Chapter 1263 (1/2)

After releasing a breath, the Ogre Lord had completely prepared himself for the day that was to come. When he woke up this morning, he knew that there would be no more delays; today would be the day.

All three of his personalities were perfectly aligned by the time the opposing party’s first signs of arrival appeared. It was a little bit before noon and the oppressive smog that hung over the dying ogre world was at its thinnest. Then a ripple appeared in the air. Slowly, the six eyes he possessed slid upward to look at the oppressive gash in the world that had appeared above his camp. With a curl of his lip, the Ogre Lord signaled his captain of the guard to bring him his ax.

The portal above slowly widened as the thousands of ogres in the Ogre Lord’s army simply watched. They stood rigidly at attention, their eyes never leaving the portal but also listening intently for any order from their lord. Yet the Ogre Lord had no doubt that they could sense the same thing that he could.

Such pure energy… Energy like I haven’t felt in two hundred years...

When the captain of the guard returned, the portal hadn’t yet finished growing larger. The man dare not grip the shaft of the weapon, instead seizing the sharp edge. So when the ax arrived, it was already dripping blood. Calmly, the Ogre Lord took the heavy ax and examined the familiar weapon. Its head was made of a single curved piece of blue crystal, sharpened on the bones of the ogres that littered his bloody path to become the Ogre Lord of Nordawn. The heavy oak shaft was as thick as the body of one of these humans, and yet now the Ogre Lord couldn’t contain his excitement at the prospect of fighting one of these small beings.

I pray you do not disappoint me… The Ogre Lord thought as he looked up at the portal with incredible intensity.

All this morning he had been mentally preparing himself for this conflict. The long years of waiting in Nordawn had numbed him. His time of rule had finally come to an end… and for that, he was filled with joy.

He had even discarded his name; for this fight, he decided that he would only be a challenger, seeking to dethrone the source of these ominous waves of power. As he continued to wait for the other party to arrive, the Ogre Lord removed each of his three headpieces and cast them aside. Then he seized his ceremonial garb and forcibly ripped it in half.

Precious gemstones scattered and bounced down off of the Ogre Lord’s palanquin, rolling to sit in front of the bowed figures of those ogres who had carried him here. One of the bearers, seeing a ruby the size of an eyeball roll gently to a stop in front of him, flinched and pressed his forehead against the ground in fear.

It was the greatest thing the Ogre Lord had felt in a long time to destroy the trappings of power with which he had covered his body. The skin of his bare chest tingled underneath the murky sun that managed to pierce through the mist.

Chuckling, the Ogre Lord dropped the torn vestment and walked slowly down the stairs to the ground. His vast torso expanded and contracted as he tasted the clean and plentiful energy that was flowing through the portal above them. He twisted his ax this way and that, enjoying the familiar weight. His arms were trembling in excitement.

Truly, it has been too long. Today… today I fight like a young man. Foolish and invincible. Determined and doomed.

Even though each head had a different personality, all were grinning madly up toward the portal. The waiting became almost too much to bear. Finally, the hole in the world ceased expanding. A huge floating island, shrouded in dark mist, floated out and hung above the Ogre Lord’s army. Dark lightning flickered through the mist. That ominous pressure that had caused the Ogre Lord to stop a half day’s camp from the entrance to Earth spiked sharply upward with the appearance of the island.

The foe has finally come. The Ogre Lord’s skin itched. The smiles on his three heads stretched wider. This sort of pressure… the Ogre Lord hadn’t felt it in two hundred years! Not since he forcefully vanquished his world’s Second Calamity and started this farce of a Third Calamity.

When the System had announced the arrival of the Third Calamity to the world, the Ogre Lord had been filled with horror. After growing up in an environment filled with blood and chaos, to be forced to silently endure while the energy was slowly drained out of the world was his worst nightmare. And it had turned out to be just as agonizing as he had feared. The System had warned of hidden dangers, but the Ogre Lord hadn’t taken such threats seriously. He had been lost in the bleak shadows of his court, the accomplishments he had given his life to suddenly made empty.

All the fire that had driven him to rule the world slowly faded to embers, and then finally to dead ash. In the ancient citadel of Nordawn, the Ogre Lord had closed his eyes and prepared himself to die of old age. He was unwilling to pass easily, of course, but what could he do?

Yet now…

“And yet now the hidden dangers come.” The Ogre Lord hissed from his central head. The floating island drifted downward toward his army’s position. It settled directly above the dirt road that ran forward to the West, where the other portal to Earth lay. Under the pressure of that strange island, the Ogre Lord’s armies could only back helplessly away. As the island continued to drop downward, even the palanquin bearers were forced backward, blood dripping from their clenched jaws as they tried to obey the Ogre Lord’s order to wait for him there.

The Ogre Lord spared a contemptuous glance for all of his ‘precious’ warriors. It was almost insulting that they didn’t seem to realize that two worlds would have a new supreme leader by the day’s end. His leftmost head spoke in a cold voice. “Leave. Or stay and die. I care not.”

Most of the warriors scattered to find cover, but a few stayed with gritted teeth.

As the Ogre Lord turned back to face the island, there was finally movement from within. Four individuals hopped down from the island and landed on the dusty road. Two were humans that the Ogre Lord sensed were powerful, but not a true threat to even the current him. One was an ogre that he distantly recognized as having once served in his army in some minor capacity. He felt like a threat as well, but about the same tier as the two humans.

And the final figure…

The right-most head opened its mouth and undulated its tongue to taste the rich air. That figure with short black hair was the source of the incredible pressure that the Ogre Lord felt. His armor was slate grey. His left arm appeared to be constructed from tiny scales of black metal. His eyes were green and bright.

To compare the Ogre Lord and this man was almost comical. The Ogre Lord had three heads, was four meters tall, and weighed twelve hundred pounds. It would take many of this man to rival the mass that the Ogre Lord wielded. And due to his rather normal appearance, the Ogre Lord had been slightly worried as he stared fixed at the man that most of that pressure was a result of the island itself.

But no, if anything, the island had masked the young man’s pressure. As his calm emerald eyes looked over toward the Ogre Lord, a piercing energy seemed to howl around this figure. The winds of the worlds seemed to gather at his fingertips like loyal dogs, waiting to be commanded. The man who produced the pressure glanced at the Ogre Lord, then looked at the blue crystal ax in his hands that was dripping blood.

The figure’s face split into a strange smile. “You don’t want to talk at all first?”

Sensing the other’s desire to battle, the Ogre Lord’s heart began to beat even faster. “Winner’s may talk so that the defeated can obey them. Until we determine what we are to each other… words are just wasted breath.”