The ground shook from the explosions erupting all around them, and several sections of the wall had already collapsed beneath the onslaught.

The townsfolk whimpered with every tremor that rolled through the square.

Some argued with the few escorts trying to lead them to safety, dragging heavy luggage behind them and slowing the entire evacuation down.

"Drop that chest!" Tom shouted at a middle-aged man and woman struggling with a large trunk. "You don’t need that to survive, goddammit!"

"This is our livelihood! You don’t get to decide what we need or don’t!" the man snapped back.

"Then die here, you stubborn idiot!"

The man stared at him in shock, as if he could not believe what Tom had just said.

"What?! How can you say that?!"

Tom’s expression did not change.

"You have two options," he said, his voice and eyes stone cold. "Either I knock you out right here, leave you behind, and you die... or you drop the luggage and go down the tunnel."

The man shuddered.

For a moment, he looked like he might argue again, but then the fight drained out of him. Reluctantly, he let go of the chest.

There were many more cases like that, and Tom and the three other escorts had to deal with each one by themselves.

It was a monumental task.

Holding back human greed.

In the end, once almost everyone had entered the tunnel, Ezekiel gave the signal for all ten escorts to move. Each of them had an earth affinity, and their task was clear—widen the tunnel where needed and reinforce it against attacks.

"What about the hunters and guards, sir?" Tom asked.

"They’ll come after us and seal the entrance once I give the signal that we’re far enough away," Ezekiel said. "Hopefully, some of them make it."

Tom’s expression darkened, but he only nodded.

’Most? Hah... what a nice joke. They would be lucky to see even one of them come back.’

Axel thought that while leisurely watching Kolma burn from a rooftop, as if none of it had anything to do with him.

They moved through the tunnel.

As the civilians passed beneath Kolma, the tunnel shuddered around them. Tiny clouds of dust drifted from the ceiling, and small rocks loosened, falling onto the frightened crowd below.

The people were scared, but for now, the situation remained under control. All ten escorts and Ezekiel kept the tunnel stable, reinforcing it with earth mana as they moved.

It went well for a while.

Then Ezekiel suddenly tensed.

"All escorts to the left side of the tunnel!" he ordered. "Brace the wall as much as you can!"

They moved immediately.

A second later, a thunderous boom resounded from the left side of the tunnel.

The wall cracked.

A spiderweb of fractures spread across nearly a hundred meters of stone and packed earth, dust bursting into the air as the civilians screamed.

Ezekiel and the escorts reacted at once, pouring mana into the damage and mending it before the tunnel could collapse.

"Two of you escort the people away. We’ll hold them off. Go! Now!" Ezekiel commanded.

Ezekiel reinforced the wall with his mana the next second, but the orc broke through like a torpedo.

Debris shot everywhere, forcing Ezekiel and the escorts to raise their defenses at once.

When the dust settled slightly, a sinister-looking orc revealed himself. He had a thick, bushy black beard and long, tangled black hair, while his eyes carried a crazed, almost gleeful look. With the amount of mana pouring from his body, there was no doubt he was one of the orc army’s commanders.

"Whaa’giii, huh huh... Sharakka!"

It screamed happily, almost dancing in place, laughing through jagged teeth as it pointed its spear at Ezekiel.

There was no mistaking it.

It was a challenge.

"Be prepared to die here..." Ezekiel said, his expression grim as more orcs poured through the wall and he looked at the crazed orc.

The others steeled themselves for the inevitable—but they would take out as many orcs as they could before that happened.

—

Up above ground, Pella struck down with all his might, but the orc in front of him blocked it easily with his greatsword. Lightning crackled from its other hand and struck Pella’s abdomen.

He was blown away, electrocuted so violently that his life mana struggled to heal the damage.

He crashed into Kolma’s wall with a thunderous boom, turning a few orcs climbing it into mush. As he picked himself up, he barely dodged an arrow that pierced through the wall with a quick sidestep, coughing up blood.

"Cough... damn, they aren’t giving me time to recover..."

On the other side of the wall, a massive explosion erupted. It burned half the wall, humans and orcs roasted alike.

Gunvald fought off the fire commander—they were almost evenly matched. Still, the orc was stronger, and it used the humans’ need to protect the town to its advantage.

"Noo! You damn bastard!" Gunvald screamed as he saw the hunters being roasted alive.

"Wah hah hah wah! Puny human! No match for U’rtak, Chief of Fire Munchers!"

It reveled in Gunvald’s misery, smiling, and like a true pyromaniac, it launched a continuous stream of flame, targeting the top of the wall.

Gunvald tried to shield the wall from the flames with a lightning net, and he managed to block most of it.

Sadly, some of it still slipped through, melting the skin off the hunters and orcs standing in its path.

Gunvald had no choice but to attack the orc directly in a strength-versus-strength clash... to maybe divert his attention.

Like a crack of lightning, he almost teleported in front of the orc’s face. Drawing his sword, he tried to slash across the orc’s eyes, but the strike was met with one of its battle axes.

Stopping his surprise attack with one hand, the orc gathered heat into the other axe until it glowed bright red and began to burn. U’rtak countered toward Gunvald with all his might.

Gunvald’s quick reactions saved him as he repositioned instantly, turning into lightning once more.

He appeared behind U’rtak and slashed downward in a horizontal strike.

But the orc only laughed and released a massive jet of flames from its back, propelling itself forward and escaping Gunvald’s slash while simultaneously burning him.

The explosion of their mana rang out through the air, and Gunvald was thrown back in a cloud of black smoke. He protected himself at the last second from the worst of it, but still got burned pretty badly.

U’rtak, meanwhile, spun around and hurled one of his axes straight at the puny human’s head, propelling it forward with blazing mana.

Barely having any time to react, Gunvald managed to dodge at the last second. The surrounding mana burned him further, but at least he avoided the certain death blow.

Blisters covered his hands and face, pus oozing from them.

Talmir and Kosak finally arrived at the carnage, carrying an unconscious Teclos. They stood at the edge of the forest, still obscured by the trees.

"Dammit! The town is falling apart!" Kosak said.

"We can’t do anything about it now. We have to reach that tunnel and get out of here..."

"Why can’t we just run from here?"

"And leave the fate of our family to chance? Saldia is in that tunnel... Marie and Alissa are in that tunnel too."

Kosak couldn’t argue with that.

"So, where do we get in?"

"Find a flank that’s already been breached," Talmir said. "And one without those commanders nearby."

Kosak nodded, and the two rushed off in a wide arc around Kolma.

It did not take them long to spot a breach in the wall.

They moved toward it quickly.

"Let’s punch through them!"

The orc backline had not noticed them yet, so Kosak planted his feet and anchored himself to the ground with a wide stance. He stretched both hands out in front of him, palms pressed together, then slowly began to pull them apart. Strain showed clearly on his face as sweat dripped down his brow.

In front of them, right beneath the orc backline, the earth split apart.

The entire battalion dropped ten meters into the ground, where jagged spikes waited below.

Several orcs died instantly, their skulls and hearts impaled as blood and brain matter spilled across the stone. Others were luckier—or skilled enough—to survive the fall with only minor injuries.

Only for Kosak to bring his hands back together.

The earth closed.

And the orcs were buried beneath the soil.

Meanwhile, Talmir leapt into the air with Teclos slung over his shoulders. Drawing his sword, he slashed in a wide arc, sending a thin, razor-sharp line of wind cutting through the rows of orcs breaching the walls.

The sudden counterattack halted the orcs momentarily and gave the defenders enough room to push back.

Without stopping, the two of them moved forward toward the wall, cutting down orcs along the way—Talmir slicing them apart, while Kosak crushed them into paste with earth magic.

As the orcs were suddenly surprised and pinned from behind by two capable fighters, their morale shattered, making them panic and divide their focus.

One of the cornerstones of that flank didn’t miss the opportunity. Sera went on the offensive, breathing fire like a hellish incarnation. Propelling herself forward, she cut and burned down many orcs, giving Kosak and Talmir the chance to connect with them.

—

While all this was happening, Axel was watching from afar, atop a tree. He had almost escaped already when he noticed Teclos.

"Hah! The kid is still alive?..."

He couldn’t care less about this town, but strangely, he found himself considering taking Teclos away to Lupos. A gem like that would be a waste to leave here to die.

Merging with the tree below, he slipped back toward the town through the grass.

—

"Talmir! Where have you been?!" Sera shouted as she cut off an orc’s head.

Talmir split another orc straight down the middle before answering. His reply was simple. He nodded toward Teclos.

"I’m going into the tunnel! I’ll come back! Until then, Kosak will help you hold this side!"

Kosak just shook his head, but he did as Talmir asked, while Talmir blitzed through the lines of both orcs and humans, rushing toward the tunnel.

Sera was speechless.

With Kosak there, they could hold the line against the orcs for some time now, as the push on that flank had been halted.

As Talmir neared the tunnel, a hunter was thrown out of it and slammed into the wall of a house, cracking and destroying part of it.

An orc with a massive cleaver rushed toward that hunter, but was suddenly sliced in half by Talmir.

"Toby! What the hell happened? Where are the people?" Talmir panicked when he saw an orc run out of the tunnel.

Toby coughed up blood and grabbed a flask from his belt, drinking it. "They are safe, but Elder Ezekiel is losing ground against that psycho orc—"

Talmir didn’t know what was going on, but he felt somewhat relieved that the people seemed to be safe... the only problem now was how he would reconnect Teclos with Saldia.

He gave another potion to Toby and picked him up. "Can you continue to fight?"

"Yeah... I have a broken arm, though, so I won’t be that useful..." he said. The potion couldn’t mend broken bones, as it wasn’t potent enough.

"Just get me to the townsfolk. I’ll leave Teclos there with Saldia and then join up with the rest, covering our escape."

"Sounds good to me... first we have to help Ezekiel, though, otherwise no one escapes that crazy orc."

They rushed into the tunnel and already saw bodies of orcs and hunters lying around, all ground up and bloody.

Toby created a separate passageway so they could arrive at the scene more quickly.

But when they did, the situation looked almost hopeless.

Ezekiel seemed to have protected the hunters somewhat, but he paid a heavy price, with his left arm torn off at the shoulder.

The rest of the escorts were also looking anything but fine—bloody and barely alive. They still held the orcs back somewhat, but they were clearly on a timer.

Talmir and Toby joined the fight to even the odds.

And sure enough, just as an escort would have lost his head to a crushing hammer blow, wind suddenly pushed him away.

The orc froze.

A strange line appeared across his vision.

Then his sight split in two.

For one brief, confusing moment, the upper half of what he saw began to slide away from the lower half.

The orc had not realized it yet.

But his head had been cut cleanly in two.

Toby protected his fellow escorts who were just about to die by encasing them in hard spherical shells, which would shoot out spikes if the orcs got too close.

The crazy orc turned its head toward Talmir as he was slicing through his soldiers. Another delicious meal appeared on the battlefield.

But the puny human in front of him would have to be first, as an earth spike flew toward him. Ba’hraka shattered the earth spike with one hand and hurled his spear right at Ezekiel.

"Khorru’l! Chwi an kasha!"

Ezekiel’s eyes widened, and he barely dodged the spear by a hair’s breadth. It crashed into the tunnel wall and embedded itself deeply. Spiderweb-like cracks spread across the surface, and a loud boom resounded.

Then, in that instant while Ezekiel was recovering, the orc practically appeared out of thin air in front of him and drove its hand through his chest.

Ezekiel coughed up blood, eyes wide, not expecting such a sudden shift in speed.

’This bastard was toying with me!?’

Ba’hraka smiled and tried to pull his heart out—but Ezekiel, with the last effort he could muster, slashed into the orc’s arm, almost severing it.

The orc barely saved it by encasing it in hard, gem-like skin.

"Waaaahhh! Kasha!"

The orc screamed in pain.

Talmir launched wind blades toward him, trying to finish him while he had the chance Ezekiel created—but the attack was blocked when a rock wall suddenly rose from the ground.

In the next second, a furious Ba’hraka bit off Ezekiel’s head. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

"Shit, it got Ezekiel!" Tom screamed from behind.

The situation had just turned hopeless.