The fifty meters in front of the walls was a killing zone. The area starting right ten paces from it and continuing almost all the way to the headquarters was groaning under elemental attacks, and the only safe place on the lands that had witnessed the war lasting for months remained between these two hells.
Nikolay, who lost his one arm, had heard his commander's order; he whispered the latest news to the mechanical swallow he hid in his camouflage and then released it. The mechanical device, receiving the coordinates, spun around once where it was before taking off, but then, instead of advancing, fell back into its owner's hands.
In advanced models of these inventions used for communication, there was a self-preservation mode against dangers, and if there was a danger of being destroyed in one direction, they would follow other routes at the cost of lengthening the journey. Nikolay relied on this too; while surrounded by dangers on all four sides, he would both be able to deliver the news and, by following it, find a way out of the death trap for himself, but it didn't take long for his dreams to be shattered.
His fur-collared armor was soaked in his own and his soldiers' blood; when his last hope was also dashed, he exhaled the breath he held in and slumped to the ground. He left his weapon by his side, crossed his legs, and watched the colorful attacks of the new generation weapons passing over his head and slaughtering the army behind him.
"A siege lasting for months ended with the arrival of a few orcs, huh!"
The commander, starting to let out laughs that chilled the blood of the few survivors around him while death waited at the nape of his neck, was practically declaring that he had lost all hope. He could neither run nor hide by freezing; the only thing he could do was laugh trembling to release the tension torturing his body.
This state of his caused the few soldiers clutching their weapons tightly to also slump to the ground and await their fate. They knew that if they lowered the weapons on the walls even one degree, they would turn to ash in seconds, and there was no obstacle preventing them from doing this. One of them was fighting here before, but now he too was on the headquarters side, busy killing fleeing soldiers.
They silently chose to resign to their fate, they would find out what would happen to them when the war ended, and they didn't have to wait long for this. As the final seconds of the time given by Master Leonardo passed, only a handful of them were left in front of the walls that hadn't lacked soldiers for months.
"Twelve minutes are up, and the result is clear!"
The short man, with his blonde hair and eyes that always shone brightly, felt the need to speak upon the realization of his guess. Master Leonardo might have been an architect, an artist, a scientist, but above all else he was an engineer, and he couldn't praise the accuracy of his calculations enough.
"It happened exactly as you said, Master Leonardo, let's go and decide what we will do with the survivors!"
Bookworm truly appreciated the man he responded to with a slight bow of his head. Thanks to the trait he received as the Blessing of the Ancestors, he could grasp the importance of knowledge more than all other orcs, and in his eyes, Master Leonardo was practically a river of science.
He swept the sleeves of his purple robe; his faded green skin showed, his palms facing the sky. The Balsici Castle soldiers, unable to understand what he was trying to do with this movement, still couldn't take their eyes off him. How could they? They watched every movement of the orc, who destroyed the army that had them wandering in the cold deserts of death for months in almost an hour, as if it were a divine message.
Even as the golden sands that gave the killing zone its name rose into the air, they only looked at him until the golden stairs adorned with red stains formed. One foot of the stairs, which rested on the walls and was wide enough for two people to comfortably walk side by side, stepped on the blood-soaked battlefield.
The golden-haired Sasha, unable to stay put any longer, took the lead; right behind him were Castle Lord Dimitri, Master Leonardo, his apprentice Michelangelo, and Bookworm. Only Hammerstriker stood alone on the bastion he leaned his back against; seeing that he wasn't moving, they didn't want to disturb him.
When they reached the ground, the golden stairs disappeared and began to spin, surrounding the group. There was no one breathing in this part of the battlefield, but being cautious wouldn't hurt anyone. Bookworm, knowing how slippery and deceitful the Mercenaries were, was on alert not to fall into any trap.
Sasha had drawn his weapon too; the arms of Michelangelo taking the rear shone under the moonlight, it was clear the young man preferred to fight using the hardware added to his body later. They crossed the fifty-pace distance in a short time and reached where the surviving Golden Leaf Merchant Guild soldiers were.
In any other time, the group of six survivors could have posed a danger to those leaving the Balsici Castle, but today they had no luck in anything. King Cobra, having finished the transport job, appeared beside them the moment the attacks of the new generation weapons ended and paralyzed them all with his breath exuding purple mist.
If the order he received was to kill, even their bones would have melted by now, but Bookworm had preferred these people to stay alive. They couldn't even turn their heads and look at them as they passed by those waiting harmlessly. Both the poison they inhaled and the presence of the massive snake standing over their heads ensured they turned into statues.
They didn't even have enough will to worry about their own lives, let alone pose a danger to anyone else, their condition was worse than a sheep under a butcher's knife. Knowing that their lives were between the two lips of the Balsici Castle team walking away step by step, they continued to wait, but the bells had started to toll for someone in a worse condition than them.
"Lift her up!"
When Alyon gave his order, the three orcs waiting by General Alina brought her limbless body to the same level as the others. The sight was pitiful; the woman who made men's heads spin with her beauty just an hour ago, arrogant, looking down on everything and everyone, now didn't even look human.
"Revenge is your right, Dimitri!"
When the massively built orc spoke for the second time, ten weapons appeared in front of the Lord of the Balsici Castle; the members of the Nameless Ten were offering the weapons they used to him so he could take his revenge. Seeing the magnitude of the gesture made to him, Dimitri was touched, his eyes filled with tears.
Their weapons were sacred to orcs; they wouldn't let anyone else take them without giving their lives. They would only allow their comrades, with whom they shared their fate and to whom they would entrust their lives, to use them, and now ten orcs were declaring that they saw him as such.
Perhaps if it stayed at this, Dimitri could have held back his tears, but when a dagger made of sand and finally Alyon's axe took their place next to the others, the merchant of many years couldn't control himself. The feelings he had suppressed for a long time, buried in the depths of his heart, were coming to light like a light finding a path in the darkness.
Dimitri perhaps didn't thank them one by one, but his gazes spoke for him. All the weapons in front of him were ready for his use, and as he passed by them, he didn't reach for any of them. When he came next to General Alina with small but determined steps, something no one had seen before appeared in his right hand.
"This cane, the cane that is the proof that I am the Leader of the Balsici Family, I had to take it as my father drew his last breath. Whereas, he used to say he would organize a grand ceremony and declare to the whole Mercenaries' Lodge what a great man his son, who was once deceitfully exiled from his homeland, was!"
Just as he finished his words, when no one expected it, he raised the cane in the air and brought the weapon with a gold sphere the size of a fist at its tip down on General Alina's face. Two, three, four... the onlookers stopped counting and watched without blinking the savagery that would last until the young woman's body was torn to pieces.