Prince Alonzo heard the death cry of the guard who had been holding the leg of the orc. He turned and saw the sad scene, his sacrifice still ended up wasted. The one remaining guard was ganged up by another three orcs that had recently arrived and he also fell soon after.
Ronnie, who saw the change in the situation quickly disengaged from the orc he was fighting and attempted to flee, but a short orc suddenly appeared in front of his path.
"Move away!" Ronnie shouted as he swung both his sword and saber at the short orc.
This short orc was wearing a claw weapon on both hands, he spun both his arms around and Ronnie's sword and saber were deflected effortlessly. Ronnie realized from this exchange that this short orc was much stronger than him, but too late, the claws made a lightning-fast motion as they repeatedly slashed at Ronnie. Ronnie's HP decreased frighteningly fast.
In his desperation, he quickly screamed out, "wait! I am on your side!"
"Stupid human is using the same stupid ploy again," the orc that previously fought with him commented.
"No, look. It was me that call out about the prince's location!" Ronnie quickly pleaded with the short orc in front of him. "Without me alerting you, you won't know about the prince's location."
"I see, so we should thank you. By the way, my name is Wangombe Thickskull," the short orc said.
Ronnie became delighted upon hearing it, "it's good to know you, honored Wangombe. Let's kill this prince. If you don't mind, I just need a part of him to…"
Without waiting for Ronnie to finish his sentence, Wangombe said, "good, now you know the name of the one who kills you. Therefore, your spirit won't be restless in the next realm."
Once his words ended, Wangombe turned into a blitz. Six of his images appeared around Ronnie at the same time as they all punched simultaneously. Each strike targeting a different weakness point, throat, temples, groin, ribs, knees, solar plexus. Each strike caused critical damage. Ronnie's HP zeroed out after the last strike ended.
Ronnie fell with his eyes open wide. He was extremely unwilling. He was supposed to go back with news of his success and had the crown prince awarded him with his due rewards, but instead, he had to fall here. All his hard work, his effort, to get close to the prince, to gain an opportunity to carry out this assassination. He was regretful. He regretted his greed. He should not have taken the risk of killing the prince personally just for an extra reward. He should have been content seeing the prince's demise from a distance. But however regretful he was, it was already too late.
Prince Alonzo who saw the traitor fell, displayed no satisfaction. Because his situation was none the better. He was still in a predicament of being surrounded by enemy soldiers. His breath was heavy, the poison effect was not yet alleviated. Not that it would make any difference though, even Ronnie in his best condition couldn't do anything against this short orc.
Wangombe walked slowly towards Prince Alonzo. The other orcs stayed at their places, keeping the prince surrounded. Prince Alonzo took up his sword and shield. Even though there was no hope, even if it was futile, he would not go down without a fight.
"Good spirit," Wangombe commented. "Are you the third prince of Themisphere?"
Prince Alonzo kept his silence for a while before finally answering, "I am." He would not be spared even if he lied.
"I am Wangombe Thickskull, son of Badu Thickskull, a Grunt in the army of the great Warlord Abasi Raretooth! You will say my name when you pass over the river of death, my name as the person who has sent you there!"
As Wangombe's words ended and he was about to move, a ball of light shot at him. He evaded it effortlessly despite the sudden ambush. He looked in the direction where the attack had come from and saw an armored human jumped to almost six meters high, passing over the head of his soldiers who was on stand by and came down at his spot swinging down a large hammer.
The hammer crashed onto the sandy ground, but Wangombe was already several distances away. At this time, numerous human soldiers appeared and clashed with the surrounding orcs.
"Prince!" Prince Alonzo turned to the familiar voice that was calling him and saw Jack coming over to his side.
"You… you came," Prince Alonzo said, words could not describe his relief at this time.
Jack saw the prince's half-empty HP. "Heal the prince!" Jack told the healer soldiers. The healer carried out the command, but his spell only healed a small amount of HP.
"I was poisoned," the prince informed. "I have drunk an antidote, but some of the poison effects are not yet gone. It reduces the healings I received. I have also drunk healing potions with the same little efficacy."
Jack looked at their situation. There were sixteen soldiers with him, he had lost four in the previous assaults on the supply carts. The enemy had close to thirty soldiers. The good thing was the soldiers that came with him seemed to be of higher levels compared to the orc soldiers here. However, there was no guarantee that no more orcs would come. They were still behind the enemy's line, after all.
The lead officers between the humans and orcs, however, seemed to be at a stalemate. Jack inspected and found the short orc with the claws weapon was a level 45 Elite, same as the NPC squad leader of his team. He noticed the short orc had a rank called Grunt, while the other orcs had the rank of Peon. The squad leader on his side was a Knight rank. He was familiar with Themisphere kingdom's military rank, the Knight rank was only a level below Knight Lieutenant. He was not familiar though with the Orc's rank system.
As the two lead officers continued to battle to a standstill, Jack was contemplating if he should give the command to disengage and flee. But to have an effective escape, he would need to have a few soldiers stayed behind, otherwise, they would just get harassed at the back as they were making their escape.
To sacrifice some men and flee? or to stay and fight, risking more orcs to appear? That was the question.
Jack knew that he could not afford to be indecisive for long, each second gone meant an additional chance on more incoming perils. After making his decision, he took out the three remaining Magic Bind scrolls in his bag. He called the two healer soldiers nearby and gave two of the scrolls to them each. The last one he gave to Prince Alonzo. He also called the one remaining mage in his team over, the other one was among the ones who had fallen.
"Everyone, on my mark, uses these scrolls on that short orc," he pointed to Wangombe who was fighting with the human Knight.
The main advantage Wangombe had over the human Knight was his speed. As time passed, his advantage over the human Knight was more apparent as he landed much more hit on the knight. The knight had trouble catching Wangombe's movements. To tip the battle in the Knight's favor, Wangombe's movements needed to be halted. The best spell in their arsenal to do that was the Magic Bind spell.
But he doubted one spell cast by him would give much help. He needed to land multiple Magic Bind on the Grunt to have an effect. He could not use the same spell scrolls successively due to the scrolls also had a cooldown, so he needed others to cast it together with him.
To the mage soldier, he said, "you use your Magic Bind together with me."
Jack had gained Magic Bind spell when he reached level 25 of his Mage class when the Grim Sand Drake died. At that time, his Warrior had also reached level 25, which granted him a new Warrior skill, a passive skill Superior Body Recovery. It was an upgrade to his Natural Body Recovery skill. This skill added an additional 10 HP to each healing, but the best effect this skill brought was that it allowed the recovery effect to operate even during combat, despite with half efficiency. This skill meant every Warrior level 25 and above had a continuous small regeneration effect.
On the same night when the Grim Sand Drake died, due to Superior Body Recovery, Jack decided to max out his Natural Body Recovery skill together with the Heightened State skill, using a small part from the 221,298 souls he had gained from the Grim Sand Drake and Grandmother Spider. For the remaining souls, he used them all to max out his Superior Body Recovery skill.
Natural body recovery, level 20/20 (Passive skill), star: 1
Recover 65 HP every 9.5 seconds when out of combat.
Superior body recovery, level 20/20 (Passive skill)
Allow Natural Body Recovery to be in effect even during combat, with 50% efficiency.
Additional 330 HP on each healing
Heightened State, level 20/20 (Active skill), star: 2
Increase mana regeneration by 60%
decrease skill cooldown by 24%
Duration: 6 minutes 30 seconds
Cooldown: 10 minutes
He was at first expecting to gain a secret reward again for max leveling one of his advanced skills, but no such luck. He had decided to max his Superior Body Recovery to increase his survivability. In combination with the Natural Body Recovery, he could recover 395 HP every 9.5 seconds. When he was in combat, he would heal 197.5 HP instead, which was almost like drinking a free basic healing potion every 9.5 seconds.
