In a faraway land.
The morning mist clung to the rugged slopes, a place where reason dared not tread and light cowered beneath ancient shadows. Mountains loomed like silent sentinels, their jagged peaks piercing the brooding sky, daring the sun to find its way through the oppressive haze. The land there thrummed with a palpable, otherworldly energy; a rhythm that echoed the heartbeats of creatures unseen, lurking beneath its wild veneer.
It was a land whispered about in dying breaths and half-forgotten legends—a place where monsters prowled with the confidence of kings, and where the laws of gods and mortals bent, broke, or simply refused to exist. Gravity shifted without warning, winds sang voices that were not made by nature, and travelers who ventured too deep returned changed… if they returned at all. Some claimed the ground itself breathed. Others insisted the sky blinked.
All agreed on one truth: nothing sane survived there for long.
Yet, hidden within this chaos, nestled in the embrace of a colossal mountain's heart, lay a village that defied every expectation.
No map marked its location. No road led to its gates. From the outside, the mountain appeared solid—just another monolith of stone among countless others. But deep within its belly lay a cavern so vast it could have been mistaken for the inside of a slumbering titan. A perfect dome of hollowed stone stretched upward, and from its ceiling hung thousands of luminous crystals that mimicked the stars of a forgotten sky, their glow gentle and eternal.
Beneath that crystalline heavenscape lay the village.
A fortress of shadows and strength, shaped not by human hands but by the raw will of the orc race. Stone huts rose from the cavern floor like ancient guardians, their foundations carved directly from the mountain's flesh. Each structure was a masterpiece of brutish ingenuity.
The air carried the scent of burning resin and roasted meat. Heavy footfalls echoed through the cavern as orc warriors moved with a disciplined rhythm, their towering forms accentuated by the dim, star-like glow overhead. Broad shoulders, tusks catching the light, hardened expressions—these were not the savage brutes outsiders feared, but a people forged by hardship and bound by unbreakable honor.
800 years ago, their ancestors were mysteriously teleported into these lands. The orcs had made this place their own because they had no other choice.
Survival was all that mattered to them.
And survival, they had mastered.
They built. They fought. They endured. They adapted.
And in the heart of it all, the village's leader—known simply as the Chieftain—stood atop the highest stone platform, overlooking it all.
His age was a weight that showed in the deep lines etched across his face, scars telling stories older than most villagers could remember. One eye was clouded over, a milky white that saw nothing of the physical world. Yet his other eye—a piercing amber that burned with a fire undimmed by years—saw everything. His tusks, once ivory, were now stained yellow and carved with the histories of his people. He wore no crown, yet every orc who passed him slammed their fists to their chest in a gesture of reverence and obedience.
"YOUNGLINGS!" His voice was a thunderclap that silenced the cavern instantly. "TODAY YOU BECOME WHAT YOU WERE BORN TO BE!"
Below, a group of thirty young orcs stood rigid, their faces a mixture of fear and excitement. Their green skin glistened under the crystal lights. Their muscles, though not yet fully developed, promised a strength beyond their years. This was their rite of passage—the Trial of the First Hunt.
"TOMORROW YOU PROVE YOUR RIGHT TO BE AMONG US! TO PROVE YOU ARE NOT WEAK! TO PROVE YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN!"
The Chieftain's remaining eye locked onto each young orc in turn. He waved a hand, and from the sidelines a group of adult orcs approached, carrying wooden cups filled with a thick, dark liquid.
"DRINK!" he commanded. "THE SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAIN WILL GIVE YOU THE STRENGTH AND THE COURAGE YOU WILL NEED!"
One by one, the young orcs stepped forward and drank. The concoction was bitter, a mixture of fermented herbs and mushroom extracts that made their heads spin and their hearts race.
However, the secret of this mixture was not in its ingredients, but in what it could do.
A core awakening.
Unlike the rest of their kind, these orcs mature more slowly than normal. Due to the dense mana and the living conditions, they mutated in a way that slowed down their physical development but made them more robust to mana.
To fully mature and awaken their magical core, they must reach at least 20 years of age.
The mixture's purpose was to force the awakening. The process is painful, but it is necessary.
One by one, they began to collapse, their bodies twitching uncontrollably. Some let out screams of pain as the mixture took effect; others gritted their teeth and endured it in silence.
Among them, one young orc stood out.
Valkar.
Smaller than the others, less muscular, with a scar that split his left eyebrow—a wound from a childhood scuffle that had nearly cost him his sight.
"!!!" Valkar's amber eyes widened as the concoction burned through his veins. While the others thrashed and howled, he remained upright, swaying but refusing to fall. The Chieftain's gaze lingered on him, a flicker of something—curiosity or pride—crossing the old orc's face.
Among the 30 young orcs, 21 of them were his children, with each of the 15 different mothers. Each child was a future hope, a potential heir, a weapon.
Valkar was also his child.
But he was different from the rest. Weaker. Smaller.
A disappointment. However, the chieftain took pride in him, for Valkar had something none of his siblings had: a will of iron. A desire to conquer.
The pain was like a thousand needles piercing Valkar's flesh from within. His vision blurred, the stars above spinning into dizzying constellations. He felt a fire ignite in his gut, a raw, untamed energy that threatened to consume him whole.
"Oi, see the little runt?" someone whispered from the crowd of adult orcs watching the ceremony. "Still standin', while brutes twice his weight are kissin' the ground."
Valkar heard nothing but the thunder of his own heartbeat. He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached, his fingers curling into fists. He would not fall. He would not show weakness.
Thud!
A massive orc beside him, one of his half-brothers named Grosh, finally stopped convulsing. The larger warrior's eyes snapped open, glowing with a faint emerald light. His awakening complete. He pushed himself to his feet with a roar that shook dust from the cavern walls.
Valkar watched him rise, then another, then three more. Each successful awakening marked by that same otherworldly glow, that same surge of visible power. His siblings were transforming before his eyes, their muscles swelling slightly, their presence becoming heavier, more substantial.
The fire in his own chest refused to settle. It churned and burned, wild and uncontrolled, like a beast that hadn't yet decided whether to serve or devour him.
'UGH!... Stop resisting... KNEEL!' Valkar inwardly roared at the fire within.
Instead, it snarled.
A violent surge rippled through Valkar's limbs, nearly buckling his legs. His breath hitched—sharp, ragged—as the mana inside him twisted like a cornered animal refusing to submit.
His vision flashed white.
Then red.
Then black.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
His heartbeat thundered like a war drum echoing through the cavern of his bones.
Grosh glanced sideways at him, his emerald-lit eyes narrowing.
"Runt's gonna blow," he muttered under his breath, loud enough for a few nearby adults to smirk.
But Valkar didn't hear him.
Couldn't hear him.
The world had narrowed to a single blazing point inside his chest—a core refusing to stabilize. A core refusing to obey. A core that was too wild… too dense… too bloody hungry.
'BOW TO ME!!' Valkar's mind screamed at it, forcing every ounce of his will into that internal war.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
His blood turned hot. His muscles seized. His breath stopped—!
A tremor shot up his spine.
His vision flickered—stars above blurring into streaks of light.
Then... silence.
His wild core stopped fighting. It surrendered. It bowed to his will.
And when it did—when the fire in his veins finally yielded—something much, much worse began.
Valkar's amber eyes snapped open.
A soft pulse of red light emanated from his chest.
He did it, he conquered his core.
"GOOD!" Seeing that the last orc managed to successfully awaken his core, the chieftain's booming voice cut through the silence, startling everyone. "TODAY, YOU ARE NO LONGER YOUNGLINGS! FROM THIS DAY FORTH, YOU ARE WARRIORS! BLOOD OF MY BLOOD!"
The young orcs, now glowing with their newfound power, raised their fists in the air and roared in unison, their voices shaking the very foundations of the cavern.
Valkar's roar was the loudest of them all.
He looked around him, at the faces of his siblings, at the proud smiles on their faces. They became what they were born to be.
Warriors!
However, they still needed to complete one big step.
They needed to become adults. And by adults, I mean they needed to taste the forbidden pleasure.
They needed to BANG! Some orc females.
This was their right on the day before the great hunt.
However, the only orc females they were allowed to bang were ones that had already experienced motherhood at least once.
The others, especially the virgins, must claim them as mates through honorable combat or earn the females' favor.
For Valkar, there was only one female that he desired more than anything in this world.
The most beautiful—in his eyes—orc woman in the village, the one who gave birth to him and his twin sister.
His mother.