"It's too quiet here..." Arnold mumbled as he stopped the vehicle in front of a cave. It was the very same cave Talos had informed him about. However, the eerieness around the cave made him uncomfortable.

It was difficult to explain how he felt but it was unpleasant. Arnold shook his head and stepped out of the car.

​​

"Time to kill some monsters I guess but first..." Arnold quickly equipped his gears and then wore the hazmat suit over it, "Now let's get going."

****

A FEW MINUTES EARLIER...

"What kind of servant am I if I can't even let my master have proper rest?" Talos mumbled, "Master, is already overworked and yet I'm always causing more trouble for him. Can't I even handle a few enemies on my own?"

Talos felt conflicted. He knew Arnold was overworked after his last battle and wanted him to recover first, thus he didn't inform him about the discovery of the cave and the orcs, but to his disappointment, Arnold called him first, right after Talos had killed his first target.

'As I thought... even if the elder is in deep sleep, Master still has control over a few of elder's function.'

"Kyaaaa!"

Bang!

A goblin tried to jump over Talos and attack him while there were fewer skeletons around him, but Talos immediately shot him down before the goblin could get close to him.

'Orcs working together with goblins and ogres... how peculiar.'

Talos already knew all about the species of his enemies that's why he thought it was peculiar for all of them to band together.

Although Talos had already witnessed goblins working under ogres, it was his first time seeing ogres working under orcs. After all, the two creatures are known to be bloodthirsty for each other, you could say they were like two princes fighting for a single throne.

While there wasn't much difference between their physique, orcs were superior to ogres because of their superior intellect, and thus were at the top of the hierarchy. They were also the ones who were benefited the most after the radiation spread throughout the region and had changed a lot.

The ogres were next in line because of their beastly physique. All they do was fight and fight. If they can't find enemies, they don't hesitate to kill their own kin for stupidest reasons and were not afraid of doing the same to the others. The ogres that Arnold encountered during his search for the church, were much more civil than this lot. All in all, you could say ogres were 'Orcs without any brains', but they were more fierce as well. Like every other species, they too were affected by the radiation however it didn't change their behaviour.

At last, came the goblins, they were the handyman for the ogres as well as the orcs. Usually, they were a tad bit smaller than an average human, but due to their mutation, they had grown significantly. Their characteristic traits included green skin, pointy-eared and often foul temper. Either they belong to the cunning of the bunch or with those who were dumb as sh*t, there was no in-between for them. The cunning ones usually either focused on hunting or enhancing their battle prowess. The dumb ones however focused solely on one thing, mating. They bred rapidly and constitute the largest percentage of the goblins.

A few of them who managed to evolve further was called hobgoblins they were also referred to as 'Tamers' because they were known to tame vicious beasts and use them as cavalry. Some among the hobgoblins were even deadlier than the ogres and were especially vicious, they showed no mercy to their enemies and had various ways to kill their enemies, most of them being so horrifying, even Jack the reaper would've been afraid of them. Thankfully there weren't any hobgoblins among the enemy forces or Talos and others were in for trouble.

'Looks like the Orc 'King' is the one who is holding everyone together, otherwise, all hell would break loose within their ranks...'

An Orc King was an orc that had undergone various mutations and slowly gained the power of controlling other orcs as well. It was a rare mutation and thus not much was known about them. However Talos was sure if he managed to kill the Orc King, the other orcs would attack the ogres and during that time, he and the others would rescue the humans and retreat. Once the humans were safe, they won't need to be careful anymore. But they had to get the human out, first.

Unfortunately, this was no easy task. It seemed that the Orc King himself seemed to be aware of the situation, because he along with six orcs and four ogres, was standing in front of the women.

'I need to think of something...' Talos thought and more skeleton warriors ripped open the ground and joined the fight.

Talos and his team certainly had numbers advantage over their enemies but the average strength of the monsters was much more than theirs because Talos only had undead soldiers, a couple of dozen of golems, automatons and lava hounds apart from the skeletons.

The skeletons were doing what they could and were ferrying well against the goblins but they couldn't do much against the orcs and the ogres and shattered into pieces after receiving just one hit from them.

The skeletons couldn't regenerate themselves and thus Talos had to summon more of them, which used up his energy which was consumed as mana.

The Lava hounds and skeletons were handling the goblins which were the causing the most trouble for them as they were small and agile hence it was difficult to kill them, thankfully the hounds were able to counter them as they were more agile than anyone else on the battlefield. The automatons were trying their best to defeat the ogres, while, the golems were busy fighting the orcs.

But it wasn't like the monsters were sitting idly doing nothing. They were continuously attacking and destroying their enemies as well. Soon the number of warriors on both side started dwindling.

AFTER A WHILE...

The battle was still raging on. None of the sides were backing out. Everyone was adamant about fighting till the end.

Thanks to the hounds, most of the goblins had already been taken care of. The number of ogres had also decreased by half. However, all wasn't good for Talos and company, as not a single Orc was dead, thanks to the leadership of the Orc King. On the contrary, the orcs had managed to destroy most of the golems who had been tanking for the hounds and the automatons. Without them, they were like sitting ducks waiting to be shot down.

'If we lose they'll definitely kill the females and get away... no matter what we have to defeat them right here and now.' Talos thought after analysing the situation and stopped summoning the skeletons, 'The Orc King needs to die.'