Roughly thirty minutes later, Nero emerged onto a narrow stretch of forest where the trees thinned and the ground began to slope. A steep ravine yawned to his right, its edge crumbling with brittle stone. The air here was drier, quieter—too quiet.
He sensed them before he saw them thanks to his Divine Sense.
Three orcs.
Larger than the last group, but not just in size. Their posture was different—calculated, not careless. They were crouched in the underbrush, watching, waiting. One held a notched spear, another gripped twin hand axes, and the third—a brute wrapped in scraps of bone-plated armor—wielded a heavy hook-blade nearly as long as Nero's body.
These ones weren't mutated one but they're stronger than most orcs he encountered thus far.
They were hunters.
And they'd just found a target.
''Let's play into their game!"
They sprang the trap as he approached the ravine's edge.
