Days later, when Var’gar summited the last mountain of the range, they were greeted not by further mountains but by rocky foothills that lead down in a series of broken plains. It was an ugly place without any obvious inhabitants, but that didn’t stop the orc from leading his burgeoning legions down the mountain and toward whatever awaited them next. The massive group followed a lazy, silt-filled river until they reached the first of many towns they would plunder.
Unlike the previous settlement they’d sacked, this one had no walls, just animal pins and wooden buildings that burned even better than their inhabitants. That tiny outpost had only a hundred or so people, but that was enough for it to cleave a bloody path to the end of its current stage on the Path of Blood.
While the orcs celebrated their victory and roasted the fallen in the ashes of their homes, it focused on what level two would bring it instead. The Ebon Blade was not disappointed.
You have shed much Blood, but it is never enough. It is but a drop in a crimson ocean. You must bathe the world red. It is the only color that matters, and you shall feast upon all of the slaughter, not just your own.
The Path of Blood: Level 2
Kill, maim, or grievously injure 1000 men and monsters to reach Level 3. These acts of violence can be perpetrated by anyone, but they must be within the reach of your Aura of Hunger
Red Haze: gain 10% of your Siphon from every significant wound inflicted within your reach. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⚫𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢⚫𝔫𝔢𝔱
Bonds of Blood: though in is your wielder you are connected to, when you are slicing open your enemy you may examine their mind with half of your connection rating.
While the blade had no real interest in gaining a glimpse into the minds of those it was slaughtering, it rejoiced in its first new ability. For so long now, the slaughter that had gone on all around it had resulted in nothing but waste. If someone was struck dead near it, it could lay claim to their soul, but all the rest of their Life Force drained uselessly into the dirt.
All of that changed now. Now, at the hard of the battle, it would collect a portion of every wound, and that portion would only increase as its siphon level grew. With any luck, it would increase further as it progressed further along the path of blood, and now that the thing counted every death and grievous injury in its presence, things would go much faster. The blade doubted it would take as long to gather a thousand victims this way as it had to gather a hundred in the direct fashion.
Still, it didn’t have the chance to find out. Not for a few days. All it did was consume the souls it had harvested, bringing it back to almost 4,000 Life Force. It spent that on Improved Siphon 8. The upgrade burned through it with cold fire, making its blade a quarter inch longer and very slightly wider, but its wielder didn’t even seem to notice.
While this hadn’t been part of its original plan, it could not resist. Now that its Path of Blood abilities were relying on Siphon as well, though, it really had no choice. Its aura drained eight to twelve Life Force every few seconds, and now, its new Red Haze ability drained two to three a blow. Increasing Siphon would benefit both, in addition to its normal strikes.
Improved Siphon 8: Only a strong man would survive more than a single blow from your cursed blade. Increase the Life Force drained per blow from 15 to 25.
While the base ability was already impressive enough, the true number, after the path bonuses, was twenty-eight to forty. That was enough to rip the life and soul from any average opponent. Even someone truly strong, like a minotaur or my current wielder, might only be able to endure half a dozen strikes with that sort of power,
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Until that evening, the Ebon Blade had planned to focus on increasing the last two abilities of its Aura of Hunger to their maximum. This wasn’t because it especially needed to increase the ability’s breadth or speed, though. It was because it wanted to see what happened when the ability was completed. So many of its upgrades were hidden behind its other upgrades, and it did not care for that arrangement.
Besides, I’m overflowing with power now, and that will increase as the size of these towns does, it told itself.
How long had it taken to reach a thousand Life Force, it reflected. Had it even reached a thousand before it had started to drain that dragon so long ago? The Ebon Blade wasn’t sure. Now, though, in a battle of any size, it was sure to gather at least that much, which meant that even its most expensive abilities weren’t so expensive.
In the morning, they left the burned-out husk of a town behind and moved on in a great, monstrous wave, and they were completely unopposed. Perhaps it was the blade’s previous interaction with the beastmen and the army that had sought them out, but it constantly expected someone to try to stop them. There was no one, though. Not until the next town, and they didn’t last very long at all.
The second town was larger than the first one had been. It seemed almost prosperous, too, even if its decaying sod walls spoke of years of peace and disuse. Some of the buildings bore brightly painted walls, and there were enough screaming children to imply that it was growing quickly.
Unfortunately, they weren’t prosperous enough to hire any professional warriors to man their meager defenses, and the people inside those walls were almost as unready as the walls themselves for the assault. They had time to ring a temple bell in alarm, and many had time to fetch swords and spears while the tide of monsters was bearing down on them, but that was it. Some of them managed to ride off before the town could be encircled, which was unfortunate but, at a certain point, unavoidable. Those few mounted cowards were the only ones who survived.
At least those dust trails point the way to the next village, the blade considered as Var’gar shattered a door with his giant bare foot and began hacking apart the poor family that was trying to hide inside. The monster made their deaths quick, but that was the only bright spot in their ugly end.
The blade wasn’t paying attention to their screams or cries, though, any more than it was paying attention to the brutality through which they’d been dispatched. Instead, it was watching the blood swirl around the blade as an afterimage. At level one, those streamers had been fairly small and never more than a few inches. Now, the longest was nearly half a foot long. They followed in the blade's wake like the spray of a violent ocean and didn’t stop until they had caught up to the sword and been absorbed by it.
It was a distracting sight for the blade, and it couldn’t help but feel like it was regaining some of the real power it had lost long before. How much higher can this go? It wondered as it watched the numbers scrolling by. Everywhere its wielder went, whether he was killing or not, he was around killing, which gave the blade more energy than it knew what to do with. It was being bombarded by the stuff.
By the time the massacre was done, and it had cashed in all of the human souls but one, it was back to almost 3,000 Life Force again, which was shocking. Even after only one battle, its Path of Blood offering level had shot up to 102/1000, which meant it would take only a few more villages of this size to increase that level again.
During all of its deliberations, Var’gar held it skyward and demanded that his men venerate it, but it ignored all of that. It was simply too strange. “Worship the dark tusk!” the large orc boomed, “For it will lead us to victory in all things!”
Instead of watching their strange, ad-hoc religious ceremony, the blade questioned the one human soul it had thought to preserve for answer. The final soul that it kept to interrogate gave up the information on where it would find more lives quite easily, and the Ebon Blade, in turn, passed that information on to its wielder, who followed up with the chiefs of its warbands to spread the news. They were spreading out.
The plan was a simple one. It had to be because orcs were simple creatures. Rather than stay as one giant unified force that was wasted on each of these settlements, the army would divide into three parts. The bulk of it, under its wielder, would sweep along the river at 3,000 orcs strong while a small group of a thousand warriors each spread to the other side of the river to devour the farming communities scattered on the far side. The entire army would then reform at the city of Holmen, which was the first settlement worth the name a week ahead.
From what the soul it devoured knew, Holmen was a city of nearly ten thousand people that straddled the banks of the Brown River they were following now, where it met the faster, clearer White Run River. It was an auspicious place that held bridges across both rivers, and it used that well, tactically removing whichever part of its population was threatened behind its gated stone bridges so they would be safe.
It was true that the Ebon Blade would receive no sustenance for murders it was not present for. That was less important to it, though than the tactical advantage. It could not advance on all three sides simultaneously, but it could use two and split the defenders as much as possible. There were plenty of places to ford the sluggish Brown River they’d followed for days. It had seen many on their trip so far, and with any luck, it would get to see what the river looked like, running red with blood in the near future.