Several hours later, Samiel finally returned back to the cave after he had finished the job of framing the Palerock Ork Clan. It was clear that he succeeded, just from the outburst of rage, he felt from the Bugbear Legendary who arrived at the village.
"I take it everything went well?"
After Samiel returned, he found that Yvraine was slightly injured as she was scouting the area and encountered a pack of Steel-Tier Direwovles, who gave her some trouble fighting them.
Direwolves were basically wolves, but bigger, faster, more agile, more durable, and most importantly, stronger. Just like other wolf likes, Direwolves only acted in packs, and it was dangerous to fight them alone.
"Those idiots totally fell for it, even several kilometers away; I could hear the rageful roar of one of the Bugbear Legendaries..."
Chuckled Samiel as he sat down to rest. After walking non-stop for several hours straight, he was feeling pretty tired already. Even if he was physically several times stronger, and his stamina was monstrous, he still liked the feeling of just sitting down and lazying around.
'I obtained almost 700 souls from the massacre of that Bugbear Village; with this amount, I can greatly increase the strength of my Undeads.'
He thought as he started feeding the souls of Bugbears to his Undeads. Even though most of these Souls were only Iron-Tier, it was still good, as the strength of his Undeads was increased to alter stages of the Steel-Tier.
So, right now, he had in his disposition 72 extremely strong Steel-Tier Undeads, while some of them were already nearing the peak of the Steel-Tier. Of course, crossing into a new Tier would require for him to feed them with Bronze-Tier souls because breaking through to the new Tier was harder the higher one progressed.
Now, after that, he was left with 514 souls, which was still a lot, but he was saving them for his future Undeads, as he would need to increase their strength too.
For a moment, he was tempted to go to the Palerock Clan, hide somewhere there and just wait and collect souls there, as it would be for sure thousands of them, but in the end, he decided against it, albeit begrudgingly, as it was too dangerous.
There would be a minimum of three Legendary-Tier Magic Users from the Bugbears, and if someone found him, he would probably die if Azathoth didn't send some bits of his power to rescue him, so in the end, he decided not to be overly greedy.
In the end, he didn't want to end up a dead rotting corpse in the godforsaken place, so he decided to just grit his teeth and quell his greed.
***
Several hours later, near the borders of Bugbear Tribe and Palerock Clan of Orks.
One could see almost a sea made of Bugbears as they were descending down from the hills and marching in disorganized formation towards the location of the Palerock Clan of Orks.
There were thousands upon thousands of Bugbears, all ranging from the weak Iron-Tier to mighty Gold-Tier Bugbears, headed by three Legendary-Tier Bugbears. Together they were creating a fearsome image of a monster army descending down to unleash blood and fire on their enemies.
All were armed to the teeth, holding crude axes, spears, hammers, blades or morning stars, or even cubs, all of those were popular weapons among the Bugbears, pretty similar to that of Orks.
However, Bugbears preferred not to wear a lot of armor, as they had only a few armor pieces on them, as that would hinder their agility, which was the greatest strength of the Bugbear species.
Even if they wore armor, they would be wearing only light armor made from light metals or mostly leather armor from the leather of magical beasts living in nearby forests.
As the Bugbears were descending down in rage, Orks of the Palerock Clan were a bit panicking, as their entire Clan was surrounded by more than twenty thousand Bugbears, which was half of the Bugbear Tribe.
This was an unprecedented situation, as the Bloodtooth Tribe had some kind of peace with the Bugbears; basically, no Ork would trespass the Bugbear hills, while Bugbears won't be bothering Orks.
It was a form of a weird symbiosis the Orks of the Bloodtooth Tribe had with native species of the 1st Floor, and this symbiosis lasted for several centuries. This was the first time in history when some of the native species of the 1st Floor launched a full attack on some Ork Clan in past centuries.
Even though the skirmishes were a common occurrence through the years, as each day one could see people fighting here and there, it never went to the huge war across the entire Floor.
While the Bloodtooth Tribe was many times bigger and stronger than the Bugbear Tribe and acted as an undisputed overlord of the 1st Floor, especially after the Chieftain Gurnish killed the Floor Ruler several months ago, there were still several species with Legendaries, who if allied could become a threat to the Bloodtooth Tribe.
Especially now, when most of the Tribal's fighting power departed to conquer and destroy Midnight World, even if the Tribe wanted, they could not effectively defend against the incoming crusade of the Bugbears in a short time.
Not to mention that the Palerock Clan is the smallest and weakest Clan, so other Ork Clans would be reluctant to fight and die for them without an explicit order from the Chieftain. Greenskins were not the most compassionate species, and they didn't really have a problem letting their allies and their kind die a gruesome death.
So, in the end, the Palerock Clan was left to their fate, which was high, possibly complete extermination. That was nothing that Samiel and Yvraine didn't expect, as it was standard behavior of the Orkoids.
Boss of the Palerock Clan was just an Initial Legendary-Tier Ork, who was pretty young and also rather weak compared to other Ork Bosses of other Orkish Clans in the Bloodtooth Tribe. Unfortunately, he was all alone, and on top of that, he was way weaker than the Legendaries of the Bugbear Tribe.
"Waaaghhh!"
Roared the Ork Boss of the Palerock Clan as he rallied his Orks behind him; even though they were severely outnumbered as the Palerock Clan numbered only something around 4,000 Orks, they were still fearless as they cried for the war and prayed to their Ork Gods for the victory or good death on the battlefield.
Orks rarely, if not, never retreated, even if the fight would result in their death for sure. Retreating from the battlefield was the greatest disgrace for an Ork that could ever happen, and most, if not all Orks, would prefer death rather than retreating.
Of course, there were some exceptions, some more cunning and scheming Orks, that didn't follow the traditions to the point and preferred to use anything to survive and become the final winner, but those were rare cases.
"Rooaarr!"
Roared on the other side of the battlefield, the Bugbear Chieftain as he swung his club, signaling to other Bugbears that the battle had started, as two species of greenskins charged at each other with equal ferocity and brutality.
As the two species clashed in the endless circle of carnage and brutality, they slashed, hacked, kicked, cleaved, and tore through each other. Both of these species were specifically bred for war and fight, so the battle between them was especially bloody.
While the Orks had an individual advantage of being stronger, taller and sturdier over the medium-sized Bugbears who belonged to the Goblinoid category of Greenskins, they soon found themselves overwhelmed by vast numbers of Bugbears who just kept coming and coming.
Additionally, what made the situation even worse was the presence of two Lengedary-Tier Bugbears on the battlefield who were wreaking havoc among ordinary soldiers and were slaughtering Gold-Tier Orks one after another.
This was the expected outcome if the Legendary Level Powerhouse started wreaking havoc among those of a Mortal Levels, as even the weakest Legendary could slaughter tens of Gold-Tier on his own, effortlessly in a short amount of time. Just like it was now happening with two Bugbear Legendaries on the battlefield.
Even the Clan Boss was right now being beaten by the Bugbear Chieftain, as he was many times weaker than the Bugbear Chieftain, who was Intermediate Legendary Powerhouse. Clan Leader of the Palerock Clan was only Initial Legendary, and the fact he was able to withstand the Bugbear Chieftain for so long was a miracle by itself.
Just as the Ork Boss was about to counterattack the Bugbear Chieftain, suddenly Bugbear Chieftain's weapon landed on his head, shattering his head, in one swift hit, as the Legendary-Tier Ork died on the spot, while Bugbears roared in delight.
This death was decisive because the death of their Clan Leader shook all Orks, but alas, there was nothing they could do aside from fighting to the death. All Bugbears that attacked their tribe were determined to annihilate them o the last one.
That was exactly happening as their lines were breached, Ork Warriors were overwhelmed, and soon enough, the entire Palerock Clan found itself being slowly exterminated.
Instantly after, he cast some kind of a weird Warlock Spell that burned up the corpse of the Ork Boss, as nothing remained. Orks were problematic species to kill, especially when they reached Legendary-Tier, as sometimes, even if they lost their head, they could continue to fight.
This death cemented the fate of the Palerock Tribe as Bugbears carried out their revenge.
Neither Yvraine nor Samiel were aware that extermination of small and insignificant Orkish Clan would soon enough, in upcoming years, result in Bugbears annihilating a whole bunch of weaker Ork Clan with one or two Legendaries. At the same time, Bugbear Tribe would get only stronger and stronger.
Only then did the situation change when the main forces of the Bloodtooth Tribe returned from the Midnight World when Ork Boss Gurnish would learn of everything and would personally annihilate the entire Bugbear Tribe.
Though nobody would even change the fact that Orks suffered tremendously during this, and due to their partially unsuccessful crusade to the Midnight World, the position of Orks on the 1st Floor would be slowly declining.
And in the end, after several decades, the entire Tribe would be annihilated, and a new overlord of the 1st Floor would rise from the ashes of the old one.