"Halt!" The coachman shouted as the entire caravan halted. As for the people within the carriage, none of them alighted, staring from within, peeking through some lenses they had attached along the walls of the carriages just for this purpose.
And they watched as the four-metre-tall creature stood calmly, obstructing their path forward.
The coachman stared at the creature, trying his best to remain calm when he noticed the creature turning its head to stare at him. And then, it spoke…
"We've already had our fill for the day. Defeat me and you can be on your merry way." It was a simple statement, but one that caused everyone to be on high alert.
The creature's skin resembled stone as it exuded a powerful aura, covered with tattoos and tiny horns a centimetre in height peaking all over its body.
Rock Ogre!
It was an infamous warring race that possessed terrifying strength, enough to take on dozens of similarly-strengthened foes alone.
And the most terrifying of them all was the power they possessed.
The Rock Ogre race was full of Warlocks. The ability of a Warlock was strange and difficult to guard against. Most of all, even if you were stronger than them and managed to kill them, you too would end up dying due to mysterious ways.
Hence, their infamy.
"Dolare, deal with the opponent." Just when everyone in the caravan was nervous, a regal voice resounded throughout it, calm, collected.
"Yes, Lord." Bowing in response, a cloaked middle-aged man exited one of the carriages in the middle.
Only his nose and lower jaw was revealed while everything else was covered by his cloak. He sported a reddish-brown beard, mildly unkempt as it fluttered in the wind slightly.
His cloak was a shade of grey, adorned with intricate engravings, embedded with grey gems at discrete locations.
The most prominent of all was the fist-sized gem embedded atop the cloak, in the location of his forehead, glimmering with faint magic pulses from time to time.
"A Grandmaster Mage? Interesting," The Rock Ogre smiled in response, taking out a hair doll from the pouch dangling on its left, grinning slowly as it announced, "Had you sent anyone weaker, we were planning to wipe out all of you to stockpile our food ration."
Dolare, the middle-aged Grandmaster Mage stopped walking when he appeared twenty metres away from the Rock Ogre. Even though there was just one before him, he was able to perceive the stares from hundreds of Rock Ogres from the various cave entrances.
'There is no room for trickery here. The moment the Rock Ogres feel that we've tricked them, they would launch an all-out assault.' Dolare thought, announcing aloud, "I'm Dolare, a Grandmaster Wind mage."
"A warrior's greeting? You're that confident, huh." The Rock Ogre smirked, announcing, "I'm Yablukwon, a Grandmaster Warlock."
The two entities stared at each other for a few seconds before Dolare took the initiative, taking off to the skies immediately.
He rapidly increased the distance between the two, stopping at a height of fifty metres from the ground before joining his palms together. The grey gem on his forehead shone with a dull hue as he stretched his hands, creating a spiral of wind in-between.
"Heup!" Followed by a bellow, he threw the wind spiral towards the Rock Ogre as it dissolved, transforming into a dozen wind blades that rained down on the opponent.
In response, the Rock Ogre smirked, twirling the hair doll in its hands before snapping it in half, "Arise, and protect me, doll of vengeance."
Guoo!
A baleful screech resounded in response as the doll rapidly expanded in length, transforming into a hairy monster resembling a hairball but with an overgrown mouth drooling with rotting blood.
The wind blades slammed into it, forming large gashes on its body as the hairball screeched in response. But immediately after, its body grew in size a little, becoming slightly stronger.
'I see, so it's fuelled by vengeance. Delay tactics might not work on it. I have to take it down in one attack.' Dolare thought in response before snapping his finger, condensing a wind arrow that he threw into the hairball's mouth, causing the other party to swallow it.
Immediately after, a violent twister emerged from within as the hairball was shredded from the inside, destroyed in the process.
The Rock Ogre, Yablukwon, raised an eyebrow before snapping its finger, causing a shredded hair doll to appear on its hand, one that it vaporised using blue flames.
It generated a lot of smoke that combined to form a cloud, soon taking shape into what seemed to be a ball of cloud this time, also sporting a massive mouth.
It had two pairs of eyes that seemed to be made from the mysterious blue flames it produced as the cloud dispersed in the wind before instantly reforming before Dolare, blasting a stream of fire onto its opponent.
"Keuk!" Dolare grunted in response as he hurriedly condensed a wall of wind, blocking against the attack before unleashing a couple of wind blades, watching the cloud disperse in response, barely sustaining any damage from the attack.
'This will be a long battle.' He sighed, realising that the enemy had already figured out a way to stall him while it prepared more avenues to attack.
'Then, I'll have to target it directly.' Thinking as such, Dolare raised his hand, condensing a lot of power in the gem on his forehead before creating a twister, aiming it at Yablukwon.
The mouth of the twister raced towards Yablukwon who began to run in response, hurrying to evade as it took out a horn that it crushed into a powder using two fingers, sprinkling them on the ground.
Immediately after, the grass growing on the ground extended in length to tens of metres, flowing along the suction by the twister, entering it first as the lower half of the twister was comprised of the grass strands now.
But, despite the force, the grass didn't snap as its roots extended deep into the ground. And as the number of grass strands increased, the twister's suction force was unable to uproot them anymore, held back as a result.
"Dammit!" Dolare grunted in anger upon seeing his attacks being countered so casually by his opponent.
