In the low hill camp, eleven bone collector jackals and eight half-elf professionals faced each other. The distance between each other is less than four meters, and the two sides only need to take one step to start a hand-to-hand fight.
In an instant, the air seemed to freeze, and both the half-elves and the orcs seemed caught off guard by this sudden change.
In people's general impression, dire gnolls are definitely more powerful than half-elf professionals.
There is no doubt about it. There are countless incidents of ferocious gnolls attacking half-elf villages, and professionals are unable to deal with them. As a result, half-elf families often tell stories about gnolls to scare disobedient children.
The power of the half-elf superstitious lord of the Disa Alliance. In fact, the pampered half-elf venerables who are both third-level beings are generally no match for the ferocious jackals. But the brave and skilled female warrior Hemer can kill the ferocious jackal alone.
The adventure group that hires the Hemer female warriors can completely confront the orc bone collector gang head-on, and even have a slight upper hand. Because jackals are selfish by nature and have a particularly strong survival instinct, even if their opponents are slightly weaker than themselves, they are not willing to risk injury or death in a head-on battle.
In this regard, half-elves and gnolls are actually similar. They try to avoid dangerous battles to avoid unfortunate deaths or injuries in the wild.
Unless they have no retreat, as is the case now!
The first one to rush towards the ferocious jackals was Captain Rhodes. He let out a deep roar in his throat, stepped forward, rotated his muscles and joints in an orderly manner, and pushed the five-foot-long adamantine sword and spear to swing out sharp streaks. The arc light and the sharp sound produced by the sharp sword cutting the air are frightening.
The slave trader, who was usually gentle and aristocratic, was acting extremely brave at this moment. The long attack range of his sword and gun covered 4 ferocious gnolls at the same time.
Wiltok was amazed by Captain Rhodes's sword skills. The sword and spear attacks were extremely fast, exceeding the dodge speed of the ferocious jackal. However, Rhodes's consecutive slashes all failed. This is not because the body reaction of the jackals is faster than his attack, but because they have already retreated before Rhodes drew his sword, just out of the attack range of the sword and gun. It looks like it is beyond imagination. Agile and able to dodge the opponent's rapid slashes with ease.
The Dire Jackal used his keen combat intuition to predict the attack of the Half-elf Swordsman in advance, creating an illusion of timely dodge in the eyes of onlookers.
This is actually a subconscious reaction of the jackals, they did not control their movements.
The same goes for Captain Rhode's sword skills. In order to pursue extreme speed and power, he has developed an instinct through hard practice that far exceeds his own reaction. Swinging, swiping, and swiping again, four consecutive forward and reverse swings made the blade of the sword and gun shine like a blooming purple-gold flower. He felt that the air had become extremely thick, and he had no idea that his sword and gun had not hit the ferocious jackal, but he had only fully unleashed his ferocious sword skills.
Wiltok must admit that after igniting the secret blood, the professional swordsman's attack power cannot be underestimated. He can only reach this level with his sword swing speed based on the Wanxiang original method. Even if he uses wind movement and boiling blood, it is not a qualitative change.
Ignite the fire of the soul and move the sword freely, that is a qualitative change.
The shrill blade light could cut through the rhinoceros leather armor of the gnolls, and they were frightened to the point where their bloodthirsty talent was directly activated. All of Rhodes' sword moves failed, and it was his turn to be unlucky when facing the ferocious jackal in a bloodthirsty state.
The three ferocious jackals rely on bloodlust to speed up and retreat instead of advancing. Only one jackal who was not very smart took advantage of Rhode's exhaustion to reveal a flaw, raised an iron scimitar and slashed at his waist.
The waist is the axis of force exerted by the swordsman's body, and it is also the most difficult part to make dodge movements. The speed of the bloodthirsty jackal's sword swing was even faster than Rhode's explosion of sword skills. Rhode might have been cut in half by the opponent without even knowing what happened.
The fight between the two sides was faster than the blink of an eye, and the professionals of the Iron Cross had no time to react. Seeing that Rhodes was about to be killed by the Ferocious Jackal on the spot, Huck made a lightning-fast move, grabbed Rhodes' shoulders and pulled him back, and then passed the sword towards the Ferocious Jackal's eyes.
A cold light shone directly into the eyes of the jackal. Under the pressure of the desperate situation, the combat intuition that should be used only once in a few seconds was triggered again. The jackal forcibly changed the movement of swinging the knife, and the muscles squeezed the bones, making a clicking sound. , shrinking its head in time, letting Huck's sharp sword rub its forehead and stab it in the air.
A person with a strong mirror heart reflects himself without missing anything. Huck's sword can be retracted and released freely, and he can change it according to his heart. The fine iron sword he held in his right hand changed from a straight thrust to a slash, and the blade suddenly sank, pressing on the top of the ferocious jackal's head.
Since the blade of the sword was close to the Jackal's head, it could not cut through its strong skull with force, but the Jackal's strong muscles were still in a tense state due to the forced change of movements. Huck only exerted normal force to guide the Jackal's shoulder and neck muscles, staggering its vertebrae joints.
With this level of skill, the third-level ferocious jackal becomes extremely fragile.
Before the Bone Collector could cry out, Harker's shield blade swept across its neck and chopped off the coyote's head.
The other ten gnolls turned around and ran without hesitation. With their rhinoceros armor and tough bodies, they resisted the arrows shot by the archers and Wiltok. They quickly surpassed the fleeing clawed goblins and rushed out of the bows, arrows and javelins. range.
This group of orc bone collectors retreated into the forest in panic and disappeared without a trace.
Captain Rhodes said in disbelief: "We won?"
As soon as he finished speaking, he touched his left waist with his hand, and his leather gloves were immediately stained with blood. The ferocious jackal's scimitar hit him just now, and blood spilled out from the gap in the leather armor.
Eight half-elves defeated the siege of hundreds of orcs, killing more than thirty goblins and a ferocious jackal. Only Captain Rhodes was injured, and no one died in the battle.
Such a feat is simply incredible.
Everyone was already in despair, but the inexplicable defeat of the Claw Goblins was the turning point of the battle.
No one except Wiltok knows what happened.
While Max was treating Rhodes' wounds, Wiltok ordered Hacker: "Drag all the orc corpses over and rearrange the defenses."
Huck said with some worry: "Sir, are you okay? Your face doesn't look good..."
Wiltok's expression showed a hint of exhaustion. Temporarily adjusting his mind and body was not without cost. He consumed a lot of energy. Although he could try the activation talent to recover quickly, now was not the right time. The overall strength of the orc bone collectors is still intact, and they are likely to attack again. Because the title of "Goblin Slayer" will arouse the hatred of goblins. Wiltok felt that he should keep the activation talent. He plans to restore his energy through hibernation and then cancel the title of "Goblin Slayer".
Otherwise, when the orc gang attacks next time, Wiltok will not be able to scare them anymore.
"I need to rest. You should follow my instructions as soon as possible and get everything done."
When the archer Lison heard Wiltok's words, he couldn't help but came over and said, "Sir, should we move immediately?"
The professionals of the Iron Ten Regiment may have thought that the Jackals were frightened and did not dare to continue tracking. Without the guidance of the dire gnolls, it would be difficult for the clawed goblins to surround them again. Now is a good opportunity for a breakout transfer.
However, the dire gnolls don't think about the problem this way. Their retreat is just a tactical necessity.
Gnolls are selfish, cunning and cruel in nature, but they are by no means cowardly orcs, but terrifying predators with extraordinary resilience and a strong desire for revenge.
If anyone simply thinks that the gnolls will let them go if their attack is thwarted, then he is totally wrong!
As jackals hunt, so are gnolls. Track, harass, intimidate, find ways to separate prey, and then launch a fatal attack. When attacking, some jackals will attract the prey's attention from the front, others will feign attack from the side to contain it, and the remaining jackals will sneak attack from behind the prey.
Almost all predators, including half-elves, adopt the same hunting strategy.
Unless the prey is too weak to pose a threat, hunters prefer backstabbing. Because sneak attack backstabbing can be very effective in avoiding casualties.
If the prey is threatening and has no weaknesses, the predator should retreat tactically and wait patiently for the next opportunity to attack.
Even though Huck easily killed a ferocious gnoll, the overall strength of the ferocious gnoll was actually much stronger than that of the half-elf. If they were to launch a frontal assault regardless of casualties, Harker and Wiltok wouldn't be able to stop them. Wiltok should be able to escape, but Harker and the other professionals are definitely doomed.
Of course, this is something that only the military would do, and selfish jackals would most likely not do it.
Captain Rhodes usually gave Wiltok the impression of being more like a gambler. He seemed to be brave just now, but Wiltok didn't take it seriously.
Facing the pressure of death, every half-elf professional has a desperate situation similar to that of a jackal. This is not a blood talent, but a habit, derived from hard training acquired the day after tomorrow. That is the most valuable thing about martial arts.
Practicing martial arts will make people more confident and courageous, and they can unleash their amazing potential in desperate situations without being helpless.
Almost all martial arts are techniques for facing the enemy head-on. It's hard to imagine how much advanced martial arts it takes to attack someone from behind. Therefore, Captain Rhodes's performance seemed brave and tough, but it was just a skill that was honed over time and an almost instinctive reaction. It did not mean that he had overcome his fear.
The Bone Collector Gnolls also know martial arts, which worries Vertok. Fortunately, the civilization level of the orc kingdom is not high, and martial arts training cannot suppress the beastly nature of the gnolls. The half-elf escape team was lucky enough to survive.
Vertok led the half-elf professionals to repel the orcs' first attack, but the crisis was still not over.
There were too many orcs for Vertok to defeat them all in battle. What's more, two of them have lost their fighting ability, leaving only six people left to continue fighting.
Wiltok could only think of ways other than fighting to help Huck and others eliminate the danger.
It's spring now, and the orc bone collectors have just experienced a severe winter, so their food reserves must be limited. Vertok observed that the gnolls had no hyenas and the goblins had no warbeasts, and it was obvious that these animals had been eaten by them. Therefore, Wiltok gradually came up with an idea.
The experience of gnolls is that they will eat goblin slaves when food is scarce. As for the experience of the hobgoblin, when the goblin is the master, he must beware of the rebellion of the gnolls.
Vertok ordered the archers to switch to soft bows, and deliberately brought the clawed goblins close before hitting them. In this way, when the ferocious gnolls were escaping, the corpses of the goblins were within the attack range of the professionals, and they did not have time to pick up the dead goblins to use as food rations.
Goblins have a very diverse diet, while gnolls only eat meat, so there are not many gnolls in the Bone Collector's group. But even if there are only ten of them left, the appetite of the ferocious jackals far exceeds that of ordinary jackals.
Living goblins can find food nearby, but the surrounding animal resources are very limited. With Vertok again firmly in control of the orc corpses, the Dire Gnolls had no meat to eat. They either hunt further afield, or they ask their goblin masters for food from Clawed Goblins.
The goblin leader might agree to the gnoll's request, or he might not. Either way, it's to the half-elf's advantage. When the number of clawed goblins decreases to a certain level, the conflict between the goblin leader and the gnolls will become more and more serious, and the balance of victory will tilt towards Vertok's side.
Before a crack occurs within the Orc Bone Collector, Wiltok and the others must not leave the camp rashly.
The half-elves didn't prepare much food. If necessary, they had to use the corpses of orcs to satisfy their hunger.
It's a battle of patience and will, and only by transforming themselves into true predators can they win a chance of survival.
Wiltok didn't bother to explain, and he didn't need the approval of his companions. He just said calmly: "I will rest first, and you will do what I asked... wake me up if there is any situation."
