The others gave more attention to the small human team once they heard it. “It really is the prince!” Another said. The prince’s image had been circulated among the army, as he was their main target, so almost every orc in this army knew what the third prince looked like.
This news soon reached the leader with the giant crossbow. “Chieftain Jomo, should we send more people to chase?” His aide asked.
??
Jomo Sharpstone, who was the leader, made another huff. “Of course, we are! But we are not sending everyone. I will go myself and bring half of our men to spread out and encircle the prince’s team. You will stay here with the remaining half and continued the pressure on the humans inside.”
“Your order will be carried, mighty chieftain,” the aide said and immediately went to gather the orcs.
Jack had been circling around not far from the main team playing cat and mouse with the pursuing team. As part of the shock troops who were responsible for the ambush on the enemy’s supply carts, they had the fastest mounts, so the pursuing team could not catch up to them. Soon he saw many orcs came out and went after them.
“Bait is taken, let’s ride!” he said to the others and they increased their pace. They went eastward with the pursuing orcs hot on their heel. The orcs fanned out. There were also those with fast mounts in the orc’s teams. These teams took positions at the two furthest sides, trying to flank Jack’s group from both sides.
Jack could not produce any complicated plan like John, his plan was a simple bait and lure plan. Though it was crude, it was still effective though since now the orcs guarding the entrance was just a bit more than Jeanny’s troops.
When he thought that he had lured the orcs far enough, he sent a message to Jeanny, “do it now!”
Jeanny, who had been waiting for the cue, gave the signal to go. The ones that were still fighting with the orcs at the entrance immediately broke away and retreated. As they retreated, they gave way to a charging army from behind.
The advancing orcs were stunned by this revelation. They were just a small squad that was tasked to exhaust the enemy. They did not have the number nor the power to block such a powerful charge. The ones that could dodge, jumped to the side, while the ones who couldn’t get trampled by the mounts.
Jeanny had arranged for the front of the charging army to be officers with the highest level and HP. Each of them was equipped with a long weapon such as spears or polearms. Those that originally did not use such weapons exchanged the weapons with their fellow soldiers who did. The long weapons allowed them to deliver a powerful hit to their enemies to unbalance them before their mounts crashed into them.
The mounts that these high-level soldiers rode were also one with the highest HP. Jeanny had made sure to have all their mounts healed to max HP before charging out. There was also a team of healer soldiers behind these vanguard soldiers. They were to continuously use their heal spells on the vanguard’s mounts. Jeanny had asked them to ignore the soldiers and focused on the mounts. The soldier’s high HP should allow them to sustain damage long enough, but if they lost their mounts, they would be sitting ducks.
The vanguard soldiers formed an arrowhead formation as they charged out. The orcs that formed a line to barricade the entrance were taken completely by surprise. They had continued to send waves of teams into the entrance to give the humans inside the illusion that they were still at full strength. They never thought that the humans inside would decide to break out once half of their forces left to chase after the human prince.
The orcs were not all clustered at the entrance. Many were at the sides building up camps. They thought they would be having a long siege. Therefore, the force directly in front of the entrance was thinner than expected. The charging human army managed to punch through into the open.
With the orcs’ barricades cleared, the human soldiers following poured forth with little resistance. The orcs could only attack them from the side, but such attacks did not hinder their movements. Jeanny had also arranged so that both sides were comprised of heavy armor soldiers, their mounts were also arranged so they were only slightly less than the vanguard units.
The three hundred human units soon rode away from the orcs army who watched in stupefaction. The chieftain’s aide who was left in charge was bellowing at his underlings in rage. The cry brought them back to sense and everyone immediately summoned their mounts as they gave chase.
“Go north! We will join you soon,” Jeanny received Jack’s message.
Jack’s team had made a turn northward as Jeanny’s troops charged out from the entrance. His turn brought him close to the one side of the orcs’ troops who fanned out.
When these enemies got close, some of the human soldiers started tossing out small balls at the approaching orcs. These balls exploded on impact and created paralyzing fields around their areas of impact. These were the Disruptive Bombs, which Jack had distributed to each of the soldiers in this baiting mission.
Any orcs that came near were stopped by these disruptive bombs. The damage was nothing for these NPCs, but it stopped their movements and allowed Jack’s team to put distance. Jack and the single mage remaining in his team were also casting Arcane Turbulence and put them at their heels. Those chasing after and came into the areas of these two spells got their movements slowed.
Jack heard a loud roar of rage from afar.
“Watch out!” He heard Peniel’s shout.
Coupled by Peniel’s warning and his intuition, he turned his head and looked in the direction of the roar. He caught a flash and immediately activated Dragon’s Eye out of instinct. The slow-motion of his vision allowed him to catch the sight of a spear flying straight at them. From its flight path, it was heading at the prince.
He was directly beside the prince, Jack urged his steed to the side and saw in slow motion as his steed slowly bumped with the prince’s. It altered their path slightly to the right. He was now in the spear’s path instead. He bent his body down as he saw the spear slowly went past him. He could see crackles of electricity following the spear as it flew past. This was no ordinary spear throw, it was sent with a skill’s effect. He had no doubt that he would be a goner if it hit his body.
As if to prove the case, the spear that had missed Jack and the prince, impaled an unaware level 35 soldier who was riding in the front. The single hit drained out the soldier’s entire HP. The soldier fell lifelessly to the ground. There was nothing they could do but continued riding forward.
Jack looked back to the origin of the spear and saw from a far distance a hulking orc with his hands on a very large crossbow.
Crap! That spear was a crossbow bolt? Jack exclaimed in his mind.
But it appeared that the orc could only make that one shot with the deadly skill. He was also standing on his feet on the ground, meaning he could not shoot that giant crossbow while mounted. So they would soon be out of the range of his shot.
Jack continued to look back at that orc as his steed continued to run forward just to make sure. Luckily it was as he had expected, that orc did not fire a second bolt from that giant crossbow.
The orcs continued to chase after them as they fled. They soon saw Jeanny’s army. Jack’s team joined with theirs.
“Continued running North!” He yelled. “Oh, and don’t trample the eight in front!”
“What eight?” Jeanny asked, but he soon saw eight figures in the distance. They were standing at a fixed interval, around fifteen meters from each other. Jeanny immediately bellowed to the soldiers and made sure they steer clear from those eight.
As they passed through, Jeanny saw that those eight were human soldiers as well. They continued to stand there as they waited for the orc army who was chasing from behind.
What are they doing? Jeanny thought with puzzlement.
When the orc army was close, these eight each unfurled a scroll. A long wall of plants soon sprouted out where they stood. Each wall was fifteen meters long. Since they stood at an interval of fifteen meters from each other, the resulting eight scrolls created a wall with a total length of a hundred and twenty meters.
Jack had given all eight of his magic scrolls containing the Wall of Vines spell to these eight.
