CHAPTER 102: LEVEL UP

His fist connected with an Ogre’s face.

The impact was an absolute detonation of force.

A massive shockwave of white energy erupted from his knuckles.

The Ogre’s head simply... ceased to exist.

It was vaporized into a fine red mist.

The force of the blow ran through the very bones of the canyon.

BOOM!

He backhanded an Orc, sending the creature flying a hundred feet through the air.

It crashed against the canyon wall with a sickening, wet crunch.

He was a whirlwind of destruction.

A living, breathing meat-grinder.

And he was having the time of his life.

"He’s magnificent," I murmured, a note of genuine, professional respect in my voice.

"A true artist."

"A virtuoso of violence."

"He’s also winning, my Lord," Isabelle pointed out dryly.

My bait army was being systematically, brutally, and very efficiently dismantled.

"Patience, Commander," I purred.

"All part of the plan."

I watched as Grak, in his berserker fury, fought his way to the center of the pit.

He was surrounded by a mountain of his own making.

A grim tableau of broken bodies and shattered weapons.

He stood over the last, twitching Orc.

His massive chest was heaving.

A wide, triumphant grin was on his brutal face.

His back was turned.

He was overconfident.

He was exposed.

"Now," I whispered into the comms.

From the shadows of the canyon walls, two phantoms of impossible speed emerged.

Isabelle and Chloe.

BOOM! BOOM!

The ground exploded under their feet as they launched themselves from the cliffs.

They were two silent, deadly arrows aimed at the heart of the beast.

The wind shrieked as they closed the distance.

Their forms were blurs of dark armor and pale, determined faces.

Grak, his senses still buzzing from the thrill of the slaughter, turned at the last possible second.

His triumphant grin vanished.

It was replaced by a look of shocked, utter disbelief.

He had no time to raise his guard.

He had no time to brace himself.

CRACK!

Isabelle’s dark blade, Dáinsleif, moved faster than thought.

It bit deep into the back of his knee.

It severed tendons and shattered bone.

The impact was a sharp, focused detonation.

A visible shockwave ripped through his leg.

He roared in agony and surprise.

His leg buckled beneath him.

At the same instant, Chloe was upon him from the other side.

Her twin daggers, Whisper and Silence, were not aimed at a vital point.

They were aimed at his hands.

Her blades danced, a blur of motion.

Grak roared again as his massive, powerful hands were rendered useless.

The tendons in his wrists were sliced with a surgeon’s cold precision.

He fell.

The Unbreakable Beast.

The mountain of muscle and fury.

He crashed to the floor of his own fighting pit, a wounded, helpless giant.

I made my entrance.

I didn’t rush.

I strode down into the pit.

My long, dark coat swished with each deliberate step.

I stopped before the fallen king, looking down at him with an expression of cool, detached appraisal.

"Impressive," I said.

"You killed two hundred of my best disposable idiots in under ten minutes."

"That’s a new record."

Grak glared up at me, his eyes burning with a hateful, impotent fire.

"Coward," he growled, his voice a low, pained rumble.

"You hide behind your women."

"Your tricks."

"I don’t hide," I corrected him gently.

"I delegate."

"It’s called management. You should try it sometime."

I crouched down, my red eyes locking onto his.

"Now, Grak," I said, my voice a low, dangerous purr.

"We have a choice to make."

"You can lie here and bleed out, a sad, forgotten footnote in my glorious rise to power."

"Or... you can join me."

He snorted, a sound of pure contempt.

"Why would I serve a coward?"

"Because I can give you the one thing you crave more than anything else," I said.

A slow, knowing smile was on my face.

"A good fight."

His eyes widened slightly.

"Join me," I offered, "and I will point you at enemies so strong, so powerful, that they will make my army of Orcs look like a pack of frightened kittens."

"I will give you an endless war."

"An endless challenge."

"A chance to prove, once and for all, that you truly are the strongest there is."

I stood up and held out my hand.

"What’s it to be, Grak?"

"A boring death in the dirt?"

"Or a glorious life of endless, beautiful violence?"

He looked at my hand.

He looked at my two commanders, who stood behind me like silent, deadly Valkyries.

A slow, brutal, and deeply unsettling grin spread across his battered face.

"You had me at ’endless violence’," he growled.

He took my hand.

The deal was struck.

My collection of magnificent, monstrous bastards had just grown by one.

The Dwarf King of Hakui was still out there, waiting in his mountain.

But I had just acquired the perfect key to his very, very sturdy front door.

A living battering ram.

And I couldn’t wait to use him.

-------------

The acquisition of Grak the Unbreakable was a resounding success.

He was a simple creature.

He required no complex management.

You simply had to point him at something you wanted broken, and he would happily oblige.

He was currently back in my domain, in the Orc barracks, engaged in what appeared to be a headbutting contest with Smashy.

It was a beautiful display of male bonding and traumatic brain injury.

With my new living siege engine secured, the final piece of the puzzle was falling into place.

The invasion of the Dwarf King’s mountain fortress was imminent.

But first, there was the matter of my own internal affairs.

The delicate, high-stakes game of keeping my two top commanders from murdering each other in their sleep.

I was in my private chambers in the Crystal Spire.

The massive, circular bed was a testament to my good taste and my even better ability to conquer people who had good taste.

Isabelle was with me.

She was tracing idle patterns on my bare chest with a single, calloused finger.

Her dark armor was in a pile on the floor.

Her new sword, Dáinsleif, was propped against the nightstand.

She was a goddess of war, momentarily at peace.

And she was all mine.

"You seem pleased with your new pet, my Lord," she murmured, her voice a low, smoky sound in the quiet of the room.

"Grak is a tool, Isabelle," I replied, running my hand through her long, dark hair.

"A very large, very effective tool. But a tool nonetheless."

I leaned in, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

"You, on the other hand," I purred, "are the hand that wields the tool."

Her lips curved into a faint, satisfied smile.

She liked that.

She liked being my right hand.

My one and only.

Or so she thought.

We were in the middle of this quiet, intimate moment, a rare island of peace in our chaotic, violent lives, when it happened.

A soft, ethereal chime echoed in the room.

It was not a sound I made.

It was a sound only Isabelle could hear.

She sat up straight, a look of pure, unadulterated shock on her face.

A glowing, translucent screen had appeared in the air in front of her.

It was a System notification.

[You have accumulated enough experience!]

[You have reached Level 50!]

[Class Evolution is now available. Please select your new path.]

My heart, which was currently not beating, still managed to perform a spectacular, excited leap into my throat.

"A class change!" I exclaimed, my voice filled with the pure, unadulterated glee of a gamer who had just unlocked a new skill tree.

"I knew it! I knew humans had to have an evolution mechanic! This is huge!"

Isabelle just stared at the screen, her eyes wide.

"I... I don’t understand," she stammered. "What is this?"

"It’s a power-up, my love!" I said, my mind already racing with the strategic implications. "A massive one! Pixia!"

My tiny, flying encyclopedia of all things statistical and annoying appeared in a pop of faint green light.

She was holding a tiny, clipboard-like device.

"Apologies for the intrusion, my Lord," she squeaked, trying very hard to look at anything other than the two very naked people on the bed. "I detected the energy spike."

"Forget that!" I commanded. "The human evolution! What do you know? Scour the forums! Check the hero databases! I want every scrap of information you can find!"

Pixia’s wings became a blur.

"Running a full data sweep now, my Lord," she reported. "Cross-referencing all known hero profiles with level progression data... interesting. There are no public records of any human hero achieving a class evolution. The data appears to be... suppressed."

"Suppressed?" Isabelle repeated, her voice a whisper.

"Of course, it is," I snarled, a cold, hard understanding dawning on me. "The human governments. The Hero Guilds. They’re hiding it. They don’t want the grunts to know that there’s a secret ’god mode’ waiting for them at level fifty. They’re keeping the real power for themselves."