Sanguine Paradise - Chapter 118 (Patreon)

∼ Day 76 ∼

Their impressive physiques and appearances definitely didn't betray their status. To say that I was pleased would be an understatement. I was fucking pumped. Seeing this many of my followers reaching a level that could finally be considered decent in this harsh world, I couldn't help but feel a sudden and surprising notion of pride.

To see their hard work and hardships turn into something worthwhile, they had managed to push themselves beyond that of their peers, and it truly did fill me with happiness. I knew that Limit Breaker and the enhancing abilities I got from being the Sanguine Lord helped them immensely in pulling out their innate potentials, but those effects were very lessened once you considered those just out of my immediate circle of trusted individuals.

It had quickly become clear that Limit Breaker's effects had a watering down effect as it spread its potency out through all my followers. How much they were influenced by it usually depended on how close and important they were to me. So simple grunts and other followers of mine would obviously have much-lessened gains compared to someone like Bob who I trusted like a goofy little brother and my beautiful partner, Mia.

But taking my instructions and promises to heart, the greenskins who had followed me from the start had all trained hard, diligently, and pushed themselves even further than I had asked of them. Rena and Grul had been perfect examples of this, constantly fighting with their lives on the line to prove their worth to not only to me but also themselves.

Speaking of the twins, they had the most surprising evolutions of the lot. Unlike all the newly-minted orcs, Rena and Grul had managed to abscond from the typical greenskin evolution lineage and achieve a whole new archetype. After having confided in Lily about how the evolution paths of monsters worked in general, I managed to achieve a broader understanding of how exactly it worked.

Almost every monster fell into an evolutionary lineage. For example, ordinary greenskins were a lineage; goblin, hobgoblin, orc, and so-on. Another example could be the sanguinite lineage that I once found myself in that worked in a somewhat similar vein. But this was where I found something very interesting about my trait Limit Breaker.

I had always wondered why I seemingly was able to bounce around from completely different races and evolutionary paths with the wide array of evolution choices, whereas other creatures didn't veer from their set paths at all. Even others like Mia and Bob had taken drastic off-shoots from the typical greenskin path. But that mostly was due to Limit Breaker and the shocking changes to their bodies with various items like my blood and Mia ingesting the magical herbs.

Lily told me how it was very much possible to veer off from this evolutionary lineage, but it was extremely unlikely as only special encounters and opportunities would allow for an ordinary orc to become something else than typically an ogre or great orc. Like with gremlins, while they weren't totally rare, it required a greenskin to be particularly cunning and intelligent to even be presented such a small off-shoot path down virtually the same lineage.

As such, the ability to veer of certain paths was also portrayed in Limit Breaker's many beneficial effects when you now took into consideration all of my followers. Those who experienced a watered-down effect of the trait would only get to achieve a new variant to their lineage with the help of my constitution changing blood, the bloodthrall variant.

As for those who was a step up into the social ladder from the typical grunt, like Rena and Grul, the effect was much more pronounced.

-Appraisal!-

Instead of being limited to a mere variant, the orc twins had through their own hard work and dedication managed to attain a whole new archetype of their lineage; as Lily called it. Although Blood Orcs were something that Lily had never heard of before, she was confident it was one of these different 'archetypes'.

Other archetypes examples of greenskins who were at the stage of the 3rd- or 4th-tier could be something like Mountain Orcs, Frost Orcs, or Runic Orcs. But that was about the extent of her knowledge about the subject regarding greenskin archetypes. Although I couldn't yet determine the sheer ramifications of attaining having an archetype as of now, it was clear as day that these two twins had gained immense power from it.

Tall, dark-red skin, muscular but lean, sleek and deadly tusks, and predatory eyes. Differing from their similarly red-skinned bloodthrall greenskins, Rena and Grul didn't have many obvious instances of deviance other than one single eye-catching one. The runic patterns of the tattoos running up and down their bodies were a lot more complex, intricate, and somehow... primordial.

Compared to Blood Orc twins, the bloodthrall orcs, and other great orcs that I had seen up until now, their tattoos all seemed simplistic and crude. What that meant exactly, I had yet to find out with my rather limited to non-existent knowledge of this world.

"I see you've finally gotten your names, congratulations." - Me

Smiling so broadly that I thought it might split their faces, both Rena and Grul seemed to revel in the pride they were bathing in. I had gone over to the twins to congratulate their evolutions and the recognition of their names but also with the intent of sating some of my curiosity. Having thoroughly inspected some of their runic tattoos and given the pair my deepest thanks for their hard work, I continued to the last of the newly evolved greenskins that I had to check on.

The other and third orc who evolved with the twins had unsurprisingly only attained a bloodthrall variant to his great orc race due to my blood flowing in his veins.

-Appraisal!-

But it was to be expected.

As for the new mages in my force, it had also gone pretty much as predicted. Each became an orc with a bloodthrall variant, and their starting point as mages was virtually the same as me and Mia.

-Appraisal!-

Acquiring Blood Magic, the three orcs still needed quite some time before they could start slinging spells. Especially because of the mana-intensity of Blood Magic in general. At first, I hadn't realized just how mana craving the magic was since I had no real comparison with others. However, it was revealed that the potent magic was too forceful in how it operated, it would eat through the mana of most mages with barely a few conjurations.

If it wasn't for my surprisingly developed core and other absurd advantages, I would've had a much harder time utilizing it. That was also one of the bigger reasons why Mia didn't freely cast offensive magic like my self-made spell formation Rend. Her mana pool simply couldn't support such an expenditure confidently without leaving her suddenly dry and without the security that her magic brought her. Compared to her own specialized magic, it was just extremely cost-inefficient.

And trust me, Mia had wasted no amount of effort telling just how wasteful the use of my magic was. Explaining to the berating drow girl that not everybody could be as talented as her and cast magic flawlessly without even the use of skill like Spell Formation, didn't help either, causing her instead to simply accuse me as a 'lazy master'. Surprisingly enough, our bickering back and forth did always seem to end up in intense and steamy love-making - so I honestly didn't mind, and I think neither did she...

Having already expected the outcome of a lot of hobs evolving on our migration into the wastelands, we had made ample preparations for their armor and gear. Some only needed to adjust some pieces while equipping newly-made and well-fitting armor, and others didn't have much armor in the first place so they settled for simple fur protection or cloth.

With only a few craftsmen being allowed to work their crafts as of recent since there had been a need for construction work, we had been rather short on armor and gear for all our warriors. However, I still had the loot from the caravan, so with the human mercenary group's weapons coupled with the greenskin caravan's stash of weapons that they had in one of the carriages, I could just about outfit all of my warriors with something.

The act of me suddenly pulling dozens of items out of my [Ring of Holding] caused quite the reaction amongst the greenskins, all impressed by the scene, however, I didn't escape my notice the incredulous gaze I was shot by a particular pony-tailed human as she seemingly recognized the tool on my finger.

***

The sound of greenskins going about dissembling the temporary camp could be heard from behind me as I stood atop the cliff that had originally obscured our vision as to laid beyond. No matter how long I looked, I still couldn't help but marvel at the landscape before me. Long, endless beautiful emerald plains that stretched far into the horizon.

Unlike the plains bordering the Glades of Modria, these emerald ones seemed practically enchanting with the occasional small dense forest that almost called out to me just to explore its depths. But smattering the landscape and horizon, I could see actual settlements, however, these weren't any small ones. From what I could estimate, these settlements housed thousands upon thousands of living beings; some might even be bordering on reaching the hundreds of thousands.

It was all greenskins, and we had to pass through their territory.