Chapter 86: Rain of Arrows

Tristan's face rapidly changed as he saw the surrounding buildings were getting blazed by the arrows.

It was clear that the enemy had changed their tactic to burning all the entirety of the fishing port.

All the dilapidated, worn out, old wooden houses were quickly being torn and burned down, along with dozens of the barbarians on the battlefield who were unlucky enough to be hit by the flaming rain.

The barbarian warriors who were still fighting against Tristan began to retreat. But then, something unexpected happened.

Another volley of arrows was launched and it was aimed at the retreating barbarians. It seemed that the barbarian archers were ordered to kill any figures that tried to walk out of the port, regardless of their identity.

Seeing the barbarians getting shot by their own people, Tristan assumed that it was either because those barbarians did not allow cowardice among their ranks, or because they just did not want to risk the survivors to be part of his blood sealed warriors. Either way, it meant there were more bodies for him to extract Blood Essence off.

Tristan quickly extracted Blood Essence from all the barbarians while he still kept his eyes on the faraway archers. Rain of arrows was still ongoing, but his battle power made him able to easily dodge or parry them. Unfortunately, he can't say the same for the others.

Layla and the others were seen coming out of the house they were in as it was scorched by the blazing flames. They immediately made their way over to where Tristan was while holding up shields that they took from the barbarian corpse to protect them from the raining arrows. 

"Tris! What should we do now?" Layla asked while closing her body even more to Astrid who had currently become her personal bodyguard.

Tuck!

Another batch of Arrows came down from the sky and landed on the shield that was held by them. It only a matter of time before the shield can't protect them anymore

Tristan knew he definitely could not stay here anymore. He took a glance at the river one more time, and still not spotted the said reinforcement. Thus, he decided to not wait for it anymore.

There were just more and more arrows raining down on them like a turbulent waterfall. Moreover, black smokes began to permeate. Sooner or later, these smokes would make them pass out due to the absence of air.

If they were stubborn and chose to wait for the reinforcement, Tristan was sure that all of them would already be under the ground the moment it arrived.

Tristan was thinking about jumping to the river and escaping through there but quickly dumped the idea after thinking it through. Swimming would make them even more of a sitting duck than they were currently at. It probably only work if he only has Layla to protect.

The next batch of arrows killed two of his blood-sealed warriors that's been protecting the group with their shield. They were doing their best to fend off the arrows by clumping up together making a big cover out of burning shield.

An idea finally came into his mind.

[Blood Synthesis]

Substantial amount of red mist quickly came out of Tristan. But this time, instead of forming them into a small sphere, he pictured them becoming a huge spread out shield that could cover him. As a result, a red wide curved circular structure formed above Tristan, looking like an umbrella.

Tuck! Tuck! Tuck! Consecutive sounds of arrows hitting hard surfaces were heard, and Tristan was glad to see the idea was effective to block the arrow. Hence, he immediately pushed the skill to make it wide enough to cover the whole group.

Tristan could only ignore the 300 Blood Essence needed to create it. After all, all of those Blood Essence would become worthless if they all died here. Safety would always be the utmost priority in his book.

"Tris, this new skill of yours is both amazing and creepy." Layla commented as she saw the arrows cluttered on the ground around them after they hit the blood shield.

The others also watched the sight in awe. The elf standing in front of them truly had many tricks on his sleeve.

Now that the matter of raining arrows was solved. It was finally just the decision - which way they should head to.

Any choice of direction would probably be all the same, however, Tristan strangely decided to head south.

As expected, when Tristan announced his decision to go south, the others exploded.

"South?! But why? Why not north?! The Arcadian is in the north!"

Tristan was sure there would be more enemies prepared to block the north. Therefore, he eventually chose south out of his guts feeling.

The smokes from the burning houses had finally enveloped the whole fishing port, blocking the sight of the barbarian archers. That was when the group decided to make their escape.

"Run as fast as you can, and do not look back!"

The blood shield swiftly positioned to cover their front, turning into a mobile wall that would run in front of them stopping all the incoming arrows from the barbarian archers.

The barbarians were in disbelief to see what they not expected coming out of the smokes. Instead of a group of people, a big blob of blood was charging at them at great speed.

Bracckkk

The blood shield crush at the archery line threw them apart like a bowling pin and opening a way.

"Keep going!! Run!!"

After breaking through the barbarian archer's line, the next one was the barbarian warriors that surrounded the port in their shield wall formation.

Tristan could tell his blood shield was almost diminished. Thus, he decided to break it apart before forming it into multiple small blood pearls which then fired into the barbarian lines like machine gun shots.

Screams and shouts were permeating the air on the south side. Unfortunately, it was not enough to break out the barbarian's shield walls. The group was stopped and has to fight over dozens of barbarians before they can breakthrough.

The rest of the barbarians instantly moved into a different formation and about to surround them once more.

Tristan continued his slaughter, opening up way until they reached the hill south of the port. Alas, when the group had climbed the hill, they realized there were too many barbarians they had to deal with.

More and more of the enemy gaining on them and Scrall the tall barbarians being the rearguard of the group finally fall and meet his end.

"We are not gonna make it!" shouted the unhelpful Seth. "We are gonna die!"

It was at this moment that Tristan saw a glimpse of hope - a reinforcement had come, but it was not from the sea nor it was humans.

From the other side of the hill, Across the southern plains, hundreds of greenskins were charging towards them with a female orc leading them.

Tristan could hear the loud shout coming from the female orc.

"For the chief, attack!!!"