III-43 Army

I prefer fighting an orc rather than talking to them. At least, the worst thing that happens when you fight an orc is that they overcome you. They kill you. They maybe torture you. But there's an end to the madness. There's a final point where it finishes and you feel no more. You suffer no more.

But if you talk to an orc, if you talk to an orc, they will twist your mind with their words. They will strike at your heart using psychology, philosophy, rhetoric, anything to bend your will and assert their dominance over you. We stopped interrogating orcs for that reason because half the interrogators and torturers we used on the orcs killed themselves within the span of two months.

You see, they understand us. They can guess how we feel. But we don't think like they do. For good reason. We're a natural species. We live. We were alive before the integration, before the system came. We lived by evolutionary rules. Theoretically, we were tribal creatures. We value things.

The orcs, they're more like psychological weapons, and they'll use every aspect of yourself against you. There's always something you want. There is always something you wish to achieve. And if you're desperate and the orc knows what you're desperate about, it will use that. It will use that to chain you.

But that doesn't mean they're unbeatable. No. I've shamed an orc before. I mocked their failure to breach one of our walls, and he apologized to me. He was genuine. It wasn't mockery. He said he was sorry. He said that he shamed himself by not being good enough. By not reaching his desired endpoint of triumph.

And that's the thing. If there is any way to overcome an orc mentally, philosophically, rhetorically, it's by focusing on where they failed. Not the ideas where they failed. Not how they conceptually failed. How they literally failed. They are very materialistic creatures. Prideful to the extreme. Value. And they value their feats above all else. Their experiences above all else.

If you have to talk to one, use that. Use that. But for the love of all the gods, don't talk to an orc. Not if you can help it.

They’ll make you care about them somehow. And then they’ll betray you with a grin on their face.

-Hero-Ranger Morgan Munny

III-43

Army

Whisper blasted through the air, tumbling several times as he sailed away from Shiv's punch. Before he even touched the ground, the Deathless slammed into him, pinning him against the far battlements beneath the obsidian tower. The stone walls shook. Fissures spread along them. Shiv gripped Whisper by his neck, lifting the orc high.

Whisper chuckled as he spat blood and broken teeth all over Shiv's chest. The Deathless was calm. He was extremely calm. His anger had all been spent. But still, he wasn't sure if he was going to kill the orc or not. Calmness was one thing, hatred was another. Part of him screamed for him to reach into the orc’s spirit and mutilate him beyond measure. 

Far above, the other orcs cheered him on. A mithril ingot switched hands as Band lost a bet to Mortar. "I told you," Mortar bellowed, "I told you that Deathless would see through it. He's uneducated, but that doesn't mean he's a fool."

As the orc artillerist grinned down at him, Shiv clenched his teeth.

"Now to see the interesting part," Tequila said, "is he gonna rip Whisper in half? Is he gonna come for us right after?"

In the background, Shiv could hear the Challenger's laughter turn to an amused sigh. "There is no point to this, Deathless. It was going to happen sooner or later. I merely accelerated the process, and perhaps saved Blackedge in the process. You all deliberated too long, and as amusing as your little cooking challenge was, you really do need to deal with the acquisition problem, and the rogue necrotechs at the same time."

Adam hovered in the air. He had three Veil Piercers drawn, each of them aimed at the other orcs. Uva drifted behind him, her mana strands reared back as if a few thousand hair-thin serpents prepared to strike.

"You could finish me off," Whisper said. He was entirely too calm about this, too joyful. "I think it might make you feel better," but Shiv jabbed him in the throat with the bottom end of the Skysplitter. The orc choked, but his expression didn't change.

"Don't talk to me," Shiv said. He pointed his blade high at the orcs as he glared. "None of you talk to me. Not until I get to you. Not a word.”

He met Band's eye, and the musical orc just smirked at him. That smirk became a grimace, as Shiv blasted upwards, seizing Band by the throat. Whisper was left behind as Shiv’s ire fell on the true culprit. They rose high in the air, the orc squinted at the Deathless, shrugging in his grip and offering a near-comical gesture. And everything Shiv felt about what they experienced from cooking together, about how the orcs weren't just cruel monsters, was drowned in a new wave of cold loathing.

"Umbrals died," Shiv growled. He looked back at the first layer of battlements. Most of them were half-melted. Only a single section of the wall stood. He didn't see any more bodies atop the parapets. But they were there. He saw them. He saw the defenders who gave their all to hold the gate. "Weaveresses died. People died."

Band's lips curled upward. "People die," the orc replied. "We die, you die. It's just what happens." With every word spoken, Band swallowed, biting back pain. "Difference," Shiv's muscles trembled with pent-up energy as he held himself back from immediate murder. "You come back. We come back. They sleep. They go away. For good. And you. You killed too. So many. Why mad? Three million. Jealous of you. Insul. Powerful. Brutal. Their families. Scream your name at night. Screams echo across history.”

Shiv wanted to crush the orc's skull. He wanted to rip his own body open and pour his wounds into Band. He wanted to torture the orc over and over again, bring him closer and closer to the brink until he finally got an apology. 

But his massively strengthened psychology skill told him what would actually happen. These were orcs. He could shame them based on them failing to dominate him, or failing to live up to their potential. They were performers, builders, makers, Pathbearers of a savage extreme. 

But it was as the Challenger had said before: philosophy was just a weapon for them. Morality was something they could navigate and discard at a whim. Him torturing the orc likely wouldn't even inflict any mental trauma, unless he directly targeted the orc's mind.

Shiv and the orc swayed high in the air. Below, the Umbrals turned on the remaining orcs. Two teams of sisters held out their polearms. Ikki stood among them, her face coated under a layer of dry blood. Nearby, Can Hu regarded the orcs as well, and Valor hovered behind him, a necromantic blade crackling with murderous intent.

Yet despite all this, the three orcs not within Shiv's grasp continued chatting among each other. Mortar and Tequila leaned over the parapets as if nothing was wrong, as if they were just taking in the sights. They ignored Adam and the Veilpiercers he had pointed at them. They ignored Uva and the threat she posed to their minds. And most of all, Band taunted Shiv with a condescending gaze.

"You know, if I reach into your soul, I can tear you up for good," Shiv hissed. He tapped a strand of Vitamancy against the orc's jaw and slowly drilled it through Band's flesh. It went deeper than the flesh, splashed into the inner recesses of Band's being, and the orc let out a slight grunt of discomfort. "I could finish you, or I could just rip you up, leave you crippled between every life. A mangled, broken thing that screams and screams when he respawns, but never gets to be a true Pathbearer again. Just a ruined lump of felling meat.”

Band looked at him once more and shrugged. "If that is the price. For. Excitement. And experiences." The orc was entirely honest. An eternal wound meant nothing to him. An eternal wound was easily accepted if he got something of a novel experience out of it.

And another one of Shiv's assumptions about the orcs broke apart. They weren't fearless because they were reincarnated. No, they were fearless because their psychology didn't allow them to be terrified in the same way a human or Umbral might.

"Remember," Band continued, his voice strained. "Remember war. Need good warriors. Many warriors. Killed many. Only needed to kill fifty thousand." And Band smiled. It was a vicious sneer of a smile, and the orc licked at his bloodied lips. "But after that fifty thousand, so many others. Remember the rules of the ritual. Go. Get your reward. Accept your army. Insul.”

"Remember the rules of the ritual," the Challenger carried on where Band finished.

Shiv turned his head backward, and he stared at the dimensional gateway that once led to Vulketh. It was roiling, pulsating with building waves of energy. Blackened tides splashed outward, each one crashing over another. On the gateway was a deep bowl, surrounded by cracked glass across the ground. 

Countless Vultegs lay in the depression, their bodies disfigured beyond description. Some of them had expired. Some of them remained on their knees, whimpering for mercy. And some were broken of mind and spirit, wandering madly. Just the sight left Shiv briefly stunned. This was only a small group harmed by his soul-fire detonation.

So what the hells does Vulketh look like right now? Shiv wondered.

But now new shapes joined the Vultegs. Larger shapes that reached up through the gateway, pulling themselves over the black lip of dimensionality. A shaking membrane of surface pressure broke free from the bodies of newly arriving orcs. They arose in an orderly fashion, one climbing up after another.

As a group of ten orcs slipped out from the gate, they formed a perimeter and held their blades high. Each one bore what seemed to be a butcher's cleaver, and their bodies were adorned with bloodied aprons. Along their hips were a chain of heads: elven, Umbral, Vultegs , automaton, and more.

"We come to serve you, Insul!" one of the orcs roared. "We come to give ourselves to your service! We depart from Lone Star for the coming summer! And we give praise to your slaughter! We give praise to your feats of destruction! We give praise!" And the other orcs cheered with him.

Shiv stared in utter disbelief, but that feeling slowly faded as he descended from the sky. He dropped Band back on the parapet, and the orc readjusted his chainmail suitcoat. He cracked his neck and gave Shiv a slow smile.

“No, you don’t get to do that,” Shiv hissed through clenched teeth. “We’re not done. This isn’t over. You get a few moments. A few moments before I figure out what to do with you. But your life is mine.”

"Not over?" Band asked, flicking a tongue across his lips.

Shiv chuckled humorlessly. "Before any of this is done, Band, I'm going to hear you scream and scream for real. I will find a way to hurt you for good."

"But not yet," Band replied. “Not right now. Go. Go. Greet army. Your army. Your gift. Your rite.”

Shiv simply glared at the orc, and then he turned his hateful gaze on the others. "All of you, come with me. You're not staying here, not anymore." He looked back to Band. "I want to know what you did and how you did it—Actually, no. Uva!” Shiv called out. The Psychomancer met his gaze readily. Behind her eyes, he read a hint of cold fury.

"This one," Shiv pointed at Band. "He opened the breach. Reach into his mind, don't break him. Find out everything he knows—if he did anything else he to the gateways. Find out if he has any other surprises for us."

"And any more mana bombs?" Adam added. "That's what he used to throw the surface district into chaos. That, and a series of specially summoned dimensionals. They butchered slaves, mercenaries—more. That godsdamned mad bastard…”

Band held his arms open as Uva's strands pierced into him. His smile faded, and his eyes rolled back. He promptly collapsed as several of her Psychomancy threads pulled upward violently. She wasn't going to do this gently, and she didn't care if she broke him. Frankly, Shiv didn't care either.

"The rest of you," he said, calling out to the orcs, "with me."

"Oh, and where are we going now, Insul?" Tequila asked. He barely gave his friend a second glance as Uva began prying through Band's mind.

"We're going to the Tutorial," Shiv declared aloud. "All that death is to get an army, right? Fine. I’ll bite. I’ll see this army. But I want to see the fucking Challenger, too. I want to see him tell me why he was so determined to be a piece of shit. I would have felling done the ritual eventually anyway.”

“Eventually,” Whisper sighed. “Eventually is too long, Deathless. We were helping you. You didn’t have the time.”

“I have as much time as I decide I have!” Shiv growled. “That’s not your place to decide for me.” 

“Of course, Insul. I apologize.” Whisper bowed, and he wiped blood from his face using his robes.

Shiv wanted to crush the orc’s skull. But murdering the orcs pointlessly would be a waste. Too much of a waste with the war looming over the horizon. “Adam, you're with me too. Time for us to have our first formal conversation with the Challenger. And to survey our forces," Shiv frowned. "Well. Survey the orcs. Can’t exactly call them our forces if they’re going to do this shit.”

"But we are yours to command, Insul," Mortar said with a chuckle. "Don't you trust us?"

The orcs were determined to taunt him, to see how far they could push him. Shiv wanted to kill at least one of them permanently to set terms, but a pounding coldness inside his head commanded him to think straight, to be pragmatic. Besides, if he did butcher them, they would have won over him in some—

MOTHERFUCKERS! Shiv raged internally. They were using their godsdamned Psychology Skill on him. They knew he hated bending as much as they enjoyed domination. Shit. Adam was right. I am almost an inverted orc in some ways.

Once again, he considered just killing one of them. And once again he held off. They were going to be facing Sullain at Blackedge soon. The Inquisition had an expeditionary force on the way. The orcs were using him, and so he was going to use them in return, because they were going to spend their lives the proper way.

"And if I do want to kill one of them permanently," Shiv thought to himself, "I'll do it later, when we're in control. The last thing I need is the Challenger deciding to renege on this little ritual and flood the gate with his orcs. Shit. We basically just replaced Lord Scorn with something worse."

“Far worse,” the Challenger crooned. “And far better as well.”

Mortar and Tequila jumped down from the top of the battlement. Shiv grabbed Band by the back of his neck and carried him away while Uva continued her Psychomantic delving. He wasn’t leaving her or the orc here. They would do this in the Tutorial—and not risk the remaining survivors in the gate anymore.

"Null Mont!" Shiv roared. He looked around, trying to find where the Exalted Mother was. "Null Mont!"

A crash of lightning flashed above. An arcing bolt of electricity twisted past Shiv and slammed a Weaveresses into shape atop the battlements. Null Mont materialized at the parapets, staring at the deathless. Her posture was one of excess tension. Her spider limbs were shaking, and her human-like digits at the end of each limb vibrated even more so.

"Yes, yes! Honored Guest!" She coughed. "I mean, Hero Shiv."

"You hurt?" Shiv asked. He looked Null Mont up and down. His Biomancy couldn’t detect any wounds, but some of the metal quills running down her arms were broken, and she clutched at her torso like there was something wrong.

"No, no, I was... I took the Leviathan meat. I..." Her words came out as a messy stammer. She held up the wrapper, and he understood and gave her a nod.

"You're fine then."

"Yes, it was, thank you. Because of you…”

Shiv offered her a brief nod. Null Mont was an idiot, but compared to the orcs, she wasn’t a threat at all—even served an active role in combat. Despite being absolutely terrified. I can see her shivering. "Listen, I need you to get the Umbral together, everyone together. Construct additional defenses around the gateway. Trap the gateway. Dome it in if you have to. Let nothing get in or out. Do you understand? Get the Geomancers now. We're going to go across. If we don't come back, you seal the gate. You take whoever you can among the remaining inhabitants, and you leave as soon as you can.”

"In fact," Adam called out, "you should go introduce yourself to more people first, just so that the mana core will synchronize with you, in case something happens to me." Adam grimaced at that statement. He shot a look at the orcs standing around the dimensional gateway, and a tense breath left him. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Shiv?"

Shiv stared at Adam. "I think I’m too tired for good ideas.”

The Gate Lord laughed. “Ah. Well said. Well. Let’s go do something potentially stupid together.”

“The orcs are tied to me,” Shiv said. “You don’t—”

“Shiv. Shut up and stand in front. I want to get a shot off in case they start attacking, and I need your thick head to block some attacks for me.”

And somehow, that made the Deathless feel far better.

He, Adam, Uva, and the orcs moved toward the gateway. The gateway no longer bound for Vulketh. They prepared to descend. As they did, each of the butcher-apron-wearing orcs fell to a knee. They slammed their cleavers into the ground and bowed their heads.

"The Challenger awaits," one of them called out, "praise be your bloodshed, Insul."

Another grinned at Shiv, "Praise be your wrath, your cruelty, your dominance."

Adam eyed the orcs warily, and Shiv chucked Band through first. He stared at Uva and Adam. "Stay close to me. If anything happens, Uva, get in my head. Adam, get a Veilpiercer ready. Necromancy too.”

The Gate Lord's mouth fell open. "We just obliterated one dimension, you want to do it to another?"

"Yeah," Shiv said casually. There was more than enough passing loathing in his blood to make him a willing bomb. "If the Challenger does anything stupid, I want to see if his realm burns the same way. I want to see if he fries like the Forgotten Ascendant."

"Come and see then," the Challenger said. The orc god's voice was thick with anticipation rather than fear or offense. "Come and see what I have arranged for you. Come and see the salvation of Blackedge and your newly formed army."

"Wait!" Valor sailed through the air, and Can Hu floated upon a stone platform just behind him. "I am coming too," the Legendary Pathbearer declared. "It has been some time since I had this conversation."

But the Challenger interrupted him. "Oh no, we have not had this conversation, you broken thing. I spoke to the Valor that was, the Valor who was whole. Valor Thann, He Who Stills Eternity. You… you are not Valor. You are just his shadow. The broken pieces stuck together, groping, desperately trying to recompose yourself."

"Yet even my shadow remains enough for you," Valor rebuffed. "I remember your failures on Ishimere, on the world you failed to take. I remember your defeat at the Wolves' Den, where the Moon-Blooded drove your orcs back and sealed your gate.”

"With your aid," the Challenger finished. "Yes, quite impressive. And I remembered what you taught me there, oh, great Valor. But you are not so great now. Come through, but your presence makes no difference, as you are not the Deathless I seek to speak with."

At that, Valor regarded Shiv. "He will never lie to you directly," Valor whispered, "but he will avoid the truth. Partial details will be revealed, and essential facts will be forgotten. But if he has promised you an army, you will have one, and if he has promised that they will fight alongside you, they will."

"But beyond that, anything goes," Shiv finished for Valor. "Yeah, I kind of got that. You all ready?"

"No," Adam said, but then he offered Shiv a slight smirk, "but fuck it, let's go anyway."

"I’ll be right behind," Uva replied, her gaze was steady.

As Can Hu descended behind Shiv, several of the orcs pointed up at him. "That's a Penitent! Penitent!" Several of the orcs immediately began cheering as well. "Penitent! Penitent! Penitent!" One muttered about how he had been beheaded by a penitent once, and that he thought it would be funny if it happened again at some point.

"Felling orcs," Shiv muttered under his breath, and with that, he dropped through the gateway.

Spatial pressures folded over his body once more, but as he emerged, he found himself not at the bottom of a molten ocean, not within the clear skies and before the azure glow of a unique mana core. No. This was a portrait of hell, of ruination. The sky above resembled an ugly rash. Stretches of raw red clouds ran as far as the eye could see, broken only by clefts of smog that spewed hissing rain upon the land.

But this place was categorized not by desolation, but constant conflict. As Shiv looked behind, he saw that the gateway was built into an archway of gnarled steel. It rested atop a mountain of bodies as well—automaton bodies, human bodies, elven bodies, and more. But between each of the other races there lay an orc, a fallen orc, butchered, ruined, slaughtered beyond description. But on their faces were expressions of delight, rather than contortions of fear.

And beyond that corpse-lain mountain were towering structures. They jutted out of the ground like tombstones, but Shiv could see windows, aesthetic designs that shaped them. There were hollowed-out mountains in the distance as well, large sections carved into them, with orcs flowing in and out. But more importantly, there were countless orcs standing at the base of the mountain. 

Many of them were kneeling; some stood tall, their fists held up. They were beyond Shiv's ability to count, extending past the horizon, stretching over mounds of rolling bodies, over peaks and vanishing under crests in the land. Some stood atop smoldering husks, and many wore the bones of their enemies.

Shiv saw few common aesthetics among the orcs. Some of them, much like him, were death-clad, wearing bone skulls or helmets, using spines as weapons or jutting ribs as daggers. Others were dressed in the most exquisite finery. They had half-capes shrouding the right side of their body, while glistening silks flowed across their enormous musculature. 

And then there were orcs that wore a uniform set of armor, though it was composed of different materials. Some wore plates of bronze, while others had layers of crenulated titanium. And then there were those who stood larger than the other orcs, sticking out as if oaks among blades of grass. They were adorned with adamantine and, in a few cases, even Inertia. Their right shoulders had a singular symbol: a shattering sun. Shiv guessed that was probably a mockery of Lone Star.

"Welcome to this humble patch of the tutorial, Insul," the Challenger whispered, gesturing out at the massive amount of orcs gathered before him.

Shiv took in the orcs and found himself speechless. It was one thing to imagine almost three million dead; it was another to behold three million arrayed before you, three million psychotic monsters dedicated to bloodshed and destruction. Three million promised by a ritual empowered by slaughter, three million that might betray him in any number of ways and for an equally infinite amount of reasons.

"This place is always at war," Valor said. "Even right now we could be attacked at any moment, for such is the nature of the tutorial."

"What is this nature?" Adam reacted. He glared warily at the amassed orcs, and Shiv could feel his muscles tighten. Adam didn't much want to be here, and Shiv couldn't blame him. But they had to do this. They already did the deed. Now it was time to collect an army and set new conditions.

"There's so many," Uva breathed. For once, her ironclad demeanor gave way to genuine shock. As her Psychomantic threads loosened around Band, the orc squinted one of his eyes at her. Through the other, slowly, he laughed.

"More... this is nothing," he choked out, "nothing at all. A single percentage of orc-kind would drown your Weave, drown you forever." And then her threads tightened, and once more, Band's eyes rolled before he crashed face-first down upon a corpse.

"This place is cleaner than I remember," Valor commented.

"Cleaner?" Adam gawked. He stared at the many bodies resting at his feet, and he shook his head. "What do you mean cleaner?"

"I mean, there were far more corpses, and it constantly rained blood."

"Yes, about that," Tequila said, wiggling his nose disgustedly. "We complained."

"What?" Valor said.

"We complained," Tequila repeated, his yellow eyes widening to express how genuine he was. "Ask anyone below. Ask them about the Plague Days."

As soon as he said 'Plague Days', several orcs scoffed, and that scoff spread through the masses gathered as a few hundred thousand orcs started complaining at once. The world was swallowed by a droning mess of voices. Through the clamor and din, Shiv managed to hear things about constant sickness, respawning endlessly, and how bad the smell was.

"We do things to destroy our enemy," one of the orcs said. "It doesn't mean that we like to smell their corpses. We don’t like shit. That’s why no one bombs the active waste disposals here. It’s one of the few laws we enforce.”

"We're standing on a mountain of corpses," Adam said, waving his hands at the literal precipice of death which supported their gateway.

"Yes, but that's mainly to bother you," Tequila replied with a cheeky grin. “It likely took them a while to set that up.”

Adam’s jaw dropped. "You... all of you... you're all a race of assholes."

"Indeed we are," Mortar nodded enthusiastically. “And your expression makes it all worth it.”

The Gate Lord sputtered. He didn't really have a good comeback for that, and neither did Shiv for that matter. But the Deathless didn’t care so much about the death. He was busy taking in the sheer amount of orcs all around him.

"But also," Tequila added, "some of these bodies are the people you two killed." Adam's expression went from one of incredulity to slight horror. Shiv looked down as well, staring at the faces, trying to see if there was anyone he recognized. And then Tequila slapped his knee. "Of course not! They weren't your kills, Insul, don't be foolish. It's not like the Challenger can claim ownership over any corpse he wants. Some of them go elsewhere. Some belong to other gods." He paused, then glared at the orc.

"Hey, Tequila," Shiv said. "You know something about assholes, yes? Sometimes they get a knife shoved up the hole."

Tequila considered that for a moment and then nodded. "Some of us might like that." Shiv coated his knife with Vitae. Tequila flinched. “Right. Maybe not.”

"So, what do you think?" the Challenger asked. "I've already subtracted the 50,000 lives it took to adjust the gateway. The rest, the rest are a promise to you, Insul, based on the terms of the blood rite. Approximately 80% of them are adepts, and 80% of that 80% are High Adepts at that. But of the remainder mostly Masters. And 0.1% aside are Heroes.”

"Point one percent are Heroes?" Shiv blinked.

"Correct. Quite a substantial amount, wouldn't you say?" At first, 0.1% being Heroes didn't sound like much, but then Shiv realized he was only a single-skill Hero. Adam only had two skills in Hero, and more importantly, there was practically no one else who was a Hero in their game. 

With a few hundred Heroes, Shiv wondered what they could do. And then his thoughts went from excited to downright terrified as he realized that he had no idea how to protect himself from a few hundred Heroes either. Adam and Uva were thinking about the same thing, judging from the expressions on their faces.

“Did… Did we get any Legends?” Adam asked.

“Oh, what a delightful question,” the Challenger laughed. "But no. Legends are hard to kill in the worst of times, little hawk. Worry not. So long as you keep them occupied, give them proper directions, and don't over-attract their ire, you should be fine."

"Yeah," Shiv called back. "Well, I got some terms and conditions of my own, Challenger."

"What is this? You're negotiating with me after the blood rites have already been performed? How interesting. Tell me more.”

"I'm not negotiating," Shiv said. "I'm telling." He looked at Adam. "Here's the new arrangement. You will fight with us. You will do what we tell you to. And we will give you the biggest godsdamn brawl we can manage. But!" he let his voice echo for a while, "if you do anything to anyone in the Gate, I will reach inside of you and I will break you in ways that ensure you never heal."

Silver Tongue 27 > 28

Some of the orcs flinched at that, and his dread aura immediately experienced a rush of power. Not enough to achieve another level, but then Shiv looked at Band. The orc's expression bled away.

Brutal inspiration struck Shiv. His Intimidation Skill was right on the edge, and he felt the itch to remind the orcs about consequences. Now, he had a perfect use for Band.

"Hey Band," Shiv said.

The orc let out a tragic sigh. "You changed your mind? Going to finish me?”

"Yeah. I don't care to break your will. I don’t care that you know Georges—or what your history with Adam’s former Divination mentor or whatever mind-games you assholes are trying to play. You crossed me. Now, get fucked."

And then he cast a strand of Vitamancy through the orc's skull and began tearing him apart in spirit and flesh.

Dread Aura 100 > 101 (Skill Evolution Reached)

Skill Evolution: Dread Aura (Adept) > Shape of Monstrosity (Master)