Leopold felt his aura boil, his muscles pulse—each breath stoked not just by physical exertion, but by a fevered exhilaration. There was clarity in the chase, a razor-edged focus that burned away doubt. Rage, yes—but also joy. Detached, near euphoric. In this moment, he was not a man. He was purpose incarnate. He followed. The chaos behind him faded.
He ran—not like a man, but like a beast infused with magic, driven by a fevered clarity that blurred all else. His breath surged in rhythm with the pounding of his heart, his senses sharpened to unnatural acuity. Leopold wasn't simply chasing prey—he was becoming the very storm he unleashed. His emotions coiled tight: exhilaration wrapped in ice, detachment masked by fire. Hunger, yes—but beneath it, something colder. Purpose without empathy. Focus without hesitation. This was his element, and in it, he was divine. Driven by a hunger that had no name and no mercy, his mind hollow with focus, his limbs moving with terrifying precision, tearing through roots and underbrush, leaping over slick stones, each step a blur of speed and violent intent. A predator set loose. His breath came ragged with excitement, not exhaustion. The dead men, the screams, the blood—they became background noise. All he saw was the monster. All he wanted was the orc woman.
He never asked himself why. Killing was what he did best. Not out of duty or honor—but hunger. Hunger for dominance, for violence. And behind the rush—silence. A void. He lacked purpose. He chased blood to outrun it.
There—the cliff.
She stood cornered, the Ironhide's maw open, hooves scraping stone.
Leopold roared and leapt. His sword struck the beast's flank. It bellowed and hurled him into the rock wall. Pain erupted in his chest. Blood filled his mouth.
The orc woman seized the opening. She climbed the beast, stabbing—again and again. It threw her off and rammed into Leopold. With the last of his strength, he drove his sword into its throat. The Ironhide gurgled, collapsed, blood gushing in thick torrents.
Leopold stood, panting, trembling. He turned to the orc woman, face a mask of rage and blood.
"You've got no chance, woman. This is the moment when they always beg."
His voice was ice. His eyes glowed. He glanced down—and swore. Blood soaked his side where the beast's horn had torn through him. A deep wound gaped beneath his ribs, pulsing with pain and leaking heat. "Shit... the thing got me," he muttered, teeth gritted, one hand pressing against the torn leather and slick skin, trying to gauge just how bad it was.
The orc woman lunged, movements fierce and fluid. In her eyes: pride, defiance—and something more. A wildness not just born of rage, but of legacy. She surged forward, her exhaustion forgotten. Pain vanished, as if consumed by the fire surging through her veins—whether born of adrenaline, magic, or memory, even she couldn't tell.
She collided with him. Fists struck. Elbows clashed. Her roar echoed off the cliff walls. And for a breath, he tasted not just her strength—but the will of a people.
Her knee connected with his ribs. Pain lanced through him. His vision blurred. Yet even through the haze, he saw her—feral, magnificent, terrifying.
This wasn't just a fight. It was a declaration.
She didn't fight out of duty or fear, but from a fire that reached beyond the present moment—an echo of ancestral defiance and a raw, unyielding pride. Her breath came in rhythm with the war songs of her bloodline. She wasn't just resisting—she was answering something ancient within her. To her, this wasn't a battle. It was remembrance. It was prophecy. A war danced into muscle and bone, shaped by generations that had bled for survival and honor. And in this blood-soaked instant, that legacy surged through her fists and made her more than equal. It made her inevitable. In that moment, a thought passed through her mind: Is this the man who can defeat me? What irony, that it would not be an orc, but him.
They fought—wild and raw, no longer warriors but elemental forces colliding. Each blow landed with the weight of bloodlines and buried hatred, each parry sparking from desperation and defiance. Gor'ka's muscles remembered the chants of her ancestors, the rhythm of war drums echoing in her pulse. She moved with a strength that seemed impossible given her wounds—each motion fueled not just by rage, but by something older, deeper. Her Corpus level was likely close to III, rivaling seasoned commanders, but even that couldn't fully explain the way she matched him.
Leopold, though superior in brute power, found himself met strike for strike. It caught him off guard—not her strength, but the precision of it. For a moment, he doubted. She shouldn't be able to match him. And yet, blow for blow, she answered every movement. Somewhere in the back of his mind, buried beneath the battle-rush, a thought rose: What are you? His attacks landed, but never clean. Her instincts were unnatural, refined by generations of ritual combat and the brutal education of exile. His body struck with brutal precision—his mind silent, but his body speaking an ancient language of power and annihilation. And yet, she understood that language. Read it. Answered it. Her bloodied fists and sharpened will closed the gap between them.
He should have overpowered her—he knew it. Yet something in her movements, her breath, her timing, made her feel... equal. She was not just fighting him. She was echoing him. Reflecting him. Like a twin born from another war.
Their movements blurred, sweat and blood mingling, breath coming in gasps, snarls, and curses. No strategy. No mercy. Only survival. Only the need to win, because the one who fell first would not rise again.
Then—a final rasp.
The Ironhide stirred—a low, shuddering breath rattling through its blood-matted chest. Though its body lay broken, its eyes still burned with feral clarity. Was it vengeance? Or blind instinct? No one could say—but the will behind it was undeniable, a final surge of dying defiance.
It reared and hurled its broken body at the fighting pair.
The ground groaned.
Leopold and the orc woman locked eyes—a heartbeat of shared understanding, more than just a moment of recognition. It was a pause in the storm, a raw, unspoken knowing that neither could deny. In that flicker of time, rage and pride gave way to something deeper—acknowledgment. He saw in her not an enemy, but a mirror of will. And she saw in him not a monster, but a force she had always been destined to meet. In the stillness before the fall, their connection felt carved in blood and fire—a brief eternity suspended on the edge of ruin. They would fall.
A flicker of fear—or surprise—crossed Leopold's face.
The cliff gave way.
And all three plunged—into the depths.