Chapter 470: Clash of the Strongest

Seeing their vanguard nearly wiped out, the orc commanders had no choice but to retreat from near the fortress with their remaining troops, waiting for the main army to arrive before making further plans.!
In contrast, the humans suffered no losses at all, maintaining high stamina throughout and possessing an overwhelming momentum.
If this continued, the outcome of the orcish war seemed rather bleak.
The orcish leaders, who were among the strongest, were certainly not fools; they wouldn’t rashly order their warriors to charge headlong. This situation could only be resolved through superior military force.
No matter how many warriors they had, they wouldn’t be enough to defeat those human strongmen. A single large-scale Level 5 spell could kill hundreds, not to mention those earth-shattering strategic spells!
Unfortunately, although orcs had a larger population base than the Selts—being the second-largest race in the main world—while the Selts were just one kingdom within the human faction with a relatively small population—orcish deficiencies in wisdom and comprehension led to a severe lack of high-level military strength.
Among the five human kingdoms, Gadré, with its largest population of a million, had nearly twenty gold-tier strongmen, averaging two per hundred thousand people—though this wasn’t absolute, as kingdoms like Polin and Selts, with smaller populations but many elites, were exceptions.
Orcs, meanwhile, remained below five million in number. Before the dictator Ughesh revived, there were only eight gold-tier strongmen among them. In other words, excluding legendary strongmen, just the power of Gadré alone could almost certainly eradicate the orc race.
Yet orcs’ terror lay in their far more brutal and strong physiques, as well as their beast-like reproductive capacity.
Unless a demi-god was willing to risk backlash from the plane of existence and bear the cost of being excluded by the main world’s rules to eliminate all orcs in a single period, as long as a small group of orcs survived, they could grow to a million again within a decade!
The situation at hand was precisely that their high-level military strength lagged far behind that of the humans. Thus, the orc leaders had no choice but to turn to the True God of Orcs hidden behind their army.
By evening, all orc forces had gathered near the Holy Sword Fortress, where the main army began setting up camp five miles outside the fortress.

After a short while, two dark golden glows rose from the orc camp. It was as if two setting suns suddenly appeared in the western sky.

Unable to bear the losses from attacking the human fortress after deploying an army of a hundred thousand, the orcs summoned their true gods. Naturally, Charles and Donald would not stand idly by; two glows—one silver-white and one emerald green—rose from the human fortress, firmly countering the dark golden light.

After a brief clash, both sides restrained their power, and the strange phenomena in the sky disappeared. It seemed the first round between the true gods was evenly matched.

Each true god activated their domain, meeting in a realm invisible to the mortals beneath them.

“Orc true gods, you have invaded the sacred lands of the Celts—do you intend to spark a war among gods?”

As the invaded party, the Celts, and as the rulers of the land, the King of the North had every right to condemn them.

“Human true gods, we are fulfilling the prophecy of the great Ughash, avenging the crimes committed by you human true gods. Those who understand should retreat willingly; otherwise, destruction awaits!”

Speaking was Karla, the Orc God of Birth. This true god, standing 25 feet tall, had a relatively peaceful appearance, not as ferocious as typical orcs. He was equally strong but appeared somewhat androgynous. Of course, with his thick fur, ordinary humans could not tell much difference in appearance.

“What arrogance! Our greatest sin as humans is not having eradicated you orcs completely, allowing the evil and chaotic Ughash to rise again. If all you have to say is such nonsense, then shut up! It’s better to fight directly!”

Donald’s words enraged the other orc true god, but thankfully, Karla, the God of Birth, quickly pulled back his companion.

“Biger, have you forgotten His Majesty Ughash’s orders?”

Since the attack targeted the borders of both Gadré and Celt, each side had two newly risen orc true gods supporting them. On the Celt side were Biger, the Orc God of Plunder, and Karla, the God of Birth. On the Gadré side were Male, the God of Voodoo, and Sagum, the Orc God of Barbarity.

To be honest, with only two orc true gods on their side, both Charles and Donald felt much more at ease.

These orc true gods have all inherited the divine domains of the former deity Ughesh, coupled with the racial talents of orcs, which allows them to surpass ordinary true gods in terms of strength and advancement speed. This is also the main reason why the King of the North, as one of the rising gods, attaches great importance to these orc true gods. However, only two out of the four expected arrived. With divine weapons at their disposal, Donald and his companions saw no doubt in their victory. The fear of the dictator outweighed the rage of the orc god of plunder, Biggle, who though still glaring angrily at Donald and the two human true gods, refrained from acting impulsively. Just from the name of the god of plunder, one could tell how aggressive and combative he was. After calming Biggle down, Kara immediately responded to Donald’s words. “In your human terms, what’s the use of just talking big? Your Celts are few in number—will you even be able to withstand several attacks from our orc army?” Donald, of course, wouldn’t back down. “Perfect timing—we Celts are in need of fertilizer for spring plowing. No matter how many orcs come, as many will be buried!” The King of the North, impatient with this back-and-forth, interrupted their verbal battle and said, “Enough! Let’s get straight to the point! What exactly is your purpose here?” Kara didn’t waste time and said directly, “Considering that such a war will cause losses to both sides, how about we have a bet? Our mortals and you and I will engage in battles. The loser must publicly admit defeat and cede land within 300 miles of the Rocky Hills, along with 30,000 carts of grain as compensation, what do you say?” The King of the North fell silent, pondering the pros and cons. He and Donald both understood the orcs’ strategy—clearly, because their side had many powerful humans, while the orcs had few strong mortals, hence the two orc true gods proposed such a bet. What amused Donald was that the practice of ceding land and paying reparations, once popular on Earth years ago, was also common in this other world. It seemed that all intelligent beings had an aggressive nature, even the most peace-loving elves, though their sense of interest was somewhat weaker compared to humans and other races. In reality, turning this large-scale war of attrition into small-scale battles to determine a winner brought no advantage to Donald. On the contrary, if this war of attrition continued, he could gain even more orc souls.

However, if those two true gods really went all out without any shame and used extreme tactics, even if they were confident in defeating their opponents, accidents could still happen. If this led to too many casualties on the human side, that would not be what they desired. So when the King of the North asked Donald for his opinion with a glance, he readily agreed to this gamble. “We accept your conditions, but we’ll set the rules. First, the battle must not affect other people or the surrounding environment. Also, since you likely won’t have much food left after losing, compensation will be in the form of 30,000 carts full of various minerals. How does that sound?” Hearing Donald’s words, the God of Plunder, Bigel, looked at the God of Birth, Kala, clearly recognizing that the latter was the strategist and decision-maker among the two. “Good! We also want to add one more rule: this duel will take place in two rounds of team battles. The first round will be at the mortal level, with small teams of soldiers and commanders fighting together. As for the final round, it will be between the four of us, fighting in pairs!” The conditions proposed by the God of Birth, Kala, made Donald realize the weaknesses of the orc side. Clearly, even Kala herself lacked confidence in her orc warriors, which is why she came up with such a setup—to balance the gap between the strong fighters on both sides by relying on the orcs’ individual combat prowess. Even if they lost the first round, there was still the second round between the true gods to turn things around. Donald privately said to Charlie beside him, “It seems the orcs are quite confident they can defeat us!” The King of the North also thought to himself, “Then let them see that even among newly risen gods, there is a significant difference in strength!” Regarding the allocation of the four new orc gods, Donald noticed an interesting pattern: whether from the Celt or Gardrel region, each group consisted of one true god of the arcane class and one true god of the warrior class. Such a combination could undoubtedly unleash even greater combat power to deal with any kind of enemy or unexpected situation. “It seems that although these orc true gods belong to the Chaos faction, they aren’t as reckless and unintelligent as legends say. I wonder what’s going on on the Gardrel side—the God of Voodoo, Male, and the God of Barbarism, Sagum, seem more skilled in combat than Kala and Bigel!”

“Don’t worry, Donald! No matter what the Orc God plans, there’s little chance of success. You see, although Gadré doesn’t have a true god backing him, there are many demi-god warriors there, and other kingdoms will surely send one or two demi-gods to help as well. It won’t take long for them to arrive from the New Continent. Even if the Orc God is powerful, faced with five or more demi-god warriors surrounding him, he has no choice but to flee in panic!”
Having ruled the North for five hundred years, Charles has dealt with various countries on the continent many times. Well-versed in the strength of human kingdoms, he is very confident about Gadré’s situation.