An Excerpt from The Book of Heroes: Origins

  Once, not long ago, there was a young orcish lad raised by his adoptive human father. This man, of noble birth, had abandoned the capital for a life of quiet farming. After the brutal human-orc war, he found an orphaned orc baby amidst the carnage. Rather than turning away, he adopted the child, naming him Orith.

  Years passed, and Orith grew into a strong, rambunctious youth. However, his strength and heritage made him a target of the local villagers. Children teased him; adults hurled rubbish and insults. They treated him like an animal, an outsider. Only his foster father, Veld, ever showed him love and respect.

  When Orith finally grew tired of the hatred, he ran away. Using the knowledge his father had given him—literacy and basic magic—he reshaped a plow into a makeshift ax and left the farm. Veld tried to stop him, but Orith, in his anger, shoved his father to the ground. That moment haunted him for years.

  Accepted into an orc tribe for his magic talents, Orith lived as a raider, surviving on plunder and scraps. While he only fought warriors, he witnessed the tribe’s cruelties: the slaughter of innocents, the senseless violence. He hated it but felt powerless to change his path.

  One fateful day, his tribe attacked a village, unaware of the legion of knights waiting in ambush. The knights annihilated the orcs. Orith, despite his strength and skills, lost his ax and his arm. Bleeding out, he collapsed.

  Before his consciousness faded, he saw something impossible: Veld, standing before the knights, commanding their fear.

  When Orith awoke, he was back in his bed. His arm had been reattached, good as new.

  “Ahem,” coughed Veld, drawing Orith’s attention.

  “Father?” Orith asked, shocked.

  “Yes, son,” Veld replied, his voice heavy with emotion. “We need to talk.”

  Veld explained everything. He was the Archmage, one of the most powerful mages in the world. During the war, Orith’s biological father had killed his wife and daughter. Veld had hunted the orc down and killed him in revenge, only to find a newborn orphan crying in a nearby tent. At first, Veld wanted to end the child’s life as well, but when he looked into Orith’s eyes, he saw innocence and a chance for redemption.

  “I hope you can forgive me for taking you from your culture and your people,” Veld said, tears streaming down his face.

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  Orith embraced him. “You saved me, Father. Twice. You’ve always been my family.”

  From that day forward, Orith never left his father’s side. When the Great Demon Invasion came, Veld gave his life in his son’s arms, ensuring Orith’s survival.

  My time on Earth had given me an edge in education compared to the common folk of Yor. Emma and I had started teaching the village children simple arithmetic, literacy, and languages like Elvish, Dwarven, and English. Grillo offered classes in smithing and Dwarvish, while my mother taught herbalism, and my father ran combat training sessions.

  “I guess that makes Dad the PE teacher,” I joked. Emma burst out laughing, but the others looked confused. The concept of a formal education system was entirely new to the elves, especially since their population had historically been too small to require it.

  As I helped Grillo with his smithing class, one of our scouts sounded the alarm. The lower-level adults quickly ushered the children into the safety of the old cave system beneath the mountain. The rest of us armed ourselves for battle.

  I assumed it would be human slavers or an orc raiding party. I grabbed my axes, while Grillo donned his prototype rune-enhanced Elorium gauntlet and hefted his Adamantium-alloy hammer. Luna took to the trees, her bow ready, while my mother prepared her medicine pouch. My father stood at the front, with Emma and me flanking him.

  In the distance, we saw them: thousands of men in red cloaks bearing a coiling snake emblem. At the front, a man on a black horse clad in dark armor emanated a sinister aura. His glowing red eyes and the black smoke seeping from his armor screamed malevolence.

  I tried to use [Soul Analyze] on him.

  [Failed]

  [Failed]

  [Failed]

  Confused, I told my father. His face darkened. “If you can’t see his level, he’s either five times stronger than you... or a god. Possibly both.”

  “Great,” I muttered.

  As the cultists charged, my father shouted, “Friend or foe?”

  The black-armored man raised his sword, pointing at us. The cultists surged forward without hesitation.

  “Definitely foe,” I called, readying my axes.

  Luna fired an arrow at the horseman. He caught it mid-air without even glancing at it. The precision and speed were terrifying—if Luna had aimed at me, I’d already be dead.

  We clashed with the cultists, cutting down scores of them. Luna’s arrows rained death, while my axes cleaved through flesh and bone. Grillo’s hammer crushed skulls, and Emma’s claws tore through enemies like parchment.

  Despite our success, the horseman stayed motionless, observing us with a twisted smirk.

  Suddenly, he raised his hand, and a wave of darkness spread across the battlefield. The smell was foul—like rotting corpses and burning sulfur. The cultists we had killed began to rise, their bodies grotesquely reanimated. They moved with inhuman speed and ferocity, their lifeless eyes locked on us.

  “Come on!” I shouted, severing an undead’s head. “Stay down this time!”

  But the corpse began piecing itself back together. Frustrated, I unleashed a torrent of fire, cremating the dead. Wind elementals came to my aid, fueling the flames to ensure no remains were left to resurrect.

  The smirk on the horseman’s face twisted into a grin as he raised his hand again. The elementals screeched as they were banished, their forms dissipating into the air.

  With most of his forces gone, the black-armored man dismounted, drawing his sword. His undead horse stood motionless, its soulless black eyes fixed on us.

  As he approached, his grin widened, his aura suffocating. The storm had come.

  Why is he doing nothing? I thought. Then he raised his hand which emanated darkness. It smelled foul like the worst garbage and silent dog farts mixed together at once. Like rotted corpses mixed together with diarrhea. Then the bodies of the fallen cultists rapidly rotted and stood up.

  What sort of madman would serve someone who did this to his followers? Yet none of the still-living cultists batted an eye over this. It was like this was something they desired. To be given eternal life through death or some psycho nonsense. The worst part was that the dead flooded towards us without fear.