Chapter 27: Orcs and Men

historical

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The orcs had already built cities and entered the bronze age, but humans were still in the early stage of developing their civilization. Meanwhile, the fighting among orc clans intensified. This clashes and melding of cultures helped spark off the improvement of the orc civilization. The first generation’s Orc King was from the clan of rats, but by the fourth generation, he was from the clan of tigers. Other clans, like the clan of dogs and the clan of bulls, had succeeded the title of the Orc King as well afterwards. The current Orc King, the twelfth generation orc named Costa, was from the clan of wolves. Cities were appearing in other places as well and were slowly replacing tribes. The intermingling and combining of orc tribes were taking place!

This had Lu Zhiyu worried. He thought that the orcs were developing too fast while the humans were in the beginnings of their development and barely had their own language. He was worried that the orcs might one day wipe out all humans before the humans had a chance at developing their own cultures. He had spent a great deal of time and effort developing and modifying genes for this species of human, and he did not want all that work to go to waste. So far things did not go as Lu Zhiyu had expected. He wanted to push the development of the humanity, at least to the point where they can hold their own against the orcs.

Currently, there were about a hundred thousand humans in the Maria world. However, because of the fertile lands, there was no need for trade, and communication between human tribes was minimal. Lu Zhiyu had to use two methods to boost the development of the human race. The first was to introduce an external threat, the second was to create an internal unity between the humans.

The external threat came when the orc tribes came in contact with the humans. The friction between the orcs and the humans were escalating as time went by. In order to help the humans unify, Lu Zhiyu decided that he would appoint a King of All Men.

—

The plains near the center of the continent was hailed by the humans as the Red River Plain. It was located between the Red River and the ranges of the Heavenly Mountains. The plain had fertile lands and lush forests, and beasts of all kinds ran loose there. The forests were full of fruits and other kinds of food. It was paradise to the humans.

Many round, tent-like straw huts stood on the area under the mountains. Primordial men wearing pelts of beasts returned to one of the villages carrying food. The leader of the village was a man who had already broken through the limits of the physical body and awakened the power Lu Zhiyu hid in his genes.

However, the paradise had turned into hell when an army of orcs from over the Heavenly Mountains descended upon the village. Even though the leader of the village had awakened his genetic power, it was merely an ability to control his adrenaline.

The army that attacked was from the clan of wolves, the most powerful clan of orcs in the world. The fierce soldiers rode large, wolf-like beasts and chanted their battle cry in Sofawk, a language first developed by the clan of rats. After hundreds of years of refinement, Sofawk had developed into a complete language system.

“Kill them all, this fertile plain should belong to us and not these beasts!”

“Kill these undeveloped swines!”

The war was cruel. The leader of the village led his men into battle with a stone axe. He used the massive strength and fast reaction he got after activating his adrenaline to strike down many orcs. However, he was still no match for the clan of wolves. His enemies had lances and swords made of bronze, while the best weapons his people had were rocks and wooden sticks. Soon, the human villagers lost the battle. The wolves spared no one, not even the women and the children. The war between species was extremely bloody and cruel. The leader of the village was the last one standing. He was exhausted and finally failed under the spear of the wolves!

The leader of the village lay on the ground and cursed the orcs with his dying breath in the human language that was still in the early stage of development. “You b*stards! God will punish you!”

After killing everyone in sight, the wolf soldiers set fire to the remaining huts and disappeared on their mounts in high spirits.

As the soldiers disappeared into the distance, a figure appeared near the village. He wore a grey linen cloak, simple shirt and trousers, and a pair of plain boots. He held a silver staff with strange carvings, his face covered by a white mask with a drawing of a red sun.

That was Lu Zhiyu. Lu Zhiyu had been searching for a place to start his plans when he saw the atrocity committed in the village. Then he had fixed his gaze here. He had already saw how tragic the battlefield was through the Scroll of the World, but it did not prepare him for how bad the situation truly was now that he was here in person. The smells of burning corpses almost made Lu Zhiyu retch.

But Lu Zhiyu realized that other than slight discomfort, he didn’t feel anything else. Was that because he did not feel a sense of kinship with the humans in this world? Or could it be due to some other reasons?

He walked towards the burning huts in the center of the village. It was already consumed by fire, and it was emitting thick, black smoke. Lu Zhiyu raised his staff and opened the dimensional door to link to a river from far away, channeling a large amount of water to extinguish the flames. He had made the staff himself and carved the channeling array for dimensional door on it. This way, he could simply inject his mind power into the staff and instantly activate the dimensional door instead of needing to draw the channeling array every time when he needed to connect to a different space.

Lu Zhiyu could open a dimensional door anywhere within this krynnspace and transport any objects at his will. This was also the only spell that Lu Zhiyu had mastered so far with his mind power. The other powers such as mind reading, changing genes, etc were all talents associated with his mind power, something made available to him through the flow of information. His exploration of his mind power was rudimentary at best. He could not fully understand it. He didn’t know exactly what mind power was. He had no idea what a soul was either. Even though his mind power had become stronger through his continued meditation, he still could not discover additional powers, nor did he have any defined goals or directions to work toward. As for the dimensional door, it was something Lu Zhiyu would not comprehend. It was lucky enough that he was able to draw the channeling array on the staff properly.

The water put out the fire. Lu Zhiyu approached the still-smoking hut and heard someone was coughing inside. He pushed aside the burnt remains of the hut, and saw a young human boy climbing out from inside a hole on the ground. The two stared at each other in silence.

“Wo lu mo, mo see ca? (Who are you?)” the boy asked, his words slurring.

Lu Zhiyu had collected information about the orc language, but could not really understand the fledgling human language as it was still in its early stages of development, and did not have a complete system of words. Thankfully, Lu Zhiyu could understand what the boy was asking using his mind power. In fact, the boy’s fear and animosity were also clearly conveyed to him.

“I am a messenger from the gods. Ahenaten, oh, future King of All Men!” He held out his hand toward the young boy, and used his mind power to beckon him forward. After Ahenaten understood Lu Zhiyu, he even felt interested and somewhat emotionally connected to Lu Zhiyu due to the influence of the mind power.

The stranger seemed to be wrapped in the glory of the sun and his body was radiating a divine white glow. Ahenaten pulled himself to his feet and was comforted by the stranger’s presence.

“Sent here by the gods, you are the messenger of the gods? I, Ahenaten, pay you the highest of respects. Are you here to punish those evil orcs?”