Return of the Woodcutter

Inside the square-shaped wooden fortress, nine challengers fought against six elite orcs. Four from Lucius's team, two from Sam's, and three from Aito's. 

With their numerical advantage, it was logically only a matter of time before they won. But victory was earned, not calculated. Anything could happen during a fight to the death. 

Four elite orcs formed a small turtle-like shield wall, protecting two others that were preparing a counterattack. Carrying a spear each, the two orcs coated them with Durability. 

Meanwhile, Lucius ordered his two archers to fire at will. Together, they could shoot two arrows per second. Each of them targeted one of the orcs' thick tower shields. Unable to pierce through their defenses. 

They hadn't experienced yesterday's fight, so they couldn't know how ridiculously tough those shields were.

The tiny breaches there were in the orcs' formation were so small it'd require perfect accuracy to get through them. Even then, it would hit nonvital areas or their armors. 

Because of the lack of cohesion, communication between the teams, Ogoro and George couldn't go into the melee. Projectiles, magical or physical, emerged from every corner of the wooden fortress, forcing the two men to stick to range attacks—well, Ogoro just stayed behind, much like Sam who could only attack melee.

It was chaos.

Sheyla shot one frozen arrow after another, aiming at the same spot, trying to freeze the tower shield to its very core. It'd be easier to shatter it afterward. Roisin, the dual elementalist from Sam's team, noticed what she was doing and helped her.

Elizabeth, the wood elementalist from Lucius's team, threw everything she had at them. Lucius himself spared no effort. Orcs gritted their tusks through the pain as streams of electricity hit them. 

Activating his skill, Hyper Conductivity added to Electrict Bolt, Lucius could target up to four opponents at the same time. The putrid smell of charred flesh rapidly arose from the orcs' skin, bathed in electricity. 

And yet they held their grounds firm. Having been trained to endure unbearable pain, accustomed to high temperatures, with physiques that had reached the uppermost of level 3, their bodies did not waver. 

Unfortunately for the orcs, Durability couldn't shield them from Lucius's attack. Nor could they move. Lucius's attack seemed to have a temporary paralysis effect. Unable to advance or fall back, they could only count on their kinsmen who prepared a counterattack.

The two orcs who were on the back of the formation knew of their comrades' predicament and yet they waited patiently for the right opportunity. 

Under the combined attacks of the challengers, orcs, elites or not, were weakening by the passing seconds. But so were the humans. Most precisely, the mages. 

Keeping up a constant stream of electricity required a lot of mana from Lucius. Lightening element was great. It provided paralysis effects, a more than decent amount of damage, multiple target options, etc. 

On the other hand, it pumped mana as an old model race car did to gas. On top of that, releasing a constant stream of electricity only depleted Lucius's mana reserve faster. 

That's why he liked to use a melee weapon to compensate for that ridiculous mana consumption, his weakness. He has been preventing the orcs from moving continuously for five minutes now and they had not died yet. 

'No wonder these creatures were saved for last. They are just ridiculously overpowered,' Lucius thought, feeling his mana drained to a fifth of his reserve. 'Gotta recharge soon.' 

Taking a mana core out of his inventory bag, Lucius focused on it for but an instant to suck in the energy, weakening his hold on the orcs. 

That single opportunity was what the two orcs on the back were waiting for. Seeing Lucius lose a part of his focus, they rapidly stood up from their crouch position, and, both aiming at the same target that prevented their comrades from moving, hurled their spears. 

Lucius appeared to be the most annoying of the humans present here. 

Both deadly projectiles rapidly traveled through the air. Their target wasn't that far, allowing for an accuracy high enough to be certain the shot would not miss. Orcs had practiced their marksmanship for that purpose, after all. 

'Damn it!' Lucius thought, dropping his mana core, halting his skill. He barely had time to sidestep and dodge one spear. However, the other spear glowing yellow hit him head-on. 

His skill Durability at level 2 was no match for the orcs'. The spear tip got through that first magical layer of defense, biting into his armor. Its momentum granted the weapon enough penetration power to pierce through and collide against Lucius's chain mail, protecting his stomach. 

And finally, it stabbed through his abdomen.

Blood gushed out from his wound. In a state of shock, he grabbed the spear shaft, incapable of realizing he had been wounded badly. 

That had never happened before, after all. He had always been able to prepare correctly, face adversity. Lucius had been injured before. Deep cuts, bruises, broken bones. But a spear in the guts was something new. 

He couldn't tell how deep was the wound as he lost his balance and fell from the wooden wall. 

"Honey!" Elizabeth shouted, losing her composure when her leader dropped onto the sand and stopped moving. Freed from his electric prison, orcs advanced into the fortress, but she couldn't care less. 

The two archers that were firing arrows from atop the walls were out of ammunition. Three days of fighting against hordes of orcs had depleted their supply—well, two days considering they hadn't really participated in yesterday's battle.

Of course, they had gathered their arrows on the field afterward but arrows broke at times. Also, one could only carry so many arrows on themselves, plus the fact they had fought hobs to get on the sixth floor.

They were now forced to switch to melee. 

Sheyla had tried to limit her shots, to make them count. However, even she was out of ammunition. Drawing her repeater and long dagger, she prepared for the orcs' charge. 

The orcs advanced slowly in formation, their shield riddled with arrows and dents. Stepping on shattered wooden spears that had been cast by Elizabeth and broken arrows, they walked inside the fortress. 

George just finished recharging his mana with a mana core and hurled highly pressurized water bullets, aiming at the shield Sheyla had almost entirely frozen despite the high temperature. Upon contact, it shattered a quarter of it, exposing the orc. 

Focusing on another enemy, Ogoro used his wires and binding string to catch it. However, having used that trick once, the orc saw it coming and shield bashed some of the wires. 

Ogoro still managed to grab its thick arm. He pulled. At that moment, a second orc joined in, helping its fellow elite soldier. One orc was already hard to drag, but two was impossible. Too busy dealing with enemies on his side, George couldn't help him. 

Ogoro was forced to dispel his binding to avoid being pulled towards the orcs. Swords in hand, the three archers from Lucius's team charged at them. 

George stopped firing water bullets for fear of hitting one of them and prepared to enter the melee. Casting a water wall, he isolated his target from the others and smashed the orc's frozen shield into pieces.

"KRA!" 

The orc grabbed its war ax with two hands and counterattacked. George backed up and used another water wall to propel his adversary towards him. 

Unexpectedly, the orc welcomed the propulsion as an opportunity, charging madly at him. However, George took a batter position, hurled water bullets to distract the orc, and, like in a baseball game, smashed the orc's armored head with his metal club, aiming for the home run. 

The orc flew backward, never to move again, or so George thought.

'I can't believe that worked,' George thought. Thanks to the challengers' continuous bombardment, the orcs were already injured, weakened, mainly because of Lucius. 

But to his surprise, the orc moved despite an ugly injury featuring its face bashing inward. Sam immediately seized this opportunity to stab it in the throat.

Due to the situation, both mage and warrior worked together.

Ogoro slashed open an orc's throat with his sword and backed up, letting Sheyla take his place, Roisin on her toes.

The battle looked more like an all-out brawl now than an organized fight. 

A long cut marked Ogoro's breastplate from the top left-hand corner to his waist, a parting gift from his opponent. 

He rapidly took three recovery beads to stop the bleeding. From where he stood, Ogoro could see the two archers confronting three other orcs weren't exactly amateurs. 

Slashing, hacking, parrying. By all means, they were better than most challengers he had seen. Their techniques were unrefined and would certainly need more training. Still, they truly were strong. 

But they surely were better bowmen than swordsmen. They managed to kill an orc, but one of them died in the process. The last archer, a woman armed with two short swords faced two elite orcs on her own. 

George and Sheyla already had their hands full dealing with one orc each, both helped by Sam's team.

Elizabeth was crying on top of Lucius, probably helping him recover if he wasn't dead already. 

Ogoro cursed internally. That archer from Lucius's team would not last long if he didn't do something. Practically two challengers were required to bring down one elite orc.

Infusing mana into his gauntlet, he entrapped one of the elite orcs in his wires, using all his remaining strength to hold it still. 

"Honey, please, don't die on me!" Elizabeth wailed, breaking four recovery beads to heal Lucius who had a spear lodged in his guts.

His head had hit the ground first, during which he had lost consciousness. Elizabeth didn't know if it was due to the fall or the weapon protruding from her husband's body. 

Fortunately, Lucius was still breathing... for now, at least.