“Ogres? Next thing you tell me is that they have a cave troll,” I said sarcastically while staring at the three behemoths making their way towards us. They were only just coming to the backlines of their own forces, but because of their size, there was no missing them.

“What is a troll?” Arkoshta asked.

“Nevermind, why the fuck did no one tell me about ogres?” I asked, grabbing some mana crystals to refill the mana I had used.

“They were just a rumour, a thing of legend,” Arkoshta whispered. “We need to do something about them quickly. It’ll demoralize the orcs in your forces if they fight them.”

“Fuck me,” I grumbled. “Nishka, get me a whole lot of grenades. Fill up a backpack and a sack.”

“Legends? They look like flesh and blood to me,” Shenerah hissed at her rival.

“Behave, we’re in the middle of a battlefield,” I said distractedly, looking with my manasight. I saw something I was less than enthused about. They had magic, and from what it looked like, it was that of the orcish shamans worshipping the God of War. I asked for Arkoshta to confirm.

“Yes, it fits with the legends,” she replied, her voice still full of awe. “According to the story of our people, we were hunted, no place was safe for us. We were more refugees than nomads at that time. The story goes that the God of War descended to Camcesa, infuriated by the elves, fairies, and giants hunting his worshippers. Unable to directly intercede less he brought down the wrath of the rest of the Gods, he decided to give his worshippers the ultimate weapon.

“He caught and overpowered a giantess, the oldest and biggest priestess, and bred her. He used his divine power to quicken his seed. In a matter of days, the spawn of his loins grew quickly, however, the giantess did not give birth to these weapons. They devoured her from the inside. Thirty-nine ogres clawed and ate their way out of her belly. And—”

“Milord, the grenades,” Nishka said, interrupting the story.

“Interesting,” I said to Arkoshta, then thanked Nishka and took the backpack first. I took a quick look in it, forming a link with every grenade in it. “So basically, somehow an orc fucked a giantess, and the result was that?”

“Yes, but it has been tried many times, always fail—”

“Well, somehow those three clans found a way to do it. You can tell me the rest of the story later, while I go deal with the three mother-eating abominations with regenerative powers,” I grumbled and took the sack of grenades as well. This was not going to be easy. I had studied the orc shaman’s powers, the one they got from the God of War, and it was a shitty one.

Sure, regenerative power much stronger than healing magic and skin as hard as metal armour would be awesome, however, the price you paid was not worth it. Unlike the other gods’ gift which just relied on mana, this one did not. It relied on the mana of your victims, live victims.

If the shamans drank the blood of another creature, they got regenerative power. If they ate the flesh of another person, they gained thicker skin. The more you consumed before the victim expired, the stronger and longer the power lasted. I had no doubt that these ogres could easily devour half an orc, on their own before he expired.

And I was certain they would do that because each of the three ogres had just grabbed an orc each. Cursing, I gathered wind magic around me, before launching myself high above the orcish army and towards the ogres.

As I flew, or maybe glided was more accurate, towards them, I did my best to imitate a bomber, dropping grenades every few metres from the sack. The grenades in the backpack would hopefully help against the ogres.

This time I forsook the theatrics and landed a few metres out of reach from the ogres, after having cleared some space with five grenades. They looked at me. Grunted in what sounded like a snort. The lead ogre went forward to deal with the small challenge I clearly posed to them.

I felt more than saw or heard an orc try to sneak up on me from behind. A small pirouette brought me out of harm’s way when he tried braining me with his axe. He did not get out of the way of the hatchet I buried in his thick skull.

The ogre roared, and made a lunge for me, trying to grab me. However, his attempt was met with a large, larger than myself, stone spike shooting out of the ground intercepting his ginormous hand. I smiled, this might turn out to be easier than I had thought.

It penetrated its palm if only barely drawing blood before breaking apart. The ogre stepped back in confusion, took a look at its hand and the small trickle of blood. It had a dumb look on its face. Elated I thought, ‘Dumb beasts.’.

It roared angrily at me, before grabbing the nearest orc. The orc just seemed resigned, did not even scream until the ogre bit his legs off. It then sucked the blood right out of him, noisily and sloppily. The other ogres followed the first one’s lead.

‘Great, just great, they’re not completely dumb beasts,’ I groaned. It was time to get serious. I drew my sabre and kept the hatchet, not like it was going to matter much. These weapons would do little to the enormous monsters.

It took just a second to realign my connections and what magic I had available. As always I had a connection to Shenerah, I still did not know why I could not sever that connection, so I had fire magic ready. I kept stone and healing magic, that left two connections to play with. I decided on teleportation and metal magic.

The ogre in front let out another big roar, slamming his hand down at me. I took the opportunity to teleport to its shoulder, slashing at its neck. No penetration, it was like hitting a rock, I had barely left a scratch.

The little scratch I did manage to inflict, healed before my very eyes. Irritated, I let a flash of healing magic run through the ogre’s body, getting a layout of its organs.

The ogre tried to pin me between its ear and shoulder, so I jumped backwards. I decided to reward his ingenuity with a little fire. I sent a wave of flames directly into its ear, something that made the ogre squeal in pain.

As I was falling to the ground, a movement out of the corner of my eyes caught my attention, a second before what felt like a truck hit me and sent me flying over the heads of a bunch of orcs.

The pain was almost enough to make me blackout, my healing magic did not kick in immediately. It required me to think about it. Even with my titanium enhanced skeleton, I had still a broken pelvis, five shattered ribs, and a broken arm.

What goes up in the air, has to come down at some point, including me. Since I was heading for a bunch of orcs, I had to clear a crash site. First, a few rings of fire cleared the immediate surrounding, and as I landed jarringly, I was happy for the pain-blocking feature of healing magic.

I was still unable to move because the landing had rebroken the still-mending bones. So I made a spiked barricade of stone rise up around me. Enough to keep out the orcs, but not the ogre.

As I lay there, I cursed Arkoshta and Shenerah loudly, “Destroyer take both of you! ‘Stop using magic instinctively’, they say. Well, look at the fucking result! I’m too slow about using my magic and end up getting swatted out of the air like a freaking fly by a giant dumb brute!”

Speaking of ogres, I felt the earth shake beneath me, heard a few loud thuds, followed by equally loud squelches and breaking of bones, followed by screams of pain. Looking up, I saw all three of them heading in my direction. They cared not where they put their feet, the orcs just had to move out of the way or get trampled.

Since I still needed a few seconds to knit some bones back together, I summoned three giant stone spikes, hoping to end the fight quickly. The spikes shot out of the ground to meet each of the rushing ogres. The ogres did not slow down at all, meeting the spikes head-on.

The sound of them clashing with the spikes were horrible for the ears, but satisfying for the soul. At least until I saw the outcome. The ogres had not gotten a scratch, their hardened skin enough to withstand the piercing effect. The spikes had snapped in half.

However, it had not all been for nothing.

The spikes had managed to stop the ogres. Growling I unleashed a burst of fire on one of them. It bellowed in pain and rage. The fire had left the skin cracked and blackened, but nary a second had passed before it started regenerating in front of my eyes. Seeing this, I could not help but groan.

The magic was an annoyance in normal orcs. On these orc slash giant hybrids, they were a nightmare. Since the magic increased in potency the more you could consume of a victim while alive, the ogres with the abnormal size were on a whole other plane of difficulty than an orc would be.

My battle analysis was interrupted when the ogres finally started moving again after the collision with my spikes. Since I was not completely healed enough to stand up, I had to teleport away. However, there were no safe spots within range. The fortifications of my troops were too far away. The only relatively safe place was behind the ogres, in the wide path of destruction they had carved through the army of orcs.

The ogres looked around for a few seconds before some idiot orcs started shouting where I was. I rewarded their interference with a series of firebolts to their faces.

Fire. Fire would have to be how I defeated them. The charring had taken a little longer to heal. As the ogres turned around to face me, I got to my feet. When I had been swatted away, I had lost hold of my hatchet and sabre, leaving me no choice but to draw more weapons.

I teleported again, appearing in front of the ogre farthest away. Right in its face. Its eyes widened at my appearance. I gave him a smile as I let the dragon rip, right in its left eye. The eye exploded like a water balloon, spewing liquid everywhere. The ogre reared back, roaring.

With a smile, I teleported back behind the half-broken spikes.

Five seconds later when the ogres turned around, the eye had regenerated. I groaned. Not even such a little victory lasted very long. ‘I wonder if it’s as frustrating for others to fight me with healing magic?’

The ogre with the regenerated eye, let out a bellow of rage, rushing ahead of its compatriot towards me. I greeted it with an enormous ball of fire, charring its chest just above its heart. It roared its defiance, and I could smell its bad breath because I had just teleported in front of the charred section of its chest.

I plunged my shortsword into the damaged section, just before letting go of it, I made it change, growing barbs so it would not easily come out.

A hand rushed out to swat me away again. I teleported out of the way, back to where I had been just a moment ago. A foot the size of a small car tried to catch me flatfooted, but I managed to teleport once more, drawing a dragon at the same time.

Once more I appeared in front of the face of an ogre and blasted its eye to pieces. The dragon’s roar eclipsed by the furious and painful bellowing of the ogres. Before the ogre could cover his eye, I threw my remaining hatchet into the ruined eye. My link to it confirmed that it had remained in there.

I teleported once more ending up in between all three of them. They were roughly arranged in a triangle around me. I ripped open the backpack I had carried from the start, channelling a lot of mana into each of the links I had with the grenades inside.

The grenades flew out, hurdling for one of two destinations. The sword in the chest of one of the ogres, and the hatchet in the eye of another. As they flew out, I used fire magic to light the fuses. A swarm of grenades congregated around each of my embedded weapons.

The ogres inefficiently tried to swat them away, but it was a futile effort. Sure they managed to bat a few away, which just ended up exploding in the mass of orcs. However, the real fireworks happened where I wanted it.

The two enormous explosions happened simultaneously, deafening the roars of pain. Both ogres were blown backwards from the sheer pressure of the explosions, even where I was standing, I was buffeted by the pressure waves and some shrapnel. Easily healed.

The ogre with the chest wound was still standing, having just stumbled back a few steps. It was staring in confusion at its chest and the new hole in its body. With a dumb look on its face, it poked a finger in there.

I gave a quick look at the other. I knew it had fallen, the ground had trembled as its body hit the ground. The entire right side of its head was gone, what remained of its brain was mush. I thought it was dead, but it might be regenerating. However, even if it was healing it would be out of commission for a while.

I summoned two tendrils of stone which captured the heartless ogre’s arm. It was too weak to struggle against the stone.

A roar of anger alerted me to the movement of the third ogre, it was trying to stomp me to death, but I teleported away again. I appeared in front of the hole in the chest cavity of the other ogre. I grabbed hold of the edge, feeling the blood and shredded flesh, skin, and bone beneath my hand.

Peering into the hole, I saw that the heart was already healing. Frustrated, I shouted, “Come on! Give me a fucking break!”

Pulling my leg up to hook it inside the hole, I let go with my hand and drew two dragons. I let the heart have it, shredding the reconstituting heart to even more pieces. I drew my fourth and last dragon, which ruined the last remnants of the heart.

To make sure, I took the pouch I kept my paper cartridges and threw it into the hole. Igniting it as I teleported away from the ogre. Not a moment too late as the third ogre’s fist slammed into the area I had just vacated.

The blow almost broke the stone shackles holding the heartless ogre, but instead, it just fell to its knees, trying to fall forward, but held by the shackles. To ensure that it was not regenerating from that, I summoned a large stone spike which shot into the hole. With some more mana, I filled the ogre up with stone where its heart should be.

I felt the soul of the heartless ogre flow into me. Meanwhile, the whole ogre had been looking around for me. Roaring in frustration. I looked down at the brainless ogre since I appeared upon its chest. “Fuck, it’s even regenerating from that!”

I could see it had already regenerated half its missing brain, a large chunk of the shattered skull. Growingly in frustration, I summoned another, albeit smaller, spike of stone and directed it directly into the growing brain of the ogre. I then made it reform into a small propeller and started it spinning.

“Regenerate from that, bitch,” I spat as I replaced the empty space between its ears with stone. When I felt the soul flow into me and join the thousands of other souls in my mana pool, I was satisfied.

The sound made the last ogre turn around and snarl at me. I looked up at you. “Yeah, it’s just you and me now buddy. Wanna join your friends?”

I drew the only weapons I had remaining, a couple of daggers. I had two more stashed somewhere on my body, but it was going to be tough taking out the ogre with just that. A quick check of my mana reserves revealed that I had already used half. The links to make the grenade fly had been the big sinner, having taken a large chunk of mana.

The ogre roared and slammed its fists down on me.

With a laugh, I teleported away. The dance of death was just beginning.