Events occur due to reasons that may easily be ascertained by stepping back and looking at how the event triggered. A long string of foreshadowing, domino pieces falling upon one another, core pawns of the puppeteer converging in one single location for an event to occur – Such is one way.

Sometimes, of course, a huge army of orcs would just pop out of nowhere along with a bunch of confused elves without any warning or explanation whatsoever.

Standing taller than mere men, the green-skinned orcs are larger, bulkier and louder than other races. Their noses are usually flat and their jaws are protruding, making them look uglier than most races.

Then again, I am a skeleton without a face so I couldn’t call them ugly. First, I needed a face before talking smack about the orcs.

In the old days, if you asked an orc, “What is the most important thing in your life?”

They would simply answer, “My freedom.”

After many encounters with other races, my guess is that the orcs’ culture was pushed to the next level. I would have no doubt that before I even ask any of these orcs the same question, they would’ve preemptively screamed “FREEEEDOOOM!” at my face.

“FREEEEDOOOOOMMM!” An orc splattered onto the wall after detaching himself from his flying mount.

…What a coincidence.

The first wave of orcs was a huge surprise for the elves. The orcs were held by huge winged monsters with the front body of an eagle and the back-side belonging to that of a lion – The mighty griffins.

The mad men were held on by griffins with their claws and the orcs were throwing themselves down onto the elven fortifications under heavy magical fire. The elves all opened fire with their halberd-staves and there were even large wooden turrets spewing purple fireballs at the orcish air raid.

“Clearly these orcs have been twisted by the demons!” I concluded as I threw a fireball at an orc flying directly at me.

“What? These are just normal orcs to me…” Kendra responded as she threw a magic bolt at an orc climbing the wall.

My ability to deny things is extremely powerful so I will just assume I didn’t hear Kendra.

The sky turned into a haze of dust, fire, purple explosions, and orc guts as the battle raged on. The largest orc signaled his troops forward finally as the last of the griffin ‘riders’ fell out of the sky before falling on top of a group of elves.

Elven soldiers started firing both up and down as they started getting swarmed. People were running left and right without any directions, some were crying in the corner and others were valiantly swinging their swords at swarms of painted orcs.

The good news was that I didn’t see any siege weapons. The bad news was that I was apparently wrong. Some of the orcs carried the siege weapons themselves, using the battering rams as makeshift clubs. Upon reaching the gates and walls, they started to bash them, screaming their favorite word as they whacked through the hardwood walls.

The elves started throwing large crystals down the invaders, causing large explosions and wiping out the first few orcs to reach the walls. However, there were many more orcs charging in and the elves’ situation looked dire as the time went on.

As the battle raged on, I started grabbing elves and asking them a crucial question, “Is this the only side of the entire capital under attack?”

Most of the elves were useless but I managed to strike gold when I interrogated an officer.

“Niv, I’m getting reports that the other sides are also under attack by orcs! It seemed the all of the western side of the capital is being attacked and -..”

It appeared to be an auspicious day for people to not finish their sentences as a huge fire erupted in the middle of the city. More panic ensued as elven officers tried to organize troops to where they were needed.

I ran along the wall facing the massive orc horde but was stopped in my tracks as the wall segment in front of me collapsed when a group of orcs tossed a huge boulder at it. Brutish painted orcs armed with crude axes, swords and explosives-loaded crossbows charged into the breach and the elves responded quickly by surrounding the invaders with halberds.

Although the line was held briefly, orcs riding on top of large oversized warthogs bashed through the walls of elves as they helplessly tried to poke the beasts with their halberds.

“LOOK AT MY WARTHOG! IT IS FULL OF FREEEEDOOOOOOOM!” was the last words of an orc rider before being mauled by elven bear riders. The beasts clashed as oversized bears with antlers faced off oversized boars.

I ran down to the ground floor seeing as I wouldn’t be doing much on the wall. My senses started to tingle with (un)life as death permeated throughout the battlefield. The simple chaos of the battlefield excited a tiny bit of me, surrounded in terror, adrenaline and bloodlust as I gathered mana in preparation for my plans.

The heroes kept up with me as I started running closer to where the fighting was at the thickest. Apparently there were many breaches already as orcs flooded the main streets and the elves tried to fight them off to the last man.

The large elven treehouses were contested heavily as orcs and elves met face-to-face within such tight spaces, leaving no gap to breathe or make mistakes. The combatants on each side would strangle each other as they shoot one another from floor to floor. The streets weren’t any better as large beasts swept huge swaths of orcs or elves and clashes between a bear and a warthog were intense.

This entire time, I was just running through the battlefield, slashing down orcs and corrupting every corpse I came across. The sensation of power was filling me as I just realized how drained I was of mana before. I used the death essence I gain in marking the corpses I corrupted.

On the street I was at, a warthog and a bear thrashed each other. The bear lunged and bit the warthog’s neck and the riders swung their weapons at each other. Bolts of magic or explosive crossbow bolts were hurled all over the place but another type of projectile joined the party.

Blinding flashes of light washed over the two races and soon after, magical bright arrows showered the street. As the bodies of freedomists and unionists fell, elves clad in full white robes and wearing hooded masks entered the fray.

“FOR THE LIGHT, BE ENLIGHTENED!” The zealots chanted as they charged into the sea of bodies with their glowing silver weapons. Arrows started to rain upon me and I had to deflect them with an active mana shield or else the heroes would’ve been peppered with arrows.

As the heroes steadied themselves through the confusion, I shouted, “Kill anyone that isn’t wearing a huge thick brown coat!”

Arrowski, the elf in the heroes’ party who I had forgotten because he blended in with the elven populace so well, knelt as he started letting loose arrow after arrow from his sickle-bow.

Without a doubt, this army of fanatics must have been the work of that priestess girl of the heroes party, Leyna. I had forgotten about the whole ordeal because I thought Leyna was harmless. I seriously didn’t think she would have been able to equip an entire crusade within a month or two.

I fought my way through into the main street in front of Kreylin. At the point, the elves had their thickest defenses here but was attacked by fanatical zealot elves, painted orcs and…What the shit?!

“Down to the Unionists! The monarchy must be restored!” shouted another group of elves as they charged through one side of the elven fortification, overrunning the defenses. Rebels armed with staves, bows and short swords stormed through the barricades. They were easy to differentiate from the brown-coat wearing elves or the white menacing robes because the traditionalists were wearing armor made from large leaves and hard green glass.

The traditionalists targeted huge spiral towers that held huge gems with their bows. Upon their destruction, I felt a surge of mana swim throughout the air. It seemed that they destroyed the mana-absorbing crystals that the elven unionists made.

“W…what is going on?! This isn’t even on the mayhem levels of my guild raids!” Lard shouted as he pointed at the free-for-all raging all around us.

Orcs charged at me as I watched the chaos evolved into something which transcended the meaning of ‘chaos’. One of the orcs swung his makeshift (battering ram) maul at me but was blocked by Blackhair. He proceeded to cut down the orc but was attacked by a traditionalist rebel.

I was shot at by a few elven soldiers but the magic bolts didn’t even reach a few meters away from me as my passive shield blocked them. Confused, I looked at them and cursed at them.

“Hey, you morons! What do you think you’re doing?! We’re on the same side!”

“You can’t trick me you zealot trash!”

Huh? I looked down on my attire and realized I was wearing full white, had a large scarf and hood on and blended very well with the rest of the fanatical zealots. Heck, I even looked like a fanatical big shot!

The group of elves once again raised their halberd-staves to fire at me, waiting for their officer to command them to fire. Luckily I didn’t have to retaliate against the elves as an orc warthog smashed through the firing line and massacred the elves.

More orcs riding warthogs came and started attacking non-orcs. Well, this seemed bad for the heroes if they were to be mauled by overgrown pigs. I decided to gather mana to release a wave of arcane fire to wipe out the surrounding warthogs but the damned pork chops sensed the change of mana in the air. The warthogs circled around me when they smelled the source of change.

I took my sword, Fatebinder, off its sheath, prepared to feed it fresh blood. The warthogs surrounded me as I trained my sword at them. The heroes inched back towards me while eyeing the warthogs, anticipating their attack.

Seeing as none of us were willing to make the first move, the warthogs all attacked at once. I released a partially prepared stream of lightning at one of the warthogs and Kendra forced a warthog down onto the ground using a gravity manipulation spell.

As for the last three warthogs coming at me, two of them went flying away from me and the last warthog was gobbled up by a familiar beast of mine.

“Boss, reinforcements have arrived!” One of my companions jumped down from my demon tortoise, Alph, which we use to transport our goodies.

“If it isn’t my officer, Thyros! What took you so long?” I held out my hand and he responded with a firm handshake.

“Touring, of course. Other than that, we suddenly saw a huge horde of orcs and we started charging through as soon as they started attacking the capital. We didn’t know who to kill so we just killed anyone in our path.” The lich pointed behind him and showed me a trail of dead orcs and elves from all sides.

“Well, try not to kill the elves wearing brown coats.”

“Is it bad if we killed a number of them already?”

“No, they attacked me anyway so it’s all fair.”

The battle continued as we made our casual conversation. My companions on top of Alph were shooting whatever they could hit with their bows or slings, supporting the heroes who were already being overwhelmed by the large number of enemies.

I noticed that Lard was on the floor with his face down and butt up, shaking in terror. For all his talk about being ‘powerful’ and being ‘brave’, he sure did bravely cowered in fear. I grabbed Lard by his neck and lifted him up.

“Heya, Lard. You’re a hero, shouldn’t you be fighting?”

“A..are you crazy?! I’d get killed! I mean…you know…I, Vakasa….Woooaaahh!” He screamed as I tossed him into the middle of a mob of orcs and elves. I’d be amazed if he survived this time.

My companions were attacking anyone that tried to get near and Alph served as a repellant for any other large beasts. This gave me more breathing moment and some time to think.

“Boss! Boss!” Maven came out from nowhere with Rookie in tow. She seemed to have been in a hurry as she waddled through the thick snow to get to me. On the other hand, Rookie was casually striding with his two arms and two legs, with someone tied around his tongue.

“Who the…”

“Boss! It’s the princess! She…she ran to my restaurant to warn me of the upcoming rebel attack!” Maven grabbed me and started shaking me.

I knocked her bonehead and pointed at the surrounding. “I know,” I sighed.

“Good day, Boss. I brought her along with me for protection. Traditionalists tried to lock her up in hopes of ‘keeping her safe’ or something but it all seemed suspicious to me. She just managed to escape with luck, or so she says.” Rookie gently placed Princess Evergreen down in front of me.

“Ah, that felt very odd,” Evergreen commented as she cleaned the slime off her coat before bowing to me, “Greeting, Wise One. I’ve also come to warn you of an impending danger.”

“What? Is a horde of zealots and orcs not enough danger?”

“There’s that, but the leader of the traditionalists is trying to kill the Kreylin – The largest tree-citadel of Sayitsi. It’s the greatest source of elven power but the leader refused to believe this. Since the tree makes those crystals which drains mana in the air, he believes it has been corrupted.”

“That sounds like a problem. What will happen if the Kreylin dies?”

“At the very least, all of the trees in Sayitsi will die.”

“At the very worse?”

“All elves connected to Sayitsi might die.”

I thought for a minute about what Evergreen just told me.

Er…isn’t this not my problem? I mean, the elves in my group are already technically dead…

“T…the elves will die?! B-Boss, please! Save my people! They abandoned me a long time ago but…I’m still an elf, you know?” Maven begged as she shook my shoulders again.

“Oh really? But I don’t know…” I shrugged while giving a slight chuckle.

“Please! I’ll do anything! How about this? You save the elves and I won’t charge you for coffee. How does that sound?”

WOOOHOO! This sounded like an amazing deal!

“The fate of an entire race lies on whether a crazed wizard gets coffee or not. How the world has fallen so hard….” Kendra retorted as she pointed at a floor. Her pet magical clown disappeared as the floor erupted with an invisible explosion as if the floor just cracked and jumped on its own.

Oh ho! Her magic skills have improved so much! After this mess is done, I would have to proceed with the next step in teaching her real magic. But first…

“Coffee is good.”

“I cannot deny that but…”

“Never mind that! Evergreen, where’s the person you wanted dead at?” I turned to Evergreen enthusiastically.

“By now, they should be within the Kreylin now, fighting to get into the heart of Kreylin. Let’s go, I shall act as a guide!” Evergreen anxiously exclaimed as she started darting for the Kreylin.

“Companions! Carve me a path into the Kreylin and protect the elf princess!”

“Did someone say ‘protect the elf princess’?!” A crowd of elves and orcs were pushed to the side, revealing a half-beaten Lard with an excited face.

How the hell did…

I give up.

I simply sighed as I followed behind Evergreen with Lard sweeping through the path with an intense ferocity unlike seen before.