Now in the ranks of the Bartel’s platoon, there were several works engaged in melee with his soldiers; they were struggling behind cover; some of the orks were shot by arrows; the goblins themselves shot or a rifle shot came from a squadmember as they were close to one another; others saw the attack coming and pulled their knives and foght like mad men’s against the creatures; A-Dam, Shafran, and Chatzi alike, in the middle of the chaos, all of the duchy soldiers had one voice of rage.
Orks kept rushing but none could get closer as the platoon advanced closer and closer to the fortress. Some duchy soldiers were left behind with a combat medic because of more complicated injuries caused by the orks and others were moving slower because of more superficial wounds. This made them the primary target for the goblin archers, even though this made them more exposed to the duchy soldiers that were now at the wall or closer to the fortress, picking them one by one.
‘They have no end; what is happening? We killed so many and they keep coming.’ Egor was breathing heavily.
Egor saw in front of him Ethan’s team reaching the wall and Caleb trowing grenades into a hole in the wall to the right side and to the left, Samal threw another grenade he took from his teammates through the destroyed gates. As they exploded, Oran ran past Caleb to the other side. Looking inside, he saw orks and goblins on the ground screaming. Ethan welcomed Egor to his side as the rest of the squad had their backs to the wall.
‘Ethan, we are going to enter through the hole in the left.’ Egor put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder.
‘Prepare yourselves. We are going in the hole, guys.’ Ethan spoke to the radio.
‘This is crazy; we are dead; this is just an illusion.’ Asher talked to himself while shaking his head.
‘Are you alright, Asher?’ Caleb looked behind him for a moment.
‘I’m just astonished that we are not dead.’ Asher looked into Caleb's eyes with wide eyes.
‘Thank the goddess for that, my friend.” Caleb chuckled.
The rest of the platoon started to get to the wall but there were still goblins on top of the gate. Using a thick piece of log as cover while aiming at the soldiers running towards the wall, Bartel noticed but couldn’t take the shot because, on the other side of the destroyed gates, other archers were starting to shoot in his direction.
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The soldiers that were with their backs to the wall, preparing to enter, saw something running from the trees toward the gate. The goblin archer was looking at the two soldiers, trying to run. towards the wall but before letting go of his arrow, he felt his chest being compressed and he felt immense pain like his insides were exploding and the sensation of being in midair. His eyes caught a figure standing where he was before as his vision faded to black.
The scene took the breath away from Bartel, seeing the figure give a two-leg kick on the goblin’s chest and do a backflip to land where the goblin was. He widens his eyes when he notices that it was Edmund, by the clothes and white hair as he was there standing there.
‘Edmund is here. I repeat, Edmund is here.’ The lieutenant shouted on his radio, making everyone aware.
Edmund jumped in the direction of the goblins, pointing their arrows at the destroyed open gate, taking them by surprise. Every strike, plumbing one of the knives on a vital point, killing the creatures instantly, He used acrobatic moves to douge arrows flying at him but using the momentum of the move to kick the creatures so hard that it killed them instantly. All of this was happening at an incredible speed.
‘The path is clear; let’s go, people, enter... go, go, go!!! Bartel's voice was heard from the soldiers radios.
As the remaining duchy soldiers rushed to the inside of the fortress, another brutal exchange began with goblin archers, orks trowing rocks, and some mix of the two rushing the duchy soldiers, who were trying to engage in melee combat with make-shit weapons, but the latter was more focused on what was happening in the middle of the fortress.
Right in the middle of everything was Edmund, killing every single creature that came close to him while he was dodging stray shots coming from the duchy soldiers using acrobatic moves and using the creatures as shields at some point. From the perspective of a duchy soldier that took time to look at Edmund for a moment, completely mesmerized by the way he was battling the creatures, his face was calm, cold, and focused, but he didn’t know what was happening in the white-haired young man's mind.
‘I’m going to die!!!’ Edmund screamed from inside his mind.
All the mental fortitude he had was to control his body in such a way that it wouldn't just focus on killing the creatures but on self-preservation too. Every sense that he had was being used to make sure he could feel the projectiles coming from friends or foe alike; he didn’t care if it was an arrow aimed at him or a stray shot coming from a duchy soldier; he dodged them the same while rampaging through the battlefield; but some movement couldn’t be controlled as Edmund trew one of his knives in the direction of the duchy soldiers hitting a goblin that was going to jump at the distracted soldier.
‘One less weapon, great.’ He thought.
While trowing his other knife at an ork’s head that was struggling with a duchy soldier, his expression changed for a moment of complete disbelief in what just happened.
‘There is no way I did that just now.’ He had a lapse for a moment.
In the interior of the fortress, there was rudimentary housing that the duchy soldiers were using as cover to advance. On the inside of the fortification, they noticed how large it was as they advanced, hitting arches on the walls or creatures running toward them. Using grenades, some of those makeshift shelters exploded, with some creatures going up in flames and others running in the open to get shot by some other soldiers right after.
Everything was happening so fast that Asher forgot to breathe. With his eyes focused on treating a soldier that was hit by an arrow and all kinds of voices coming from his radio calling for help in pain, the word medic echoed in his mind while his eyes focused on the soldier's torso right in front of him as the air found its way again to his lungs. He remembered that it was Samal, with one arrow lodged on his arm, a deep cut on the other arm and another arrow in his leg.