III-25 Adamantine

There is one skill an orc retains between all their reincarnations, just one. Their soul is refreshed as they pass through the Challenger, a

There is one skill an orc retains between all their reincarnations, just one. Their soul is refreshed as they pass through the Challenger, as they return to the Tutorial. They are stripped down back to zero, but they retain one skill, one and only one, and that is the skill that matters to them above all others. 

Perfect Memory. 

Perfect Memory means they don't ever forget anything they don’t want to. They don't forget anything they do. They don't forget numbers from hundreds of years ago. They don't forget everything they've forged, all the deeds they performed to reach where they were. They don't forget the people that killed them or the people they killed. 

If an orc claims to forget, an orc is lying, or the orc is simply so brain-damaged it cannot fully master its faculties.

Psychomancers have tried to rip out an orc's memories. The outcomes of these attempts are usually mixed to the extreme, for though you can shatter an orc's mind, the memories still pass on. The memories they want to mark as “perfect” are bound to the soul. It is like a story ingrained within them, ingrained by the system to ensure they retain all of their past experiences.

And that is the worst of our problems: they're learning using this skill. With every death we inflict, they're learning more and more. They're understanding our patterns. They know where they were bombed to death. They know where they came apart. They know all our strategies. They know half of our names. They don't forget.

Our only advantage is that they don't like sharing this information with each other. They don't care about each other. They're not an army; they're a group of violent, hyper-intelligent sociopaths who are competing with each other to finally breach our walls and kill us. Cooperation doesn't exist between them. That's all we got. But individually, they're still advancing. They don't forget.

With every passing summer, it's getting worse. Our finest Artillerists are getting their throats slit in the middle of the night. Fuck. That’s not even the worst of it. They turned Mara into a suicide bomber by kidnapping her kid. We remember Captain Mara, don’t we? Never needed to fire more than twice to hit a target? Yeah. Now we don’t talk about her. But I need to.

The orcs are starting to use more stealth. More deception. We need to start countering now. Our artillery and bombardment strategy… it's not going to last. Not another 10 years. We need to beat the orcs to their adaptation before they overcome us, and that means getting better at stealth or counter-stealth before they get good enough to work through all of our leadership. Before we wake up one night with a big, ugly, green-skinned bastard wearing our flayed children as a face mask.

They're changing, so we gotta change as well. So we gotta go on the offensive. Doing nothing is only going to make more Maras. And we cannot afford that.

-Hero-Ranger Morgan Munny to Lone Star High Command

III-25

Adamantine

The orc didn't have a Chronomancy skill.

Shiv surged forward to finish the orc off—

What orc did have, however, was a set of compact Chronomancy wardings so powerful that it cleaved through Shiv’s temporal shell as a golden ripple pulsed out from the orc’s armor. 

Chronomancy burst free from Shiv’s body, but a small part of it clung on to him, trying to cover his entire person. Shiv growled and cast himself back in time. He reverted to the place he was five seconds ago and flung his Skysplitter into the distance just as his temporal shell shattered.

A beam of fire slashed just above Shiv’s head. Shiv spiked down and felt a Necromancy-infused arrow bounce off his Magebreaker. Shit!

A bit of luck went a long way, sometimes. But Shiv couldn’t count it forever. He needed to get out of here. As his knife exploded through a half-collapsed overpass, the orc barked out a laugh. "Chronomancy," the Orc cried out, "it's such a delightful skill, isn't it?" the Orc sang. 

Shiv didn't listen to the rest of the orc's speech. He didn't have time nor the interest. He teleported to his knife—reappeared holding. And then probably slammed blade-first into a rising wall of adamantine that exploded out from the cracked pavement. Shiv’s blade left a dent in the wall, but he pulled his gravitic field back—

And the orc burst free from the adamantium like a diver surfacing from water, and roundhouse kicked Shiv right in the side of the head.

Shiv reeled backward, his vision spinning. The orc hit as hard as an entity-possessed Confriga. But Shiv wasn’t the same Pathbearer who went into the fight unprepared and underpowered either. He halted himself in place as he gripped himself using his gravitic field and then drove his head forward. He slammed his helmet into the orc’s chest, and the big gray bastard welcomed it with a hearty laugh.

The orc barely took a single step back.

They clashed. Shiv shot low to rip the orc’s legs out from under them. The orc sprawled. A column of adamatine shot up from the ground below. Shiv spiked his gravitic field and rolled, twisting to the side. The column slammed into the orc’s chestplate. But it didn’t launch him back. Instead, it splashed apart and merged with his armor.

Shiv ground across the ground, sliding to a halt as he glared at his new enemy.

"Quite the hit," the orc complimented, brushing his chestplate off casually. A beam flashed behind the orc—corrosive mana filled the air. But the orc just lifted a hand, and a curving wall of adamantine exploded out from the ground and intercepted the strike. Shiv blinked as a great and metallic dome hatched free from parting streets and collapsing buildings. The entire structure took up a kilometer of space. Patches of decay spread through portions of the dome, but then more layers within rose, rendering the whole thing like an onion.

"There," the orc said, letting out a sigh of annoyance, "that should keep them away, at least for a little bit. Just long enough for us to indulge in this… chat.”

Shiv studied the orc again. The brute had his faceplate down, and at the top of its helmet had gleaming spike infused with glowing mana poking out like some kind of unicorn horn. The colors within the horn oscillated between gold and black, with static lining its edges.

That must be the source of his wards, Shiv realized. He'd probably need to target that if he wanted to use his Chronomancy freely around this monster. And that's what he was going to try to do: get free of the orc. As much as he wanted to kick the thing's ass, he had to finish his scouting run. That, and the longer this orc kept him in place, the worse things would get for him.

The Necrotechs were probably amassing more forces this very second.

Adam was likely getting all kinds of useful information now about how many enemies there were and how they could respond to a fast-moving threat. But considering the sheer variety of path bearers and monsters the Necrotechs scrambled to intercept him, Shiv had guessed that it wouldn't be long until he faced some new breed of bullshit, like someone with a Necromancy-Psychomancy Skill Fusion.

Yeah. I don’t think I have a chance of surviving that, Shiv thought to himself, new plan. Drain some of the orc's vitality, break his horn, and then try to escape this place. Maybe use my outside context problem to make him forget about my existence and drill through the ground to escape while he’s distracted.

"I wish to see—” The orc’s words went unheard as Shiv spiked his gravity field 30 times. The world around him slowed, his reflexes surged, his speed exploded. He crashed against the orc as his inertial sheath thundered with building energy. The orc was driven back, and he let out a breath of exertion and exasperation as Shiv started sapping his vitality. The Deathless slashed out at the orc. His cut flicked toward the horn above the orc’s helmet—

Only to be deflected. A blade of liquid metal splashed out from orc’s helmet and parried Shiv’s slash. It then spilled around Shiv’s arm and hardened around him. A dozen liquid metal hammers exploded out from the orc's armor as well. They crashed into Shiv. They impacted like heavy blows at first, but turned fluid, congealing around his body. Then, they hardened into dense clumps of metal.

The orc made a pulling gesture. Shiv stumbled as a rush of force pulled him off balance. The orc made a fist—but never got to swing it as Shiv detonated his inertial sheath. The kinetic discharge flung the orc through a building, and Shiv blasted in after them. They crashed through debris as Shiv swung his Skysplitter.

Only for the orc to phase through the attack, turning into mist.

"Really?" Shiv growled under his breath as he stabbed his feet through the ground, grinding himself to a brutal halt. “Always some bullshit with orcs.” It was bad enough that the orcs were big and durable and clever. Why did all of them have to have more than one magical skill, too?

The challenger is amused by your outrage.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Shiv spat at the unseen god. He pointed his knife up into the air. “I’m gonna kill this one too.”

Just then, a rush of mist condensed beside Shiv. The orc reappeared a few meters away and opened his mouth.

Shiv wasn’t interested in talking.

He triggered his Outside Context Problem. He vanished from existence, slipping back into his own vitae. The orc's eyes widened, looked confused, and then Shiv advanced on the orc, his knife drawn, Creeping Void active. Darkness began to flood the world around him, a darkness that wasn't yet observable by the orc as it was layered in Shiv’s vitae. But it manifested as Shiv blasted toward the brute and finally inflicted two slashes. The first sparked across the orc’s throat, while the other took a chip out from the horn on the brute’s head.

But the horn didn't break, not even with Shiv’s Deepest Edge. A burst of white and red exploded out from Shiv as the orc lurched back, suddenly startled by the Deathless's reappearance. Shiv drove his blade into the orc’s chest, and the huge, gray-skinned bastard staggered back. But Shiv’s cuts were stunning more than they were bleeding. 

Master-Tier Toughness. At least.

The orc pointed a finger down. Shiv found himself pulled toward the ground by a crushing force as all the metal clumps on this body shuddered with force. The orc slammed into the Deathless, wrapping his entire hand around Shiv's body. Shiv brought an elbow down against the orc's forearm. A deafening sound of adamantine echoed through the world as a shockwave spread between them. 

The orc barely budged. “My turn,” the brute laughed.

An adamantine spike exploded out from under the Deathless, slamming right between his legs. Shiv hissed as pain exploded in a place he didn't much enjoy getting hit. But Adamantine Adaption made all of Shiv durable, so the hit just pissed him off more than anything. He cast a bone drill into the orc’s head as he blasted into the orc, driving them both through another collapsing building.

Shiv fed his anger into his Adamantine Adaption, and he spiked his gravity field another twenty times, letting it build as he held the orc’s arm in place with his gravitic field. Shiv’s skin tore. The orc unleashed a barrage of adamantine arrows at Shiv via his armor. Shiv discharged his Inertial Overdrive in response.

The blast wave was devastating; the air combusted, everything around him dissolved, and even the adamantine curved inward. The explosion shredded the orc's armor, and sent the brute flying backward. Shiv thought he had the orc dead to rights, so he charged after his adversary, seeking to end the orc for good or at least chop the horn from their head. Yet, as he accelerated, the orc’s armor turned to a mercury puddle and splattered on the ground. 

The horn atop the helmet was gone as well. Along with the orc.

Shiv blinked, confused, when suddenly an adamantine harpoon speared down from above, chipping a piece from his left shoulder. The force of the impact sent Shiv tumbling forward into a roll. He plowed through the concrete, tumbling head over heels several times before he finally stabilized himself with a downward spike of his gravity field. 

As he ground to a halt again, he looked up, and the orc descended on an adamantine platform, the same platform Shiv saw earlier, layered with focus crystals on the bottom. "You're not the only one with many tricks, Deathless," the orc said, waggling a finger. Behind the orc hovered a small arsenal of weapons: blades, hammers, arrows, spears, even whips. 

"I don't have time for this shit," Shiv muttered. “You mind doing me a favor and just killing yourself? I got a scouting run to finish and certain Vicar I need to figure out how to kill.”

The orc shook a finger. "Ah, but before that. I must see your measure. I am ever so curious about why the Challenger is interested in you. You bested one of my brethren, but many have done that as well. So why you?" The orc cocked its head at Shiv. "You aren’t even the most brutal human I’ve met. So why you?”

By this point, the entirety of the dome was shrouded with the miasma from the creeping void. Shiv also had his minor illusion active and his chameleon serving as an additional layer of stealth. The orc looked on in his general direction still. The damned gray-skinned beast seemed to know exactly where he was. Shiv wasn't sure how, but then he realized that it was probably the ground. 

Geomancer, Shiv thought, he can sense where I am from where I'm standing. Then, Shiv felt at the clumps of adamantine that were layered around his armor. He could probably feel that, too.

Shiv rose into the air, hovering slowly as he considered how to approach his enemy. The horn was harder than he expected to cut through, and the orc, well… The orc was an orc: cruel, intelligent, magically attuned with plenty of his own tricks.

Shiv thought back to his fight with 811 as he considered how he was going to solve this problem. If there was one thing common between orcs, it was that they loved picking fights. They loved coming after him over and over again. Shiv wondered how he could use that against this orc… 

Alright, so he's a Geomancer. His armor can be turned into liquid metal, can shape weapons from inside itself. He can apparently just vanish and reappear somewhere else—either as a gust of mist or using his metal… Wait, everything around me is adamantine. He's probably using that as some kind of close-range teleportation anchor. What kind Skill Fusion results let a Pathbearer do that? Agh. What I need to do is stop time and hit him with everything I have all at once. My maximum inertial detonation can damage adamantine. I just can’t give him a chance to run.

"You know," Shiv said, pointing his blade at the orc as he continued thinking about an easy solution to his orc problem, "I was kind of wondering how the ground turned to adamantine around me earlier. I also found it pretty strange how you guys kept finding me. I guess I have my answer now."

The orc let out a barking laugh. "Oh no, no. I always knew where you were. I didn't tell the others. I didn't want them to share in my fun. I wanted to see how you performed first. Them finding you is because you’re loud. And their Diviners are competent.”

"Performed?" Shiv said, the word leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. He wasn't here to be some orc's entertainment.

"Indeed," the orc continued on. "The way you blinked from place to place, exploiting both Chronomancy and Portomancy, was quite acceptable. And there's also how you kept leaving your bodies behind. Why, the Necrotechs are so very confused. And your speed... what speed. But it's a little too much for your body to endure, isn't it? Adamantine does have a breaking point. I know better than most."

Shiv glared silently at the orc. "Alright, I let you flap your lips. You’re clearly very smart and perceptive. Any chance you're just gonna piss off and let me out now?"

The orc chuckled. "Why in such a hurry to leave? You need to impress me, after all."

"Impress you?"

"Yes," the orc said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I'm here for more reason than one. One is for my own pleasure. The other... well, if my god, the Challenger, is to grant you an audience and to loan my brethren to your cause..."

"Shit," Shiv muttered under his breath. “Seriously?”

"Of course. The Challenger wants this. Nothing comes for free, you know this, oh Bruiser. The Challenger is more than willing to loan you some of my brothers to see this made into a proper war. But… to be respected by my kind, you need to kill a Master-Tier orc at the least. Think you can do it?”

"And what makes you think I'm going to accept the Challenger’s offer? What makes you think I even want it?" Shiv asked.

The orc shook his head and sighed. "Now, you're smarter than that. You're petulant. I can hear the bitterness, the scorn in your voice. It’s even in the way you fight. You try to dominate and break things. Because the world tries to dominate and break you. A poor habit. Do your best to lose it." The orc leaned in slightly, and somehow he knew exactly where Shiv was, thanks to the clumps of adamantine covering Shiv's armor. "You are a Pathbearer. You have the potential to be a proper killer. So let go of the child inside. Sink your teeth into the present, and do things for purpose. For effect. Not spite. What use is spite?”

Once more, Shiv was reminded why the orcs unnerved him so much. It wasn't even the brutality, it wasn't the casual cruelty, it wasn't their power. No, it was the fact they were too perceptive. They were like a race of ideal serial killers. But despite everything, the orc was right; Shiv did betray too much in his words.

That, and the advice was… Well, shit, it wasn’t bad.

"I know you're going to accept the offer, because what other choice do you have? Mercenaries?" The orc said. "They're not coming, not that fast. We both know it will take time for someone to agree to a contract. And indeed, the amount of money you will need to hire an entire army capable of contending against the Vicar... well." The orc's voice took on an amused tone. "Tell me, how many mithril ingots do you have? How much treasure do you possess? For I was given over a hundred tons of mithril by the Vicar. A hundred tons! Do you have a hundred tons? Do you even have enough money to retain my services, the services of even a Master?”

Shiv was pretty sure they didn't have a hundred tons, and that was an ugly thing. Shiv didn't know how the vicar had that much money, when Confriga had jack shit in comparison. 

I guess that's another difference between being a Legend and a Hero. Legends are godsdamn rich. But then again, Sullen is a Vicar, while Confriga was a felling moron.

"Ah, the silence. The deafening silence reveals to me all I need to know. You do not wish this. You are reluctant. But you know this is for the best. You're going to need my kind, because there is no better option." And then the orc held out a hand, and one weapon among the arsenal hovering behind him slid into his palm. It wasn't the weapon Shiv would have expected the orc to wield either. A long, thin rapier gleaming with the light of the sun settled into the orc’s grasp. 

"Stellarite," Shiv muttered. 

"I suppose that girl of yours could potentially accept a bargain with the eldritch. But that's not a real army. That's not something she can control. It's like unleashing a hurricane onto a battlefield and expecting it to fight your enemy, and only your enemy. So understand now, this moment is no distraction. It is necessity. Perform well. Take my life from me if you can. The offering my god gives is dependent on this."

Something inside Shiv hardened. The last thoughts of just breaking the orc's horn and attempting an escape died. He was going to kill this thing. Not because he wanted to impress the Challenger. Just because he was annoyed by all the talking this orc was doing.

"So, then," the orc said as he flourished with his dainty blade. “Have at thee.” And then it blasted forward atop his platform. 

But Shiv had learned a few things from his fight with 811. The first being to mind your enemy’s skills. He ejected his own bone armor and cast away the orc’s adamantine clumps with it. Shiv shot upward while he cast a corpse down from his cape. It struck the ground. The orc chased after Shiv's broken armor, and his rapier flashed with light. The orc vanished. 

He blinked across space with every thrust, and he speared through Shiv's armor, stabbing every point that had a clump of adamantine molded onto it. When he was done, he plunged his blade into the corpse Shiv cast out as well. The body jerked and shuddered. Shiv hovered above the orc, studying the beast’s capabilities. The rapier left small holes in both the corpse and the armor, and it took three stabs on average to pierce through. 

The bigger problem was how the orc vanished between stabs—reappeared inside the target. That, and the orc seemed skilled, much better with a blade than Shiv was. He could tell that in the fluidity of their movements. 

Slower than me by more than a bit, though. Master-Tier.

Shiv extended his Skysplitter. The blade grew to a hundred meters. It speared out towards the orc and impacted his armor. The orc let out a surprised cry, but then the armor splashed into a puddle of mercury, and the orc was gone again.

The Deathless sighed. And there’s that bullshit again.

Shiv swung around, trying to find where the orc was, only for a ripple to pass through the surrounding dome. Shiv's eyes widened as the orc's voice filled the area. "Well, well. You're smart enough to use your stealth instead. My compliments for controlling your ego. Alas, there is a part of the battle you ceded to be already: Behold, a lesson in zone control!"

As soon as the orc said that, a hailstorm of hyper-accelerated adamantium began to shoot out from the dome. The surface of the curving adamantium walls flung out blade after blade, and they leaped down like raindrops bursting free from the surface of a pond. There were too many to dodge—they came too fast.

Shiv triggered his Chronomancy in lieu of his Outside Context Problem. The hailstorm halted in place. But then came rippling tide of Chronomantic energy from directly above. 

"There," Shiv muttered, as he spotted a patch of the dome that glowed with gold and dimensional black. That was probably where the orc was hidden—either within the metal or behind it. “How the hells am I going to get to him?”

As the golden tide came close, Shiv prepared to drop his temporal shell to spike his Inertial Overdrive to try and displace the incoming hits with a discharge. Something made Shiv hesitate. He considered something. All wardings were a bit like a specific type of Magical Resistance. And they were magical fields. The Magebreaker worked against anything with a Magical Field. 

Shiv let his intuition guide him. He slammed his left fist into the oncoming tide of gold, and a shuddering impact followed. His Magebreaker vibrated violently, but Shiv palmed the wave of Chronomancy and pawed it off to his side. His Frictionless Vector triggered, and it slid off at an angle and missed him entirely. "Yes!" Shiv snarled as he launched himself upward.

Frictionless Vector 62  > 63

He blasted up into the air, charging toward where the orc was. But then the second part of his problem followed. What was he supposed to do now? The orc was meshed in the metal. Alright. Time for a discharge. Let’s see where you’re hiding. 

Shiv spiked his Inertial Overdrive to the limit. His body came apart. He detonated his sheathe and saw a rupture form in the metal. He cast himself back in time—blocked another wave of Chronomancy, and detonated himself again. He repeated the sequence once more. By now, his temporal armor was nearly broken, but through the gap in the dome, Shiv saw—

Another dome. Another layer. It was another dome stacked over this dome.

Godsdammit, Shiv hissed internally. This orc was going to be an absolute nightmare to pin and kill. How many layers are there to this? How the hells am I supposed to get at him.

The orc’s wards glowed at the top of the next dome, and maybe the dome after that, and the one after that…

Just as Shiv was about to force his way out of the first dome and slam into the next layer of the adamantine onion he was trapped in, Shiv paused and thought. All that dragon-fighting had him introspective.

Shiv Psychology Skill triggered as he considered another set of solutions.

Orcs were cruel. Orcs enjoyed hurting a person. Shiv was overcomplicating this fight. In fact, ever since becoming a Pathbearer, he'd been a little too direct, too brutal. 

When he hunted lesser vampires, he learned their ways. He stalked them through the ruined buildings. He knew they were addicted to blood, and he knew they feared the light, feared the flame. There were things he could provoke them to do. Things reliable about their behavior.

The orcs were clever, but they were addicted to cruelty. And Shiv could exploit that.

Let’s bleed a little. See if we can lure him in close with some hurt and blood.

Immediately, he descended into the hailstorm of adamantine arrows. He let time resume, and took the hits dead on as he let his Creeping Void cease. His flesh was torn open. He exacerbated the cuts with his Biomancy. He snarled, trying to sell his pain. More adamantine shards punched into him, drilling through him.

Shiv twisted and writhed, over-exaggerating his wounds and pain as he lacerated himself with his Biomancy as well. He fell dramatically from the air, crashing and cracking the pavement.

Acting 12 > 13

Deception 8 > 9

"How disappointing," the orc called out. "I expected more. You flail, Bruiser. You twist and you writhe like a beast caught in a cage. Are you nothing more than a bear in a bear trap?"

At that statement, innermost dome suddenly blasted across the land and clamped down around Shiv. Its weight was massive, and it held him in place. The breath was driven from his lungs. Then, he hissed as needles extended from the adamantine cave-in that held him. He aws getting ripped apart for good this way. Maybe it wasn’t wise to—

Shiv hid a smirk behind a grimace as the Orc descended from the second dome above him. The orc hovered above Shiv on that platform created from adamantine and focus crystals. He lifted his faceplate again, and he sighed at the sight of Shiv. "This is pathetic," the orc sighed. "I didn't realize that you were such a simple animal, so straightforward in all your dealings. How you managed to kill another like me, I do not know." The orc held his rapier high. "I suppose the Challenger will be spared of any unworthy arrangements. I am disappointed.”

Shiv spat a mouthful of blood and finally grinned. “Yeah? So am I. But I guess even all that intellect can’t stop you from being a slave to cruelty.”

The orc paused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you can’t help it, can you? You have to come close and kill me yourself. To do it slowly with your blade.”

The orc’s eyes snapped to his blade, and he realized something was wrong. “You—”

Shiv froze time again. He spiked his Inertial Overdrive 40 times in quick succession and discharged. Everything below Shiv’s stomach turned into ropes of gore. The adamantine around him ruptured. Then came a Chronomantic ripple from the orc’s wards. A ripple Shiv barely managed to parry with a backhand from his Magebreaker. The Deathless nearly blacked out, but the Song of the Vigilant was still running—it let him cast a Woundeater on himself.

He shot out the deformed adamantine cage and left a corpse behind via his cape. Shiv deflected another ripple of Chronomancy, and then he turned his Biomancy on the body. He struck it with laceration after laceration, ripping it asunder, before finally triggering Outside Context Problem and letting time resume.

He twisted through the air and got behind the orc. 

The orc blinked forward, stabbing through the open mouth of Shiv’s newly placed corpse. But then, as the orc stared at the body, he frowned. "Who is this?" the orc muttered.

The answer came in the form of a falling blade of epic size. Shiv made the Skysplitter grow, grow to 300 meters, and he brought it down on the orc with all his might. Just as he slammed it against the orc, he paused time again. The fractured temporal shell cracked around him. Once more, he parried the temporal warding. His Magebreaker cracked. 

Shiv wasn’t done. 

He spiked himself 50 times over. His body dissolved into paste. He created another Woundeater and fed it well before unleashing both into the orc. Twin mana explosions joined the inertial discharge, and then Shiv reverted time to a second ago, to the moment he struck the orc with his sword, and repeated the actions one more time. A third mana blast spread out, a bright blossom of red joining the others, and a new inertial discharge exploded beside the orc.

Woundeater 86 > 87

Strider of the Unbending Path 129 > 130

Inertial Overdrive 111 > 112

Gravitic Wrestler 142 > 143

Shiv's temporal shell finally broke. It broke, and he was blasted back by his own discharge, flung through the air until he was hammered against the second layer of the adamantine dome. Flame and pressure pinned him in place, and despite how much he struggled with his gravitic field, he couldn't overcome the tides of destruction. 

Shiv felt his body burn, his skin boiled, his eardrums burst. As the blast waves finally swept across him and dissipated, he shaped a Woundeater again and removed his injuries. He got his blade up, prepared to face the orc in case the brute was still alive. 

As the burning oxygen in the air faded to embers, he saw the towering shape of the beast just standing over the corpse decoy Shiv left behind. The rapier was still lodged in his corpse's head. The orc was unmoving.

Shiv's heart skipped a beat. Don't tell me that didn't do anything to him. Shiv drew in a long, shuddering breath as he clenched his fists. Alright, maybe that failed. Time to try a new... 

The orc unceremoniously toppled over. Shiv stared. As the orc's body rolled across the devastated crater, Shiv saw a pool of liquefied red viscera spill out from the orc’s open faceplate. Parts of his adamantine armor had also been rent asunder. Gore poured free from there in ropey sinews of red, as well.

This time, the orc didn't manage to escape him. This time, he hit the orc dead on, and they paid for it with their life.

The Challenger is amused.

Slowly, a chuckle escaped Shiv. He looked down at the body. "Hey, asshole," he mocked orc post-mortem. "You think you knew my nature? Well, I knew yours better. Guess that makes me the only proper killer between us." 

Then he spat on the orc and promptly speared down into the ground, blasting through the earth to escape the dome. He had a scouting run to finish.