The night wind poured into the narrow pass, letting out a low moan and making the distant quarrel sound broken and intermittent.
"Meat... mine... get lost..." (Orcish)
Though he could not understand the crude, grating language, it was enough to put He Xi on alert.
After sending a message to those behind him, he circled around behind a dense thicket.
Beyond the scattered broken logs and rubble, firelight was cut off by several broad backs.
The flickering flames cast light over their rough gray skin.
Four orcs guarding the cages were gathered around the fire, shoving and cursing one another over a chunk of half-raw roasted meat.
Inside the wooden cages were five or six soldiers wearing Lorne uniforms. All had their heads lowered, their condition impossible to tell.
Although He Xi could clearly make out every slab of flesh on their faces, these orcs, who generally possessed only twenty meters of dark vision, clearly could not see through the thicket hidden in the night thirty meters away.
It was not merely because of the distance. They were also standing at the center of a bright light source; their pupils had constricted in the firelight, greatly weakening their already limited dark vision.
In fact, even if their positions were reversed, in a situation where one observed a bright light source from within darkness, ordinary human eyes might offer a better view of the campfire area than creatures that had spent their lives lurking in the dark.
Curious to test that logic, He Xi unequipped the [Superior Dark Vision] trait in his mind.
The invisible gray-white film over his vision instantly faded away.
The surrounding trees, rocks, and even the mud beneath his feet were swallowed whole by profound darkness.
Yet precisely because all environmental reference points had vanished, the distant