The ogre officer swung its mace at Soran, who rolled backward to evade the strike while slicing its legs with his curved sword. Even though he opened up a half-foot wound on the ogre officer's leg, it did not stop attacking in the slightest. Apart from the gaps on its full platemail armor, there was nowhere else Soran could attack.
The ogre officer's arm swung past Soran, engulfing him in a horrendous stench. Ogres were even stinkier than gnolls, Soran noticed. Without dwelling on such useless thoughts, he rolled all the way back until he was seven or so meters away from the raging ogre. Yarse took the opportunity to load an arrow onto his longbow and fired at the enemy's head. It covered its face with its gauntlets, the arrow bouncing away after hitting the chunk of metal. Yarse cursed as he loaded another arrow. He was about to fire when the ogre officer suddenly changed its target from Soran and rushed at him.
Unable to switch to his sword in time, Yarse hurriedly fired the nocked arrow in a desperate attempt to ward off the ogre officer. However, his efforts were in vain. The ogre officer ignored the arrow that struck the side of its neck and attacked Yarse, who could only block the incoming mace with his longbow. With a loud snap, the bow splintered into pieces and he was hit square in the chest, his entire torso collapsing inward from the impact. Meanwhile, his arrow, despite landing in the ogre officer's neck, failed to hit any major veins or arteries.
"Die!"
Soran shouted and jumped at the ogre officer. He swung his curved sword at the monster's neck, cutting through its tough skin. However, his sword got stuck between its cervical vertebrae. The ogre officer roared and struck Soran's arm with a reverse backfist, sending him flying.
Crack!
The bones in Soran’s right arm fractured, and the ogre officer's spiked gauntlets pierced through his right shoulder. Perhaps it had also damaged his tendons, because he could not use even a tiny bit of strength in that arm. Deciding that was enough, Soran started to retreat to the rear. With one of his arms disabled, it was impossible to fight against the ogre officer, let alone kill it.
The ogre officer pulled out the curved sword stuck in its neck and tossed it onto the ground. Blood surged out of the wound like a fountain, but it did not seem to care at all and pursued Soran. After taking a few steps though, it slowed down greatly, perhaps due to extensive blood loss.
"I cut its artery!"
Soran's expression changed from grim to gleeful. He picked up a sword from the ground and tossed it at the ogre officer. Enraged by his actions, it once again charged blindly at Soran. Along with its intense movements, more and more blood gushed out from its neck, leaving behind a bloody path. The bulky ogre suddenly froze and dropped its weapon, then dropped to the ground, unable to move any longer. It was not dead yet, but it had lost too much blood for it to even move, let alone pursue Soran.
Soran slowly approached the dying ogre officer. After confirming it was on its last breaths, he unsheathed his dagger and stabbed it in the eye.
"Critical hit! 21 damage dealt to the target!"
“Successfully killed the Ogre Officer!”
“Extracting soul energy from target… Received 2400 Slaughter Experience Points.”
It must have been a Grade 3 ogre about to reach Grade 4, because it gave even more EXP than the snake demon. Soran gasped for air as he surveyed his surroundings. After confirming there were no enemies nearby, he swiftly bandaged his right arm. If he did not treat the wound and continued to lose blood, he would be extremely weakened for a while even with the Rebirth ability. In the worse case, he might even die from complications.
Soran rested for a minute after bandaging his broken arm, then went to find Yarse’s body. Given how his chest collapsed from the ogre officer's strike, he must have died within ten or so seconds after getting hit.
"May your soul receive eternal peace."
Soran's eyes showed a hint of grief. Even though they had not known each other for long and were by no means good friends, they were still allies on the battlefield. Soran closed Yarse's eyes with his fingers, then searched the half-elf’s body for anything useful and put it all into his own multi-dimensional bag. Even though the battle was still raging on, with his arm’s condition, he could no longer fight.
He looked toward the main battlefield, where the Whiterun army still clashed with the ogres' main forces, then quickly ran back to the rear. Only after putting over a hundred meters between himself and the battlefield did he take out a potion and chug it down. He then forcibly put his bones back into their original places, though they remained fractured. It would help speed up his recovery a bit, but that did not mean he could suddenly use his arm now.
Level up wizard!
He had fought quite a bit since the last time he’d used his Slaughter EXP, thus he’d accumulated over 9000 points by now. As he assigned the necessary EXP to level up his Wizard profession, new rows of data appeared.
“The profession Wizard is now Level 5.”
“Received 25 [INT 20 + (INT 20-10)*0.5] Skill Points, HP increased by 9 [Profession HP 4 + (CON 20-10)*0.5].”
"Successfully learned the profession skill Counterspell."
“Received 1 Ability Point.”
The additional HP brought by the level up alleviated his injuries a little, and he could finally move his right arm slightly. He stood up and looked to the front, realizing the battlefield had long since turned into a chaotic brawl. The ogres had finally broken through the defensive formations, but the human soldiers were still trained personnel and continued to fight in groups of five to ten despite having their formations broken. It had been a while since the battle first broke out, and ogres were falling one after another. Even with their great vitality, small wounds would stack up to eventually cause death.
On the sides, wizards were focusing their firepower at the trained ogre warriors. Acid Arrow and Fire Bolt worked well against the ogres as they had high penetrating power. With the aid of golems, the humans were successfully suppressing the ogres on the flanks, and the ogres were gradually collapsing. Feral Bloodlust has reached its time limit by now, and some ogres began to flee as their morale plummeted.
The stormlord was also getting the edge over the two-headed ogre in their duel. While she was occupied, other Whiterun officers took over and ordered the cavalry corps to circle around and strike the ogres from their rear.
The storm clouds surrounding the stormlord seemed to be getting closer and closer to the ground. All of a sudden, a thunderbolt cut through the sky. The two-headed ogre expected to be struck with lightning, but the lightning landed on the stormlord's war spear instead.
—Electrify Weapon!
The bolt of lightning squirmed around her weapon and covered it entirely. The glow emitted by the weapon nearly blinded everyone, and it almost looked like she was fighting with a lightning bolt in hand. She began to attack faster and faster, her body flickering with lightning as she released primal roars. From time to time, those who entered her thirty-meter radius would suddenly stand still as though they’d been electrocuted.
—Legendary Electrostatic Field!
The two-headed ogre's movements started to slow down, and the moment it showed an opening, the stormlord pierced through its chest with a lightning bolt, creating a wound with a five-centimeter diameter. The two-headed ogre shrieked from the pain, and both heads started to cast spells in a panic. In the blink of an eye, it teleported a few hundred meters away from the stormlord. It was running away.
—Thunder War Spear!
Flickering lightning gathered onto her war spear. She roared as she leapt tens of meters into the air, the storm lifting her body higher into the sky. She held her war spear tightly, then threw it at the fleeing ogre chief. Like a bolt of lightning, it dashed through the sky at speeds beyond human perception. The next moment, a gaping wound appeared on the two-headed ogre's chest.
The two-headed ogre's enormous body fell to the ground. The stormlord slowly descended from the sky, her breath slightly rough and disarrayed. She also seemed to be tired and injured. Her hands were charred black as though they were burnt.
The moment the ogre chief dropped dead, the ogre horde’s order collapsed entirely, and many of them escaped. The stormlord did not bother pursuing the fleeing ogres, but instead slowly walked toward the corpse of the two-headed ogre. She took out a short sword from her waist and cut off both heads. Blood gushed out from the lumps as she beheaded the corpse and placed both heads into a sack. She then nodded in satisfaction and turned back to look at the battlefield.
When the ogres started to scatter and run, the Whiterun cavalry chased down as many of the fleeing monsters as possible. Infantry who had fought from the start till the very end of the battle were extremely worn out, and many of them collapsed onto the ground after realizing the monsters had retreated. The sound of injured soldiers whimpering and whining could be heard as priests and priestesses tried to heal as many injured personnel as possible with their limited amount of healing spells. Those who’d suffered mortal injuries but were still barely clinging on were given a swift end to their misery and suffering by depressed friends and allies.
Others who were in relatively good shape went around chopping the heads off the ogre corpses and collecting them. They were the most important spoils of war for Whiterun; they would preserve the heads and hang them at their borders to show off their accomplishments and military might, which would also serve as a warning to those who might try to attack.
Most monster tribes would not dare to settle down in Whiterun’s territory after the battle between man and ogre. They would first consider whether or not they could defeat a large ogre tribe in war, a feat which few, if any, monsters could rival.
Tales of the battle would soon be spread around taverns in the city, then the entire southern regions soon after by bards. Of course, the main character this time was not Soran, but perhaps there might be a day when he became the protagonist of a legendary tale. For now though, he was just an inconspicuous adventurer.
"The battle has ended!"
"You have successfully aided the Whiterun army in defeating the Bone Crushing Ogre Tribe!"
"You have improved your skills in battle!"
"Scout +5, Search +5, Sneak +2, Survival +2, Parry +2, Evasion (Rolling) +1, Evasion (Body-Shifting) +1, Listen +1, Heal +1."
"As you have taken part in a Legendary-grade battle, your Legend Rating 【Folklore】 has increased by 1."
* * *
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*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes
*[12.47 to 13.07]: don't ask me about the tree sap