BXBX NOVEL Chapter 215 Mak'Gora
"Was that the last one?"
Juulius asked the big ork as he nodded to his question, looking at the freshly decapitated gnoll leader of this pack, who was at the peak of the Steel-Tier. After slaughtering the gnolls, the rest of them escaped as fast as possible.
At the same time, Juulius and Dharzug then went to search through their belonging, what they left here if they didn't leave behind something either useful or valuable.
Though both of them seriously doubted that gnolls would have something of significant value and this premise proved to be a truth, as they indeed didn't have anything at all. Gnolls were known for being a collector species; they tended to collect a myriad of things, especially shiny things and most of them were trinkets or absolutely useless things.
After they went through the corpses of the gnolls, both of them descended deeper into the underground cave system as they went searching for anything notable or possible passage to the Bone Mountains.
Through his ability and knowledge about the 10th Floor, Juulius predicted the approximate position where they were.
He knew that the only notable location that was somewhere in their vicinity were the Bone Mountains, which meant that they were on the outskirts of the 10th Floor, which was essentially a piece of good news because the outskirts of the 10th Floor were essentially the safest place for them to be right now.
Not only were there the least number of sandworms here but also other factions that were typically living in the outskirts of the deserts of the Sikarra were the weakest out of them, so that was a good point for them, as they didn't have to fear about encountering someone highly above their level.
They descended deeper into the complex underground cave system as they instinctively went somewhere; usually they chose the places from where they sensed the strongest Mana Signatures, basically following their senses.
They did this until they arrived at something which appeared to be some kind of enormous underground valley or underground space. At the same time, instantly upon entering the place, Dharzug perked up as he sensed something very familiar at this place.
"What do you sense?"
Juulius asked when they stopped in their tracks while Dharzug was looking somewhere in the distance, at the end of the underground space, because both of them could hear the screams of battle and fights; somebody was waging war here.
"Ther'ya orks here... no many, probably only a few thousand and they are waging waaaggghhh against the furs for this place."
Dharzug answered with broken Cosmos Common with his typical orkish ascent, while Juulius looked at this situation and started thinking on how to utilize this situation properly now that they were allies with the ork.
He was aware that the alliance between the Champion of the Green Gods together with the Holy Son of the Hall of Kadath was the will of the Gods and there was nothing that their servants could do about it aside from carrying it out as their faithful servants should be.
Now Juulius was thinking that if Dharzug could assume the leadership of the orks in this place, they would essentially obtain a free army for their endeavors that could be used to assume some territory in the Bone Mountains.
Juulius knew that this would help his Lord in his Advancement Quest while Juulius own advancement through the Tower was tied to that of his Lord; if his Lord Samiel Zentuar didn't advance that neither would he.
"Could you assume control over them?"
Juulius asked because this was the crucial part of his newly formed plan in his head; if they manage to assume control over the orks in here, if that succeeded, then it would be for the best; if not, then his plans would be thrown out of a window and they could continue forward.
"Yer, need to kill a Boss."
Dharzug confirmed his suspicions because the orks kulture was simple as the strongest rule. If Dharzugh defeated and killed the boss of these orks, then he would become a new one and would be their leader.
They were pretty simple-minded creatures, where fights to the death solved everything essentially and there was nothing in the orkish kulture that couldn't be solved through the fight to the death, as easy as that could get.
After hearing that confirmation, both of them descended down to the valley and as predicted, this entire place served as an enormous battlefield between the orks and gnolls that were living here, probably fighting each other for the living space of this underground space.
Based on the number of the corpses of gnolls all around this place, they could see that the orks were severely outnumbered but were superior to the gnolls in terms of individual power, which was good at one part, though only if the orks weren't that strong.
If they had some Gold-Tiers among them, while the chance for that was extremely low and Juulius predicted that the boss should be the peak of the Silver-Tier.
Juulius followed after Dharzug because the ork could sense other orks; thus he led the path and they were going the right way, because longer they walked through the underground space, avoiding various poisonous plants and mushrooms that were growing here due to perfect conditions for that, they were seeing more and more gnoll corpses piling up.
In certain areas of interest probably, there were even several hundred of them piled on huge mini mountains, as this seemed to be one of the headquarters of the orks living in this underground space, probably their sole camp, considering the effort of gnolls to take this place from them.
"Wer near... I sense greens..."
Dharzug stated to his human companion when he sensed several tens of orks in their vicinity, all of them at the peak of Steel-Tier and some were even at the Bronze-Tier. If this was the composition of a standard patrol unit, then the group of orks here were stronger than they both initially anticipated, but this could also be a positive thing instead of a negative one.
"Stop ya ther gits!"
Shouted one of the Bronze-Tier orks when they crossed a certain line, probably entering the territory of the orks living here. As they stopped in their tracks, several other orks surrounded them while ignoring Juulius mostly and focusing solely on Dharzug because they were able to sense the blessings of the green gods on his body.
Dharzug carefully looked at the orks that arrived at the place while he subsequently released his overwhelming aura that contained bits of the Divine Power of the Green Gods; as every ork in their surroundings stopped whatever what they were doing and almost dropped on their knees, as the encountered the Holy Apostle and Divine Champion of the Green Gods.
"Listen yar here yo gits! Yar challenge yor boss to Mak'Gora for yar rule!"
When the challenge was issued, everyone grew quiet as the orks started murmuring something between each other Juulius knew that they didn't have much opinions on the matter, for orks mak'gora was a sacred ritual where both participating or more participants fought in a brutal duel to the death to resolve their differences.
There was only one possible reaction to the issuement of the mak'gora, which was acceptance; there wasn't the possibility of rejecting because it would make the party who rejected seem weak, that would be essentially the same like admitting defeat... and orks followed only the stronger, even slight amount of weakness was enough to incite rebellion in the more ambitious specimen.
Several seconds later, the lead ork, who was at the peak of the Bronze-Tier, told Dharzug that he would lead them to the boss as the mak'gora was formally issued and needed to be addressed as soon as possible.
Juulius didn't mind as he followed after Dharzug into the camp of the orks that lived in this underground cave system and battled against the gnolls. While the orks were occasionally giving him stares of hostility, the second he released his overpowering aura, they looked away.
And another thing that certainly helped was the fact that he was together with Dharzug, so he essentially had a free pass. They soon arrived at the center of the camp where the boss of these orks was living, which was actually one huge leather tent to Juulius's distaste of everything orkish.
When they arrived at the campsite, one of the orks went to the tent of the boss and informed him of the thing, afterwards; around ten minutes later, the ork boss exited the tent and Juulius saw an enormous ork walking towards them, an even bigger and more muscular than Dharzug.
Then both orks started screaming something at each other in the orkish language, which Juulius naturally didn't understand, aside from some curses which he did indeed understand before two of them bumped fists and everyone around them took several steps back... the mak'gora has started as two of them rushed at each other.
Typically speaking, the rules during the mak'gora were either in two ways. One was without any weapons, just physical strength alone, together with their fists as their weapons; no magic or anything other was allowed, including Leveled Abilities.
Basically just martial arts and physical strength.
Then the second type was with weapons and abilities and everything included.
The first one, without weapons, Leveled Abilities or anything, was used to determine the leadership among the group of orks and had a more ritualistic, ceremonial and spiritual meaning. Not to mention the first way of mak'gora wasn't used lightly, as most of the mak'goras that took place were of the second category.
That one was typically used to resolve any kind of dispute, be it for loot, material things, conflicts between orks, fighting for mates or anything one could think of. Juulius observed how two orks were fighting each other in a ferocious hand-to-hand combat match, with Dharzug clearly winning the odds because he was physically stronger, much stronger.
While both of them were of the relatively same Level and on the same grade of expertise in the aspect of hand-to-hand combat, but Dharzug, due to being a mutated variation of ork, was physically much stronger, not to mention he was heavily favored by the Green Gods, which passively empowered the ork.
And with one sharp and powerful left hook, Dharzug knocked out the enemy ork boss, essentially signifying his victory and ending the mak'gora. After that, he went to the unconscious ork boss and literarily tore his head from his neck, as every ork dropped on their knees who accepted him as a new chief.
"With this, we have step one completed..."
Juulius muttered to himself as he saw that Dharzug won the mak'gora, becoming boss of these orks, meaning they essentially obtained a small army that would do anything as long as they were strong enough to ruler around the other orks.