Chapter 92: The Black Fang Clan Is Coming

Chapter 92: Chapter 92: The Black Fang Clan Is Coming

Victor made his way into the arena alone.

There was an experiment he’d wanted to run for days.

How much could his inventory actually hold?

In the game, he’d never thought about it. Whatever he picked up went in, and that was the end of it. But now he knew some armaments couldn’t be stored depending on their grade, and he wanted to know whether the limit was grid slots or something else entirely.

So he went for a big target.

The Basalt Dragonic Lizard’s corpse still sprawled across half the arena. The tribe had been eating from it for days, and barbarians ate a lot. The right arm was gone up to the shoulder, and a good portion of the organs had been carved out. Still, this thing was enormous. And Victor had no intention of leaving it. Where they were going, that meat would be important.

He stretched out a hand and willed it in.

Instantly, whole carcass vanished.

He grinned. That was easier than I—

The weight landed. Hard.

This weight wasn’t in his body. No. It was in his very soul.

Victor did not even know he could feel things from his soul. But that was the only conclusion.

It was a crushing, bottomless pressure, and his knees hit the ground before he knew he was falling.

[??Warning: Inventory weight exceeds Soul Capacity]

[Strengthen your soul with Conquest Points to increase capacity]

Soul capacity?

He gritted his teeth and spent two points without thinking.

[2 Conquest Points Spent: Soul Capacity Increased]

Sowly, the pressure eased. Victor sucked in air, sweat dripping off his chin onto the ground in front of him, shaking.

So there was a weight limit. And it led to another conclusion. The inventory wasn’t some pocket dimension outside him, instead, it lived inside his soul.

This was useful, but damn, also a little terrifying.

He checked his points. He only had Six left. To be safe, he traded two more for another twelve days, leaving four.

I’m going to need way more Conquest Points. For time, and for this.

After all, what was the use in coming to a fantasy world if it couldn’t be looted.

He closed his eyes and looked into his inventory. The Lizard’s corpse sat in the space. So did three giant boar carcasses, the Dire lion alpha, along with the orcs’ weapons and armor. Vigil was there.

And something he’d almost forgotten about: the beast stone, glowing red at one corner.

He studied it for a moment. This is going to be good.

Then he walked out of the arena and found Lego.

"Tell everyone to finish packing. We leave now. And prepare the prisoner. I’m sending him back to the orcs with a message."

Lego frowned. "Why are we letting him go?"

"To make sure our road to safety stays clear." Victor lowered his voice. "Make sure Skarn doesn’t know we’re leaving. Give him one of the surviving boars as a mount and send him home."

Lego stared at him. Then he bowed. He didn’t understand, but he trusted his chief, and he went to do it.

A few days later, in a land teeming with life, the Blackfang Clan’s territory sprawled across the dried plains.

Huts of hide and rotting timber stood in crooked rows, stained with old blood.

Skulls hung from every doorpost and rooftop, some were human, even barbarian, others nobody could name, strung up like decorations.

The air reeked of smoke and boiled fat. Orcs moved between the huts dragging chained slaves behind them, elves, humans, and others from races even Victor would’ve hardly recognized because of their abused state.

They were whipped and kicked whenever they stumbled. Children with tiny tusks played tug-of-war over a half-gnawed bone.

At the center stood the chief’s tent, bigger than the rest, and patched together from stitched hides.

Inside, a wide fire pit burned. Furs lay heaped over a huge seat of bone and black wood, the closest thing orcs had to a throne. Guards in bone armor lined the walls.

Chief Gor-Madak Thar sat on it. He was enormous, even by orc standards, nearly half again as broad as his son had been, his tusks stained brown, his arms thick as tree trunks and ridged with scars. A necklace of fingers hung from his neck.

He rose.

"No news yet?" His voice shook the tent. "Of my son and the barbarian lands?"

The guards shrank, and a few edged backward.

Gor-Madak Thar didn’t wait for an answer. He walked down the line and struck each one across the face, one by one, the cracks of his fists echoing off the walls. "WHY. IS THERE. NO NEWS?"

They took it standing still. They had no choice. If they flinched away from his anger, worse would come.

Then a guard burst through the flap, panting. "Chief! There is News! Skarn has returned!"

Gor-Madak Thar’s tusks lifted into a smile. "Finally."

"But... Urh... there’s a problem."

The smile vanished. "What problem?"

"Skarn is wounded. He was beaten. And he says..." The guard swallowed. "He says your son is dead. Killed by the Barbarians."

The tent went silent.

Gor-Madak Thar’s fist caught the reporting guard in the jaw. It shattered. The guard dropped, and Gor-Madak Thar was on him, hammering down again and again, blood spraying across the furs, the tent, other guards, until with one wrenching twist he tore the head clean off and flung it across the tent.

The guards shook, thanking their stars they had not been the ones to report the news, else that tumbling head would have been theirs.

"ASSEMBLE THE HOST!" he roared. "We march on the Southern Bloodline Barbarian tribe!"

The guards scrambled out, most in relief.

...

Meanwhile, Victor and the others, all thirteen of them, had slipped out of the old Southern Bloodline territory.

They were skirting the far eastern edge, hugging the line where the Boundary used to stand. The plan was simple. The orcs would come in from the north, and Victor would take his people the opposite way, circling around the host entirely.

They rode six Dire Lions, which meant most of the tribe could pair up on them. And pulled along two more Boars that carried the wounded.

Nobody wanted to ride with Coco, so Victor took her on his own, and she held his waist tight the whole way.

Every so often he glanced back to check on the column. And every time, he found Kiki’s eyes on him.

She rode with her arms folded, expression flat, and the stare could’ve drilled holes through his spine.

He turned his head forward. Then back. Still staring.

Why is she looking at me like that? I’m just carrying a girl. I didn’t do anything!

Coco squeezed his waist a little tighter as the Lion hit a bump.

Behind him, Kiki’s glare sharpened.

Victor sat very, very straight and kept his eyes on the road.

Lego suddenly rode close, at this speed, we may take rest after the next hill.

Victor nodded, "thank you Lego." He really mearnt that.

"If we continue at this speed, we will reach the Black Fang’s Clan Territory in another week."

"Yes, we will."

"But, my chief, if the Black Fang are really dangerous, and we are running away from their main host, why are we going to their territory?"

Victor cracked a wicked smick, "To make them pay for making us lose our home..."

(Author’s Note: I’ll henceforth refer to Gor-Madak Thar as just... Gor-Madak.)