Ch.133Chapter 133: The Decisive Battle in the East (1).

In truth, everything until now has been merely a preliminary skirmish.

The Eastern Alliance still faced the mountain of one million orcs.

The Eastern Alliance forces gathered at Grasein numbered about 600,000.

Despite being outnumbered by 400,000, the Eastern Alliance didn’t see this as a disadvantage at all.

Even with the variable of the Orc King, orcs had only ever managed to conquer small fiefdoms against humans.

Rather, in their regular meeting, the Eastern Alliance had proposed a radical condition: whichever kingdom achieved the greatest merit in this battle would gain territorial priority.

The idea was to reduce senseless wars among humans and instead focus on defeating the enemy to determine public and private interests.

Because of this, the Eastern Alliance was burning with fighting spirit more than ever before.

And then there was the unprecedented existence of the Orc King.

For those who had mastered martial arts beyond the Master level, this being was nothing short of mouth-watering prey.

Even if hunting him alone might be impossible, he surely couldn’t withstand what they called a “group beating”—especially one from Masters.

Therefore, interest in who would claim the Orc King’s head had grown considerably.

Completely uninterested in such matters, Valt decided to make good use of the one day he had left.

He planned to discuss the mysterious power the orcs were using.

After all, experienced mages like Martina or Raindhi might know more than Valt or Arias.

“Shamanism, you say?”

Naturally, the first to be surprised was Raindhi, the mage from the Magic Tower.

The Magic Tower, of course, researched everything related to magic.

The fact that various forms of magic hadn’t been lost and still maintained their lineage was certainly due in part to the Magic Tower’s role.

Among them were rune magic, verbal command magic, drawing magic, and many other diverse types.

However, shamanism was one of the most unpopular subjects even among the Magic Tower’s mages.

Among the many reasons why Magic Tower mages disliked shamanism, the foremost was:

‘It cannot be properly theorized.’

What this meant was:

For example, suppose there’s a magic that weakens an enemy’s strength.

A shaman from one tribe might sacrifice animals that symbolize power in their tribe—bears, lions, monsters—to perform this shamanism.

Another tribe might create a doll resembling the enemy, connecting the doll to the target they wish to weaken, and then curse the doll.

Though the effects were similar, the forms, methods, and even concepts were so different between tribes that it was impossible to unify these shamanistic practices.

In a way, it was an inherent consciousness—a manifestation of power formed from the collective concepts accumulated throughout a race’s existence.

“So that’s why it was so difficult to counter. I thought it was black magic.”

If even an elderly mage like Raindhi couldn’t recognize it, there was no way the somewhat younger Martina could have.

Upon hearing the word “shamanism,” Raindhi nodded as if suddenly understanding.

“I thought something was off. The effects were too subtle to be black magic.”

Black magic is crude.

If black magic were used to strengthen orcs, it wouldn’t end with just that level of enhancement.

Enhancement through black magic would cover the orcs’ flesh and blood with dark magical power, causing mutations and potentially transforming them into completely different monsters.

Raindhi had simply assumed their limited enhancement was due to the orcs’ ignorance of magic.

“We must inform everyone quickly. After all, the countermeasures for black magic and shamanism are completely different.”

Seizing the opportunity, Martina asked Raindhi:

“Are there countermeasures for shamanism?”

Despite its many drawbacks, the greatest strength of shamanism—the reason many ancient races used it—was:

It’s difficult to counter.

Shamanism can only be blocked by other shamanism, or by removing whatever serves as a medium, and even these countermeasures vary widely.

Some particularly unusual curse-type shamanistic practices could even grow stronger after the caster’s death due to their lingering resentment.

“…Ahem… This is serious… It seems we’re in for a difficult battle.”

This wasn’t a small-scale battle with 30,000 orcs.

A full million.

How many orc shamans were among them remained unknown.

No matter how thorough the reconnaissance, it was impossible to count their exact numbers.

However, among the 30,000 orcs they had faced, there were only about 300 orc shamans.

Just 1%. In an army of one million, one could estimate there might be 10,000 orc shamans.

But even that wasn’t certain.

There was no guarantee that the orc detachment and main force had the same composition.

And this is where the second strength of shamanism becomes apparent:

Scale.

Just 300 orc shamans were able to strengthen a force of 30,000 orcs.

Of course, not all orcs were enhanced, but the shamans had managed to strengthen all the orcs fighting on the front lines.

Roughly estimated, about 10,000 were constantly enhanced.

Moreover, they had managed to weaken 15,000 of the enemy forces.

This was magic on a scale that would be monstrous if attempted with conventional magic.

If one were to try enhancing allies in this way using bestowment magic—a representative white magic enhancement spell—the mage forces would collapse without even being able to exert their power.

The gathered leadership immediately fell into a serious mood.

According to Valt, orc shamanism could create a terrible situation.

Those who had experienced the preliminary battle knew better than anyone the power of shamanism in large-scale combat.

“Hmm… This is a difficult problem. I’m not sure if they’ll even pretend to listen if we tell them.”

This is the problem when morale is too high.

The Eastern Alliance absolutely did not think they could lose.

Mere orcs.

It was obvious they would consider it shameful to be defeated by such low-level monsters who only engaged in plundering and raiding villages.

If someone were to caution about the orcs’ unexpected capabilities, they might even be ridiculed as a coward.

Grace bit her lip, looking troubled.

“The situation isn’t good. The casualties among the soldiers will be enormous.”

In war, it’s always the common soldiers who die the most.

Whether they could withstand enhanced orcs and debuff shamanism was questionable.

Even with an advantage, they were facing a million enemies.

By simple numbers, each person would have to face almost two opponents.

Moreover, the orcs might have more troops at the level of aura users than they did.

The more they analyzed, the more unfavorable conditions they found in this battle.

Just the addition of shamanism had changed the situation so drastically.

It was truly a demonstration of magic’s tremendous power.

“This is serious. I think I need to speak to His Majesty directly about this.”

The protagonist was Lient Oscar, the monarch of the Oscar Kingdom—where women had traditionally ruled—and Grace’s mother.

“My mother may be slightly hot-tempered, but she takes battle more seriously than anyone. She won’t just let this slide.”

This explained well where Grace’s somewhat rough personality came from.

“Excuse me for a moment. Time is of the essence, so I’ll go contact her. In the meantime, could you think of countermeasures against shamanism?”

Despite their limited personnel, they needed to devise countermeasures.

Only then could their current forces stand a chance against the orcs.

And so, the mages began their discussion on shamanism.

***

‘Isn’t this… magic perfectly suited for the Gerungtu?’

Besides Raindhi, Martina, Valt, Arias, and Liris, both Raindhi and Martina had invited people knowledgeable about magic with whom they had connections to the meeting.

Mages enjoyed such discussions, regularly holding academic conferences, so no one refused.

Rather, those who missed the opportunity to observe the Prince of Destruction, known for his destructive magic, in person could only feel regret.

Still, as they say, two heads are better than one. As opinions gathered, most agreed on the nature of shamanism.

Its strengths were its difficulty to counter and its scale.

Its weaknesses were its mild effects and many constraints.

What interested Valt most were the conditions for using shamanism.

Concepts, rituals, customs, will, traditions, even souls could become power in shamanism.

While it did use magical power, the stronger these non-quantifiable mental elements were, the greater power shamanism could exert.

Customs? The Gerungtu had numerous rituals and traditions, some even called bad practices.

Though now suppressed by Quan, old traditions don’t disappear so easily.

Even Quan couldn’t completely ignore such traditions, so in his busy state, he was merely overlooking them for now.

‘If the traditions Quan abolished could be used for shamanism?!’

Thump-

Valt’s heart raced.

Many of the Gerungtu traditions were related to combat and dueling.

The movements performed before sacred duels, rituals conducted before going to war, various actions taken during warfare.

Valt thought he could create dozens of shamanistic practices just from what came to mind right now.

“Is this difficult to learn?”

All eyes turned to Valt, who had been listening quietly until that moment.