Urzmu

The last of the four corpses hit the ground with a thunderous thud. Destrian yanked his blade free, flicking blood from the edge in a long arc.

But the forest growled back.

Five shapes burst from the shadows at once, massive as boulders rolling downhill. The Titan King’s instincts flared; he moved in time to avoid being crushed, but his eyes narrowed.

“Five more…?” He muttered, “No…”

The campfires spat sparks as the shapes advanced, then more shadows swelled behind them. “Ten… fifteen… twenty?”

The ground itself shook as the tide of muscle and tusks emerged.

Jarce felt his stomach drop to his boots. Seware swore under his breath, clenching his blade. Tetbald whispered prayers. Baltram gripped his axe until his knuckles turned pale. “Gods preserve us…”

A voice rolled through the trees. Low. Guttural. Mocking.

“Human… weak…”

The words slithered over their skin like a curse.

Destrian’s eyes snapped to the dark treeline, his shoulders tensing. The survivors huddled tighter, women and children sobbing, beastkin baring their teeth in fear but shaking all the same.

“Jarce!” Destrian barked, never looking away from the shadows. “Take your men. Guard the survivors! Nothing gets past you, do you hear?!”

Jarce opened his mouth to protest, but another army erupted from the opposite side. More orcs, just as tall, just as furious.

With their shields smashing into place, the guards wheeled, encircling the survivors in a tight ring of thirty soldiers. Shouts, the clang of steel, and the cries of frightened children filled the air.

Then another appeared. As if scared to touch him, the forest parted.

An orc whose tusks shone white like curved swords, dwarfing even the others. Warpaint, which resembled fire scars, was applied on his hide. His eyes were glowing white.

“Urzmu…” Destrian lowered his sword, his grin fading to a cold, calculating line.

“Why?” Destrian called out, his voice carrying over the chaos. “Why here? Why now?”

The massive orc stepped forward, the earth groaning beneath his steps. His breath was a furnace.

“Morvane… will come back…” The words rumbled, deep enough to vibrate bones. “He said… to destroy human…”

The forest itself seemed to recoil from that proclamation.

Before anyone could answer, Urzmu picked a massive tree and threw it like a toy to the guard’s formation.

The soldiers screamed, and Destrian’s eyes flashed.

“Protection of the Bear!” Jarce screamed; the tree split clean in half mid-air, the pieces crashing harmlessly on either side of the camp. Sparks and bark rained down.

“Stay in the circle!” Jarce yelled, dragging a boy behind him as he raised his blade.

The twenty orcs around them roared as one, shaking the night, and charged.

Destrian planted his feet, his voice thundering louder than theirs.

“EVERYONE, DON’T MOVE!” He screamed, using a command spell. Everyone stay still, even the orc army.

“No more needless slaughter! Urzmu! Let’s fight one on one. If I win—you and yours leave this place. If I fall—then you may have us all. We are better than this. No fight between the weak.”

Gasps swept the men. Jarce’s chest tightened. “Captain—!” he tried to protest, but Seware gripped his arm and shook his head.

The Great Orc tilted his head. For a moment, only the crackle of fire and the moans of the scared filled the night. Then, slowly, Urzmu nodded.

The pact was struck.

Destrian nodded without expression.

“I’m Destrian. The Titan King of Knights of Minilon.”

Urzmu prepares his stance, “Urzmu… Orc King of the Mountain. Fight me. Destrian.”

Destrian the Titan King lunged first, sword carving a bright arc. But Urzmu was faster than any beast Destrian had faced. The orc king blurred sideways, his own cleaver-sized blade shrieking as it met steel. Sparks burst. The shockwave knocked dust and leaves into the air.

Destrian pressed hard, gaining speed on each hit. But Urzmu met them all. His counterstrikes came as fast and as brutal, jarring even to Destrian’s seasoned arms.

A slash across Destrian’s shoulder split armor. He snarled and rammed his boot into Urzmu’s chest, forcing the orc back. “Hah! You’re faster than the dragon I slew!”

Urzmu’s laughter was a low, cruel rumble. “I hunt dragons… for fun.”

The soldiers shivered. Even the forest seemed to hold its breath.

Destrian’s brow furrowed. “You’ve aided travelers before. Given safe passage through your woods. Why turn against us now?”

The orc king’s eyes burned brighter, his muscles bulging with unnatural strength.

“Kill… human. Morvane has ordered us. He gave us power… No choice.”

Morvane. The Demon King. Slain two thousand years ago by Saint Orivaneia.

Tetbald’s heart pounded. “Morvane the Innominate…?”

“So… he’s returned.” Destrian continued.

Before he could press the thought, Urzmu roared and swung. He tried to parry, but it went through. His right arm hit the dirt, still holding the sword.

“Ahaha, looks like you got me there…” Destrian tried to keep his cool.

Urzmu tilted his head. “Admitting defeat?”

“Defeat…? No… Of course not. Both of us are still standing, no?” He looked at his left arm and planted his feet in another stance. “Looks like I had no choice then…”

“Captain, no!” Jarce screamed, recognizing the shift in his stance. “Your body can’t take it!”

Destrian ignored him.

“By the First King’s will and the sun’s eternal fire, I call forth judgment!”

Light bled from the seams of his armor. Golden runes, blazing with orange flames, erupting fire across his breastplate and crawling up his neck.

“Angels of light! Lend me thy strength.”

Destrian's body burst into a pillar of white-hot, pure sunshine that swept over the area and engulfed Urzmu entirely. The flames were too brilliant to see, and the noise was so loud that all sound was momentarily muffled.

Trees that contacted that light were vaporized into ash, and the ground flash-melted into a crater of glass, but Urzmu is still standing there, tanking it all. “Is it my turn now?”

Destrian kneels to take his great sword back from his fallen hand.

“O Light! Strengthen my blade!” He said, And now the remaining fire all gathers to one point that is his sword.

Without losing momentum, Destrian launched himself into the air. He put every ounce of his life and his duty into a single, soaring leap, bringing the sun-forged blade down in a blazing arc aimed directly at Urzmu’s head. “ARS… NOVA!!!”

The moment it hit, everyone couldn’t see anything once again, but the light vanished as quickly as it came. The holy power was gone. Destrian was thrown back by the recoil, crashing to the ground and skidding to a halt on one knee. His head hung, his strength utterly spent.

He forced his eyes open. His legendary sword, the Blade of Minilon, was still lodged in Urzmu’s head. But the tip was shattered, and slowly a web of catastrophic cracks ran down its length, and in a second, it turned the sword to ashes.

Yet there was no blood.

Slowly, Urzmu’s head tilted down.

The expression on the Orc King’s face was not one of rage, nor of triumph. It was a pity. A deep, profound, and soul-crushing pity.

“All of that power,” the orc’s voice was unnervingly soft, almost sorrowful. “All of that conviction... just to scratch me. Your sword is fake. No Ars weapon series is that weak…”

He took a step forward, his shadow falling over the defeated king. His glowing white eyes stared down, holding no malice, only a final, sad finality.

“You truly were the strongest of them. I can see that now. Farewell, Destrian, the Titan King.”

Urzmu loomed over the staggering Titan King, tusks gleaming, eyes afire.

“No human strong enough. Human weapon… weak against Morvane’s blessing.”

He raised his blade for the killing blow—

—but froze.

A gleam of silver. A piece.

He shouted in pain as the blade slashed into his chest, spilling dark liquid.

A person moved forward from the carriage's shadows. pale. Lovely. Anger burning in the eyes.

With a voice as harsh as steel, Anna smiled smugly:

“How about this weapon then?!”