-0-
The Prince of the Ogres, Benimaru, blocked another Orc's club with his flaming katana and retaliated with a slash that bisected his opponent. His breathing was ragged, his movements slower than they'd been an hour ago. Around him, his people were dying.
"Prince Benimaru!" The old ogre advisor, his father's most trusted retainer, fought his way to the prince's side. Blood—both red and the dark ichor of Orcs—covered his aged frame. "You and Princess Shuna must retreat! Now!"
"I won't abandon our people!" Benimaru snarled, flames erupting along his blade as he cut down two more Orcs.
Princess Shuna stood nearby, her elegant form surrounded by swirling wind barriers that deflected attacks. Her pink hair was matted with dirt and blood, her face pale with exhaustion. "Brother, we can't hold them!"
Hakurou, the old swordmaster, appeared in a blur of motion, his blade ending three Orc lives in a single flowing sequence. "Young lord, you're being foolish! You and the princess are the future of the Ogre Clan. If you die here, everything dies with you!"
Another of the elite warriors—Shion, the purple-haired berserker—crushed an Orc's skull with her bare hands before turning to Benimaru. "The old man's right! We can hold them off while you run!"
Benimaru's jaw clenched. Every instinct screamed at him to stay and fight, to die with honor alongside his warriors. But his duty was to his sister, to the survivors, to the future of their clan.
"Fine," he said, the word bitter as ash. "Shuna, we—"
A whistling sound cut through the air.
Everyone—Ogre and Orc alike—looked up.
The sky had darkened. Not with clouds, but with something else. A rain of crimson thorns, each one the size of a spear, falling from above like divine judgment.
They struck with surgical precision.
The Orcs screamed. Hundreds of them, perforated instantly by the blood thorns that punched through armor and flesh like they were paper. The thorns found every Orc in the village center—and not a single Ogre. Bodies fell in waves, the attacking force cut in half in seconds.
The remaining Orcs stumbled back, their mindless assault faltering for the first time.
Benimaru stared at the carnage, his katana lowering. "What in the—"
The sky darkened further. The sun disappeared behind something massive, something that radiated power so overwhelming that even the air seemed to thicken.
A blood-red sun hung in the sky where the actual sun had been moments before. No—not a sun. A sphere of condensed power, pulsing with malevolent energy.
Then the pressure hit.
It rolled out from the blood sphere like a physical wave. Ogres and Orcs alike were driven to their knees. Benimaru's legs buckled, his pride unable to hold him upright against the sheer weight of the presence above them. Shuna gasped, falling to all fours. Even Hakurou, the legendary swordmaster, was forced down.
The blood sphere began to descend, and as it did, it took shape.
Wings spread first—massive draconic appendages formed from crystallized blood and crackling red lightning. Then a body, humanoid but radiating an aura of absolute dominance. Crimson eyes that burned like dying stars. And in one hand, a weapon that made the dryad clinging to his tentacles immediately faint from proximity alone.
A scythe. Seven feet of crimson and black metal, covered in runes that seemed to drink in the light around them. Just looking at it felt like staring into the concept of death itself.
Thanatos descended slowly, deliberately, his wings beating with lazy power. His voice, when he spoke, carried across the entire valley with supernatural clarity.
"Orcs."
The word was spoken calmly, almost conversationally, but it contained an undercurrent of absolute authority.
"Why do you not kneel before your lord?"
The pressure intensified. Every Ogre was already on the ground, foreheads pressed to the dirt. But the Orcs remained standing—trembling, terrified, but standing.
[Master, analysis complete. The Orcs are being influenced by an external force. Specifically, a hunger curse that overrides their natural monster instincts. This is preventing Monster Sovereign from affecting them properly.]
"A curse?" Thanatos thought back. "Explain."
[The Orc Lord has consumed a unique monster and inherited a cursed skill: Starved Ones. It drives all Orcs under his command into a state of perpetual hunger, making them fearless and relentless but also severing their connection to normal monster hierarchies. They cannot recognize you as their sovereign because their instincts have been corrupted.]
One of the Orc Generals—a massive brute wielding a spiked club—stepped forward. It roared, the sound containing more defiance than intelligence, and charged directly at Thanatos.
Benimaru, still pinned to the ground by the pressure, watched in disbelief. That Orc was committing suicide.
Thanatos tilted his head, studying the charging Orc with clinical detachment. "Defective," he murmured. "They remind me of ghouls who lost control. Consumed by hunger, unable to think, unable to stop."
[Accurate assessment, Master. These Orcs have degraded into consumption-driven entities. They no longer qualify as functioning members of a monster society.]
"Then I don't need them in my kingdom."
Nor was there a need to use Predator on such creatures.
Thus, Thanatos raised his scythe. The weapon began to glow, black energy radiating from the blade like smoke. The runes covering its surface pulsed with dark power.
The Orc General leaped, impossibly high, its club raised to strike. For a moment, it seemed like it might actually reach Thanatos—
Then Thanatos swung.
The scythe cut through the air in a horizontal arc. A blade of pure black energy, easily fifty feet wide, erupted from the weapon. It moved faster than the eye could track, washing over the Orc General, through the remaining Orc horde, and into the valley floor beyond.
The Orc General had just enough time to think "oh shit" before the black energy passed through it.
Then everything went silent.
The valley floor split. A massive chasm, easily a hundred feet deep and a quarter mile long, appeared where the energy blade had struck. The Orc bodies didn't explode or burn—they simply ceased to exist, unmade by the death energy that had touched them.
The Ogre village behind them disintegrated. Buildings, walls, everything in the path of the attack was scoured away, leaving only the bare valley floor.
The Ogres should have died too.
Except they were surrounded by perfect spheres of crystallized blood, each one containing one or more Ogres in complete safety. The death energy washed over the spheres harmlessly, leaving the occupants untouched.
When the attack ended, the blood spheres cracked and dissolved, flowing back through the air as liquid streams that converged on Thanatos. He absorbed them back into his body as casually as someone putting away a tool.
Silence. Complete, absolute silence.
Benimaru stared at the chasm. At the place where a thousand Orcs had been standing moments before. At the devastated valley that had been his home.
"Don't even think about fighting," the old advisor whispered, his voice barely audible. "That... that thing just erased an army with a single swing. We couldn't scratch him if we tried."
Thanatos descended the rest of the way, landing softly on the ground. The oppressive pressure remained, though slightly diminished. He walked toward the Ogres with unhurried steps, his crimson eyes scanning them with clinical interest.
Benimaru's warrior instincts screamed at him to draw his sword, to defend his sister and his people. But his survival instincts—honed through countless battles—told him the truth.
They weren't opponents. They were insects, and this being could crush them without effort.
The prince made his decision.
Benimaru stepped forward, his legs shaking from the pressure but his movements deliberate. He dropped to one knee, his head bowed. "Everyone, kneel! Now!"
The other Ogres followed his example immediately. Shuna knelt gracefully despite her exhaustion. Hakurou bowed his head with the dignity of a master acknowledging a greater power. Shion and the other warriors prostrated themselves fully.
"Thank you," Benimaru said, his voice steady despite the terror coursing through him. "Thank you for saving our lives. May I... may I ask how we should address our savior?"
Thanatos stopped a few feet away. His draconic wings folded back into his body, dissolving into streams of blood. The scythe in his hand vanished into crimson mist. His appearance shifted, becoming less overwhelming—still intimidating, but no longer reality-warping in its intensity.
"Thanatos," he said simply. "Lord of the Jura Forest."
The title carried weight beyond just words. It was a declaration, a claim, and a warning all at once.
Benimaru nodded, not daring to look up. "Lord Thanatos. We are in your debt."
Thanatos looked past the Ogres at the devastated valley. A thick miasma of death energy hung in the air, seeping into the ground. Nothing would grow here for years, maybe decades. The Death's Scythe skill had been far more powerful than he'd anticipated.
"Your village is uninhabitable now," Thanatos said, his tone matter-of-fact. "As compensation, head west to the goblin settlement. Tell the slime there that I sent you. He'll provide shelter and resources."
"A... slime, my lord?" Shuna asked hesitantly.
"His name is Rimuru Tempest. He manages the settlement under my authority." Thanatos turned to walk away, then paused. "Oh, and take this with you."
He casually tossed the unconscious dryad toward the Ogres. Benimaru caught her reflexively, nearly dropping her when he felt how light she was.
"She'll show you the way when she wakes up," Thanatos said.
His wings erupted from his back once more, spreading wide. Red lightning crackled along his body as he prepared to launch.
"Great Sage, where's the next large Orc concentration?"
[Scanning... Multiple groups detected. Largest concentration: 3,000 Orcs, 15 kilometers northeast. Secondary concentration: 1,800 Orcs, 22 kilometers east. Tertiary concentration: 2,400 Orcs, 31 kilometers southeast.]
"Mark them all. We're cleaning house today."
[Acknowledged. Optimal flight path calculated. Estimated time to complete extermination of all major Orc forces: 4.7 hours.]
Thanatos shot into the sky with explosive force, leaving a sonic boom and a blood-colored contrail in his wake. Within seconds, he was a distant red streak disappearing over the mountains.
The Ogres remained kneeling until they were certain he was gone.
Finally, Benimaru stood on shaking legs. He looked at his sister, at Hakurou, at the survivors of his clan. Then at the chasm that had once been the center of their village.
"What... what was that?" Shion whispered.
"That," Hakurou said quietly, "was a Catastrophe-class monster. Possibly stronger. I've lived three hundred years and never encountered anything like it."
Shuna cradled the unconscious dryad gently. "He saved us. But he also destroyed our home."
"As a side effect of destroying our enemies," Benimaru corrected. "He didn't even try to kill us. That attack was precise enough to protect every Ogre while annihilating every Orc." He sheathed his katana with hands that still trembled slightly. "That level of control while wielding that much power... he's no mindless monster."
The old advisor cleared his throat. "What do we do, Prince Benimaru?"
Benimaru looked west, toward where this "goblin settlement" supposedly lay. Then at his people—the three hundred survivors of a clan that had numbered in the thousands just this morning.
"We follow Lord Thanatos's instructions," he said firmly. "We go to this slime's village. We rebuild. And we swear loyalty to the one who saved us."
"Are you certain, my prince?" Hakurou asked.
"I am." Benimaru's eyes hardened with determination. "Because that being just casually erased an army that was slaughtering us. If he wanted us dead, we'd be dead. Instead, he saved us and gave us a new home. That's more than any Demon Lord has ever done for our kind."
He turned to address the survivors. "Gather what you can carry! We march within the hour!"
As the Ogres began to move, preparing for their journey west, none of them noticed the faint red glow that pulsed from the chasm Thanatos had created.
Deep below, in the place where a thousand Orcs had ceased to exist, something dark and ancient stirred. The death energy had seeped into the earth, and the earth was responding.
But that was a problem for another day.
For now, the Ogres had a new lord, whether they fully understood what that meant or not.
And in the sky above, a crimson streak moved from horde to horde, systematically dismantling an invasion before it could truly begin.
The Jura Forest had a protector now.
And he was very, very efficient at his job.