldn't be Mannoroth anymore–back to the Nether. Then, it was to get Warsong orcs back into the fold by purging the Blood Curse.
Alas, I couldn't just explain, hypocritical as it may be, but it would raise questions I didn't want to answer. Also, it served no purpose beyond breaking morals and making me a target.
As such, the latter won't and can't happen, but Grom probably could rein his clan in.
The emphasis was on the 'probably' part because Fel wasn't an energy aiding in rationality, and many would need to be culled anyway. They almost all deserve to be, but that was my opinion about virtually anything willingly serving the Legion.
All of that led to me being on the front line at the spearhead of the attack, where I mauled every Fel orc I could.
I was larger than most things on the battlefield, making me a target from that fact alone. A target that the Fel-infused orcs swarmed as if they were hungry locusts and I was fresh crops.
They didn't care about their well-being as long as they could land a hit on me and have the chance to kill me to get whatever their twisted grooveless brains believed was 'honor.' It was the second reason why I was targeted.
It was horrifying to a certain degree and showed yet again that demons were dangerous to the extreme.
Though, like insects, all they could do was uselessly try to destroy my ever-regenerating bio-armor of bone and wood to feast on my blood like the swift bloodthirsty fucks they were.
Oh, it got plenty damaged by any that managed to survive to get close–it was very resilient, not indestructible, and the Fel junkies weren't meek, adding that their weapons were coated in that same energy–but it meant little beyond that.
Groot and I repaired it just as much, after all. The bones breaking were more annoying. I didn't have infinite matter, and at some point, I couldn't regrow them without using something that wasn't fat, but it would take time.
Adding to that, more or less shallow cuts can't kill me; the bleeding stopped from the mere fact of my mana passively coursing through my flesh, and I instinctively healed the rest. Hemorrhages were forbidden in my body.
It was more painful because of the small amount of Fel, but I was used to far worse, as was my treant buddy. It pissed the both of us off regardless, but it was controlled and more of a motivation.
My mana needed to run out, which would take hours at that rhythm. Then, bleeding and exhausting me to death would take just as long.
That was if I didn't drink any of the alchemical concoctions hidden in my chestplate at any point. Or physically melded with the ancestors.
My body alone wasn't fragile either; dense fur, thick skin, layers of fat, and steel corded muscles added to my size made it difficult for me to be put down. And areas that could end me in one strike, like my neck and head, were the most heavily protected by my armor and movements.
Their blades, even if I were naked and unmoving, would need multiple good hits to gut me and, nevertheless, get to my heart without breaking their limbs and weapons.
Be that as it may, if I were to be alone, I would have died already, and avoiding a situation like that was one of my goals.
Shapeshifting to a bat to fly away with my armor would take precious, exploitable seconds where I would be vulnerable. I couldn't easily escape.
"Face my spear!" To my right, Cairne exclaimed. The swift and agile technique with which he wielded his ancestral spear betrayed any presumption his age gave. It was impressive how skilled he was with it and the pile of diced bodies he left behind.
Each strike of his, if it didn't claim an orcish life, crippled one, either chopping off a limb or freeing intestines from their abdominal confines. It was efficiency, precision, and power made into an art form.
But he had blind spots, and the old bull was only lightly armored beyond the totems on his back, pauldrons, and bracers. A fault most of the Horde committed. I understood it was hot, and not everyone had elixirs against heat, but it was a poor reason.
Skilled and nimble as one might be, being half-naked in a melee was asking to get diced. It was a thing I had been working for furbolgs, too. Well, ursa totemics mostly. Armors saved lives, as obvious as this sounded.
My healing magic in that battle alone had saved more than I cared to count, but I favored prevention, and a minimum of protection was what I loved to see. The humans understood that perfectly, but they were behind us, so it was a moot point in terms of helping me help better.
And an axe from an incoming Fel orc behind aiming to cleave the Bloodhoof patriarch's head was something I couldn't heal. However, it was preventable.
So I acted, throwing the female red orc impaled on my claw like the piece of mutated trash she was. I aimed the crossbow under my right armored forearms. Its twin was on the left side.
They were made of flexible wood with even more flexible roots as strings and were relatively small to my size. Their design was uncomplicated, and that had been hard enough to get them how I wanted this way.
But thanks to Groot and the ammunition directly stored in my armored forearms, I could either favor rapid fire rate by sacrificing range and power or do the opposite. I wasn't a kaldorei, though, and my precision was mediocre.
But it was alright; their purpose wasn't to be snipers. It was to shoot what I wanted conveniently and efficiently.
This led to the truly interesting part: the ammunition. It was a variety of bolts tipped with bones armed with seeds and such inside. Enchantments were present, too. Blank wooden bolts could be regrown on the spot if the need arose or if I wanted to put pressure somewhere.
It didn't make the twin crossbows machine guns, but they weren't any less dangerous through the sheer versatility of the ammo I could make.
It was how I made the cloud of lunar fungus spores against Mannoroth. I didn't sprinkle handfuls around from satchels on my belts on my belt like a dumbass.
However, what was in the bolt I fired and dug into the shoulder of the red orc sneaking behind Cairne wasn't shiny spores. Stormvines were inside, and they grew immediately. The skin deformed as thorny roots and vines shifted over the bones before digging deep.
My target screamed, ripping out the bolt in outrage for the little it did. His face projected agony in its purest form as he fell to the ground, round desperately trying to grasp what was lacerating the inside of his chest. ,
Here, the resistance to various toxins Fel corruption gave was anecdotal, though it meant the plant had merely a few seconds to live. But its job would have been done on a target of that size.
I snorted in mild amusement at his squirming and noted the grateful nod from Cairne before both of us continued on the massacre. Our advancement was slow and tedious, even with Thrall giving cover behind in the form of deadly lightning bolts that chained across dozens of enemies and his two spirit wolves, but it was constant.
At some point, we stopped at crude buildings surrounded by even cruder cages with trolls held captives inside, kept trapped for them to marinate in their wastes under the harsh winds and sun with no place to stand up nor lie down.
Half of the other cages were empty, and I would bet my balls their populations were sacrificed to the Burning Legion or used as reagents.
It made me gag, and it was a shocking sight, period. We freed the Darkspear tribe members, or to be exact, the orc Warchief did as I stayed fighting, killing so we wouldn't live through that same fate.
As my blade-like claws sliced open unprotected, roided out muscles like they were made of air. I overheard their little conversation.
"-an't be. Grom would never lower himself and forgo his hon-"
One of my shots to create a barrier of plants for ground control hit a red male orc in the abs. The already taut skin instantly began to bloat obscenely from the strain of quilboar thorn selected to emphasize rapid growth speed sprouting inside.
I held back a snort of amusement at the pest's death from the thorns bursting from his belly before withering from the Fel in the blood.
While this happened, my focus alternated between killing and throwing orbs of Life and Nature mana to a tauren that bounced to others. Injuries closed at supernatural speed, leaving only the blood split as proof they ever were wounded.
Then I slapped the next Warsong freak rushing my way. She dodged the first hit, laughing all the while, but my second paw came right after shutting her up for good.
She died on impact, splattering into bloody bits, and so did the one next to her from my claw, shredding his ribcage open like wet paper.
It was downright concerning how hilariously reckless they were.
"-me eyes be seen, and ears be heard. Dat be why we tried to flee! Believ-" Was the freed troll woman's heated response as an umpteenth Fel orc lost his upper body to my claws.
My grin, hidden in a snarl, was ever present as I silently continued to maw my enemies down with surgical precision and methodical efficiency.
This entire thing was exhilarating as the corrupted orcs' existence was offensive to my every sense and mind. It was like cleaning the trash, only that it was a service to Azeroth herself, every furbolg, and myself.
Still, as great as ridding Fel of the land from Nature and Life felt, the little emotional crisis behind needed to stop. Maybe if it was another time, I would be more patient, but it wasn't.
"By Ursoc's furry balls, shut up and fight!" I snapped at both of them, and it worked with Thrall getting his head out of his ass.
The female troll, like the others, was whatever; they needed to get away to safety and health, but beyond that, I didn't care. Right now, they would be dangerous to everyone if they couldn't fight.
'Shit.' I internally swore, blocking a ball of baleful green fire from slamming in my nose with my paw, and I glared straight up at the culprit—a red orc in a tattered robe, a warlock, and he wasn't alone. I shot and clicked my tongue as I missed his head.
He arrogantly sneered my way; he laughed even, but it was extremely short-lived, as was the rest of his hateable existence.
The bone-tipped bolt had stuck on the wooden beam behind, and the stormvine under my command strangled him. And his fellow warlocks reacted far too late in burning the plant.
The neck wasn't twisted at a satisfying angle I would prefer, but the hacking from the thin and breakable serrated needle-like thorns of the stormvine made him a dozen new throat holes. The warlock died, grasping his bleeding, shredded throat.
"Demons!" Cairne bellowed in rage, and indeed, an eyeless demonic dog-like creature–a felhound–was impaled on his ancestral spear, the runes on it glowing an ever brighter blue.
Then the sky that had been slowly turning red brusquely turned a scarlet, and ugly dark clouds swallowed the sun as a thunderstorm far too low to the ground materialized far too fast. The rumbling of thunder as lightning arched between clouds echoed across the land soon after.
I flinched at the loudness, my ears folding for the little it did against that ruckus. And that was only the beginning.
"This is no natural storm! Blessed ancestors…. Brace yourself!" Thrall screamed, saying both the obvious and a grave warning. Breaking from the dark clouds toward us, small meteorites with glowing sickly green veins left on their wakes across the angry sky, fiery trails of the same unsavory colors.
They landed on our side–Horde and Alliance alike–causing the ground to tremble and beldam wherever they came. Hundreds died right there from the impacts alone, and it only got worse as the burning boulders unfolded into some sort of twisted earth elemental golem abominations.
'Infernals.' I recognized they were widely common in records of the past and for good reasons. Infernals were near mindless constructs. They were amalgamations of Fel and stones, and the only way to shut them down was their total destruction or dispersion of the energy they had.
And there were three stomping my way, followed by multiple felhounds, two big vaguely humanoid winged demons–doomguards–and two warlocks.
From my peripheral vision, I saw Thrall staring at a male Fel orc with the Warsong banner on his back and a distinctive war axe that, even with the smell in the air, I felt had killed Cenarius.
It didn't take a genius to know who this was, and it didn't take another one to recognize that this wasn't my problem right now.
'They're pitifully weak compared to Mannoroth,' I noted, glaring at the rapidly approaching strike team as my bracers shifted, releasing mana-infused seeds onto the dry, infertile soil.
The difference with the demon lord wasn't even funny, and it would be insulting ever to hope those could take my life if not for the fact that I knew there wasn't much anyone else to send without risking destroying their entire formation.
Yet I wasn't one to underestimate my foes, particularly if those were otherworldly monsters and their willing servants. I didn't know what they could do, and I wasn't going to discover it.
The pack of felhounds arrived first. Their wide-open maws drooled acidic saliva while the flower-shaped ending of their fleshy tentacles snapped at the wind, ready to devour my life force and magic.
I wordlessly slammed my left foot on the ground, and quilboar thorns by the dozens exploded free. Under my command, the plants, with my claws, rendered the hellish canines into pieces. An evident distraction, of course, was that I had to block a stream of Fel fire with the thorns, as were the following magical attacks.
"Ancestors of old, this young one beseech you to share your might and wisdom! Rise and fight honorably for which you have sworn to protect!" My words of Ursine resonated with the Emerald Dream as I raised my forearm to my muzzle and blew the Spirit Whistle.
The response was immediate, as was the drain on my reserve; three green orbs rippled in front of me, and three distinct ghostly furbolgs came into existence. Their bodies were solid as long as I had mana and weren't critically wounded.
The first was a shaman with a gnarly staff, the second a hunter with a bow and quiver full of arrows, and the last an ursa totemic, her fur markings slightly brighter than her translucent form.
I rushed onward on all four, letting them work on the infernals, remaining felhounds, and daring Fel orcs. Winning was almost impossible, but the point was a distraction, and they understood that. It wasn't like we were fighting the Void. Defeat for them meant just going back to heal and rest in the Dreaming.
Fel wouldn't stick. And the total destruction of their souls with Ursol and Ursoc's protection wasn't a simple matter.
I immediately felt the even greater drain from the ursa totemic spirit's enhanced might, the hunter spirit's spirit pets, arrows, and the shaman spirit controlling the plants I placed for him as they began to fight.
Wielding the elements for that reason was also impossible, but Life mana made them stronger and more durable, more physical… more alive than even what the Bear of Wisdom could do.
As for the cost, I had around fifteen minutes before things began to become worrisome. Plenty of time to work with, then. It was a literal eternity in battle.
I was already on my first doomguard. The demon was taller than me by half a head but far skinnier. I ignored whatever snarky jabs he threw at me as I tore his throat out with my maw, also ignoring the burning sensation from his spell radiating from my armor to me.
For good measure, I cut his head off and went to the panicking warlock bitch behind. I crushed her with my speedy bulk, her body popping into gore under my foot. She didn't deserve any more of my attention.
The second doomguard offered more resistance; a flaming blade went through my shoulder, but roots yanked it out, and the demon ripped apart limbs from limbs. Evidently, I got a hail of spells, but they were mere annoyances and served nothing more than to anger me further.
Like physical attacks, you don't slowly wear me down to death unless you have more endurance than me. Or have something else than force alone.
They followed the same fate as the three first. My claw with the dying warlock's chest speared through them and did the same to the doomguard's wide-open eyes of disbelief, skewering his brain to mince meat like I did to Mannoroth.
Heart hammering in my chest and excited breathing, I did a quick checkup and began to heal and repair the damage as I studied the battlefield. The humans in their now bloodied armors had arrived, the priests and a scant few paladins shining with bright golden lights.
Then, in the distance, I saw Thrall's hand glowing a fiery brown. In front of him was a large hand of stone, and held tightly in its stubby fingers was the Chieftain of the Warsong clan, Grommash Hellscream, his battle axe on the ground.
The scene felt ironic and familiar, but I didn't have the time to ponder upon it that the gem of Jaina flashed blue, the stone hand crumbled, and the red orc was gone.
The horns of retreat resounded in the following seconds.
Comments
Asura
Thanks for the chapter 👋🔥 Waagghh!!!🔥
Bat
Ah so satisfying reading a giant intelligent bear ripping apart their enemies.
Mika Willems
Rip and tear, till it is done.
