The Curator
patreon
Chapter 59: The Fight begins
🕑 Added 2024-10-15 09:48:59 +0000 UTCMichael was annoyed. He had worked so hard to overthrow Kael, but now a war was about to begin, and he was given a place at the frontline. It all worked so well, and the blockade came in very handy to spin his tales. He had gathered over 40 loyal followers and gained a high standing among the other survivors. Then first, this Thalion didn't die, and now they would even get help. Both things weakened his current position, but it was fine. He had played the options for the future fight against the orcs many times. Fighting was an option and could crown him a hero who turned the tide of battle in their favor while Kael was probably standing back—at least that’s what he would do if he were in Kael's situation. The second option was standing back for safety and later trying an attack on Kael. Most of his close friends would be in the mix of battle and would probably be very exhausted or dead.
The last option was fleeing and opening another base with the help of the system store in a few days. He liked the last option the least, and the first and second were both promising. Maybe he would decide on a mix of both: first standing back until most archers were eliminated, then flying above the battlefield and raining fire on the orcs, only to fall back after doing a bit of a show to have enough strength left to fight Kael later. He had already briefed his men that they would let the others break through the wall first before they would make their move. There was no reason to risk his life just because Kael had commanded him. Then there would be more casualties during the attack since a few groups were depending on his men. Yeah, nothing to worry about; in fact, he would blame it on Kael if the bastard survived the day. He and his loyal followers had also created a list of who was best to fall in this war. There were, of course, the friends of Kael, but there were also more simple men and women who trusted Kael better if they died too. Close to the system shop, their credits would be very appreciated. In fact, he couldn't wait for the war to begin. No matter what happened, as long as the human side won, he was confident that he would come out on top. The idea that the orcs could win never even crossed his mind.
<--
Kargul watched the humans sneaking up on the orc blockade. This would never be a surprise attack. The only good thing was that they had those shapeshifters to scout the area. Even when the orcs spotted them, they wouldn't think that something big was coming for them. He didn't feel bad that he would kill his own kind soon. They were not from his clan, and even if they were, his brothers had tried to kill him often when they were younger, and his father had always punched him or encouraged his older siblings to kill him. After all, he was an embarrassment for his clan. He had never done anything wrong, but his muscles didn't grow as fast as they normally should. Luckily, this all changed with the system. He hunted like no other orc, and every level-up made him stronger, and with additional points in strength, his muscles had grown more and more. He was even strong enough to kill some of his siblings when they ambushed him. He only learned about friendship and trust after meeting Evelyn, who healed him, and he liked it. In fact, he had never been happier. Actually, he couldn't remember that he had ever laughed in his life. Okay, maybe that one time when his brother tripped and smashed his head into a wooden wall—that was funny. Still, to laugh about someone's pain and laugh with someone to share his happiness was much better. After Evelyn brought him so much happiness, he returned it by teaching her how to drink and to kill. She was a very good drinker, but he had the suspicion that she was cheating by healing herself when she got too drunk after the second bottle of vodka. What does he know? Maybe she was just special. On the second part, he had tried very hard to teach her how to kill something. He had even insisted that she should smash one of the wolf babies after he killed the mother wolf. Kargul even made a special stick for her so she could smash the baby the right way, but she didn't want to since then. Kargul had always tried to leave the weak beast alive for her to gather some experience in smashing beasts; she couldn't always run away from trouble.
Still, she had declined, but after two weeks, he had made progress in bringing her to smash the corpse of a beast with the stick. Since then, he had tried to argue that there really was no big difference between smashing a corpse and a living beast. It doesn't matter because he would never give her up, as she was his best friend. Friends were supposed to look out for each other and always tell the truth; she always told him that, and he would take her word to heart. Evelyn watched while they were preparing the magic circles they had charged the previous day. They were actually very close to the wall, but they had two mages who could do illusions, which allowed them to get this close. But soon it would begin. She feared that the shapeshifters were coming for her. There was already one missing. He was one of the shapeshifters who had been sent to scout the wall and the area around it, but he never returned.
She had already told Kargul, who was now also watching the area for sudden movements. The circles were finished, and Garrick was ordering the teams around with whispers or hand signs. It seemed that he didn't intend to fight at all, as he too was staying back. The illusion was very impressive, to be able to hide the whole army must take a lot of mana, and she saw how exhausted the mages who cast it already looked. But all twenty magic circles were set, and for every circle, there was a little defensive array to block incoming attacks.
"This is the time, show them our wrath," Garrick screamed. His voice carried far and wide, and the illusion dropped.
His men started screaming loudly some battle cries while they were running at the wall.
To say the orcs looked surprised was an understatement, but they didn't fear the humans; one of them even had a smile on his face, which seemed to say, "Wow, are they really this dumb?"
One of the orcs put a horn to his lips and wanted to sound the alarm as a giant fireball hit him and blasted him off the wall, with a bit of the wall collapsing.
The mages had begun their attack, and fireballs rained down on the orcs. She had never expected that it would work so well. The fireballs were the most powerful spells she had ever seen, and they now flung them over the wall to hit the camp that was made in the free space between the wall in front of her and the wall on the side of Kael's base. She heard the explosions and surprised screams of the orcs, but the mages didn't stop and kept slinging spells at the orcs without mercy.
Thalion thought about eagly why they were waiting for something to happen. He had those amazing spells, but they would be so much better on his human side since it had more mana. On the other hand, eagly was nothing without those spells, and he liked the eagle form, so he wanted to wait with the decision until the system shop would arrive in a few days. Hopefully, he would be able to upgrade the eagle's mana reserves. Maybe body tempering was enough. He had already succeeded a bit in pulling electricity into his feathers, but the problem was there was not enough around to have a strong effect.
Maybe after the fight, he could order some of the young mages to shoot him with lightning spells. It should work when his passive skill was absorbing it. Then he just needed to gather it and push it into the feathers. The question was how much lightning his passive skill could absorb without him getting damaged, or was it even bad if you got hit by lightning? It runs through your body anyway. The problem was that it also leaves it pretty damaged. The sound of a giant explosion brought him back to the real world. The attack had begun.
He looked over as fireball after fireball was fired, crashing into the orc camp and ripping the tents into pieces.
"This is it! Go, go, go!" Kael gave the command to every unit in the base through his crystal. Thalion transformed into eagly and shot into the air with skydive, and in moments he was over eight hundred meters high. The attack was focused on one part of the giant ring that surrounded them, but they were now attacking on all fronts. It should work; he heard how Kael was already focusing his men on this part of the wall while calling the others to wait a bit until the orcs had left their posts. With that, over a hundred men were sprinting to the wall that saved the orcs from outside attacks, and Kael's men were attacking from the other side.
Thalion focused on his job. On every orc tower were around six orc mages and archers who were readying their spells. The good thing was that there were only four of those towers placed at regular intervals around the walls surrounding Kael's base. He dove down on the first. The archers were already firing at Garrick's attackers, but they had strong defensive arrays running that blocked the first ones with ease. Thalion transformed into his human form when he was above the orcs and shot out two vines of the sanguine thorn that pierced the hearts of two orcs and hungrily shot at the other orcs stationed on the tower. Thalion was already casting crimson harvest and drained the blood out of the two orcs, who died moments later. Two other orcs who didn't react fast enough were ensnared and sucked dry too.
One of the mages jumped off the tower while the last one summoned a shield in front of him and charged a fireball in his right hand. Thalion conjured the empowered version of the blood thorn and shot it at the heart of the orc. The thorn shattered the barrier with ease and killed the orc with a surprised look on his face that his barrier was overcome so easily. Thalion grabbed the orc corpse with a vine and drained it of blood. Next, he landed on the tower and started sniping the remaining archers and mages who were standing fifty meters under him on the wall. Some were hiding under the battlements since Kael's mages were bombarding them with spells.
His thorn hit the orcs in the head, killing them instantly. In moments, he killed over fifteen orcs without much effort. Next were the orcs leaving the tents. After shooting a few more orcs, he saw the red orc exiting the big tent, shouting loudly to the other orcs.
Thalion conjured a powerful blood thorn and shot it at the red orc. He aimed for the head, but at that distance it was difficult, and he hit the orc in the heart.
The red orc took a few steps back with the red thorn stuck in his heart, his eyes wide. Then the demeanor turned into pure rage. He started to glow with red light, and red mist was rising from his skin. The thorn was losing its form, and soon after it was fully absorbed by the red orc, the wound was now closing with speed visible to the eye.
"Ah, shit," Thalion muttered to himself. It would have been too easy to kill one of the strongest fighters, probably even their leader, that easily.
Even when the orc had absorbed his blood and activated some skill that increased its strength, it still looked a bit weakened. Maybe he had destroyed something important with the heart that couldn't heal fast enough. The red orc raised his arm, pointing at him, and over fifteen orcs were charging for the entrance of the tower while two archers were shooting their spear-like arrows at him.
He needed to duck down to avoid those lethal attacks. The orcs who entered the tower would need a bit until they arrived here, and when they were on top, they probably didn't even have ranged attacks, making them completely useless in the fight raging below them. He turned to the other side, where the orcs still hadn't noticed him and started firing blood thorns at them, killing many orcs instantly. But before he could finish off any more, he heard the loud footsteps of the orcs… heavy footsteps. Time to go, and he jumped off the tower on the side where the tower was blocking the view to the red orc and transformed into eagly, activating feather glide and sky dive to shoot into the sky with incredible speed. Soon, he was two kilometers up in the sky, watching the fight unfold itself.
