“Besides, we can torture him!” Added the beauty with her angelic face, but her voice was distorted by hatred.

  Kilian glanced briefly into the serious, leaf-green eyes and wondered where all the anger was coming from, but the next moment, he refocused on his task and said, "It's almost time! When the first one goes around the tight bend, they'll briefly lose eye contact. As planned?"

  “As planned!” The young elf smiled, drew her bow, and positioned herself so that she could fire at her target at any time.

  Meanwhile, the young Qi-Gatherer soaked the tip of his index finger with some ink and crawled quietly, yet swiftly like a chamois, down the cliff.

  Unseen, he passed between the rear and the middle orc, and when he heard the faint whir of an arrow, his right hand began to write furiously.

  “Dobur!” He shouted, while two spheres of water formed from the humidity in the surroundings and appeared as if from nowhere beneath the feet of the surprised enemy warriors.

  Before any of the soon-to-be prisoners could react, a new ink moistened the quill, and Kilian stringed together dozens of words.

  Over thirty stone slabs flew towards the watery prison, sealing the orcs even deeper.

  Before the calligrapher lost sight of the Qi-Gatherer of the small circle, he saw that his armor began to glow.

  Undeterred, the magic liquid on the writing finger changed again, and with a loud “Lluched”, a bright flash of lightning crashed through the stone shields, shattering them and setting fire to everything inside.

  Breathing heavily, Kilian glanced briefly at the charred corpse of the orc who had formed the rear guard and at the other, seemingly weaker Qi-Gatherer, who was surprisingly still standing.

  He was clad only in a few remnants of armor that had burned into his otherwise mud-green skin, and fearlessly raised a broad, two-bladed war axe.

  “I spit on the sycophants of the Kong Clan!” He grunted loudly and immediately followed up with action, “I am a grandson of the great Khan Grokbar, and I will tear you to pieces!”

  The human boy took advantage of his opponent's monologue to quickly swallow a pill that helped him partially restore his depleted Qi and also drew his weapon.

  “You humans are all the same!” The orc scolded again, repeating his gesture, “Your bodies are weak and your minds fragile! Without your enchantments, you would be just a lamb on the way to the slaughterhouse, and now that you're near me, your life is forfeit!”

  He began to hurl various curses and threats at Kilian, but the next moment, the words remained stuck in his throat.

  Around the now-silent warrior, the air began to pulse with energy, and the Qi seemed to dance with joy.

  He looked around desperately, expecting a powerful beast to attack from the ancient ruins at any moment, but then, in disbelief, he finally discovered the source of all the chaos.

  In the veins of the oh-so-weak human pulsed a power, completely unimaginable to the orc, which flowed through Kilian's body along with his blood with every dull heartbeat.

  The Qi-filled air in the gorge hummed to the beat and seemed to ingratiate itself with the human warrior.

  “W-what kind of monster are you?” Screamed the green-skinned Qi-Gatherer, while he activated the only remaining enchantment on one of the few scales of his armour that had burned into his flesh, and also raised his axe to deflect the staff that was already coming down on him.

  The black shadow steel crashed into a blood-red sphere that had formed around the orc warrior as a form of protection.

  A few seconds passed in oppressive silence, but then, slowly, with the sound of shattering glass, several cracks grew on the red surface of the sphere, and it shattered.

  The next moment, one of the two axe blades broke, and the second was driven deeply into the orc's left shoulder by the force of the blow.

  Blood spurted, and with a cry of pain, his fingers slipped off the handle of his weapon.

  With a blank expression, he slumped to his knees, his trusty axe clutched deeply into his body, and whispered as if haunted by a ghost, “Impossible…Humans are merely weak beings who only live for our entertainment…what are you?”

  "My name is Kilian! I am a warrior of the Kong Clan's Inner Academy!" The victorious human replied calmly, stowing his staff away.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Kilian?” Murmured the almost unconscious warrior, looking at his opponent in disbelief at first, but then began to snicker as he bit down on something with his last ounce of strength, “The lost scion of the House of Arian…Your life will be short-lived! The Enclave will find you soon!”

  "House Arian? The Enclave?" The victorious Qi-Gatherer asked in confusion, but the wounded warrior had already slumped to the ground with his eyes closed and was no longer moving.

  “Good fight!” Lilja’s angelic voice suddenly sounded behind Kilian’s back, and then she added, almost a little disappointed, “Have you killed him already?”

  “No…actually, he should just be unconscious.” The person asked replied, went to the ork lying on the ground, and turned his body over.

  A bloody, red foam covered the still-grinning mouth, as if he had already seen his revenge fulfilled in his last breath, and Kilian spoke softly, "He poisoned himself! I think he knew too much and decided that we were not allowed to capture him alive."

  "What a pity! I was really looking forward to torturing him!" The elf said tonelessly, turning her gaze to her ally, "You are strong! Not only your Qi, but also your physical body is far above the norm!"

  Kilian shook his head evasively and finally asked, "Have you ever heard of an Enclave on Terrapin? In his last words, he threatened me with it."

  "The Enclave of the Shadows?" The beautiful figure replied in surprise, "That's a small splinter group of humans who broke away from the royal house, tired of the war with the orcs, and now seek protection under the Lupus Clan. They live south of our forest."

  “Is this group working with the orcs?” He asked, raising his eyebrows.

  "From what I've heard, the Enclave is a small, recently formed group, possessing only a handful of weaker Qi-Masters." She replied, frowning deeply, "Why would a highborn orc talk about a small group of humans? It doesn't make any sense!"

  “Enough of the brooding!” Kilian broke the silence that had just ensued, “Let’s examine the spoils of our victory!”

  Lilja then lifted a crudely crafted amulet and smiled contentedly as her ally patted the lifeless bodies of his opponents, "I've already examined mine! There's not much inside, though, except some food, a few Qi-stones, and a few different flasks."

  "The Qi-Gatherer of the middle circle has the same kind of loot, and I can't pierce into the other orc's ring... It seems to be sealed!" The boy muttered as he repeatedly tried to send his Qi into the ring.

  “A magical artifact that recognizes the Qi of its owner?” Marveled the elf with her mouth slightly open and finally asked, “May I see the ring?”

  Without a word, the rare piece passed from one hand to the other, while Kilian enjoyed the soft feeling of the porcelain-white skin during the brief touch.

  “The contents are sealed by a strong formation!” The elf began to explain, seeming to read the ring’s fine grain, “To break through it by force, one needs the power of a Qi-Condensator!”

  "What's our next plan?" Kilian asked his beautiful companion, detecting a dangerous glint in her beautiful eyes, "We will look for the portal to the next level! And we can hunt a few orcs along the way!"

  In a huge desert, where the sun, high up in the sky, mercilessly grilled the golden, almost glowing sand, countless differently shaped obelisks stretched upwards to the heavens.

  Some were short and glowed faintly, others were meters high and shone like the scorching body in the sky, and others had small cracks and looked as if they could collapse at any moment.

  The strong wind whipped around the columns, and the shifting dunes repeatedly tried to bury the stone monuments, but, as if a protective charm lay over the structures, the grains of sand continued to move a little further.

  Somewhat apart from this forest of columns, several hunched figures stood, meticulously examining each obelisk.

  Despite the dusty air and swirling sand, no one dared to even blink when a loud crash dispelled the howling wind.

  Dozens of pairs of eyes searched for the source of the noise, and soon a half-rotted index finger reached out to point at an obelisk.

  It was about a meter high and shone brightly, but the energy stored within it seemed to escape through countless small cracks.

  “The young master seems to have found an early death in the ancient ruins…” Croaked a hoarse voice.

  “A small candle of the Horde has been extinguished due to the raging storm of life.” Said another figure, and as if on command, the guardians of the pillars began to lock the escaping energy into a small, metal mirror with quick hand movements.

  "The Khan will want to see the moment of his grandson's death! Send a warg rider; the more time passes, the more unclear the mirror's image becomes!" Another voice rang out, whispering, "Once the lost spirit reaches the Yellow River, the soul mirror is useless!"

  “Wretched House of Arian!” Cursed a huge orc, dressed only in the furs of various magical beasts, drinking a foul-smelling brew from a white, richly decorated cup, and placing it upside down on a table in front of him.

  He was alone in a large, plain tent, leaning on the wooden tabletop with both hands.

  The lifeless, jewel-sealed eyes of a human skull looked directly into Grokbar's face and seemed to be talking to him.

  "Caellach, once you killed my son, and I killed you! I didn't want to interfere in the affairs of the younger generation anymore, but now your son has killed my grandson, so the same fate will soon befall him! Will this grudge ever end, or will I be the last one of my house before I destroy all humans? I wonder when this circle will close? How many more generations of the House of Arian will my old hands destroy, and how many fledglings of my clan will lose to their human peers?" Pondered the great orc warrior, speaking, as he often did, to the decorated head of his former enemy: "Only your miserable father hides behind his walls and dares not to face me! Your lineage has so many talented Qi-Masters, but he was no match for me even in our youth, and he never will be! Fate is such a cruel mistress!"

  He turned Caellach's head upside down again, filled it with the unknown drink, and emptied the skull once more in a big gulp.

  "Your son seems to have potential, though!" Grokbar continued the monologue, sitting down on a bone chair with a sigh, "I must nip this flower in the bud! But if he doesn't perish in the ruins of the dragonlords, the entire Kong Clan stands between us..."

  “Great Khan, the messenger is finally here!” A grunting voice sounded from outside the tent.

  The mighty warrior took a moment to collect his thoughts, filled and emptied his cup again, and finally murmured dejectedly, “Send him in!”

  The entrance of the tent flew aside, and a halforc, dressed in the robes of a newly selected member of the Inner Academy of the Kong Clan, entered with his head bowed deeply.