The normally quite silent camp, except for the thuds heard from the training grounds, erupted in a cacophony of sounds.

  The orcs had always been prepared, and every orc knew exactly what to do if the Hollow were approaching. All the orc warriors gathered up in predetermined groups of 50 and stood at different exits.

  Most of them were at the exit to the east, but the north and south exits had a few as well. It was likely they were meant as a flank to cover any overflowing Hollow trying to run around.

  The orc women all started running arrows towards the watchtowers, removing the tents closest to the east wall and preparing water and food for the warriors. They took out blankets and put them close by to the east entrance and brought leather and pieces of wood.

  It was a makeshift aid station, meant to easily make splints and to close wounds. There was no orc who knew healing magic, nor were there any real bandages or medical supplies, but they made do with what was available to them.

  For Mafu, he had been preparing for this since he woke up in the orc village. Multiple barracks, wizard towers, archery ranges, and firecaps were placed throughout the territory. The firecaps were only on the edges of the territory; the military buildings were closer to the village.

  All mushroom warriors started moving to the east. Greatswordsmen, wizards, archers, and bastions—all of the different units moved in a formation Mafu thought would work best. He hadn't ever studied military formations, so it was probably not optimal, but it would have to do.

  He kept watching the sludge-covered bubbling cave, and the Hollow orcs did not stop coming. Mafu expected there to be at least 400 at this point.

  "It is really bad timing that we killed off the ants for the soldier ant upgrade," Mafu spoke to Taressa.

  Taressa was already in the east with nearly all of her ants. She was always ready to fight, and the ants and Taressa all seemed more energetic than usual.

  "We cannot know the future. We will slaughter or be slaughtered; that is the way of the world." Taressa said.

  Well, survival of the fittest had always been a natural law. However, Mafu could not shake the feeling that the Hollow were unnatural. It felt entirely different from anything else he had felt since he became a mushroom. It was a cold, plastic feeling.

  The Hollow eventually stopped streaming out of the cave. Mafu's best guess would be somewhere around 500 Hollow orcs, but it could just as easily be 750 or 250. He could not count them easily while watching through the connection he had made with the sludge.

  The orc warriors started to move out, and the Warchief was first among them. Mafu contacted the Warchief.

  "Let my soldiers fight first, as much as you can. The ants will fight with you, but you should probably keep to your own formations. I don't expect it to be easy to fight together if we mix formations. I will let you know if the ants falter and need to be covered by the orcs."

  "Understood, we will keep to the center and left of the battlefield. Tell the ants to keep to the center and right." "Warchief Parek said," in a tense tone of voice.

  The mushroom soldiers numbered somewhere around 400. The biggest constraining factor to the military buildings was that they all required a small amount of different materials. Mana was easy to come by now, as the territory had grown.

  But materials were not. What Mafu could not gain from extracting from the earth had to be found; the only material to find in this overgrown forest was trees.

  Mafu took a few moments to calm down and order his thoughts. Jod had moved to the mushroom warriors and was standing behind them. He was immensely strong when in the territory, but with the amount of Hollow, he could not fight carelessly. Wounds would accumulate, and he was not immortal.

  Mafu connected to the firecaps nearest where the Hollow would arrive and prepared himself for the onslaught.

  As the seconds passed by, he could feel the thundering footsteps loom closer. The vibrations of the earth grew with each passing moment, and soon the orcs entered the territory.

  [Firespike] hundreds of spikes flew at the frontlines of the Hollow. Most fizzled out after creating small impact wounds on the Hollow, but some hit them in the eyes and caused more damage. Yet, not one Hollow fell.

  As Mafu looked at the frontline of the Hollow, he saw some of them missing their eyes entirely due to the firespikes, and some had their faces burnt clean off. Yet they didn't stop, and they didn't start veering off their path.

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  'Do they not need their vision to see?' was Mafu's first thought.

  He knew that Taressa had briefed him about the Hollow not having minds to attack, but he had expected them to still be using their senses, at least to some extent.

  [Firespike]

  Mafu continued the barrage of flame, not caring that only one or two of the Hollow fell. It was a small amount of mana to waste, and the damaged Hollow might be easier to beat for his people and his mushrooms.

  The Hollow soon ran past the firecaps, smashing them with their feet as they ran over them. The mushroom soldiers were next.

  The spearmen were the first to make contact, stabbing the Hollow through and through. Some of the Hollow died instantly, while the others got stopped by the sudden impact. The spearmen were pushed back easily, not being strong or big enough to stop the tide of the Hollow moving in.

  Next were the greatswordsmen, slightly behind the spearmen on the flanks. They swung their greatswords and cleaved limbs off of the Hollow. A few of the greatswordsmen even split the Hollow horizontally at the waist.

  And that is when Mafu saw it. A black sludge poured out of the severed torso of one of the Hollow. It had a purple light inside of it, but it was dimmed by the black sludge. On the sides of it were small hooks, hundreds of them.

  The sludge was maybe three decimeters long until it extended itself. It used the hooks on the front of it to dig into the terrain and then retracted its body to move. It was some sort of... slug?

  Then it disappeared. It was there one second and gone the next.

  'A stealth skill?' Mafu thought.

  Mafu decided that the bizarre slug would have to wait for later and returned his attention to the battle. The spearmen were all dead, and the greatswordsmen were falling fast. Portals opened up in the sky, maybe 20 meters up, and beams of fire washed down throughout the Hollows' ranks.

  They burned but did not scream or even seem to mind it as they pushed forward. Some of the Hollow succumbed after a while, but it was not many of them. The normal [Fungal Wizards] fired their orbs, and the explosions throughout the Hollow killed many more than the fire wizards.

  Arrows were continually being fired by the crossbowmen and archers, but they too dealt near to no damage.

  Soon the melee units fully engaged the Hollow. It stopped the rush of the Hollow for a little while, and they did kill a few of the Hollow, but still not enough. As the last of the fungal units fell, they had maybe dealt with half of the Hollow.

  The Hollow did not stop and just kept running. They soon met the main force of ants and orcs. Jod was holding the center, with empty space of about two meters on his left and right. On his right were the ants, and on the left were the orcs.

  As the two forces met, a thunderous sound was heard as bodies ran into bodies, followed by the sound of flesh being crushed, sliced, and torn apart. The orcs roared in a deep tone as they started fighting.

  Mafu tried using his mycelium to snare the feet of the Hollow with some success. Jod had become a god of war in the middle, using his sword to slice apart the bodies of the Hollow easily. Sometimes he'd punch with his other hand, making the Hollow fly back several meters until they hit another Hollow.

  Sometimes his punches hit their heads and took them clean off. Well, it wasn't clean; in fact, brain matter, flesh, and entrails were scattered every time he swung either his sword or his fist.

  The ants did worse than the orcs or Jod but could at least hold the Hollow at bay. They bit off the Hollows' limbs as they died themselves and used their bodies to hinder the Hollows' movements.

  ---

  A few hours after the call to arms, an eerie silence had fallen over the battlefield. Jod, Taressa, and most of the orcs were alive. The ants had lost most of their numbers, but as the fight had come closer to an end, the orcs had cleaned up their side and collapsed on the Hollow on the ants' side.

  The battlefield was something out of a Lovecraftian novel, with entrails and flesh sprawled out over the ground. Blood and sludge had soaked into the ground, and Mafu was feeling sick at the amount.

  Soon after it was over, the orcs and Jod went back into the camp; their eyes were tired, and Mafu could see the despair and sadness in them. The ants and Taressa stayed and sorted out the battlefield. They dragged the orcs towards the camp and the hollow towards another side.

  "Taressa, bring some of the more intact Hollow to the fungal pool and have Athena study them."

  "As you command."

  Mafu also felt tired, though he never needed to sleep. Mentally it took a toll on him just seeing the horrible events that had taken place today. He was happy he did not have to study the Hollow in the fungal pool for today.

  "I will go to Jod and see if the warriors need anything." Mafu said to Taressa. In truth, he expected that Jod might need him to take some of the burden off of him through the connection between them.

  So Mafu went into the village with his vision, found Jod, and asked:

  "Jod, are you okay?"

  "No, not really. That was not a fight. What the fuck are those creatures?"

  "Not a fight?"

  "No, they just... attacked. There was no thought, no emotion, nothing. It was pure survival for us, and just... nothing for them?"

  Mafu could feel the despair and disbelief in Jod's emotions. Mafu might've technically fought with them, but he had not been face-to-face with the Hollow, so his experience of them was different. He opened the connection to Jod and slowly moved some of that emotion into himself.

  Jod soon looked to be feeling a little better, but Mafu could not take all the emotions and thoughts that were swirling around Jod's head.

  "You did something just now, didn't you?" Jod asked.

  "Yes, I took some of the burden off of you through our connection."

  "That's... nice." Jod looked lost in thought for a few minutes, sitting at the edge of the makeshift aid station. Then he stood up and said,

  "Next time, don't do that. I need to feel all of it. You taking some of it lessens the importance of what happened for me."

  His voice was not irritated or as if he was blaming Mafu, but instead resolute. He had decided to shoulder it and wanted to not take a shortcut. Mafu respected this but still needed to say:

  "Understood, just tell me if you ever feel like you need me to deal with how you are feeling. After all, we currently are sharing our fates with each other."

  Jod looked toward where the central firecap stood further into the village and said,

  "Yes. Right now that fate is exterminating whatever these creatures are. They cannot be allowed to exist."