"Roar!!!"
Gelmud's piercing scream triggered a deafening roar from the Orc Lord.
He swung the axe in his hand wildly, hacking at Souka over and over, but the girl blocked every strike with ease.
Despite the overwhelming difference in their sizes, Souka felt no pressure at all.
"Crack!"
After holding her defense for a while, Souka found an opening in the Orc Lord's assault. She raised her hand, condensing a lightning spear in her palm.
"Boom!"
"What?!"
Gelmud's eyes were bloodshot as he watched the Orc Lord get blown away by a single strike from Souka.
"Impossible!"
"This is absolutely impossible!"
"That's the Orc Lord!"
How could a Demon Lord Seed, rumored to be born once every few centuries, be overpowered by some nobody who popped out of nowhere?
'Is this really my power?'
As for Souka, even she looked at her own hand in disbelief.
She hadn't even used a tenth of her strength in that battle with the Orc Lord.
That last strike, to be exact, was just a basic attack.
Yet the so-called legendary Orc Lord couldn't even take a casual blow?
'Is it because of this Unique Skill, Magicules Solidification?'
Souka thought about the skill Rin had passed down to her. 'The greater the magicules, the stronger the body reinforcement.'
[Souka]
Normal Magicules: 400,000 EP
[Orc Lord]
Magicules: 250,000 EP
There was already a gap between their magicules.
Without the amplification of Magicules Solidification, her power in Dragonoid form would still have been inferior to the Orc Lord's.
That kind of disparity in size and physical capability was something even monsters couldn't overcome.
To truly overpower the Orc Lord, Souka would have had to undergo full dragonification and overwhelm him with brute strength as a Dragon King.
However, with the skill Magicules Solidification, everything changed.
The Orc Lord's 250,000 magicules, when converted into reinforcement, could only yield twenty to thirty percent—around 50,000 to 70,000.
For Souka in her Dragonoid form, normally using 20,000 to 30,000 for body enhancement would already be impressive.
But that wasn't the case now. Her entire 400,000 magicules could be fully converted into physical strength while also refining corresponding magic power.
Not only that, they'd be further amplified when she dragonified, becoming even more monstrous.
'400,000 versus 50,000 or 60,000.'
'This is the power Rin-sama granted me?'
Even without using her Unique Skill, Souka was confident she could crush the Orc Lord before her just by relying on sheer power alone.
"To think, she's this strong…"
On the ground, Gabiru, whose life was barely hanging on thanks to Souka's magicules, witnessed the whole scene.
The Orc Lord, whom he couldn't even budge with his full strength, was being ripped apart and thrown around like a ragdoll in his sister's hands.
"No, no, no."
"How is this happening?! Why is this happening?!"
"Orc Lord, what are you doing?! You useless piece of trash!!"
"Eat her already, eat her!!"
Gelmud clutched his head, unable to accept what he was seeing. He could only scream in rage, blaming the Orc Lord for the failure.
"You're so noisy!"
With Gelmud yammering above, Shion's eyes flashed with killing intent. She swung her sword, launching a slash toward him in the air.
A blade of ki, compressed by magical energy, formed a hundred-meter-long slash that shot toward Gelmud at blinding speed.
"Ahhh!!!"
Gelmud screamed in terror. He tried to dodge, but the slash only grew larger as it flew.
The overwhelming power behind it left him no room to escape.
"Boom!!"
The blade struck, and his body was flung like a broken sack into the midst of the Orc Tribe.
Then...
"No, don't!"
"Help! Ahh! Save me~"
"Crunch~ crunch~"
Without any hesitation, the Orc Tribe descended on the dying Gelmud, and as his eyes widened in horror, they devoured him alive.
"Roar!!!"
As Gelmud was torn apart by the Orc Tribe, a large volume of magicules surged into the Orc Lord's body through the Unique Skill Starved.
Moreover, perhaps because he had devoured the very being who named him, the Orc Lord's magicules underwent a strange transformation.
"Huh?"
Rimuru, who had also arrived at the battlefield and was watching from afar, quickly noticed the change. "His magicules aura… why did it change?"
[Report: Orc Lord, by devouring the flesh and blood of the majin Gelmud, has triggered an extremely low-probability event and acquired the Unique Skill 'Kin-Eater'.]
[Kin-Eater]
Description: Devouring one's kin is a taboo in this world, an act not tolerated by the world.
Using this skill drastically increases magicules, but also triggers a taboo, leading to loss of sanity and transformation into a puppet driven by gluttony.
"Ugh!"
Rimuru blinked, a chill running down her spine. "That Unique Skill is seriously terrifying!"
When paired with the previous Unique Skill, Starved... that bottomless hunger...
With the two combined, Rimuru couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of fate awaited the Orc Lord.
"This guy…"
Souka looked at the Orc Lord, who was now emanating a twisted aura, and instinctively took several steps back. "He actually ate his own namer!"
To a named monster, their namer was like a second parent.
The sight of the Orc Tribe under the Orc Lord devouring Gelmud made Souka feel sick to her core.
If it were her, let alone harming Rin, even the thought would fill her with disgust.
To kill or devour Rin was something she could never even imagine.
If she ever tried to do something like that, the first to suffer would be herself.
Betrayal could at the very least strip a monster of their power. At worst, it could shatter their soul or erase them completely.
But the Orc Lord?
"This guy's magicules skyrocketed?!"
In Souka's perception, the Orc Lord's magicules had jumped from 250,000 to an overwhelming 400,000.
That kind of growth was simply unheard of.
"Well, this guy's done for."
Rimuru wasn't surprised. According to the Great Sage's calculations, the Orc Lord's life had already entered its final countdown.
His body was beginning to disintegrate.
Not only that, even his soul had begun to crack from devouring Gelmud.
If not for the support of the Kin-Eater skill, the Orc Lord wouldn't have lasted this long.
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)