Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

In a life or death battle such as this one, even a moment of negligence could cost one their life.

Simon who had entered a unique state, did not miss this opportunity and swung his sword with even more precision. He changed the hold of his sword hilt and plunged the sword inside the body of the orc.

Although he felt some resistance due to the [Thick Armour] skill of his enemy, he was still able to dig quite a bit deep. The stab was able to reach their organs.

Simon was just about to continue with his attack and activate the infernal magic of his sword, to burn their insides when suddenly his instinct started ringing alarm bells. He immediately disengaged leaving his sword inside the body of the orc which was a right decision to make.

After suffering a blow, the orc general had gone crazy and activated its [Tantrum] skill without waiting for the duration of its other skills to end.

BOOOM… a huge shockwave with the orc as the centre erupted out creating an enormous crater. Everything around the crater was blown into smithereens or turned into fine granules. Except for the [A] tier crimson sword that stuck onto the Orc's body.

The sword was blown back from the shockwave and disappeared within the thick foliage of the forest.

Seeing this, Simon was relieved of his decision to immediately disengage.

"What kind of skill was that" he thought internally. The skill just now was far too lethal both for the enemy and for the user. Simon could see that the orc general HP go down by a lot. Surely, it too have suffered some serious damage after using that skill which meant that it was a duel-edged weapon.

While Simon pondered whether he should continue on with the melee attacks, his eyes suddenly went wide when he saw the orc prepare to fire another one of those shockwaves. Although the range of the shockwaves wasn't big, it was powerful enough to disintegrate things.

That is to say, it had the ability to neglect the defence stat. It did not matter how much defence Simon had, once he got caught in that shockwave he would suffer huge damage.

Simon was right, after suffering that blow from him, Berimal had gone crazy from anger and humiliation that he did not care about anything any more. Even though he knew he would suffer serious damage for using the skill, he still activated the [Tantrum] skill.

A skill that produces powerful shockwaves around the surrounding in a fixed interval of time and uses the blood and HP of the user as the sacrifice. It was a skill that Berimal did not like using much often since it rendered him weak and severely exhausted after the duration of the skill.

Not to mention it had a small range so if he wanted to damage his enemy along with him, he had to be near them. However, the Berimal right now wasn't sane enough to consider the consequences of the skill, all he wanted now was to destroy the enemy in front of it no matter the cost.

ZZzzzz... the air started vibrating around him and given how turbulent the mana in the surrounding was, one could tell that the orc general was preparing another shockwave.

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A few kilometres away, near the entrance of the camp. Three humans were currently facing hordes of enemies that came out of the camp. The leader of this group, Bastian held his sword tightly and blocked any enemy that rushed at them.

Everywhere he laid his eyes, he saw orcs and high orcs surrounding them. Their numbers were so high that he felt like a cornered animal. He finally realised how foolish it was to rush at the enemy's camp with just the three of them.

​ "Haa… Haa... Bastian, I don't think we can get past them" one of his teammates replied.

Even without him telling that, Bastain already knew it was stupid of him to even think they stood a chance to save their comrades from the clutches of the orc. He was being far too idealistic and because of that he also risked the life of his other two friends who would have been fine inside the town had he not brought them with him.

"I'm sorry, because of me you guys also got caught up in it," He thought that since they couldn't see any orcs on their way here or on patrol, they could sneak inside the camp and rescue their comrades without alerting.

However, even when covering their scents with mud and grime, they were still found out before they even got to the camp.

"What are you saying sorry for? I was the one who agreed to come while fully knowing the dangers. If I die, it's on me. However, I will make sure to take a few of them with me to their graves" Another guy replied gritting his teeth.

Each of them were just a few levels away from reaching level 300. An ordinary orc was not a threat to them. In fact, they have already dealt with quite a number of them.

However, the enemy's main forces weren't the orcs but the High Orcs who were each above level 200, some even reaching level 250.

For an experienced adventurer, a high orc might not pose too much of a problem but it was their number and coordination that was a threat. A group of orcs due to their racial skill, coordinate much better than an average group of adventurers.

Which is why, the adventurer's association always caution parties and teams to not engage a group of orcs if possible. Well, it would be a different case if you find a single roaming orc, but orcs mostly move in groups and are very difficult to sneak in on due to their high sensitivity to smell.

THUD… THUD… at this moment, the ordinary orcs surrounding the adventurers made way for ten bulky high orcs to pass through. Each of these high orcs were huge and were carrying logs as big as a person's body.

Even their level was maxed at 250. That is to say, they have reached the limit of their growth a long time ago.

Bastian and his group made a triangular formation with their back facing each other. After cutting down a few more ordinary orcs that rushed at them, the group turned their gaze at the ten huge high orcs that came out of the camp.

Just from their aura alone, it was enough for Bastian and the others to know that this group of High orcs were different from the others. With the appearance of these high orcs, they might not be able to fight as leisurely as before.

What's more, after fighting this many ordinary orcs, their power and stamina had clearly decreased a lot.

"Prepare that thing, I don't think we can beat these high orcs if we fight them head on" Bastian called out to the adventurer on his right who was the only assassin amongst the two warriors.

The latter nodded his head and took out a couple of pouches from his space ring and handed it to the others.

RAOARR… with the roar of the one in the middle, the group of orcs as if in perfect synchronicity, started charging towards the adventurers. With their huge size, they were like ramming trucks razing and flattening the area wherever they charged.

RUMBLE… feeling the rumbling of the ground and the pressure from the charge of the ten maxed level high orcs, Bastian and his group tightly held onto the pouch in their hands. And with all their strength, they threw it towards the high orcs when they were only a few meters of distance between them.

POOF… when they couple of pouches knocked against the bodies of the orcs, they immediately burst apart allowing the contents inside, to spread out.

An extremely repellent and pungent powder came out of the pouch and was inhaled by the onrushing high orcs.

GRRAOARRR… unable to bear the smell due to their heightened sense of smell, the high orcs screamed in agony and toppled onto the ground unable to control the speed of thier charge.

"Get away" Bastian with one hand covering his nose, shouted out and jumped away from the path of the orcs. One by one, all of the charging high orcs crashed onto the ground or onto the surrounding trees due to the powder they inhaled.

"Huff… looks like bringing these was the right choice," Bastian said tossing a pouch in his hand. The thing on his hand was called the stench powder and could be found in a potion or a weapon shop. It was one of the items that were used when running away from a monster that has a special sense of smell.

The stench powder, other than blocking their sense of smell for a period of time, did nothing else.

Bastian and his group had used this stench powder to dodge the attack from these high orcs. In the first place, their goal was not to fight all these orcs but to rescue their comrades that have been captured by these orcs.

"Alright, keep on throwing the powder at them. It should keep them occupied for some time while we take this chance to enter their camp and save our friends" Bastian commanded. He threw one pouch after another filled with stench powder at the orcs.

POOF… POOF… due to the heightened sense of smell of the orcs, they screamed in agony and were unable to resist against the stench powder. They fell on the ground one after another clutching their nose in pain.

"Now… this is our chance" Bastian seeing that the orcs have spread out, chose this moment to rush inside their camp.