Rise of the Horde

250 Chapter 25The suppression done by Drae’ghanna made the march of the Ereians and their hired guards looks like they were moving though a swamp filled with sticky mud as they moved at a snail pace. Varus was staring at the figure in the sky all the time as he patiently waited for another opportunity to strike but it never came as Drae’ghanna kept a safe distance from them, well outside the range of their attacks as she continued raining down fireballs onto them.

“Shit! How much mana does that bastard have!” Malik can’t help but curse out loud as he wiped his forehead that was covered in beads of sweat trying his best to maintain he magic barrier to repel the attacks of their foe in the sky. Its been almost an hour already and the enemy was still raining down hell upon them without the need to rest.

The members of the Blade Crows knew that they would soon need to enter battle as they noticed the group of orcs heading towards them with a pace that wouldn’t lose to a full charge of theirs. They thought that this mission that they took would be as easy as drinking a barrel of wine in a tavern but now they thought otherwise as enemies are all over them. Their group just came from a mission further south of Ereia and they were well on their way back to the union and they didn’t expect that the City of Alsenna would be suddenly be under siege and by orcs at that. They had no plans to be involved in the upcoming battles and they already planned to get out of the city as soon as possible and the offered mission by the Ereian nobles and merchants that wanted to leave the city became like a gift that fell from the sky or so they thought, since they would be receiving a massive pay while fleeing the city which was their original plan.

Khao’khen was awed by the successful suppression of Drae’ghanna onto their enemies which allowed them to catch up to their targets faster than he had expected. He didn’t expect that a single person could almost halt the advance of a thousand targets but then he remembered that in the modern world, a single fighter jet could make a battalion of tanks very cautious in their movements especially with the lack of anti-air. This gave him an idea of introducing the concept of airforce which made him excited but then his excitement quickly died down as he realized that they don’t have a lot of people like Drae’ghanna who can rain down spells from the sky, well the shamans can do just the same but he doubts that they can maintain it as long as her. Then there is the problem about the flying mounts which they absolutely lack since besides Akwilah, they don’t have anything else.

Looking ahead, Khao’khen cleared his mind from other thoughts as he wanted to focus on the battle that was about to unfold. Their foes had given up on fleeing and are now preparing themselves to engage them as they formed a proper battleline to confront them. He was confident in the strength of his warriors and he knew that this would be a quick battle but then the surging auras of a few people among their foes caught his attention.

There were four people who were emitting a powerful feeling and there is another one that was emitting a more powerful force than the other four. He didn’t know what was going on exactly but he knew that many of the Yurakks will not be able to win against those five in a one on one fight and even he himself isn’t a hundred percent confident in confronting the strongest of their foes.

“Luckily, the Yurakks now seldomly fight in one-on-one confrontations as they have learned to coordinate with their comrades…” he mumbled as he watched the warbands moving slowly into proper formation as they headed towards the enemies. Four square-ish formation emerged from the messy almost sprinting pace of the orcs which somewhat surprided Varus as he didn’t expect the rowdy orcs to form up like real soldiers.

Varus felt like he was seeing an illusion, as instead of savage orcs which were headed towards them it was the proper army of the empire. He shook his head to get rid of his thoughts as he rapidly gave out commands and when he turned his gaze towards their rear, the orc riders that have been moving ahead of them were there again as they threatened their rear which forced him to assign some of his brothers to guard the rear as he was sure that those orcs riding their wolf like steeds wouldn’t remain as audience of the upcoming battle.

The four square-ish formation of the orcs was less than a hundred meters away from them and they were shortening the distance between them fairly quick but he was somewhat relieved that the attacks from the sky finally seized. Malik finally can have some rest as he was almost at his limits in maintaining the barrier but he knew that he wouldn’t have much rest as he needed to participate in chaos that was about to unfold.

.....

“Here take this…” an Ereian merchant shoved something in the hands of Malik which confused him and when he turned to look at what the merchant handed to him, he didn’t know if he should be grateful or pissed. The stingy merchant unexpectedly had some mana potions on him and he didn’t reveal it until the situation became really dire which he could have used to maintain the size of the barrier before and they wouldn’t have to lose almost a hundred of their allies in the rain of fire. Those who suffered a tragic fate after Malik shrunk the barrier were strangers to him and he didn’t need to care about them but what pissed him off was that their employers seemed to don’t care about the lives of those who they hired.

Malik popped the cover of the potion bottles then chugged down its contents, the sweet and cooling feeling filled his throat and he could feel his almost empty mana recovering quickly. After chugging down two of the mana potions, he felt invigorated as he stared at their approaching enemies with a smirk. He wanted to make their foes experience what they have experience before as numerous balls of fire emerged above him then started soaring towards their foes.

The sudden emergence of the blazing balls surprised Varus who was preparing to send out a powerful strike in an attempt to scare off their foes and letting them know that they aren’t easy to deal with. When he turned his gaze towards the rear, he saw Malik chanting the mostly seen spell of mages ‘Fireball’ as more and more balls of flames emerged atop his head before flying towards their enemies. Unwilling to be outdone, Varus swung his blade with full force sending out blades of his battle energy towards their foes.

Khao’khen noticed the attack that was heading towards them and he was about to give the order for the Yurakks to form Tortherra Formation which was the replication of the Roman Legion’s Testudo but Gur’kan beat him to it as he shouted “Tortherra” as loud as he could and as they have been trained to do. The mobility of the Yurakks suffered a lot after forming Tortherra as they had to move in-sync with their comrades as not to render the formation useless since a small opening would ruin the formation. Sounds of explosion came as the fireball spells of Malik crashed against the shields of the Yurakks which forced the wielders of the shields to stiffen a bit as they received the impact force of the spells but they continued on their march nonetheless. As the Yurakks braved through the rain of fire, yellowish blades crash through the shields of those who were at the forefront which pushed them backwards but with the help of those behind them, they managed to endure the impact of the yellowish blades but their shields suffered a lot of damage and were almost sliced in half.

When they were within ten meters, Khao’khen gave the command to break formation and charged at their foes in full speed and his warriors broke into a mad sprint. The tow battlelines finally crashed against each other and mayhem began as the orcs jumped on the closet enemy that they spotted. Sounds of metal clashing against metal, screams of agony and grunts of pain followed as the two sides got entangles with each other.

The initial chaos of the clash finally began to subside as the orcs stabilized their battleline as they waited for their comrades to stand shoulder to shoulder with them before pushing forwards. If it was before they were trained, each one of them would be an orc to himself as he would charge deeper and deeper into enemy lines as the situation unfolds but since they have been educated a lot through some pain and suffering in their trainings whenever they break formation, their fighting style have massively changed, well at least when they are in formation but when fighting one on one, they would still be as reckless as before.

Khao’khen watched the battle unfold from the rear as he focused his attention on the strongest of their foes who were still to join the fray properly as they were hiding behind their frontline probably to observe how the battle unfolds. As he had expected, the orcs overpowered the humans and they were breaking apart the humans’ battleline.