The old earl was deeply saddened when he learned that his cousin-in-law had died in the war. Fortunately, the Goodman family bloodline was not broken, and several underage children in the family escaped with Anna.
And from the questioning just now, the old count also discovered very important information, that is, there is a traitor!
"Damn it, why are there so many traitors? Is the orc infiltration so severe?"
Muttering to himself, the old earl knew that this was not the place to reminisce the past, so he immediately covered the men's retreat to the east. However, less than half an hour after they had walked, the rear guard came running to report that a group of about two thousand orcs were heading towards them.
Orcs are very fast. Although they cannot run as fast as those on horseback, they are much faster than humans on foot.
The old earl knew that the big fish he was catching had been hooked, so he immediately assigned ten cavalrymen to act as guides and lead them to the allied camp. If they hurried, they should be able to arrive before nightfall.
He turned around with the remaining knights to prepare for the attack, and ordered his guards to fire flares into the sky.
One arrow pierces the clouds and thousands of troops come to meet you!
134. The Beast King's Ambition
"The mopping-up corps heading east, what is their current situation?"
"The progress over there is not very smooth. The human lords have recovered and started to organize a counterattack. In the past few days, several tribes that acted alone were annihilated by a group of human cavalry. The human troop is said to be very elite. Most of the cavalry are warriors who have practiced martial arts. They are not inferior to orc warriors in one-on-one combat."
"Humph! I've already reminded them not to underestimate the human race. But it's good to let them suffer a little. As long as the ones who survive are not hopelessly stupid, they will know who to listen to in the future."
Inside the camp of the main orc army, Beast King Ramon was discussing with his black-robed advisers a series of setbacks that the mopping-up army had recently encountered.
The large army, with a total strength of over 30,000, would have been a force that could not be underestimated if they had acted together, but they took the initiative to split themselves into small units, giving the enemy the opportunity to defeat them one by one.
Rather than saying that they are a brainless mob, it is better to say that this is the nature of the Orcs!
Traditional beastmen are barbaric and brutal by nature. They have no concept of nation or country, and the highest identity of the group is the tribe. Calling them nomadic tribes is a compliment. In fact, they are primitive communities that rely purely on hunting and gathering for a living. When the harvest is bad, they will go south to the human territory to collect money.
Ramon's ideal is to transform the title of "Beast King" from an honorary title into a ruler with real power, so as to integrate all the orc tribes in the wilderness and establish an orc kingdom.
However, Ramon's grand ambitions were not understood by all of his fellow tribesmen. There were indeed some smart tribesmen who recognized his ideas and took the initiative to serve under him, but there were also some stubborn people who felt that Ramon was destroying the ancestral laws that the Orcs had maintained for thousands of years.
They didn't understand why Ramon wanted to learn from the humans to establish a so-called country, and they also listened to the black-robed foreigners around him and "bewitched" many respected old shamans to do these things together.
What made these traditional orcs even more unacceptable was that Ramon also advocated hybridization with humans. The half-orcs born would indeed be smarter, but their physiques would be much thinner than purebred orcs. Big bodies and big muscles were the basis of orcs' strength. Could brains really beat fists?
Faced with these fellow tribesmen who were too stupid to be easily persuaded by words, Ramon was at a loss and adopted the advice of his black-robed staff, which was to divert internal conflicts externally.
Due to Ramon's strong suppression, the Orcs have not gone south to plunder the human race for seven years. This was originally done to paralyze the human race. Now that the time is almost right, they launched an unprecedented and largest-scale invasion.
Lamont deliberately called together the tribes that opposed him and organized them into the same legion. After invading the human territory, he led his own people to attack the pass fortress, and then allowed the mopping-up legion composed of the opposition to plunder.
At first glance, this arrangement seemed like Ramon was going to have to chew the hard bone by himself, leaving the dissidents to show off the fat meat, but Ramon knew the human race's strengths very well. After getting through the initial chaos, they would be able to regroup quickly and begin to organize an effective resistance.
The traditional orcs, without strong suppression from above, will soon disperse in their original tribes and become a group of guerrillas, who may even fight with each other for the spoils.
Therefore, the current changes in the situation are basically within Ramon's expectations. Let the traditional fools consume each other with the human resistance force. Their sacrifice can be regarded as a contribution to the establishment of the "Great Wasteland Khanate".
However, the human resistance was somewhat beyond Ramon's expectations. It seemed that they not only quickly organized an effective defense, but also had the energy and courage to launch a counterattack.
The human cavalry that launched the counterattack had killed more than three thousand orcs. The most powerful battle was a head-on charge into a tribe of two thousand people, killing most of them. The chief of that tribe was also beheaded by the enemy in the battle.
In Ramon's opinion, their performance was a bit too exaggerated!
If he wasn't busy attacking the fortress, Ramon really wanted to meet these tenacious human knights in person.
Ramon was discussing the countermeasures for the siege with his staff when a guard came in with two dusty guys. Ramon looked at them and thought for five seconds before recognizing them.
"Neg, Shahu, why are you here?"
Neg and Shahu looked at each other awkwardly. Since they escaped from the camp that day, they did not join up with other troops of the mopping-up corps, but traveled through mountains and rivers to rush to Ramon's main force.
Neg thought for a moment and honestly told Ramon about his experiences. Shahu beside him would occasionally help add a sentence or two. Especially when they were on the west bank of the Nie River, Neg arrived early and saw with his own eyes that the human race built a huge city in just a few days. He even went up close to observe late at night to personally verify that it was not an illusion created by magic.
After listening to this, Ramon pondered for a long time, and suddenly asked Neg with interest.
"Neiger, what did you learn from this?"
"The strength of the human race lies not in brute force but in wisdom. I have often heard you and the teachers talk about this before, but I have never been able to experience it directly. Now I have seen it with my own eyes."
"The human race is very weak, but they know how weak they are, so they will try every possible way to make up for their weaknesses. However, many of our orc compatriots think that they are strong just because they are big, and they think that they can fight against the steel of the human race with their fists and bone clubs. Neg, it is rare that you can realize this. Your father will now give you a task. I will give you 3,000 troops to escort the captured human race back to the wilderness. There are many talents among these captives that we urgently need, such as farmers and various craftsmen, so you must be gentle to these people and try to escort them all back in good condition."
It was rare to hear Ramon call himself a "father" and assign such an important task to him. Neg, who thought he had been abandoned, was flattered for a moment, but he quickly came to his senses.
Since they were going to occupy the human race's northern territory this time, why did they bother to send all the captives back to the wilderness? Ramon explained with a smile.
"We must prepare for everything, especially for the worst-case scenario."
The author says:
Author's words: I've had a high fever for three days, and it was only by taking two ibuprofen pills a day to keep my brain from getting burned out.
135. Welcome to my world
Because Ramon deliberately left it alone, the mopping-up corps advancing eastward had now fallen into a very delicate situation. There was almost no communication between the scattered tribes. It was like playing a team competitive game by yourself without turning on the microphone, and then being caught one by one by the opposing "jungler"!
In the past few days of fighting, the cavalry units have achieved fruitful results. Although they have also suffered certain losses, the enemy-to-us exchange ratio has reached an astonishing 12:1.
In addition to the strong quality of the cavalry units themselves, this is also due to the double bonus in combat power and morale brought by the overwhelming advantage in troop strength.
Except for the first day of the attack, when they encountered an orc army of two thousand, the subsequent battles were all aimed at targeting stragglers, whose numbers ranged from dozens to hundreds, and who basically could not withstand a charge from the cavalry.
It is worth mentioning that every time the troops launched a charge, Dick would cast a high-level explosion magic on the opponent before the vanguard engaged the enemy. Moreover, Dick's horsemanship was good. He could charge with the troops and perform high-level magic with a high degree of difficulty quickly and accurately while riding on horseback. It was difficult for other magicians who followed the army to reach his level.
This unique skill of "mobile turret" made the knights in the team who didn't know Dick well start to look at him with admiration.
At first, everyone could not help but judge a person by his appearance. Seeing that Dick had a fair and delicate face and a short and thin stature, they thought he would be a more delicate and difficult to serve encumbrance than other magicians. However, he turned out to be a very strong and durable little hunk. After fighting with the army for so many days, the other lazy magicians could not bear it anymore and were transferred back to the rear for rotation. Only he remained calm throughout the whole process and did not complain.
With such performance, I believe I have won everyone's respect.
On the tenth day of the operation, people familiar with the local climate noticed that the wind direction had changed, and they felt that this was a sign of a cold wave, indicating that a new round of temperature drop and snowfall was about to come. Dick and Old Banner discussed it and decided to withdraw while they were ahead and avoid the wind and snow.
The total number of orcs they have killed in these days has exceeded four thousand, plus the more than four thousand killed in the previous surprise attack on the camp. In total, they have wiped out almost a quarter of the orc mopping-up army.
Of course! There were even more people whose families were destroyed by these orcs. They did save a lot of refugees and showed them the direction to the coalition camp, but there were still more corpses.
Many villages and towns were massacred, and some manors and castles were breached. The soldiers who were sent in to search for survivors looked as if they had suffered some kind of mental trauma when they came out.
The cavalry troops had no spare energy to search for the survivors who were hiding, and could only kill as many orc troops as possible that were marauding everywhere.
"Even if we drive the orcs away in this battle, the entire North will be severely damaged."
On the way back, the troops planned to spend the night in a deserted town. Old Banner looked at the dead tree in the middle of the village and muttered to himself, seeming to be in sadness.
After hearing this, Dick, who was standing by, stepped forward to comfort him.
"It will be fine. In the future we will rebuild everything from the ruins!"
"I hope so. I just hope this winter won't be too cold."
After nightfall, the snow fell as expected, carried by a fierce northwest wind that made it difficult for people to stand.
But even in such a harsh climate, necessary sentinels and patrols are necessary to prevent orcs from sneaking up and attacking at night.
However, even though the sentinels were extremely alert, they still failed to detect in time that something intangible was quietly approaching in the darkness.
Dick was meditating in the room at this time. Meditation is one of the common methods for magicians to exercise and restore their mental strength, but for Dick, its efficiency is actually not as good as "dual cultivation". Moreover, with Dick's current level of cultivation, meditation no longer has any improvement effect on him. It is even very troublesome to enter the meditative state every time. It's just that the current environment is somewhat unsuitable, so he didn't call anyone over.
Because the magician's mental power is highly introverted during meditation, which will lead to a significant decrease in external perception, so generally speaking, meditation is carried out in a relatively safe and undisturbed environment.
When Dick is meditating, his consciousness seems to be in a pure white, boundless space, symbolizing that Dick's spiritual world is empty after entering into a state of meditation.
However, at some point, a hint of darkness began to erode this originally pure white space. Dick sensed something strange and was about to exit meditation, but he found himself trapped in his own spiritual space. After a while, a mass of black mud-like object crawled in front of him, slowly transforming into a humanoid shadow, and emitting a sinister and strange laugh.
"You want to run away, little brat? No way!"
"Who are you? How did you get into my spiritual space?"
"Hey, you don't deserve to know my name. You just need to know that you are going to die soon."
Looking at the black shadow in front of him who was constantly talking trash, Dick guessed that this should be some kind of mind control spell, an evil magic that should not be seen in the light of day.
This kind of sorcery is very useful. It can penetrate into other people's souls and steal the secrets buried deep in their hearts. Even more powerful, it can control consciousness and even take over the other person's body.
At this moment, Dick suddenly thought that according to the intelligence they had collected before, many lords like the Goodman family, who were powerful and had strong castles to defend, were conquered by the orcs because of "traitors".
Old Banner was very puzzled about this. How did the orcs manage to plant so many traitors among the human race?
Now it seems that the real reason is right in front of Dick.
However, what surprised Dick was that these mind-controlling evil spells usually prioritized those with weak mental strength as their targets because they were easier to deal with.
As a magician, Dick's mental power is dozens of times that of an ordinary person. If someone wants to suppress him in mental power, he must be a demigod!
So Dick quickly figured out what the other party's real purpose was.
"You are here to hold me back, right? With your ability, you can't swallow me up at all, but you can temporarily trap me in the spiritual space."
"You are right. I cannot possess your body, but I can trap you for a day and a night. However, your comrades may not be able to hold out until dawn. Just wait here until your defenseless body in reality is pierced by a spear. My people will take good care of you."
"Ha! Trap me for a whole day and night? Are you sure you can trap four of us?"
The corner of Dick's mouth curled up, revealing the classic Dragon King smile, and as a strong but inexplicable music sounded in the spiritual space, three more figures emerged from behind Dick one after another!
136. The Disturbed "Monster"
Dick was unwilling to meditate because now, every time he entered a meditative state, he had to find a way to suppress his three "subconscious minds" that were generated based on different bloodlines, namely Dick of the three races of human, elf, and succubus.
As subconscious beings, they all hope that Dick, as the subject, can choose themselves, so when he enters meditation, they will jump out and harass him on the spiritual level.
Therefore, in order to achieve the ethereal state of mind required for meditation, he had to suppress these three brothers first.
But at this moment, these three annoying people who are just distractions to Dick are actually strong forces that he can rely on in this spiritual space!
The black shadow on the opposite side who refused to give his name saw that Dick suddenly turned from one to four, and they were of different races. Even though he couldn't see his face clearly, he could feel that he was very confused.
"What's going on? Are you schizophrenic?"
"I'm too lazy to explain the details to you, just watch!"
In the spiritual space, the four Dicks fought side by side, beating up a black shadow of unknown origin. In the real world outside, a deafening roar awakened the soldiers who were on guard. When they rushed out of the room, they saw a large group of orcs rushing into the town. The two sides immediately fell into a very brutal melee.
Normally, even with the darkness and heavy snow, this environment would indeed affect the visibility of the naked eye, but Dick distributed an alchemical potion called "Night Owl" to the sentinels at key positions, which could give the user night vision and hearing comparable to that of an owl.
With these special sentinels around, we shouldn’t have to wait until the orcs broke into the town before calling the police.
But the fact is, five of the six special sentinels were killed silently, and the murderer was the sixth special sentinel.
Fortunately, when the incident happened, Bai Qiangdai was leading a patrol and happened to run into this traitor. When the traitor saw that his tracks were exposed, he rushed up to fight desperately, but was pinned to the ground by Bai Qiangdai's bare hands, as easily as pinching a chicken.
Bai Qiangdai did not kill the traitor on the spot, but wanted to capture him for interrogation. However, at this time, a large army of orcs suddenly attacked from outside the town at night. Bai Qiangdai could only carry out a simple "harmless treatment" on the traitor, and then shouted and led his troops to rush forward to meet the enemy.
Although they encountered a sudden attack, fortunately, everyone on the human side, from top to bottom, did not take off their armor even when sleeping. Therefore, when they heard the shouting and killing outside, their bodies often reacted faster than their brains. They opened their eyes, picked up their weapons and rushed out to fight.
As the first person to meet the enemy, Bai Qiangdai knew that the enemy's raid on the camp was like a dam breach, and he could not allow the enemy to rush into the camp like a flood. He had to plug the breach first to buy time for his own troops.
Therefore, with only ten soldiers around him, Bai Qiangdai didn't bother to continue hiding his strength, and directly used his ability as a heroic spirit to summon his mount on the spot, and then fired a "Spear Shining at the End" at the invading orcs.
Although Bai Qiangdai's holy spear was stripped of its divinity when it was summoned to this world, causing its power to drop significantly (the advantage is that it will not erode the main body, allowing Bai Qiangdai to recover its nature), and it is not as devastating as in the original world, but it is still an authentic treasure, and therefore the effect of this shot is in no way inferior to a 500-pound bomb, which stunned all her personal soldiers.
"Ah? Is the big sister so powerful?"
"Turtle! This strength must be that of a Saint-level warrior!"
It was Bai Qiangdai's "light cannon" that directly woke up almost everyone in the town, and the only person who didn't wake up was Dick who was meditating in the room.
Hearing a loud noise outside, followed by shouts and screams, Joel, who was guarding the door, saw that Dick had not come out yet. Even though she was cute and naive, she realized something was wrong. She quickly broke into the door, but saw Dick sitting there with his head down, not saying a word. This scared Joel a lot.
"Master, Master Dick! Don't scare me. What's wrong with you? "
Seeing that Dick had no reaction to him, Joel panicked and wanted to reach out to push him, but he was afraid that he would hurt Dick again with his extraordinary strength, and he was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan.
Fortunately, Hei Qiangdai arrived at this time, and Joel hurriedly pulled her over to check the situation. As a heroic spirit, Hei Qiangdai was very sensitive to magic. She could sense that Dick was still in a meditative state, but there seemed to be a strange force trapping him, which prevented him from waking up.
In other words, something had attacked Dick while he was meditating.
As luck would have it, Dick's personal bodyguard today was Joel. One of the three female ninjas who could sense evil powers ran back to the rear base of Laguge to deliver a letter, and the other two were sent out to perform reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines. This gave the other side the opportunity to take advantage of the loophole.
Black Gun didn't have a good solution for Dick's current condition for the time being, but she could sense that Dick's magic power and vitality were still very strong, which showed that Dick was not in a weak position in the spiritual space.
What they have to do now is to protect Dick's body before he escapes.
At this time, the battle outside was already very fierce. Although Bai Qiangdai was outnumbered and could only block a gap by himself, there were far more than one gap. The number of enemies was more than expected, and they were surrounding the town from all directions. The key was that there were also traitors mixed in the crowd, who would jump out from time to time to launch suicide attacks on the officers organizing the defense, making it difficult for them to deal with it.
In the chaos of the battle, old Banner, along with his eldest son and the third son, hastily organized his personal soldiers to set up a line of defense in the north of the town, using spears and large shields to form a hedgehog formation to resist the fierce attacks of the orcs.
The two sides engaged in close combat on the street, long swords and bone spears intertwined, the faces of both humans and beasts were full of madness and ferocity, and the killing was so fierce that blood flowed like a river!
At this time, Count Banner saw his second son, covered in blood, running towards him with an orc's head in his hand. The old man was about to ask him to help his elder brother, but he saw the other party suddenly speed up and stab at him with a sword, with a wild laugh on his face that was completely inconsistent with his originally dull character.
