Chapter 158 - The Orcs Attack - IV

Due to several of the knights being in a severely wounded state, the group was forced to split into two, leaving most of the members to carry more seriously wounded knights back to town. A few of the wounded knights who weren't critically injured had started picking up their deceased comrades, deciding that they were going to bring them home to be buried properly.

A total of five knights stayed behind and began following Merlin's group back to the campsite where the orc warlord was hiding.

To their surprise, it seemed as though another group had also made it to that spot and were quickly explained the plan before they did anything stupid. 

The group was rather large, consisting of twenty knights, and with the addition of the five that they had saved from the other camp, alongside the knight that had been acting as their guide, they had a total of twenty-six knights to assist them in their plan.

The knights were given the order to bait small groups away from the camp and lead them as far away from the warlord as they could. They were explicitly told not to engage in combat unless absolutely required, as the main goal wasn't to kill the army yet, just the leader.

The plan was set into motion, with Callisto and Merlin being designated the two main fighters while dealing with the boss. The other rangers were standing by to separate the last few orcs away from the warlord if required, otherwise, they were just going to be dealing damage to the boss from a distance.

The knights spread out along the treeline around the camp, and every couple of minutes a single knight would leap out of the treeline, appearing before a group of orcs. They would usually throw a rock or branch at them, or unload an avalanche of profanities in their general direction, before sprinting back into the forest and making a run for it.

Each knight seemed to be grabbing about seven orcs each, with some angering three campfires worth of orcs accidentally. Not long after the plan had started, the warlord seemed to have noticed that something was wrong. When it saw that a little more than half of its camp had suddenly disappeared into the forest, it became cautious. The warlord stood up from the campfire and began barking orders at its army in Orcish.

'Oh finally, a familiar language.' Merlin thought to himself as he listened to the orc warlord.

Up until this point, all the languages that he had encountered were languages he never found in the main game. There was the language on the gravestone, the strange Bashkatil language he found in the vampire den, then the strange symbols on the door frame of that one ruin.

This was the first time in the beta that he heard someone speak a language that wasn't just common, and Merlin felt happy that he could still somewhat understand what the orc was saying.

The orcs started stomping into the forest with a large variety of bladed weapons drawn. The rangers, besides Callisto and Merlin, quickly scattered, they started baiting the orcs further into the forest. Eventually, the warlord was almost alone in the camp, only having two orcs remaining by its side.

"Everyone seems to have their hands full, do you want to take the little guys while I start messing with the big guy?" Merlin asked Callisto.

"Why don't you take the two orcs and I'll take the warlord?" Callisto responded.

"You can kill the little guys faster than I can," Merlin explained. "If you take care of both orcs quickly, you can help kill the big guy too."

"Alright, fine." Callisto backed off, accepting Merlin's plan. "You better not kill it before I get a few hits in."

"Oh, I don't think that'll be too hard." Merlin remarked, "I'll definitely need a hand with killing it."

Callisto quickly escaped her cover and shot two arrows out, aiming for both of the basic orcs. Her arrows hit their targets, angering all three enemies. It seemed the warlord was now alerted to her position too.

"Alright, it's my turn," Merlin remarked, He reached into his inventory, pulling out only a single mothflower this time.

He started rolling the flower around in his hand, filling his hand with loose scales. He activated phantom step with a brief chant, causing his body to quickly fade out of sight. Once his body had disappeared, Merlin ran straight for the warlord.

The warlord was much faster than the other two orcs, stomping past them in mere moments. The warlord reached Callisto before Merlin could catch up, and swung its massive war axe down on where Callisto was standing, causing a small cloud of dust to kick up as the axe struck the forest floor.

But the dust didn't block the painful sight that Merlin witnessed. As Callisto was about to be struck down with the war axe, she quickly dropped down to the ground, and her body slid underneath the orc warlord's legs gracefully.

But as she was sliding underneath the orc, she seemed to have decided that a quick jab at the orc's nether region was an acceptable attack. Merlin couldn't help but cringe as he imagined the pain the orc must have felt at that moment.

The orc warlord suddenly dropped down on one knee, as if it lost all strength in its legs for a moment.

"Well, you're definitely never having kids again." Merlin mocked as he stopped right in front of the warlord's face, throwing a handful of mothflower scales at it, which caused his invisibility to end abruptly. "Although, that's probably for the best."

The orc warlord breathed in the scales, and Merlin watched as the creature's nose became runny, and it briefly threw up. But it didn't seem to be that effective against the warlord like it was against ordinary orcs, rather it seemed to have made the monster angry more than anything.

Merlin barely dodged a fast claw swipe as he leapt backwards. He began sending his vines out to scratch the warlord, hoping that he would trigger his rose blight passive in the process.

The vines were leaving small scratches against the creature's exposed limbs, but they didn't seem to be dealing much damage at all. But while he was focused on that, much to Merlin's surprise, the orc warlord had suddenly grabbed hold of one of his vines.

"Oh cra--" Merlin swore as his body was suddenly jerked around by the vine. He tried his hardest to stay grounded, but eventually, his feet left the ground, and he found himself being spun around like a ball on a chain. 

"We're not doing this!" Merlin shouted as he sliced the vine with his dagger, causing his body to be flung out of the campsite and further into the forest.

As Merlin flew, he sent out his remaining two vines to catch onto anything they could. Fortunately, he managed to grab two trees in time, but the sudden stop caused his body to whip around violently, dealing a moderate amount of damage for what would have ultimately killed a regular human being.

But Merlin didn't have time to rest, as he quickly noticed that the orc warlord was now charging towards him. As it got near, Merlin thrust himself into the air as high as he could, allowing him to gracefully flip over the orc's giant frame.

While midair once more, Merlin sent his remaining two vines into the orc's shoulders, hoping that this time they would pierce it properly.

「Passive skill ⟪Rose Blight⟫ has triggered, target's stats have been reduced.」

And his wishes were granted, he watched as the orc's green skin on its right side had suddenly started shifting into a more purple hue.

The orc turned around while trying to grab the vines once more, but Merlin had retracted them in time and was now sending them back up into the trees so that he was off the ground.

The orc started moving again, it stomped its feet before it started its charge once more. Merlin noticed that it seemed to have slowed down slightly, but not to the level that he expected. The corruption process had given the creature a fair bit of status resistance, so Merlin's usual tricks weren't as effective as he hoped.

Merlin quickly started swinging through the trees, making his way back to the camp. The orc was chasing him along, but Merlin was quickly picking up speed. Even still, he made sure not to lose it.

While he was swinging in the air, Merlin quickly reached into his inventory and pulled out one of the healing potions he prepared beforehand. He emptied the contents into his mouth before throwing the empty glass vial back into his inventory.

Merlin started slowing down while approaching the campsite again, giving the orc warlord enough time to close the gap. But as Merlin had almost made it to the campsite, another figure flew past him.

He heard a loud bang, quickly followed by the distinct sound of a tree being shattered into splinters by brute force.

By the time he had made his way back onto the ground and turned around, the orc warlord was being pummelled into the ground by a very angry looking Callisto. 

Callisto seemed to be getting extremely tired rather quickly, and her attack speed had dropped tremendously.

Unfortunately, the warlord was still alive, although it had been beaten up rather brutally, and its face had been forcibly reconfigured, it still kept looking for a way to counterattack.

Once Callisto's attacks slowed down enough, the orc pushed her back several meters with a single punch. And due to her sudden exhaustion, she was powerless to counter the strike.

The orc warlord staggered to its feet and roared at Callisto. But before it could charge at her and deal any damage, it felt a sharp pain in its back.

"I'm still here, remember?" Merlin remarked, stabbing the orc once more before ducking under a panicked backhand strike.

It seemed Callisto had shattered several of the monster's bones, as the orc was much slower than it was even with the rose poison taking effect.

The two danced together as the fight raged on, with Merlin avoiding most of the strikes by a hair's breadth. 

An evil-looking grin had formed on Merlin's face, showcasing to his entire stream that he was enjoying this situation a little too much. Eventually, the rose poison had run out, and the orc warlord picked up more speed, making the fight slightly harder for Merlin.

「Passive skill ⟪Rending Strike⟫ has triggered, target is now suffering from severe bleeding.」

Merlin couldn't spare any time reading notification windows, even the slightest mistake would cost him a large chunk of health. He was panting rather heavily at this point, and his body was screaming from exhaustion, but Merlin ignored all the warning signs his body was giving him, which caused him to slowly start losing health over time.

Merlin's leg was swiped by the orc, causing a loud snapping sound to ring out and a massive wave of pain to run up his leg. Merlin barely glanced at his health, noticing that he was almost dead.

He barely dodged the orc's latest attack before thrusting his dagger into its leg, and it seemed as though the creature was finally slain, as it fell to the ground mid-swipe, almost crushing Merlin in the process.

"That... was fun." Merlin panted heavily before falling to the ground alongside the warlord's corpse.

He looked over to see that he was almost in the single digits in regards to his health, to which he quickly reached into his inventory and downed another healing potion.