Chapter 86 Chapter 85 The Right Moment
“I’m not used to waiting.”
After the Eternal Chosen Marus waited for a long time without seeing the promised portal in the Arctic, he flicked the bloodied sword and decided to find some offerings for the Four Gods to speed up his business in the mortal world.
The only surviving three-eyed penguin chattered, “The Eternal Battlefield is ahead; the Four Gods’ army has been fighting there for tens of thousands of years. Even if you are the Lord of Endings, the Eternal—”
The Demon King Marus glanced at the penguin, and the chattering penguin wisely closed its mouth.
At the same time.
Outside the shelter, large groups of trolls foolishly split into two, planning to attack the shelter from both flanks, with one hundred trolls on each side.
On the stone wall, only one hundred and fifty-four armed refugees remained capable of fighting. Jenna used her miraculous healing abilities to save many lives, enabling the injured to recover and fight, but she could not heal the mental wounds inflicted by the trolls.
Morale was visibly low; faced with the trolls’ provocations beyond the stone wall, no one dared to retaliate. Many began to regret their decision to stay and fight to the death against the trolls.
Only the dwarves remained high-spirited, cursing at the trolls.
With a mighty roar from the troll king, the entire valley echoed with the roar as the trolls began their all-out assault, rushing into the narrow valley towards the stone wall.
Behind the troll king and his guards.
Jima, along with seventy-seven ogres and eighteen toothy beasts, was resting two kilometers away from the troll king. The “Tranquil Veil” was stretched to its maximum to conceal the ogre mercenaries, but space was limited, forcing many ogres to press their large bellies close together.
Watching the trolls’ figures stream into the valley in the distance, the ogre leader, nicknamed “Three Stomachs,” couldn’t help but say:
“Let’s attack.”
Jima, riding on the back of a half-asleep toothy beast, looked at the ogres struggling to adapt to the “Tranquil Veil” and shook her head, saying, “No.”
“They have their backs to us; now is the perfect time for a surprise attack.”
“I’m used to waiting, waiting for a better opportunity to arise,” Jima said while leisurely sipping from a blue potion bottle. “Now everyone should get accustomed to the range of the Tranquil Veil and avoid being discovered by the trolls. We’ll move forward bit by bit.”
“I’ve fought in many battles.”
I’ve been fighting on the Eternal Battlefield for fifty years.
“I’m the employer.”
The two-mouthed ogre leader said, “Alright, you’re in charge.”
The toothy beasts were massive, able to carry an ogre rider with room for the ogre to rest its bulging belly. But for three individuals, space was a bit cramped, especially for a certain neutral evil individual who occupied more than half the room.
“Human! Don’t grab my beard!”
“I have nowhere else to hold on,” Felix said. “Can’t you just sit in my lap? It would save space.”
“Get lost! I’m not a human child; I told you to let go of my hand.”
“I need my other hand to play the flute,” Felix said. “Does a bard who can’t play music on the battlefield still have any value?”
Ignoring the argument between one human and one dwarf behind her, Jima raised a rod with a piece of beast hide hanging from it, marked with bloody handprints.
Jima looked around again and said, “Remember, from now on I am the ogre envoy. Got it?”
In light of the meat provided by this demon, the two-mouthed ogre leader shouted, “Got it, envoy.”
The other ogres echoed in response.
Jima said, “Everyone, maintain formation and advance slowly; don’t exceed the range of the veil.”
No one listened to her; the two-mouthed ogre leader roared and gave the command.
The ogre drummer began to beat the hide drum: “Boom! Boom! Boom!”
All the ogres stepped forward, dragging the fierce toothy beasts along as they proceeded slowly. After every hundred meters, Jima would stop to adjust the formation before continuing.
No one noticed that on the snow, there was an army, aside from the inexplicably large number of footprints on the snow; they left no trace.
Closer and closer, with Jima holding the blood-marked banner, she relied on her superior eyesight to see that the trolls had already climbed onto the stone wall. Despite the icy water splashed on the wall and Eve Frostleaf’s silver bow continuing to fire, they could not stop the flood of trolls.
Of course, this was also related to the previous agreement between Jima and George, as Jenna was to conserve her magic and wait for the reinforcements to arrive before releasing various group support spells and battlefield magic to break through the enemy.
The armed refugees began to retreat, surrendering the stone wall.
The two-mouthed ogres asked, “Should we attack?”
“No.” Jima watched as an armed refugee fleeing was swept off the stone wall by a single blow, “We are still too far from the trolls.”
“The stone wall is about to fall.”
“There are reserves.”
The hide drums continued to sound, and the ogres marched on steadily.
Ten minutes later, just as Jima had said, with a surge of light bursting from the stone wall, George led the dwarves to charge up the wall and recapture it.
Time passed second by second.
As everyone advanced slowly, Jima drank from the blue potion, her gaze fixed on the stone wall’s battle, which was truly exhausting. The trolls would send one batch after another, as the new batch dragged away the injured trolls from the ground, leaving them behind to heal.
In this brutal rotation of battle, dwarves and humans could only exit the battlefield upon injury, and gradually fewer people remained on the stone wall.
Suddenly, a roar of battle erupted from behind the stone wall, echoing in the valley, reaching the ears of the advancing group.
Butcher Gortek nestled in Felix’s lap, stuck his head out and asked, “What’s happening?”
“The back stone wall has fallen.” Jima slowly finished off a bottle of blue potion, realizing her magic no longer strengthened, and stopped.
“Then shouldn’t we hurry to help?”
“The time hasn’t come,” Jima said. “Let’s wait a bit.”
As soon as her words fell, three blood-red spheres flew from the stone wall, dispatched by George, signaling urgent need for assistance.
“By Grani’s beard!” Butcher Gortek anxiously tried to jump off the toothy beast, but Jima said, “Remember your oath.”
Butcher Gortek clenched his fists, looking over at the two-mouthed ogre leader, who shrugged like Jima and said, “She’s the employer.”
Inside the shelter.
Seeing the fallen back city wall, Jenna couldn’t help but shout:
“Where’s the support?!”
Eve Frostleaf floated in the air, shooting at the trolls on the wall, saying, “I don’t see any reinforcements!”
Below in the shelter, the disorganized armed refugees huddled together as trolls climbed over from the back stone wall.
George had no choice but to abandon the front stone wall and led the only reserve team to support the back city wall, giving the armed refugees time to regroup.
At the front stone wall.
The troll king saw George leaving with the flag of the Sanctuary and was elated, waving his icy club, shouting, “Charge in! Try to capture the little people alive! Attack from both sides, it’s a great idea!”
Beside him was a large group of trolls lying on the ground, missing arms and legs, their limbs slowly regenerating as they looked on eagerly while the rest of the complete trolls rushed up the stone wall.
At this moment, the troll army was at its weakest. The hope of victory ignited their greed, and most of the fighting trolls crowded in front of the stone wall, eager to scramble up.
On the front stone wall, the dwarves formed a circle, like a steel nail driven into the torrent.
Yet it couldn’t stop the tide of trolls; the trolls disregarded them and crossed over the stone wall, attempting to leap across a deep trench into the panicking armed refugees.
Jima seized the right moment and issued the command:
“Spread out! Spread out! Don’t rush!”
Five hundred meters behind the trolls, the ogres stepped out of the “Tranquil Veil,” and the crowded masses parted to form a semi-arc.
Jima in the lead shouted:
“Charge!”
The ogres didn’t budge; after a few seconds, the two-mouthed ogres finally reacted, raising their blades and shouting, “Charge!”
War drums sounded forcefully.
All the ogres raised their voices in battle cries, stepping forward to charge: “Ya ya ya!”
Jima held the light staff, releasing three yellow light spheres, signaling that reinforcements had arrived and support was needed.
The trolls, surprised by the suddenly appearing ogres behind them, panicked. The troll king, protected by ice-blue armor, was discussing with a troll when he saw the rushing ogres.
Jima jumped off the toothy beast, soared into the air, and yelled while flying, “Reinforcements! We are the ogre mercenaries reinforcements!”
In an instant, she flew in front of the troll king, shaking the blood-mark she held: “This is our contract.”
The troll king suddenly realized, using his icy club to strike a nearby troll, he shouted, “Nonsense! This is the reinforcements! Don’t call them back; ogres are cunning! They’re here to snatch the spoils.”
Jima nodded, “Yes, yes, we ogres are indeed that cunning.”
The ogres behind her had already charged within three hundred meters.
The troll king scrutinized Jima and said, “Why do you look different from yesterday?”
“What’s different?”
“Why do you have a pair of wings?”
“Oh, a divine mutation.”
“Why are you so thin?”
“I lost weight from exercising,” Jima said, “I rushed overnight to support.”
“And your tail?”
“Actually, that’s my braid.”
The ogres had already surged within a hundred meters, and the troll king asked, “Why do they look so fierce?”
“They’re afraid of missing out on the spoils.”
“Why are you using that shiny stick to keep shining it on my head?”
Jima lowered the sacred light staff and pointed at the green light on the troll king’s head, saying, “To paint your head with green light, to mark you.”
“Mark.”
“Yes, if you mingle with the trolls, it’ll be easier for us to hunt you down.”
The ogres charged within twenty meters, into the area of injured trolls lying on the ground awaiting rebirth. The ogres pounced, pinning them down, and waves of blades came down upon their heads. In an instant, dozens of trolls’ heads either fell to the ground or were smashed to pieces.
The troll king suddenly slapped his green head, understanding, pointing at Jima, he shouted, “You! You tricked me! You are a succubus!”
He swung his club hard at Jima, who simply flapped her wings and soared upward, easily evading him.
Below, a green troll king turned and yelled to the large group huddled below the city wall, “Enemy attack! Enemy—”
He stopped short because he saw three humans atop the stone wall. George, Jenna, and Eve Frostleaf, instantly terrified.
Jima soared into the air and directly detonated the curse lying dormant upon the trolls below, causing weakness, sprained ankles, and blindness, making it momentarily difficult for them to even lift their clubs.
Jenna raised her hands, praising the deity that brought light to the world, as white light rained down from the sky, illuminating the charging ogres’ forms, making their blades glow, while the white light shielded them.
The ogre mercenaries surged like a tide, crashing into the weak and clustered trolls. One side bore curses, while the other received divine spells, leading to a rapid back and forth, with rows of trolls falling down, their wails filling the entire valley.
In less than a minute, the trolls below panicked and fled, but there was nowhere to escape; behind them was the stone wall. The trolls behind, terrified, dropped their clubs directly, scrambling towards the stone wall. Their fingers dug into the wall’s surface, desperately climbing up, allowing the ogres to hack at them without retaliation.
With the trolls’ guard lost, and his head shining green, the troll king was easy to spot.
Twelve toothy beasts, akin to wild boars rooting for cabbage, pushed him out of the troll mass, and he awkwardly rolled on the ground.
The two-mouthed ogres waved their blades and charged at him.
The troll king, covered in mud, stood up, glaring with red eyes, fighting for survival.
With a loud roar, a wave of icy mist surged in all directions centered around him, conjuring a storm, and with another breath, froze the two-mouthed ogre leaders. He swung his club, shattering the ice statue and sending both the ogre and toothy beast flying over ten meters, toppling several toothy beasts.
He bellowed, banging his chest hard: “Don’t underestimate me!”
Then Jima pulled out a vial filled with the troll king’s blood, cursed into it, and the blood corroded the vial black. Being overlooked due to his small stature, Butcher Gortek roared, charging like a small whirlwind, swinging his axe towards the troll king’s knee.
George unfurled his light wings, launched forward, delivering a holy slash while several arrows struck him.
The pitiful troll king didn’t even have time to use his survival skills; in the blink of an eye, his body was split into three pieces, dying on the spot.
Immediately afterward, Jima grabbed the troll king’s head and soared into the air.
There were still trolls inside the shelter, but there were two trenches forming the last line of defense.
Under the influence of Eve Frostleaf, the stone wall collapsed, creating several breaches, and the ogres surged in, battling the startled trolls, who jumped into the trenches in panic, their bodies pierced by spikes below.
The armed refugees in the shelter lowered the drawbridge, and the ogres charged towards the trolls at the back stone wall.
Meanwhile, the other half of the trolls attacking from the back stone wall, seeing their comrades suffering heavy casualties and their leader’s head floating in the air, surrendered without a fight, turning and fleeing, one smashing directly into the back stone wall.
The stone wall that had previously obstructed their attack now blocked their escape. The ogres relentlessly hacked at the trolls from behind until the last one fell, facing little resistance; only a dozen trolls managed to escape, fleeing into the deeper snow.
