Thalion was up in the sky again, on his way to the next tower. He saw that the breach from Garrick's side was progressing, and Kai's team was winning decisively, while the others hadn’t made much progress at all. He dove down towards the next tower, where orcs were firing arrows with grins on their faces at the attacking men, who were running fast from side to side to dodge the arrows.

Thalion transformed into his human form a hundred meters above the orcs and fired blood thorns at their heads, which was pretty easy since they weren’t moving at all. He landed on the tower and fed the blood of the orcs to the sanguine thorn, which hummed with desire. Then the door opened, and a mage sprinted out. Before the orc could react, a vine with a black thorn pierced his heart and began draining his blood. Moments later, the mage orc fell to the ground dead.

Thalion began bombarding the archers and mages on the wall below him and managed to kill over ten before they noticed him and started shooting. Thalion moved to the other side of the tower and continued bombarding the archers and mages. There, he managed to kill even more orcs before they noticed him and began shooting upwards. The human warriors, thankfully, weren’t sleeping and had climbed the wall, attacking the orcs with furious strikes, probably as revenge for the earlier bombardment.

Thalion’s job was done. He turned into an eagle and shot into the air, moving quickly to the third tower. He saw that no attack was happening at the fourth tower, with over thirty human corpses lying on the ground.

“What had happened? Where are all the fighters? Was this Michael’s side?” Thalion thought with worry. Sadly, he didn’t have much time to search for them, but he hoped they weren’t making a move on Kael and Sylas. He was confident they could handle Michael and a few others, but there were over forty fighters missing—that would be too much.

As he approached the third tower, the orcs noticed him and began firing arrows and fireballs at him. From this distance, it was easy to dodge with his eagle form, as the reflexes of an eagle were just too fast. He transformed into his human form mid-flight and started dashing, firing blood thorns at the orcs on the tower. One got hit in the head and died instantly, while the others were blocked by a manashield from one of the mages.

Thalion charged a fireball and threw it at the orcs. The explosion destroyed the manashield and threw two of them off the tower, leaving only one mage, who had blocked his spell earlier. Thalion prepared a stronger version of the blood thorn and shot it at the orc, who again tried to block it with a manashield while his right hand was surrounded by lightning. The shield wasn’t enough to stop the powered blood thorn, but it slowed it down, so it only ripped open the orc’s arm.

The orc unleashed the lightning at Thalion with an angry roar, and Thalion wasn’t fast enough to dodge it. He was hit in the side and thrown back, his body spasming from the lightning. He quickly transformed into an eagle, which absorbed the electricity with his passive skill stormborn resilience and slowly healed him. Thalion shot up into the air, activating feather glide and tempest shroud, speeding up significantly while still absorbing the lingering electricity. He dodged an ice shard the orc shot at him.

He dove down at the orc, activating lightning bolt, and shot a streak of lightning out of his beak. The orc blocked it with another manashield while countering with a swarm of ice shards. Thalion circled the tower with incredible speed and began to cast eye of the storm. The surroundings turned dark, and a storm rose around him. The orc mage was struck by a lightning bolt from above. "Sucks to be the highest point," Thalion thought with a grin. The bad thing was that all the other orcs on the wall had now spotted him, making the situation much more dangerous.

He rose higher, now circling 50 meters above the tower, dodging all the spells and arrows being fired at him. It wasn’t as difficult as he first thought, since his speed was already too fast for the orcs to hit him, so they just shot in his general direction. He then activated his second thunder skill, lightning bolt barrage, and soon after, lightning bolts rained down on the defenders. Thalion watched as the powerful area attack hit multiple orcs, and the mage was sent flying from the tower as three lightning bolts in rapid succession smashed into his shield. An additional bolt hit him while he was falling, ensuring a not-so-safe landing.

Thalion landed on the tower and transformed back into his human form. He had nearly spent all of his mana and needed to recuperate. He sped up the process by drinking two mana potions, restoring his mana to roughly fifty percent. He already heard steps on the stairs below and waited for the orcs to approach. Thankfully, his mana and health were regenerating quickly due to his purified blood, the sanguine thorn, the amulet and his passive skill, heartbeat of the sanguine archon.

He patiently waited until the orcs arrived at the door. Then he shot a charged blood thorn through the wooden door, hoping to kill the orcs behind it. Thalion heard pained screams and activated vine of the sanguine thorn, which ripped through the door. He could almost locate the orcs by feeling their blood, and the vine pierced the chests of three orcs standing behind the door. Before they could cut the vine, he activated crimson Harvest. For the first time, he felt strong resistance from all three orcs.

Thalion fought against the combined will of the three orcs, while he moved the vine to injure them more. It was pretty even, but then, with a beat of desire, the sanguine thorn made itself known, and with a pulse, the orcs were completely overpowered. Soon after, three dried husks fell down the stairs. Thalion felt the satisfaction of the sanguine thorn as it fed on the orcs’ blood. He wondered what the plant was capable of after fully awakening.

Next were the orcs on the wall, who had mostly turned back to the approaching humans now climbing the walls. Thalion started bombarding them with blood thorns, piercing multiple orc skulls and making it easier for the humans to climb and attack the orcs.

It helped that most orcs were now running to aid in defending the breach in the wall, making it easier for the humans to overcome their defenses. After some more fighting, this part of the wall was almost under their control. The orcs from the fourth tower, not needing to defend their post, were now helping the other orcs and attacked fiercely.

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Thalion soon faced real problems as two archers started aiming for him. "Time to check on Kael," he thought. He placed some of the large orc weapons in his spatial ring, turned to mist, and shot in the direction of the gate where Kael should be.

<-

Kael stood on top of the gate, watching people throw themselves at the first ring wall the orcs had built, completely surrounding his base. He just wanted to help those who hadn’t managed to do as well in this new world and give them a place of safety. Then Thorwald had happened, and now this Michael was probably trying to do the same. He didn’t understand these people. They sacrificed everyone’s lives for their personal gain. He had hoped that, at least through the threat of the undead, humans would unite, but the opposite was the case. Michael even used the chaos for his own gains.

Now, Kael had already received reports that Michael hadn’t attacked, and only a few groups of people were lying dead on the grass. But there weren’t any of the big arrows the orc archers used, nor signs of large magic spells. Had the man ambushed the citizens of this base for political power and credits? He watched as Thalion cleared tower after tower with ease, and Kai and his group were doing a good job too, at least as far as Kael could see. After clearing that part of the wall, they jumped down to help the people on the ground between the two orc walls.

“Should we help them? It looks pretty won already,” Sylas said with a shrug.

“No, let’s find where Michael is. I don’t want to get backstabbed,” Kael replied. At the beginning of the fight, he had coordinated some groups for a more effective attack, but now the battle had turned into a brawl, and the humans were clearly winning.

Sylas flew them both up to the highest tower of Kael’s base, which was almost in the center. When they arrived, Kael used ranger’s sight and scouted the area for Michael. Was this guy hiding in a house or something? There was no trace of him, as if he had disappeared. Kael had already notified the guards remaining on the wall and declared Michael an enemy, to either be captured or killed if he resisted. So far, no one had found Michael or any of his followers.

With that, Kael turned his attention back to the battlefield. He saw that some orcs were even running now. There were still a few positions where battles were taking place, mostly on the sides where the orcs hadn’t been attacked, but even there, the orcs were not winning. It was more of a stalemate.

Then the situation changed. Human mages, probably Garrick’s people, placed their magic circle on top of the tower Thalion had cleared first. Giant spells began raining down on the orcs, completely destroying their formations and killing many by the second. After that, most orcs were fleeing. Some barricaded themselves in the last tower, and Kael received a final message from one of the guards. They had found Michael. His group had been hiding under an illusion, positioned to defend the base if the orcs attacked.

Kael could already sense a headache coming, but this time, he would listen to his friends and throw the fucker out.

<--

Evelyn and Kargul were waiting at the entrance of the tower where the remaining mages had set up the magic circle, which had now completely turned the tide of the battle. She was tired from healing all the humans, but it was good to see Kai and the others again. They had even spotted the shapeshifters, who were staying away from the battle, waiting outside. At least, that’s what they had done after the first attack, when they quickly fled and hid in the forest after spotting the red orc.

Now, the battle was already won. It would just take a bit of time to defeat the last orcs. Over a hundred orcs had already fled into the forest, while some simply disappeared, like the red one had at the beginning. This was the exact moment when Garrick and his group of five attacked, pushing back the already exhausted orcs for maximum dramatic effect. The guy was even screaming his skills out loud. What an idiot.

The shapeshifters saw their opportunity and attacked the already retreating orcs. Their beast forms were faster than the orcs and perfect for intercepting their retreat.

Evelyn wondered what the aftermath of this battle would be... at least all her friends had survived.

<--

Thalion was flying toward the high tower, where he had spotted Kael and Sylas standing. "How is it going?" he asked the two after reforming into his human form. Kael had already seen him arrive and didn't scream in surprise like Sylas.

"Better than expected. The orcs are retreating, and the last ones have barricaded themselves in the last tower, but it won't be for long."

"So fast? Great! I thought it would go on for longer. Did anyone see the red orc?" Thalion asked, curious about what had happened to that guy.

"He didn’t fight the people from my base. I think this Garrick dealt with him," Kael answered.

"How’s the Michael situation going?" Thalion asked, intrigued. "I haven’t seen him all battle, and he didn’t attack."

"Yes, they’ve gathered in his home, saying they don’t want to lose their lives," Kael said, clearly annoyed.

"That’s great. Just say that, with his actions, many good men and women died, and then throw him out," Thalion advised, with Sylas nodding along and smiling.

From the battlefield, shouts of joy and victory echoed up to them. "Seems like it’s over," Thalion said while looking over the scene. They had defeated the orcs, and the remaining ones had either left or were staying in the tower. After a talk with Kargul, they had given up and thrown down their weapons. Maybe they didn’t need to kill the last ones.

"So, what’s next?" Thalion asked, looking at Kael.

"We welcome this Garrick and have some talks about the future in the great hall," Kael said and gave a mental command to the guards to open the gates and show Garrick and his people where they could stay until the evening, when they all would meet in the great hall.

"This went better than expected. How many died?" Sylas asked Kael.

"We lost around two hundred fifty people," Kael answered. "This is way better than I expected."

"There should be over five hundred orcs dead. The rest managed to flee. The surprise attack and the firepower from those magic circles made a big difference," Kael explained.

"Why didn’t you buy some of those magical circles that were movable?" Sylas asked Kael.

"The ones I bought are integrated into the wall. Otherwise, everything would be much more expensive, and I would have had to miss out on some of the defensive tools," Kael stated.

"I just told everyone that we will gather tonight in the great hall. I have a lot to do until then," Kael said, turning away.

"Do you need help with anything?" Sylas asked.

"No, I’m good. I’ve already instructed those who stayed back to check on the stuff left behind by the orcs. Maybe we can connect the ring walls around us with this fortress. Ah, but we’ll meet a bit before the others in my room. I’ll send you a message," Kael said before jumping down over the battlements.

"What are you doing until then?" Sylas asked Thalion.

"I’ll try to upgrade some spells and do a bit more body tempering." Thalion said after a bit of thinking. This was a good time to get stronger, and he had much to do.

"Would you mind if I joined you? And what spell are you upgrading?" Sylas asked, interested.

"Sure, no problem. I’m trying to change the fireball skill into some kind of flamethrower," Thalion explained his thoughts.

"Uh, that’s cool. I already changed my fireball into a flamespear," Sylas eagerly explained, and they both headed off to Thalion’s chambers.