After releasing a breath, the Ogre Lord had completely prepared himself for the day that was to come. When he woke up this morning, he knew that there would be no more delays; today would be the day.

All three of his personalities were perfectly aligned by the time the opposing party’s first signs of arrival appeared. It was a little bit before noon and the oppressive smog that hung over the dying ogre world was at its thinnest. Then a ripple appeared in the air. Slowly, the six eyes he possessed slid upward to look at the oppressive gash in the world that had appeared above his camp. With a curl of his lip, the Ogre Lord signaled his captain of the guard to bring him his ax.

The portal above slowly widened as the thousands of ogres in the Ogre Lord’s army simply watched. They stood rigidly at attention, their eyes never leaving the portal but also listening intently for any order from their lord. Yet the Ogre Lord had no doubt that they could sense the same thing that he could.

Such pure energy… Energy like I haven’t felt in two hundred years...

When the captain of the guard returned, the portal hadn’t yet finished growing larger. The man dare not grip the shaft of the weapon, instead seizing the sharp edge. So when the ax arrived, it was already dripping blood. Calmly, the Ogre Lord took the heavy ax and examined the familiar weapon. Its head was made of a single curved piece of blue crystal, sharpened on the bones of the ogres that littered his bloody path to become the Ogre Lord of Nordawn. The heavy oak shaft was as thick as the body of one of these humans, and yet now the Ogre Lord couldn’t contain his excitement at the prospect of fighting one of these small beings.

I pray you do not disappoint me… The Ogre Lord thought as he looked up at the portal with incredible intensity.

All this morning he had been mentally preparing himself for this conflict. The long years of waiting in Nordawn had numbed him. His time of rule had finally come to an end… and for that, he was filled with joy.

He had even discarded his name; for this fight, he decided that he would only be a challenger, seeking to dethrone the source of these ominous waves of power. As he continued to wait for the other party to arrive, the Ogre Lord removed each of his three headpieces and cast them aside. Then he seized his ceremonial garb and forcibly ripped it in half.

Precious gemstones scattered and bounced down off of the Ogre Lord’s palanquin, rolling to sit in front of the bowed figures of those ogres who had carried him here. One of the bearers, seeing a ruby the size of an eyeball roll gently to a stop in front of him, flinched and pressed his forehead against the ground in fear.

It was the greatest thing the Ogre Lord had felt in a long time to destroy the trappings of power with which he had covered his body. The skin of his bare chest tingled underneath the murky sun that managed to pierce through the mist.

Chuckling, the Ogre Lord dropped the torn vestment and walked slowly down the stairs to the ground. His vast torso expanded and contracted as he tasted the clean and plentiful energy that was flowing through the portal above them. He twisted his ax this way and that, enjoying the familiar weight. His arms were trembling in excitement.

Truly, it has been too long. Today… today I fight like a young man. Foolish and invincible. Determined and doomed.

Even though each head had a different personality, all were grinning madly up toward the portal. The waiting became almost too much to bear. Finally, the hole in the world ceased expanding. A huge floating island, shrouded in dark mist, floated out and hung above the Ogre Lord’s army. Dark lightning flickered through the mist. That ominous pressure that had caused the Ogre Lord to stop a half day’s camp from the entrance to Earth spiked sharply upward with the appearance of the island.

The foe has finally come. The Ogre Lord’s skin itched. The smiles on his three heads stretched wider. This sort of pressure… the Ogre Lord hadn’t felt it in two hundred years! Not since he forcefully vanquished his world’s Second Calamity and started this farce of a Third Calamity.

When the System had announced the arrival of the Third Calamity to the world, the Ogre Lord had been filled with horror. After growing up in an environment filled with blood and chaos, to be forced to silently endure while the energy was slowly drained out of the world was his worst nightmare. And it had turned out to be just as agonizing as he had feared. The System had warned of hidden dangers, but the Ogre Lord hadn’t taken such threats seriously. He had been lost in the bleak shadows of his court, the accomplishments he had given his life to suddenly made empty.

All the fire that had driven him to rule the world slowly faded to embers, and then finally to dead ash. In the ancient citadel of Nordawn, the Ogre Lord had closed his eyes and prepared himself to die of old age. He was unwilling to pass easily, of course, but what could he do?

Yet now…

“And yet now the hidden dangers come.” The Ogre Lord hissed from his central head. The floating island drifted downward toward his army’s position. It settled directly above the dirt road that ran forward to the West, where the other portal to Earth lay. Under the pressure of that strange island, the Ogre Lord’s armies could only back helplessly away. As the island continued to drop downward, even the palanquin bearers were forced backward, blood dripping from their clenched jaws as they tried to obey the Ogre Lord’s order to wait for him there.

The Ogre Lord spared a contemptuous glance for all of his ‘precious’ warriors. It was almost insulting that they didn’t seem to realize that two worlds would have a new supreme leader by the day’s end. His leftmost head spoke in a cold voice. “Leave. Or stay and die. I care not.”

Most of the warriors scattered to find cover, but a few stayed with gritted teeth.

As the Ogre Lord turned back to face the island, there was finally movement from within. Four individuals hopped down from the island and landed on the dusty road. Two were humans that the Ogre Lord sensed were powerful, but not a true threat to even the current him. One was an ogre that he distantly recognized as having once served in his army in some minor capacity. He felt like a threat as well, but about the same tier as the two humans.

And the final figure…

The right-most head opened its mouth and undulated its tongue to taste the rich air. That figure with short black hair was the source of the incredible pressure that the Ogre Lord felt. His armor was slate grey. His left arm appeared to be constructed from tiny scales of black metal. His eyes were green and bright.

To compare the Ogre Lord and this man was almost comical. The Ogre Lord had three heads, was four meters tall, and weighed twelve hundred pounds. It would take many of this man to rival the mass that the Ogre Lord wielded. And due to his rather normal appearance, the Ogre Lord had been slightly worried as he stared fixed at the man that most of that pressure was a result of the island itself.

But no, if anything, the island had masked the young man’s pressure. As his calm emerald eyes looked over toward the Ogre Lord, a piercing energy seemed to howl around this figure. The winds of the worlds seemed to gather at his fingertips like loyal dogs, waiting to be commanded. The man who produced the pressure glanced at the Ogre Lord, then looked at the blue crystal ax in his hands that was dripping blood.

The figure’s face split into a strange smile. “You don’t want to talk at all first?”

Sensing the other’s desire to battle, the Ogre Lord’s heart began to beat even faster. “Winner’s may talk so that the defeated can obey them. Until we determine what we are to each other… words are just wasted breath.”

“I certainly admire the direct outlook ogres… Acri!” The young man looked upward. From the island, another silhouette dropped down and landed on the ground with a heavy thump. For a second the Ogre Lord thought the new arrival was some sort of large serpent, but as the thing flowed and was hefted by the young man the Ogre Lord realized it was a living weapon of some sort. And rather than a serpent, it was clearly a plant in the shape of a spear.

A spear that was so large that it seemed more suited to the Ogre Lord that to this human.

Thick bark covered the shaft, broken only in a few spots to allow a few verdant tufts of leaves to spring outward. At the tip, three incredibly sharp thorns wound together to create a pyramid whose point made the Ogre Lord feel a sense of dread. In terms of size, the weapon was larger than the young man. Yet he lifted it without the faintest sign of struggle.

All three pairs of eyes narrowed as the Ogre Lord studied the young man. Heavy. That is the sensation that surrounds him. It feels like even thinking is difficult so long as he is near…

The young man glanced at his companions because the Ogre Lord didn’t miss that all three seemed to be struggling with the same pressure that he experienced. Yet all three nodded tightly, indicating that this amount of pressure they could handle.

Then the young man looked at the Ogre Lord and smiled. And that same fire that had driven the Ogre Lord to such heights in the past he saw now in the young man’s gaze, without the gradual weathering that had crippled his own heart due to the passage of time. Still, that fire was enough to bring the Ogre Lord’s own passion surging back to the forefront of his mind.

Kindling slowly grew in his chest. The carefully prepared mentality that the Ogre Lord had cultivated all day was ready to erupt into an inferno.

Breathing heavily, the Ogre Lord spoke slowly out of his central head. “Your name?”

“Randidly Ghosthound,” the young man said. Then he tilted his head to the side and examined the Ogre Lord. “And yours?”

The middle head pressed his lips together but did not answer. The fiery rightmost head laughed. But it was the leftmost head that finally spoke. “We are no one. Today… we are simply the challenger. Don’t disappoint us.”

Without waiting for further talk, the Ogre Lord surged forward. The muscles of his huge body trembled and flexed as he instantly demanded that they squeeze out their full potential to propel him forward toward this intimidating foe. The ground beneath him cracked and suddenly he rushed forward with all the momentum of an avalanche. He raised his crystal ax high above his head and slashed it sharply downward to bisect this Randidly Ghosthound in half.

Standing next to the Ghosthound made the pressure that the Ogre Lord had to endure rise to the point of it being painful, but still, the Ogre Lord pushed himself to follow through with the strike. Because it was in this pain that he finally found the joy that he had been waiting for. No longer would he be stuck on his world, waiting to die. Now he had a path to freedom. He could fight his way out and dominate this other world just as he had with his own.

He could burn to his heart’s content, devouring the rich energy of Earth. As long as he won this fight.

With remarkable speed, the Ghosthound spun out of the way, so the axe blow passed only a short distance behind his back. He then threw his whole momentum in to the sudden twist and brought the butt of the extremely large plant-spear smashing against the Ogre Lord’s exposed chest. It was possible to dodge, but the Ogre Lord felt like taking this sort of hasty blow would help shake off some of the rustiness that shackled his body after a long period of peace. Plus, it would allow him to gauge the Strength of the Ghosthound.

The sound of one of his ribs fracturing informed the Ogre Lord that this had been a bad decision.

When the thick base of the spear smashed against the Ogre Lord’s chest, the Ogre Lord couldn’t help but grunt and take a step backward. Despite the Ghosthound’s small size, the amount of force he built up with that small spin was overwhelming.

In addition, the Ghosthound hopped right as his strike landed. The rebounding force allowed the Ghosthound to create some distance, retreating with all the smooth grace of a stone skipping across a lake. Then he settled into a fighting stance, lowering the point of his spear to aim for the Ogre Lord’s midsection.

Slowly, the Ogre Lord’s powerful Vitality dealt with most of the minor muscle tears that he had received as the other side struck him. The fracture would be painful, but wouldn’t impede his movement much. But even if he could heal the damage quickly, it was a much more daunting task to find a way to handle the casual power that the other side had displayed with the attack.

In terms of Strength, for the first time in his life, the Ogre Lord felt that he was inferior. He wondered if wild swings of his ax would simply be smashed aside by that plant spear.

His grip on his ax tightened. Even worse, the pressure rolling off of Randidly Ghosthound had grown stronger when they had briefly clashed. Rather than shaking off the Ogre Lord’s rust, it seemed that the Ghosthound had released a strange, caustic energy into the air as his body moved. It was a pressure separate from the mental pressure, which was already significant.

And this was all without condensing any of the dangerous images that the Ogre Lord could sense the Ghosthound possessed. This was all raw physical power.

Which was why the Ogre Lord was cautious. He, too, possessed an image that he sharpened to a deadly degree in the past, but since becoming the ruler of this world, he had never been forced to use it. In fact, he had often withheld his image and relied solely on the power of his physical body to crush challengers to his rule.

To have that same method used against him filled the Ogre Lord with the vicious desire to punish this Ghosthound’s arrogance. Yet that vicious righteousness was accompanied by a wild glee. Yes. This is what being a challenger should be like. Push me even further.

The moment stretched as the two studied each other after the initial clash. Then the left-most sneered. “You refuse to show me your image?”

“In the past, I always suppressed my impulses to engage in frontal confrontations with powerful individuals.” The Ghosthound said casually. His gaze was as sharp and frigid as a spike of ice. “Now that I finally have the power that I no longer need to avoid those confrontations… I want to enjoy the sensation.”

“Hmph.” The rightmost head snarled.

The center head looked with a complicated gaze at this young man, already so powerful. “Then I will show you the power of Ogres. I hope you don’t regret your decision.”