“These orcs are ferocious!” Xiao Lin sighed as he shook his head. He shut his eyes to relax them after the magic receded.
Han Manman took offense to his negativity, mocking him, “Did that already get you scared?”
Cheng Ming could see why Xiao Lin was worried, since the defenses had mainly been handled by Xiao Lin and himself. His face was full of worry as well. “Since we did not have that much time, we did not actually manage to get a lot of traps down. It’s worrisome that eighty percent of our traps were used up just now.”
Han Manman paused before retorting, “We still managed to eliminate about four hundred wolf cavalry troops, and the material for those traps were all from the orcs’ own supplies, so we did not suffer any losses at all!”
Xiao Lin smiled bitterly, not wanting to mock her for her shallow view on the war. He explained, “Don’t forget what our mission is; it’s to defend this fortress no matter what and to not let our enemies seize it back. That way, we should destroy their supply line and cripple their attempt to attack Dawn City. I had originally thought that those traps would be enough to at least hold down the orcs for a week with the help of long-range support.”
“Those troops earlier deliberately sacrificed themselves to clear the way for the incoming foot soldiers! Troops that aren’t afraid of death are the hardest to deal with!” Cheng Ming said as he sighed again.
The orcs used their cavalry as sacrifices to ensure that the traps were cleared. Even if the fortress was still unharmed and the orcs looked like they had suffered massive losses, Xiao Lin and a few others were not happy about it. The orcs used their lives in exchange for time; they might have lost four hundred soldiers, but Xiao Lin’s side had lost an entire week of time!
After that, the foot soldiers slowly marched forward; over three thousand orcs completely broke formations, not caring about any strategies as they charged forward to attack.
Xiao Lin had a sudden thought and turned around to look. The fortress was actually not in a great location. In front of them was the plains, and their backs faced the Endless Sea. Those silver warships seemed to be closer than they used to be, but they still quietly stopped there, as if they were just spectators.
However, Xiao Lin had a sudden realization. He suddenly understood that it did not matter if the warships were actually from the elves; their goal was not to participate in this battle, but rather to cut off their retreat route!
If Xiao Lin and the others had wanted to retreat, they definitely could not retreat through the front, so the biggest possibility was leaving by sea. The orcs wanted to make sure all of them were killed!
Xiao Lin’s heart was suddenly filled with even more questions. There was just too much he could not understand. From what he knew of the elves, they were a peace-loving and lazy race. Even though the elves and the orcs had no ill will toward each other, they were absolutely not friends, let alone allies. To add to that, Dawn Academy had never once offended the faraway elves.
“The orcs are coming!” Cheng Ming saw that he was distracted and hissed out a reminder.
Xiao Lin shook his head, pushing his thoughts to the back of his mind and making sure his full focus was on this defense. Gu Xiaoyue’s situation meant that he was absolutely not allowed to make any mistakes during this examination. Even if the orcs and the elves had a secret agreement, that was still in the past. This was just a simulated examination.
“I’ll go help out the spell-casting towers; you take care of the fortress!” Xiao Lin cried out to Cheng Ming before hastily leaving the fortress. His actions caused the other monitors a lot of confusion.
The defensive towers were all on the slopes outside of the fortress because the fortress itself was not very large. The fortress was not very fortified by itself either, so if they were to be surrounded early, it would be hard to guarantee that they could defend it for any length of time.
Those defensive towers all needed to be manually operated, which meant they had to send a portion of their men out. It was a task that no one wanted to do, since everyone could see that the defensive towers would be the first to fall when the orcs attacked, even if those towers were the best way to delay the orcs.
The acting class monitors were in difficult positions, since they had to maintain strict discipline within their respective classes. They wanted their orders to be carried through, but any riskier tasks were hard to voice out, since it would invoke negative sentiment.
Xiao Lin was actually leading by example. He voluntarily headed out of the fortress under a few hundred shocked looks. The defensive towers were split into ones for archers and spellcasters, and he had obviously gone for the spell-casting ones, since Xiao Lin had zero confidence in his archery.
However, a few acting class monitors were unhappy with his action, especially after seeing the other students looking at Xiao Lin with looks of admiration. It was not like they did not think about heading into battle themselves, but they felt that if they died early and it affected their assessment, it could very well affect the final selection for the year leader. No matter how friendly they acted toward each other normally, each of them still had their own goals and ambitions.
There was another reason as well, which was that some of them could not use the defensive towers at all, such as those who were specialized in melee combat.
However, Xiao Lin did not have any of their considerations. After listening to Gu Xiaoyue’s wish on the beach, he had long since abandoned any sort of needless forethought.
After all, in Xiao Lin’s eyes, being a year leader, earning points or credits, and even officially becoming the class monitor were all not nearly as important as Gu Xiaoyue’s life.
That was why Xiao Lin could head out of the fortress without even hesitating, even if some people like Wang Dalin rudely remarked that Xiao Lin was just putting on a show for everyone else, mocking him for being a sham.
However, most of the other students had actually given a big thumbs-up to Xiao Lin in their hearts. The students of Class Seven even strengthened their belief in him as their class monitors, rebuking Wang Dalin’s words. “Instead of spouting nonsense here, why don’t you put on a show as well?”
All that did not factor into Xiao Lin’s thought process at all. After he went on the tower, Xiao Lin inspected the equipment around him. It was a defensive tower, so it would obviously not be as simple as a platform to pull their bows or cast spells from.
