Chapter 183

All-Out War

“The Grand Chief is here!”

“Attack!”

As Karath hacked wildly into the body of one of the monsters with Silvertusk, his subordinates roared and renewed their assault.

The Silver Wolf warriors joined them as well, casting aside the detached composure they usually carried like monks.

Under the combined attack, the three unusual specimens began collapsing one after another.

“Wh-what are those monsters supposed to be?!”

“We need to return to the main group and bring more creatures!”

“We already know where this place is. We only need to escape!”

Only after their monsters began dying did the black mages finally seem to understand how dangerous the situation had become.

They immediately prepared to flee.

“After them!”

The instant Karath gave the command, everyone who had been fighting the monsters charged toward the black mages.

“Keep firing!”

Berners urged the hobgoblins onward as they continued loosing arrows.

Karath had no intention of standing idle either.

“Ice Wall.”

Just as he had separated the monsters from the villagers earlier, he now raised a massive wall of ice between the black mages and the ruined entrance to the cavern.

“Catch them!”

“Do not let a single one escape!”

The warriors seized the opportunity and crashed into the black mages.

At last, the miserable battle was nearing its end.

Karath still could not relax.

Had more monsters arrived?

More black mages?

No.

“Cough.”

The problem was his own body.

Aura had filled him completely before extending all the way into Silvertusk.

At the same time, the mana circles around his heart had just resonated as he cast a Fourth Circle spell.

Now those two forces suddenly began rejecting one another.

The aura circulating throughout his body touched the mana circles revolving around his heart.

The moment they met, a violent repulsion erupted.

Agonizing pain tore through him.

“Guh.”

After confirming that his warriors had the black mages under control, Karath practically threw Silvertusk aside and dropped to the ground with his legs crossed.

He closed his eyes and turned his awareness inward.

What he found was chaos.

The flow of aura originating from the mana core near his abdomen had spread throughout his entire body while he was immersed in his breakthrough.

Eventually, that flow had reached the enormous concentration of mana rotating around his heart.

His mana circles.

Is this the condition that black mage warned me about?

Mana instability caused by excessive absorption.

But Karath had every reason to feel wronged.

Because of that warning, he had deliberately restrained himself from absorbing mana.

Even now, he had not been taking in more power. He had been consuming mana through aura and magic.

So why was this happening?

Find the cause later. Survive first.

Despite the pain, Karath forced himself to remain calm and approached the problem logically.

Until now, he had contained two similar yet fundamentally different mana systems within the same body.

Mana circles and a mana core.

It was almost like installing two different operating systems on the same computer.

No.

A better comparison would be dividing a single drive into two partitions.

One partition contained the mana circles.

The other contained the mana core.

Now the mana from the core had expanded until it overflowed its assigned space and invaded the territory of the other system.

Then maybe I just need to discard some of the mana from the core.

Like deleting data that had crossed into the wrong partition, Karath tried to push away the invading power.

It did not work.

Damn it.

No matter how often he forced the mana back, it returned as though insisting that the space belonged to it.

That left only one option.

Merge the partitions.

Combine both systems into one.

There was only one problem.

Which one should absorb the other?

If he unified everything around the mana circles, his aura would suffer.

Until now, he had drawn aura from the mana core near the centre of his body.

That source would shift to his heart instead.

There was no telling how much training he would need to become accustomed to such a change.

He might even lose the advanced Aura User realm he had only just reached.

On the other hand, absorbing the mana circles into the core would make magic more difficult.

Mana circles used attraction and resonance between the heart and the surrounding rings to draw in and manipulate external mana.

Without that structure, his control over ambient mana would weaken, making spells more difficult to cast.

Is this why no true mage-warrior ever reached the highest realms?

In the middle of the crisis, Karath remembered something mercenaries in the human lands had once told him.

At the time, he had assumed that no one possessed enough talent in both magic and martial combat to master both disciplines.

If Arnold had been born naturally into this world, he probably would have learned only magic.

Likewise, if Karath's body had never received Arnold's soul, it probably would have advanced solely along the path of martial strength.

The physical talent of this orc body was absurd.

Karath had once believed that only the bizarre coincidence of Arnold inhabiting such a body had made it possible to advance in both disciplines simultaneously.

Now he understood that there might have been another reason.

Most people probably lacked the necessary talent.

But surely, throughout history, there had been geniuses capable of both magic and martial arts.

They had simply reached the same crossroads he faced now.

Some must have died.

Others must have abandoned one path and chosen the other.

Now I have to choose too.

The conflict inside him worsened with every passing moment.

The pain grew more intense.

The time for indecision was running out.

And yet something continued bothering him.

Was there truly no other way?

Could there be some solution no one born in this world had ever discovered?

Something only he could conceive of?

Perhaps that thought was nothing more than temptation born from lingering attachment.

Perhaps countless geniuses before him had died because of the same arrogance.

The centre of the body, constantly rotating. Rotation. Rotation. Endless rotation...

Infinite?

Then an image suddenly appeared in Karath’s mind.

A symbol commonly used in his former world to represent infinity.

A Möbius strip.

What if he turned it vertically into the shape of an eight, using his heart and the region around his navel as two focal points?

What if the mana circulated endlessly between them?

I am out of time.

He would try it once.

If it failed, he would abandon the idea and merge everything into the mana circles.

His magical ability was currently superior to his aura, so that would be the safer choice.

Having made his decision, Karath immediately began manipulating the mana.

The two forces were still violently rejecting each other around his heart.

He carefully guided the mana within the circles, coaxing it aside just enough to allow power from the mana core to penetrate.

Guh!

Blood surged into his throat.

Karath clenched his teeth and swallowed it.

Then he reversed the process, pushing mana from the circles downward and forcing open a path toward the core.

Next, he altered the flow around the mana core, allowing the mana from the circles to enter it.

Guh.

More blood rose.

He ignored it.

Pain no longer mattered.

Karath forced the two connected currents to rotate.

Wooooom.

The two different forms of energy continued repelling one another.

But with every rotation, they blended a little more.

Eventually, the terrible pain throughout his body began to fade.

The resistance weakened.

Then vanished entirely.

When the pain finally disappeared...

Wooooom.

The two powers had become one.

Even without Karath consciously controlling them, they continued circulating on their own.

“Haa.”

Karath opened his eyes with a long breath.

Inside his body, a far greater force than before flowed through an endless circuit.

Chapter 184

All-Out War

It feels larger than simply combining the two.

Had he unconsciously absorbed mana from the surroundings while forcing the systems together?

The amount of mana contained in his core had been only about half of what existed in his circles.

Yet after combining them, the total power now seemed nearly twice as great as what the mana circles alone had contained.

This was enough for two Fifth Circle spells.

If he pushed himself, perhaps even three.

And it is remarkably stable.

The violent chaos from only moments earlier now seemed almost ridiculous.

The unified flow of mana circulated with complete calm.

For quite some time, Karath probably would not need to fear mana instability even if he absorbed more power.

He unfolded his legs and stood.

Then he picked up Silvertusk from where he had thrown it.

Karath drew a portion of mana from the circulating current and moved it according to his aura cultivation method.

Wooooom.

Silvertusk released a resonant hum.

“Aura works perfectly too.”

There was no difficulty whatsoever.

The Möbius-like circuit rotated around two focal points, his heart and the region near his navel.

When he used aura, he drew mana primarily from the lower portion of the circuit.

That hardly mattered.

Both halves were connected and constantly rotating.

Anything removed near his abdomen was naturally replenished by mana flowing down from his heart.

The reverse should work exactly the same way when he cast magic.

“You are awake, Grand Chief.”

Krog had approached while Karath was absorbed in examining the new system.

“Ah.”

Only then did Karath remember what had been happening before the crisis began.

He looked around.

The cavern had been devastated by the fighting.

Silver Wolf villagers lay scattered across the ground.

Fortunately, those still present were injured rather than dead.

The bodies of those crushed by the monsters had apparently already been removed while Karath struggled with his mana.

“Kairin has been running around without rest, so we managed to treat most of the injured.”

Just as Krog said, Kairin was drenched in sweat as she hurried from one patient to another, repeatedly casting Healing.

Karath had brought her along to deal with injuries during the expedition.

She had ended up proving valuable in a place none of them had expected.

Buddy was helping in his own way.

The silver wolf moved among the wounded villagers who had worshipped him earlier, gently licking them as though attempting to comfort them.

Karath had no idea whether Buddy's tongue possessed any healing properties.

Perhaps faith itself had some power, because everyone Buddy licked seemed visibly calmer afterward.

“I am sorry. If something had not gone wrong with my body, I could have dealt with this sooner.”

Had Karath not suffered the mana crisis, he could have assisted Kairin and brought the situation under control much faster.

“No, Grand Chief. Without you, we would have lost the battle in the first place.”

Krog shook his head.

“We are simply relieved that you woke up. Things settled down somewhat near the end, but immediately after we killed the last black mage, we nearly panicked. An enormous vortex of mana suddenly erupted behind us.”

Krog then explained what had happened while Karath was struggling internally.

Apparently, the alliance warriors had nearly lost their minds with worry.

Kaden and Chief Parker had been especially frantic, but nearly every warrior had insisted that they needed to save Karath and had tried to touch him.

Krog had stopped them.

Something about the situation had convinced him that interfering physically would only make matters worse.

After barely restraining the others, he ordered them to clear the cavern instead.

That was why Krog alone had remained beside Karath throughout the long meditation.

Someone needed to remain near the Grand Chief in case anything happened.

Thanks to Krog’s decision, most of the aftermath had already been handled by the time Karath stabilised his mana.

“I always seem to end up relying on you.”

“I only did what needed to be done.”

Having someone capable of taking command whenever Karath could not was invaluable.

Still, he could not simply leave everything to his subordinates.

Karath walked toward the gathered alliance warriors and Silver Wolf villagers.

“Healing.”

He began treating those Kairin had been unable to finish helping because her mana reserves were running low.

Healing did not simply erase injuries.

It accelerated the body’s natural recovery.

That made it almost useless against poison or disease, but quite effective for bruises, cuts, and similar wounds.

Karath continued treating the villagers for some time.

“Grand Chief of the orcs, you have my deepest gratitude.”

Chief Hargan lay among the wounded.

Like many others, he had suffered serious injuries, yet he spoke with a gentle smile and showed no sign of the pain he must have felt.

Hargan had not actually been brainwashed.

He seemed to have been a warrior in his younger days and could still use mana.

But age had weakened him considerably.

Even with aura, fighting the monsters was beyond him, and subduing the brainwashed villagers alone had left him badly wounded.

“Your treatment is not finished yet. Endure it a little longer.”

Karath cast Healing over Hargan and continued tending to his injuries.

“Simply raising Buddy and bringing him to our village would already have made you our benefactor. Yet you even helped that child protect our people. What greater debt could we owe?”

Hargan continued speaking despite receiving treatment.

“This old man watched everything. I saw how hard you fought to keep our villagers from being harmed.”

“I could hardly injure people Buddy considers precious.”

“Hahaha. Then perhaps I may borrow that child’s name and ask you one favour.”

“Speak.”

“Would you allow us to join this alliance of yours?”

Karath froze.

He had never actually invited Hargan to join the alliance.

Hearing the chief raise the subject first caught him completely off guard.

“Heh heh. From the moment you arrived, I suspected that might also have been one of your intentions.”

“I cannot deny it.”

“Yet the Silver Wolf Tribe suffered a terrible betrayal long ago. Since then, we have preferred to live only among ourselves. Truthfully, we also believed we were not weak enough to place ourselves beneath another.”

“You survived in the heart of the Grimwood Mountains. No one could call your people weak.”

“Heh heh. True. But after what happened today, my thoughts changed. Hiding here alone may be nothing more than another form of running away.”

Perhaps it was the light from the Healing spell.

As Hargan spoke, his weathered features carried the tranquil wisdom of an old monk who had reached some profound understanding.

“And more importantly, I believe you are someone we can trust, Grand Chief. We had no bond with you. Yet because of that child alone, you protected us even while allowing yourself to be injured.”

Hargan slowly pushed himself upright despite his wounds.

Then he bowed his head before Karath.

“So I ask this of you. Please allow our tribe to join the alliance you lead.”

His posture was almost reverent.

Karath regarded him for a moment.

“The rules of our alliance are simple. If your people fight to protect the alliance, then I and the alliance will fight to protect your people.”

“We will fight for the alliance.”

“Then from this day onward, you are members of the Greenskin Alliance.”

For Hargan’s sake, Karath stopped casting Healing and answered in an equally solemn voice.

And just like that, the Silver Wolf Tribe became part of the alliance.

...

Wait.

Karath suddenly realised something.

They are not greenskins.

Should we change the name of the alliance?

It sounded trivial.

It was also strangely important.

Chapter 185

All-Out War

Karath postponed the problem of the alliance’s name and focused first on restoring order within the cavern.

Once every wounded villager had been treated, he gathered the alliance warriors.

“Divide these among yourselves.”

He distributed four mana stones.

One had come from the unusual specimen they killed while capturing the black mage before reaching the village.

The other three came from the monsters that had attacked the cavern.

Excluding Berners and Krog, who had already consumed mana stones before, the remaining alliance warriors divided them among themselves.

Four orc warriors and four hobgoblins each received half a stone.

Karath had briefly considered giving each warrior an entire mana stone and simply obtaining more later.

His recent experience erased that thought immediately.

After personally suffering mana instability and nearly dying, he understood just how dangerous excessive absorption could become.

He had no intention of forcing too much mana into any one person.

“Thank you, Grand Chief!”

“Thanksh!”

The orcs and hobgoblins already knew exactly how valuable mana stones were.

They thanked Karath, divided the stones, and sat cross-legged to begin absorbing the mana.

With that settled, Karath approached the black mage lying comfortably unconscious nearby.

Thud!

He drove a fist into the man’s face.

This was not one of the black mages who had attacked the cavern.

It was the one they had captured earlier.

The recent battle had unfolded so quickly that every invading mage had already been killed by the warriors.

Karath had been too occupied with the crisis inside his own body to order anyone to leave a prisoner alive.

“Guh.”

The unconscious mage groaned and opened his eyes.

“Tell me where your stronghold is.”

“Wh-what?”

The man had only just awakened and looked genuinely confused.

Karath had no patience left to coax information gently from someone whose companions had just attacked the village.

Crunch.

“AAAAARGH!”

As he had during the previous interrogation, Karath crushed the man’s bones and repeated his questions.

It did not take long before the answers began pouring out.

People who invaded minds and controlled others at will did not seem to possess particularly strong wills themselves.

Or perhaps their minds were resilient while their bodies remained terribly vulnerable to pain.

“A basin on a rocky mountain. Tall trees beside it, with a small lake nearby. Do either of you know the place?”

“A basin in a rocky mountain... I think I know where it is.”

“Good. Their stronghold appears to be there.”

“To think they settled in that place...”

Karath had directed the question toward Doltz and Ruker, the Silver Wolf warriors who had guided them to the cavern.

Both looked surprised.

They already knew that Chief Hargan had pledged the tribe to Karath, so they now treated him with the respect owed to their Grand Chief.

“Are you certain they are truly there? Those people use underhanded magic, and humans lie as easily as they breathe.”

“The black mage we captured previously described a similar location. Unless they prepared identical answers in advance in case of interrogation, it should be accurate.”

If the Sigmund School had been a secret intelligence organisation operating against human kingdoms, perhaps its members might have prepared for capture and questioning.

But these people had been researchers dealing primarily with monsters.

It was unlikely they had planned that far ahead.

Karath had deliberately interrogated a second prisoner because relying upon only one account would have been foolish.

“How far is it?”

“If we travelled directly without encountering a single monster, half a day would be enough, but...”

“Realistically, it would probably take most of the day.”

Around six hours away.

That was a considerable distance.

Perhaps that explained how both sides had remained hostile without discovering one another’s hiding places.

With our current strength, most monsters we encounter can be killed quickly.

Karath had brought the finest warriors of the alliance.

The Silver Wolf Tribe had six Aura Users as well.

With eighteen elite combatants in total, they might reach the stronghold in roughly four hours rather than taking the entire day.

“Do you intend to attack them, Grand Chief?”

“I do. We will discuss the details once the alliance warriors finish absorbing their mana stones.”

As Karath answered Doltz and Ruker, he suddenly remembered something.

“Ah.”

He looked toward the two men.

“Their stronghold will undoubtedly contain other controlled monsters. If we obtain more mana stones there, I will distribute some to your warriors as well.”

They were alliance members now.

They would also play an important role in the coming battle, so rewarding them was only natural.

The Silver Wolf warriors had already contributed greatly during the battle in the cavern.

Karath had still prioritised the orcs and hobgoblins because their mana reserves were far smaller.

Aside from Krog, who had consumed a mana stone, the awakened orcs had only sensed mana for two or three months.

The hobgoblins had awakened only seven or eight months earlier.

“We do not require them, Grand Chief.”

“Power gained through such an unnatural method will inevitably bring harmful consequences.”

The two Silver Wolf warriors shook their heads.

Their response sounded exactly like something monks would say.

Karath considered it.

They were not entirely wrong.

He had nearly died himself after accumulating too much mana.

“If that is what you believe, I will not force you. Still, you should consider something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about why Hargan, your chief, chose to join our alliance. Think about why he abandoned the isolated life your people had maintained here.”

Both warriors fell silent.

There was nothing wrong with building a secluded community and living peacefully among themselves.

Unfortunately, the world did not consist solely of the Silver Wolf Tribe.

Nor was this a world inhabited by only one race.

Countless peoples shared it.

No matter how quietly someone wished to live, sooner or later something would disturb that peace.

The black mages had done so.

Perhaps the Greenskin Alliance itself could have done the same under different circumstances.

“The world does not always follow the course it should. If you wish to live in peace, then first you must possess enough strength to protect that peace.”

There had been a saying in Karath’s former world that nuclear weapons were the strongest instruments of peace.

If both sides possessed them, starting a war became far more difficult.

Everyone knew that once the fighting began, both sides could be destroyed.

That principle was hardly unique to his former world.

In any world, throughout any history, strength had always been one of the foundations upon which peace was built.

Hargan had learned that truth through the attack and entrusted his people to the alliance because of it.

“A tool is only a tool. Refusing to use one because you fear being consumed by it is foolish in its own way.”

Karath smiled faintly.

The Silver Wolf Tribe had its own philosophy and its own way of life.

Trying too aggressively to persuade them would be equally foolish.

“That does not mean your beliefs are wrong. Forcing power into yourself carries dangers of its own. Those black mages are proof enough.”

Karath gestured toward the corpse of the prisoner.

The knowledge inherited by the Sigmund School had originally been developed to treat illnesses of the mind.

Now those mages used it to enslave others.

“In the end, a tool remains a tool. What matters is the skill and intention of the person using it.”

“We will consider your words.”

“Good. Discussing the distribution of spoils before the battle is even finished is rather premature anyway.”

They waited until the alliance warriors finished absorbing the mana stones.

Several hours later, deep into the night, the warriors began opening their eyes one after another.

Karath gathered them together with the Silver Wolf Aura Users.

“The chaos that has spread throughout this forest, the sudden increase in violent monsters, and the deaths of countless members of our peoples were all caused by the black mages we fought yesterday.”

“That is right, Grand Chief!”

“Those bastards killed our goblinsh...”

His opening words immediately ignited the gathered warriors’ fury.

“Originally, their numbers were too great. I intended to remain hidden within the forest and eliminate them one at a time.”

“We are not that weak, Grand Chief!”

“That is right!”

Kaden and Chief Parker immediately protested, clearly disappointed by the idea of ambushes instead of open battle.

Karath grinned.

“But after yesterday’s battle, no more than twelve black mages remain.”

According to the prisoner they had captured earlier, twenty-three members of the Sigmund School had still been alive.

Including that prisoner, the alliance had killed ten black mages so far.

The Silver Wolf Tribe had also killed one during the previous winter.

The mage Karath had just interrogated confirmed the same numbers.

“With only twelve remaining, we can finish this through open battle.”

A frontal assault was still dangerous.

Twelve mages were already a formidable force.

Adding every monster they controlled created an enormous risk of casualties even if the alliance ultimately won.

Karath had still chosen a direct attack.

This was their opportunity to wipe out the Sigmund School completely.

Unless the remaining mages were fools, they would become suspicious when the eight who attacked the Silver Wolf village failed to return.

They would stop sending people out individually.

In the worst case, they might abandon their stronghold and continue their experiments somewhere else.

Finding them again would become far more difficult.

“Now we will drive out the black mages and restore peace to these mountains!”

Rather than allow a long and exhausting war to continue, Karath had decided to settle everything in one decisive battle.

Chapter 186

All-Out War

The next morning, once every preparation was complete, they departed early under the guidance of the Silver Wolf warriors.

As Doltz and Ruker had warned, the enemy stronghold was far away.

They encountered monsters several times along the route and had no choice but to fight.

The expedition defeated them without serious difficulty and continued advancing rapidly.

After roughly four hours, they reached the vicinity of their destination.

“From here onward, move carefully. This is their territory, so any monster we encounter may already be under their control.”

A low hill rose before them.

For somewhere deep within the Grimwood Mountains, it looked strangely barren.

Perhaps some disaster had struck the area long ago.

Loose stones and broken rock covered most of the hill while only sparse patches of vegetation remained.

The expedition crouched low and climbed carefully, hiding among the scattered rocks and limited brush.

Fortunately, the hill was not particularly tall.

Even while advancing cautiously, they reached the upper slopes without needing much time.

There.

An unmistakably artificial settlement occupied the basin at the centre of the hill.

Several buildings had been constructed from carefully shaped stone.

They must have used monsters to build them.

The black mages Karath had encountered possessed almost no visible muscle.

There was no possibility they had erected structures like these through their own labour.

Dozens of enormous monsters were scattered around the buildings, watching the surrounding area like guard dogs.

Most of them appear to be ordinary large monsters.

There were at least fifty.

Twelve black mages could not possibly control that many unusual specimens.

Even in the central Grimwood Mountains, finding dozens of such rare creatures would have been nearly impossible.

Still, fifty ordinary large monsters represented an immense military force.

“Once I cast my spell, we attack.”

Karath quietly instructed the warriors crouching nearby.

Then he rose from behind the pile of stones.

Haa.

He drew a deep breath.

The immense power coiled within his body began to move.

His mana core and mana circles were no longer separate systems.

Karath accelerated the endless rotation of the unified circuit and allowed it to resonate with the mana flowing through the surroundings.

Magic in this world followed the structure of Circles.

First Circle spells could do little more than create tiny flames or small quantities of water.

Only at the Second Circle did magic become capable of directly harming an opponent.

Third Circle spells possessed enough power to kill an ordinary person.

Fourth Circle magic could kill or seriously injure enemies throughout an area roughly five metres across.

Renstein had written that a mage only began to reveal their true value upon a battlefield after reaching the Fifth Circle.

Wooooom.

The resonance originating from the Möbius-like circuit within Karath greedily pulled in the mana around him.

The phenomenon resembled an unusual specimen gathering power before releasing a breath attack.

Those creatures simply drew in mana and expelled it through instinct.

Karath needed to divide and manipulate that enormous mass of energy according to precise magical laws.

The difficulty increased drastically.

So did the destructive power.

“Wh-what is happening?”

“Has an unusual specimen attacked?”

The black mages inside the stone buildings sensed the sudden vortex of mana and rushed outside in alarm.

“Protect me!”

“The mana is gathering over there!”

Realising something was wrong, they shouted commands to the monsters and began moving frantically.

Karath had expected that reaction.

He had deliberately chosen to prepare a Fifth Circle spell despite knowing they would detect it.

Fifth Circle magic was useless once allies and enemies became entangled.

Now, however, the alliance was launching a surprise attack before the battle had even begun.

There had been a familiar saying in his former world.

The first strike wins.

And the stronger that first strike, the better.

By the time the startled black mages emerged from their buildings and realised what was happening, Karath had already completed half the spell.

“Block it with your body, Gorgon!”

“Prepare Shields!”

The black mages began positioning monsters in front of themselves while casting defensive magic.

But the Fifth Circle spell was already nearly complete.

In Karath’s former world, tanks and artillery served as strategic weapons upon the battlefield.

Here, that role belonged to mages.

If Fourth Circle magic was comparable to a grenade, Fifth Circle magic resembled a shell fired from a tank.

“Flare Circle.”

That shell detonated in the centre of the enemy stronghold.

A tiny black point appeared amid the encampment.

BOOOOOOM!

A gigantic ring of flame erupted from it and expanded across an area dozens of metres wide.