After two minutes, Abel had lost count of the number of arrows he shot out. He probably killed a lot already if he had to guess. Since he had run in a full circle, he could see that he was riding into a bunch of dead wolfriders.

Before the mount wolf king was about to be stopped by the pile of corpses, Abel switched into his steel sword and “contract of the ancient” shield.

BANG

One of the corpses beside him suddenly exploded. If he didn’t block with his shield in time, the fire element that was bursting towards him would’ve gone straight towards his flesh.

Some damage was dealt to the mount wolf king he was riding. The “corpse explosion” was an area attack, and Abel’s shield wasn’t big enough to cover every part of the mount he was riding. Luckily, the wound wasn’t enough to slow the mount wolf king down.

“They got me!” Abel gasped. He really underestimated these orcs. After they found out about his excellent archery skills, they instantly developed a counter-strategy with the corpses that he laid with his bow.

There were corpses all around Abel. The twenty orc priests had completely surrounded this area. To track Abel’s every moment, they had the blue falcon continuously flying over him. He could run and run and run, but he was just going to go back to the spot that he started at. It’s quite embarrassing, actually. He was trying to lure the orcs to the reinforcements that were coming, but he was the one that ended up being cornered.

These orcs were very experienced against fighting wizards. The circular trap they had for Abel was three hundred meters in radius. It was designed to stop him from escaping with his “instantaneously movement” spell. Normally, the instantaneous movement spell could only move at about 200 meters at max.

There was no easy exit for Abel. The orc priests weren’t giving him the time to think, either. While he was still trying to come up with a plan, several of them started drawing spell runes with their bone staffs.

BANG

BANG

BANG BANG BANG

One after another, the corpses around Abel continued to explode. Before Abel decided to do anything else, his first response was to put the mount wolf king back to his portal beast ring. If he let stay here, it would’ve died within seconds.

After doing that, he shielded his entire body with the “contract of the ancient” shield. It wasn’t really good enough. The explosions happened in all directions, and the shield was a flat object. The best he could do was to block where the explosion was the worst. For the parts that were not as severe, he tried to defend with his defensive spells and passive defensive magic items.

Despite all this chaos, it was easy to tell that the grey-hooded, skeleton-riding priest did the most damage with his “corpse explosion” spells. After activating it for two times, he even activated a “poison explosion” spell, which released a huge cloud of poisonous mist that trapped Abel into it.

Abel had never been this devastated in combat. That being said, he could still neglect the attacks that were doing the most damage. For the attacks that he couldn’t, he had to take the hits right on with his equipment.

Soon, all his defensive spells and the two passive defensive magic items were destroyed. The poisonous mist dyed his skin into green, but the “hidden secret” armor he was wearing gave him a +30% resistance against poison. Added with the effect of his shield, he had a total poison resistance buff of +48%. As awful as it looked, the poison was doing surprisingly little harm.

As the dried soil around Abel blew into the air, and it became even harder to see. By this point, all the corpses around Abel were detonated. The orc priests weren’t too worried, though. They were just waiting for the dust to disperse. Once it did, they believed that they would see either a dead wizard or a heavily-injured one.

At the same time, a messenger rode right next to the grey-hooded priest, “Commander! The reinforcements are closing in on us!”

The grey-hooded priest ordered, “Heed my command, soldier! Send five thousand wolfriders to stall these humans. They must succeed at all costs!”

“Yes, sir!” the messenger replied, then quickly rode away with his mount wolf. Many wolfriders began to follow him. It was about half of the number that was used to surround Abel.

The grey-hooded priest ordered, “Call the skeletons! Use them to find this wizard.”

To search for a supposedly-dead Abel, the twenty orc priests summoned one hundred skeletons behind them. After that, they all ran into the area that was surrounded by dust and poisonous mist. The area wasn’t big, so it didn’t take much time for them to finish their search.

The result was negative. The skeletons couldn’t find Abel at all. The orcs didn’t know what was going on, but he was using the invisibility cape to hide.

The grey-hooded priest pressed on, “We can’t wait any longer! Priests! Follow me to join the search! It doesn’t matter if the wizard is dead or not. We must find him, and we must collect him!”

It was the right call. The grey-hooded priest knew how little time he had. He understood the rules of the orc battlefield. Given the size of his troop, the humans were bound to send a force that was equal in number. He didn’t think that the five thousand wolfriders would buy much time. It was the right call to end this operation by retrieving the human wizard’s corpse.

Meanwhile, Abel had burn marks all over his body. The armor he was wearing was full of scorches. Even the mask on his face was like this. He didn’t just have external wounds, either. The internal wounds he sustained were also quite severe. He did manage to get it all sorted with a bottle of the “full recovery potion,” but the humiliation he suffered wasn’t so easily fixed.

Ever since Abel got into this fight, he’s been forced to think about all the blunders he’s made. It was his ego that got him into the state that he was in. More importantly, he just wasn’t giving credit to how well the orcs could fight.

It was very simple, really. If the orcs were really that weak, they would’ve been destroyed by humans a long time ago, but no, they’ve kept up the fight for thousands and thousands of years. Just because Abel hadn’t lost to them before, he still had no reason to look down on them.

Abel was very disappointed in himself. He was disappointed in himself, but after hearing what the grey-hooded priest said, he was also starting to feel very angry. He didn’t think that they would go this far to see him dead.

“Oh, is that how it is?” he murmured to himself under the mask, “So you like poison. I’ve got something for you, then.”

While still hiding under his invisibility cape, Abel took out a green potion that contained streaks of blue lightning. It was the first reward he got for stepping into the battlefield. After synthesizing it with the Horadric Cube, he turned it into a blue-quality poison potion.

After opening the cap, he started splattering the potion all around him. Then, by using his dark-golden combat qi as a thin whip, he started beating the potion’s content before it fell to the ground. This way, it started mixing with the poisonous mist that was surrounding him.

It was at this point that the grey-hooded priest walked in. After “tagging” himself and the priests that followed him, he made sure that they wouldn’t be harmed by the poison he released.

In his mind, Abel was already a dead man. Any beginner wizard, no, intermediate wizard would’ve died from the attack he set up. Even if the target had a lot of items, there was just no way that he could go unscathed.

The grey-hooded priest kept his composure, “Stay calm, comrades. He won’t escape this. We want to push him in slowly and steadily.”

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