Chapter 510: It's Still Warm, Don't Waste It

Leech started. He hadn’t expected to find the black dragon so easily. ‘So what am I waiting for?’

‘Time to snatch the corpse back from those big oafs!’

Seizing opportunities was his specialty.

He immediately sent a command to all his Corpse Ghosts.

A Corpse Vulture was the first to take to the sky. It had just spread its wings when a Fireball suddenly shot toward it, taking it down with a single, precise hit.

Two feathers swayed and drifted down on the wind.

‘There’s a Caster!’ He immediately grew cautious. Casters were weak in close combat and had to take time to cast their spells. While their attacks weren’t usually that powerful, their greatest advantage was being insidious and difficult to detect.

Fortunately, the remaining Corpse Vultures made it into the air, maintaining a high altitude to avoid any more attacks.

They couldn’t get involved in this fight; their only role was to scout the enemy. To think one would be shot down right at the start.

The commotion made the two quarreling ogres stop and look at the approaching Corpse Ghosts. More figures, large and small, even emerged from the cave in an attempt to surround them.

The Half-Beastman Kaqi was the fastest, so Leech assigned him the main task of snatching the black dragon’s corpse.

The long-horned ogre carrying the headless black dragon corpse never expected this little thing to pounce on it. It was thrilled to have food deliver itself right to its doorstep. Finally, it wouldn’t have to argue over a single, dry, skinny, meatless black thing. Still, compared to the creature before it, the ogre would rather eat that Porcupine.

THWACK!

A Palace Level fist smashed into the long-horned ogre. With a slight flick of his wrist, Kaqi easily plucked its head right off.

Kaqi bent down and snatched the black dragon’s corpse, which swiftly changed hands.

He was about to pull back when a cunningly aimed ball of fire hurtled toward him.

Kaqi quickly raised his palm. In combat, he didn’t need Leech’s control at all; his experience from his past life was more than enough to make him an excellent Warrior.

The fire smashed against his palm and instantly spread out as if it had hit a transparent shield.

This was Kaqi’s ability: a force field.

It was just like Schopenhauer’s “Porcupine Principle.”

On a cold winter day, a group of spiny porcupines huddle together for warmth. As they get closer, their quills begin to prick one another, forcing them to separate. But the cold soon drives them back together. After several cycles of gathering and parting, they finally learn to maintain a proper distance.

Kaqi’s application of his force field was an active manifestation of the “Porcupine Principle.” It allowed him to maintain a proper distance from incoming attacks. He could even wrap it around his fists to help an enemy’s body parts maintain a “suitable distance”… from the rest of their body.

Its specific application depended not on creativity, but on raw power. Like the Fireball Skill, it could become incredibly strong.

However, it couldn’t truly maintain a proper distance from everything. If an enemy simply brute-forced their way through and tore the force field apart, you could only passively accept your fate, like an Apostle pierced by the Spear of Longinus.

That Fireball clearly wasn’t very powerful, but the brief delay was enough for the Half-Beastman Kaqi to get surrounded.

Looking at the lumbering oafs surrounding Kaqi, Leech wanted to laugh out loud and declare, ‘No, you’re the ones who are surrounded—by me!’

THUD!

Leech’s mind jolted. He had just sensed a Corpse Ghost being sent flying. Shifting his consciousness over, he saw that one of the long-horned creatures had used the brute strength of its heavy body to defeat a Corpse Ghost that wasn’t suited for close-quarters combat.

‘Such incredible physical strength. Though it can’t compare to my mass-produced Mad Beastmen, these things aren’t even Extraordinary yet.’

‘To borrow a phrase from the xuanhuan world next door: below Extraordinary, at the peak of the ordinary realm, the stage of Great Perfection. Utterly terrifying.’

‘Their physical forms are already strong enough to crush an Extraordinary being that doesn’t specialize in physical enhancement. Their only weakness is being a bit slow.’

‘If the Corpse Ghosts hadn’t been surrounded, this fight would have started with kiting and ended with my side taking no damage. Now there’s a small hitch, but it’s not a big problem. The advantage is still mine.’

‘Because I have a Palace Level Corpse Ghost. Unless you can absolutely crush me with numbers or kill me through attrition, how can I possibly lose?’

Because the ogres were so fat, they just crowded each other during the siege. They started fighting among themselves before they could even lay a hand on Kaqi. Some of the famished ones were even hugging the Porcupine on the ground and gnawing on it. The sight made Leech’s stomach turn. ‘Good thing my Corpse Ghosts only take baths instead of eating,’ he thought. ‘Otherwise, I’d have nothing left to throw up.’

Kaqi had been in a bind one moment, then inexplicably slipped free the next. No one was even chasing him. The atmosphere was a little strange.

“ROAR!” “AAROO!”

Two long howls came from behind the ogres. Leech, looking through the eyes of a Corpse Ghost, saw who had made the sound. It was a fat, lumbering ogre holding a wooden staff. Its most distinct feature was its two heads, which at that moment seemed to be arguing with each other.

‘A two-headed Ogre Mage?’ It was hard for Leech not to associate it with certain archetypes he knew. ‘If we can’t communicate, I’ll just have to give them nicknames myself.’

At the roar, the brawling ogres suddenly fell silent. In unison, they turned their heads to face the Corpse Ghosts.

With another roar, a thin red glow enveloped the bodies of all the ogres.

Their power surged. The most immediate effect was a Corpse Ghost charging in only to be sent flying by a single punch.

Gazing at the twenty or thirty ogres who had clearly entered a blood rage, broken through the peak of Great Perfection, and stepped into the Extraordinary realm, Leech quickly issued an order to Kaqi: hand the black dragon corpse to another Corpse Ghost, then go deal with the two-headed Ogre Mage by himself.

Kaqi leaped into the air, easily clearing all the blood-raged ogres. He carved a great arc through the sky and charged toward the two-headed ogre, stomping on its left head and smashing it into the ground.

“GA GA GA GA!” Seeing the left head get stomped, the right head actually started cackling stupidly.

Kaqi didn’t play favorites, raising his other leg and stomping it down on the cackling right head. Only then did the two heads finally realize they should face their enemy together. They howled wildly before getting caught in the rhythm of Kaqi’s torrential stomping.

“S-Spare… us…”

The gurgled plea for mercy sounded as if its mouths were stuffed full of Lola Hahn’s socks. It took Leech a great deal of effort to understand what they were saying.

“You can communicate?” Leech had Kaqi pause his assault. He gazed at the two heads, now beaten beyond recognition. “Make them all stop!”

“Groooan…”

The left head let out an aggrieved howl, and the red glow on the ogres’ bodies instantly dissipated. After all this time, they still hadn’t noticed that Kaqi had snuck past them, let alone that he’d given their leader a savage beating. They were still bent over, butts in the air, searching for the Corpse Ghosts.

A few had been lured away by other Corpse Ghosts. Hearing the two-headed Ogre Mage’s cry, they hesitated, looking back toward their leader, then at the Corpse Ghosts, uncertain what to do.

In the end, they returned. Why? Because they saw their kin taking huge mouthfuls of meat.

Though slow to enter a battle frenzy, they were incredibly quick to leave it. The big oafs seemed to feel no whiplash at all, their moods shifting seamlessly.

One ogre discovered that the delicious Porcupine it had worked so hard to retrieve was now half-eaten by its kin. It let out a furious howl and pounced on them.

The other ogres, meanwhile, happily rushed toward the corpses of their fallen comrades. ‘Freshly killed, how novel! Still warm, too. Can’t let it go to waste!’

A pack of ogres clutched the bodies of their kin and began to feast. The scene was bizarre beyond description.