“Shields!” Elijah commanded.
You have issued a battle command to your people.
20% increase in defense for the next 60 seconds.
Elijah glanced at the battle notification as he got on one knee and hid behind a shield. The goblin leader had sent a wave of flames towards the top of the wall two seconds after Elijah shouted, momentarily suppressing him and his people. The wave of flames flowed over everyone’s heads for a few seconds. Once they stopped everyone quickly got back on their feet.
The first thing Elijah did after he was back on his feat was use Ruler’s Strength on Elder Jamal and Justin. They would be in charge of suppressing the goblin leader, so Elijah wanted to make sure they were as strong as possible. Only after he made sure they were buffed did he turn his attention back to the battle.
The first thing Elijah noticed was the flames burning on the wall. They were the remnants of the goblin leader’s attack. Although they didn’t burn as fiercely as the goblin leader’s initial attack, the flames were slowly spreading, and they would eventually burn down the wall if they continued to do so.
Next, Elijah turned his attention to the goblins on the ground. Despite the several traps the villagers prepared, the goblins had managed to get extremely close to the walls. Standing behind the charging goblins was the goblin leader. It was impossible to miss him.
Wreathed in flames, the goblin leader stood with a wooden staff in his right hand and a few goblins around him for protection. Elijah’s people didn’t hesitate and tried to bring the goblin leader down the moment they stood up. Unfortunately, most of the arrows they released from their bows were blocked by the few goblins around the leader and the remaining arrows were burnt up before they managed to deal any damage. Of course, the goblin leader didn’t let them attack without doing anything in return.
Raising his staff, the goblin leader summoned a flame at the top of it. A second later that flame split into two balls of fire and shot toward the walls. The fireballs flew through the air at a speed too fast for Elijah’s recovering eyes to follow. Thankfully, he had two sharpshooters on his side with excellent vision.
Boom!
Elijah wasn’t able to see the arrows that Elder Jamal and Justin used. He only saw the two fireballs explode in midair and the remnant flames land on part of the wall. Less than two seconds after the two fireballs were destroyed the goblin leader raised his staff again.
This time three fire balls appeared and were sent flying toward the wall. When Elijah saw this, he began to frown. However, before he could say anything Elder Jeb already responded.
“I’ll handle it.”
Watching Elder Jeb, Elijah saw him swing his sword and an arc of silver energy fly through the air, splitting a fire ball in two. Naturally Elder Jamal and Justin were successful as well. The three fireballs exploded in midair and once again the remnant flames landed on the wall.
Looking at his people Elijah saw them alternate their attack between the goblins charging forward and the goblin leader standing still behind them. Looking at the walls he could see the flames steadily spreading across it and as the wood burned, the smoke it released would make breathing and seeing more difficult. Looking at the goblin leader, Elijah saw that it was once again raising its staff to attack. In that moment Elijah decided to make the call.
“Retreat!”
Once Elijah gave the command, his people hesitated for two seconds before they began retreating from the wall. The command to retreat was something that was discussed before the battle began, but people still hesitated to leave because they felt like there wasn’t a need to retreat. Thankfully their respect for Elijah’s position and the trust that he had built with them over the past few days took effect.
“Are you sure we need to retreat?” Elder Jeb asked with a frown on his face.
Standing by Elijah’s side, Elder Jeb watched as their people backed away from the edge of the wall and began to walk toward a flight of steps. The moment Elijah called for retreat although there was no battle notification, it was clear to see that the morale of his side had taken a slight hit. As for the morale of the goblins, it shot up by several levels.
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“None of our people have suffered any serious wounds. I can sense that all of our people still have more than half of their energy left. We could still do a lot of damage to the goblins from the second wall. I’m sure you have your reasons, but I don’t think there was a need for us to retreat at this stage of the battle. As you can see, your command has hurt our side and helped the goblins.”
Before Elijah could explain himself to Elder Jeb, everything started to get a little fucked up as he lost control of his senses. Suddenly the sun was to bright, brining pain to Elijah’s eyes and stopping him from seeing. The sound of his people’s feet hitting the wood, their breathing, and the random sounds on the battlefield all became the loudest and most annoying sounds Elijah ever heard in his life.
As for his sense of smell, it was unbearable. Sweat, dirt, blood, water, metal, fire, plants, piss and shit. All of these scents assaulted Elijah at the same time and the intensity of these scents varied with each second. However, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that Elijah could taste a few of them.
Clenching his jaw, Elijah tried his best not to throw up. However, the sensation of his teeth rubbing against each other only served to increase his discomfort. His discomfort increased as his body became extremely sensitive to the clothing on his body.
Elijah wanted to throw up. He wanted to fall down. He wanted to die.
For some strange reason, during Elijah’s moment of torment Elder Jeb decided to wail like a banshee in his ear. “Are you okay? No don’t say anything. I’ll bring you down. Everyone, retreat from the walls. Quickly!”
Out of nowhere it seemed like Elder Jeb managed to summon and put Elijah on to a crazy roller coaster ride. The ride was definitely not up to code and would absolutely lead to the death of hundreds of normal people. Thankfully the ride eventually came to a stop and Elijah promptly emptied the contents of his stomach.
After Elijah finished throwing up, he felt a lot better, and he rapidly regained control of his senses. It went without saying that before Elder Jeb wasn’t screaming in his ears. As for the crazy roller coaster ride, that was simply Elder Jeb bringing him down the stairs.
Looking at his notifications, Elijah could see he received a debuff letting him know he lost control of his senses. Naturally, he didn’t have the ability to look at the notification in his debilitated state. Of course, reading the notification wouldn’t have done anything to change his circumstances.
“Have you recovered?” Elder Jeb asked. Elijah didn’t feel like he was ready to speak quite yet, so he simply nodded his head while he took deep breaths.
“That’s good,” Elder Jeb said. “Your senses were acting up, right? Although this isn’t a great reason for calling a retreat, it does make sense.”
“Yes,” Elijah replied in between the deep breaths he was taking. “I had trouble…with my senses… but that wasn’t… the reason…I called… a retreat.”
“Why did you call a retreat?” Elder Jeb asked with a slight look of confusion on his face.
By the time Elder Jeb finished asking his question, Elijah recovered to the point where he could speak normally. However, before Elijah responded he took a second to take in his surroundings. He could hear the goblins bang their weapons on the wall as they did their best to bring it down or make holes to enter through. Also, he saw his people walking single file toward the doors of the village that were slowly opening.
“Let’s start walking, I’ll tell you about my thoughts on the way,” Elijah placed his hand on Elder Jeb’s shoulder and urged him to join the line. A few seconds after they joined the line and Elijah was sure he wouldn’t stumble into any traps he began telling Elder Jeb his thought process.
“Although we could have kept fighting, we didn’t need to. Our goal isn’t to protect the second wall, but to protect the village and our people. The longer we stayed and continued to fight the more danger we would have put our people in.”
“We could have stayed for a little longer,” Elder Jeb replied. “We would have been able to kill a lot more goblins while they tried to get through the wall.”
“Don’t forget we have plenty of traps leading up to the village’s main wall, so we don’t have to worry about losing opportunities to kill goblins. Also, you need to think about things from our enemies’ perspective.”
“What do you mean?”
“Picture this. You just finished fighting your way through arrows and traps and you managed to finally break down your enemy’s wall. However, you found out behind that wall is another area full of traps and another wall that your enemy is hiding behind. Would you continue charging forward?”
“No but the goblin’s aren’t as smart as us.”
“True, but even they can feel frustration. However, right now, they believed they sent us running away with our tails between our legs. Once they break through the wall and see us trying to retreat their confidence will be at an all-time high. They will recklessly charge forward disregarding the losses they suffer from the traps.”
As Elijah spoke, he could see that the people around them were listening in. He didn’t try to hide his voice and hoped that they would pay attention to the conversation. He was confident that his explanation would be able to remove any lingering unhappiness that they had about the retreat.
Elder Jeb shook his head after he finished listening to Elijah’s explanation. “I don’t know if we need to use all these mind games at this stage of the battle with the goblins, but it’s good to know that you’re putting a lot of thought into the overall situation and planning for the future.”
“My biggest worry is the goblins giving up and deciding to attack us from a different direction. Although I’m confident we already past the point of no return and we will be able to defeat the goblins no matter what, it doesn’t hurt to try and give ourselves the best possible fighting conditions. Also, it would be a shame to not use the traps that we worked so hard to build.”
The moment Elijah finished speaking he heard a loud bang. Without turning his head, he knew the goblins broke through the wall. It was time for the moment of truth.