This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

The black skull in the sky opened its huge mouth and attacked Dick and the others. Just by looking at it, Dick couldn't help but shiver and his mind was shaken. This was a clear reaction to being subjected to a mental attack. Fortunately, Dick was now a Saint-level, so it only caused interference and did not cause any real damage.

"Damn! He's a Saint-level sorcerer."

Among the many magic-based professions, sorcerers stand out by annoying people. Their attack methods are generally based on curses. Their spells may not be very flashy, but they are always hard to defend against.

Normally, sorcerers hide in the shadows and rarely choose to confront their enemies head-on. This guy who suddenly appeared is actually an avatar, immune to both physical and magical attacks, but capable of casting curses in one direction. His true form should be hiding not far from here.

Faced with the gigantic, intangible skeleton, Behemoth and Lucoa both opted to dodge first, observing its attack patterns. Dick, however, was incredibly brave, directly confronting the skeleton head-on!

Dick wasn't reckless by nature, but as the commander of the expeditionary force, he had so many soldiers watching, and he couldn't afford to show weakness at this crucial moment, as that would seriously affect the morale of his side.

Moreover, he wasn't fighting alone; he took the initiative to step forward, which also helped create opportunities for his senior brother and Lucoa.

When you're teaming up to fight a boss, you always need someone sturdy and durable to stand in the front row, right?

As a newly promoted Saint-level mage, Dick's combat experience was indeed lacking. The magical duels he fought on campus were all arena matches conducted within the rules, not real life-or-death struggles.

However, Dick's total magic power and mental strength reached their peak after his breakthrough, so in actual combat, he exuded a kind of "numerical explosion" beauty. Captain America's famous line, "I can hold my own against you all day," sounded perfectly natural coming from him now. At least in terms of momentum, he was in no way inferior, and he looked like he could go toe-to-toe with anyone!

Under Dick's relentless barrage of magic attacks, the giant skeleton could barely maintain its original form. But Dick knew that the damage it had suffered was practically negligible. All he had to do was restrain this fully automatic curse emitter as much as possible so that his teammates could find its hidden true form.

On the ground, Black and White Gunner and Rita joined forces to meet the orc warrior.

The best way to fight against a Saint-level being is to have one on your side as well. Count Banner glanced at the Saint-level battle unfolding simultaneously in the sky and on the ground from afar, secretly congratulating himself on his accurate judgment of people and sides. Despite Dick Best revealing so many trump cards this time, no one could guarantee that this was all of them.

"This kid has quite the ambition, secretly raising so many Saint-level experts at home!"

Meanwhile, the chaos within the orc capital was intensifying. The artillery bombardment from the Holy Lake was relentless, and the cavalry that stormed into the city were setting fires as they fought, quickly burning a large area.

All of this was witnessed by the Orc Elders, who huddled inside the Great Altar, the only brick and stone building in the city, surrounding the city's third Saint-level expert, each one so tense that cold sweat poured down their backs.

"How could this be? Where did those human cavalrymen come from?"

"I wonder if Lords Ugor and Palen can hold out. It seems that quite a few Saint-level experts from the human race have arrived."

"It's all Ramon's fault. He took away the elite troops and the other four Saint-level experts. Otherwise, the Holy City's defenses wouldn't be so weak."

The elders in the main hall were restless, muttering to themselves as they shifted the blame onto Ramon, who was thousands of miles away, thinking that when he returned, they would impeach him severely.

Some people also felt that it was not safe to hide inside the altar. After all, it was one of the few large buildings in the entire orc capital. As a landmark, it was too conspicuous. What if those human holy-level mages discovered it and threw a forbidden spell at it?

If Dick knew that these elders were worried about this, he would have reassured them gently not to worry, explaining that he had given strict orders not to touch the altar while leading his troops to cause trouble, and especially to ensure the safety of these orc elders.

As a conservative within the orcs and the most important political force capable of restraining Ramon, Ramon would love for these incompetent fools to die suddenly. Therefore, Dick genuinely hoped that they could live well, since a useless teammate by the enemy's side is equivalent to a god teammate on his own side.

The expeditionary cavalry also strictly followed Dick's orders and never approached the altar.

Soon, most of the orc capital was ablaze. The cavalry, having successfully completed their sabotage mission, began to carry out the second phase of their operation as planned: a mass breakout outside the city to avoid being burned alive inside. Their breakout direction was precisely to the south of the city.

As soon as the vanguard came out, they discovered a group of human prisoners, numbering about three or four thousand, being held by several hundred orcs in an open area outside the city.

The two people stared at each other, and for a moment they were all stunned.

"what?"

The cavalry captain leading the charge was John, the "Honest Knight" under Dick. Upon seeing so many human comrades on the other side, he led his troops to attack without saying a word, scattering the hundreds of orcs guarding them. Then he called over a human prisoner and asked him a question.

"Who are you? How did you get dragged here by the orcs?"

“My lord knight, we are all prisoners. The men are all craftsmen, and the women…”

Before the other party could finish speaking, John had already roughly figured out what was going on. These human prisoners did not seem to have been mistreated, and the men were all skilled craftsmen. Obviously, the orcs valued them highly, so they absolutely could not let them fall into the hands of the orcs.

However, these thousands of prisoners were not a small number, and it was obviously unrealistic to make them retreat on foot with the cavalry. But John simply couldn't bring himself to kill them all on the spot and leave no orcs alive.

Fortunately, at this time, the friendly forces found some good stuff nearby: an orc caravan.

These caravans were used to pull tents. Because orcs were large, the caravans were also large. The animals pulling the caravans were the same as those used by orc cavalry. They weren't very fast, but they were really strong.

John then immediately put the prisoners in a carriage and covered their retreat eastward.

Meanwhile, within the city, the two groups of Saint-level warriors were still locked in fierce combat. In the sky, spells clashed, while on the ground, Heroic Knights and Orcish Sword Saints dueled.

Both sides were fighting with their lives on the line, and Dick couldn't defeat the sorcerer's avatar for the time being. However, Dick possessed succubus blood, making him not only a physical antidote but also having maximum resistance to curses. Despite having at least ten layers of debuffs on him, he persisted in the fight, only his movements became somewhat sluggish.

The sorcerer was astonished by Dick's abnormal resistance, thinking to himself that no wonder this guy dared to go head-to-head with his avatar; it turned out that this guy was the type that countered him.

However, just as the sorcerer was thinking about what curse he could use to kill the boy, a woman's teasing voice suddenly rang in his ear.

"Got you."

"Um!?"

The sorcerer, hiding in a secret underground chamber, suddenly turned around and saw a blonde, squinty-eyed human woman who had somehow crept up behind him. Before he could use any defensive magic, she delivered a powerful uppercut that sent him flying from the ground into the air.

The sorcerer was also dumbfounded. So the flying woman wasn't a magician?

Lucoa's punch not only sent the sorcerer flying into the air, but also caused his skeletal avatar to disintegrate.

As mentioned before, sorcerers are masters of underhanded tricks, and their bizarre curses are always hard to defend against. However, their ability to fight head-on may not even be as good as that of a high-level mage.

Upon seeing the sorcerer's true form exposed, Dick's face immediately broke into a bright smile.

"You finally got out!"

Meanwhile, Behemoth appeared alone in the orcish altar. A large circle of elite orc warriors tried to surround the seemingly gaunt old human, but they were controlled by his saint-level psychic power when they were still ten meters away, and could not advance even half an inch.

The old mage looked around, ignoring the orc elders who were still bluffing, and finally fixed his gaze on an unremarkable hunchbacked orc, and suddenly laughed.

"What a surprise, I didn't know you were still alive."

"Behemoth, it's been a long time."

The old orc raised his head, his cloudy eyes like those of a blind man, but he recognized Behemoth. The two seemed to be "old acquaintances" who had known each other for a long time.

So the old orc slowly rose and followed Behemoth out of the altar.

Halfway there, the old orc suddenly stopped, put down his withered vine staff, and then, without turning his head, spoke to the elders who were looking at each other in bewilderment.

"Tell my apprentice never to think of seeking revenge for me."

After the old orc finished speaking, he walked to the open space outside the altar. His body expanded at a visible speed, and in a short while, he became a colossal deer-headed demon with a height of over thirty meters. The place where his eyes were was two hollow holes burning with blue flames. His body, which covered the sky and the sun, was very oppressive.

Behemoth simply watched calmly as his opponent completed the transformation, only launching his attack when he unleashed his strongest form.

This is respect for the strong, and also Behemoth's self-confidence.

Chapter 151: The Great Breakthrough

The cavalry who broke through the encirclement escorted the rescued prisoners eastward back to the coast along the same route.

Behind them, the orcish capital was still ablaze. The fire spread rapidly with the help of the wind, and the orcs in the city were either fleeing for their lives or fighting the fire, having no time to care about the humans who were trying to escape.

The fire burned for three days and three nights before being extinguished by a snowfall. The entire orc capital was almost burned to the ground, tens of thousands of orcs died, and more than 200,000 were left homeless.

Compared to the destruction caused by the fire and chaos, the orcs actually killed by the human cavalry only accounted for a tiny fraction of the total death toll.

After the cavalry successfully broke through the encirclement, only three groups of Saint-level warriors remained fighting inside the city.

Dick and Lucoa's team ended the battle first. After the sorcerer's true form was exposed, he was killed in less than three rounds by Dick, and several rare equipment items were dropped.

The two then turned to support Black and White Gunner and Rita, unleashing a holy swarm attack on the Orc Sword Saint.

It must be said that this orc is indeed quite skilled. Even when facing five opponents alone and knowing he was outmatched, he did not retreat even half a step. Instead, he used a forbidden technique that cost him his life force, allowing his strength to surge to near the peak of the Saint rank in a short period of time.

In terms of destructive power alone, a Saint-level warrior is far inferior to a Saint-level mage, but a Saint-level warrior is the nemesis of a Saint-level mage. This unknown orc warrior clearly wanted to force a one-for-one exchange before he was completely exhausted, so he targeted Dick and relentlessly attacked him.

For a moment, Dick really felt like he was on the verge of death. This guy almost completely abandoned his defense and increased his speed to the extreme, just to take Dick's head. Even the four of them, including Black and White Gunner Galita and Lucoa, couldn't completely stop him.

Dick was forced to fly high into the air, just to create distance between himself and this reckless fellow, while the orc swordsman also leaped up, swinging his blade in the last moment before his life was about to burn out. The sharp sword energy grazed Dick's forehead, taking away a few strands of hair, and making Dick break out in a cold sweat.

Watching the lifeless orc swordsman plummet from the sky to the ground, Dick couldn't help but feel a bit complicated, because putting aside race and stance, he actually admired the guy quite a bit.

The successive falls of the sorcerer and the swordsman were all witnessed by the orc elders hiding in the altar. The nobles among these orcs were in a panic, and even began to consider whether they could surrender to the humans to save their lives.

These elders were among the few intelligent people in the orcs, but it was precisely because of this misplaced intelligence that some of their behaviors seemed to be exactly the same as those of human nobles.

However, Dick didn't bother with these insects. They took away the orc swordsman's huge bone sword, which was made of an inexplicably sturdy material, and found Behemoth, who was fighting one-on-one.

When the group arrived, the old magician had already finished the battle and was sitting on a stone stool, leisurely smoking his pipe.

Behind him stood the enormous, ridiculously large stag-headed demon, but it had turned to stone and stood there motionless like a statue.

Seeing Dick and the others arrive, the old man curled his lip and said.

"Too slow! I saw it all! You're such a cunning little devil, but you're so straightforward when you fight! You can't just rely on your magic power and fast casting speed to think you can overpower everyone with brute force. Use your brain!"

After being scolded by Behemoth, Dick scratched his head awkwardly. In terms of practical magic combat, he did follow the simple and brutal "firepower advantage theory" route, which was extremely effective when crushing weaker opponents. He was a one-man army of mages, but once he faced a strong opponent of the same level, he seemed to be a little powerless.

Despite the criticism, Behemoth still held his junior apprentice in high regard. Magic is a profession that highly values ​​talent; a Saint-level mage in his early twenties possessed talent that could be described as unparalleled throughout history. As for the lack of practical experience, that could be made up for with time.

Although the team had a numerical advantage in eliminating three Saint-level orcs in one fell swoop, war is not a duel in an arena, and there is no need to consider fairness.

After the group of six reunited, they quickly left the orc capital and soon caught up with the main force, successfully leading the prisoners they had rescued back to the landing point on the coast.

By the time the troops returned to the coast, it was the morning of the next day. The long march and the fighting had left the expeditionary force exhausted. As soon as they arrived at the coast, many men collapsed from their horses as soon as they could relax. Many of the warhorses had also reached their limits, and they had only managed to hold on until now thanks to the cavalrymen prioritizing the use of healing potions from their first-aid kits on their mounts.

As for the human prisoners who were rescued, although they were shaken so badly by the orc caravans that had no shock absorption facilities that many of them vomited so badly that they almost vomited bile, they were fortunate enough to survive.

The medical team on standby on the ship immediately began to treat the wounded. Of the six thousand cavalry, less than five thousand returned. The loss of twenty percent of the personnel was not small, but the rich results they achieved were enough to comfort the fallen warriors.

They raided the enemy's capital, killing three Saint-level experts and deliberately setting it on fire.

Many people felt they hadn't had enough and wanted to go back for another round of fun, but Dick, being cautious, decided to call it a day and ordered his men to board the ship and prepare for evacuation.

But then the person in charge of the fleet told Dick some bad news: because they had rescued thousands of prisoners who were not originally in the plan, and because accommodating the wounded would take up more space, the ship's hold might not be able to accommodate everyone, unless they were willing to abandon more than half of the warhorses.

In fact, when they arrived, all the ships were already severely overloaded, with each ship carrying an average of 600 cavalrymen and their warhorses (the warhorses mainly took up space). In addition, the provisions needed for the round trip of these 6,000 men and horses almost filled all the cargo hold space, and even the deck was piled with large wooden boxes for hay. Now, with nearly 5,000 more people on the return trip, there was really no room left.

Dick then summoned several allied lords to discuss countermeasures, and they all agreed to adopt a combined land and sea evacuation plan. They ordered the fleet to unload enough provisions for three thousand men to last seven days, and then carried the rescued prisoners and wounded away first. With the ocean currents providing speed from north to south, the fleet was expected to return to the new port in three and a half days.

Dick, on the other hand, led three thousand cavalrymen in better condition to evacuate overland along the coastline, waiting for the fleet to return and pick them up.

This is the most ideal evacuation plan they can implement quickly at the moment.

Chapter 152: A Swift Turn

At the front lines of the war at the pass fortress, Ramon received an urgent communication from the rear, learning that the orc capital had been suddenly attacked by a large human army. The enemy burned down the city they had painstakingly built, killed a large number of their people, and most importantly, killed three Saint-level powerhouses who were left behind to guard the rear. This showed how extraordinary the power that the human race had invested in this surprise attack was.

After reading the letter from beginning to end, Ramon clicked his tongue and said...

"These humans are really something, why don't they just slaughter all those old fogies in the Elders' Council?"

Ramon's words left the orc generals present bewildered, unsure how to respond. But a short while later, several messengers rushed in, bringing Ramon a second piece of bad news.

The elders anticipated that Ramon would not respond to their plea for help, so they bypassed him, the Beast King, and ordered the troops confronting the human army on the Imperial border to return immediately. Dozens of similar orders were issued, not only to the legion commanders, but also to the commanders of tens of thousands and thousands.

These orders, along with the plea for help to Ramon, were sent from the Orcish capital. In fact, the opposing legions on the border would receive the news even before Ramon received it.

Therefore, when Ramon learned of this, two 10,000-man commanders and more than half of the 1,000-man commanders of the opposing legion had already chosen to obey the orders of the elders, leading their troops away from the front lines of the standoff and preparing to return to the Orcish capital.

Ramon fell silent for a moment before calmly giving the order.

"Let's continue our offensive during the day, and then retreat after dark."

Ramon's feelings were extremely complicated. His grand invasion, which he had planned for years, had failed just when he was about to achieve his goal. Anyone would feel frustrated in this situation. The counterattack from the human race had also greatly exceeded his expectations. Even though most of the empire's northern border had fallen, they were still able to spare so many elite forces and high-end combat power to launch a surprise attack on the orc capital in the heart of the wasteland.

This surprise attack severely damaged their rear, and also terrified the cowardly and conservative elders of the council.

Sometimes Ramon would lament that stupidity was the biggest flaw of their race, but if they really became smart, they would inevitably become as cunning and treacherous as humans.

Judging from the current situation, the withdrawal of troops is a foregone conclusion. The tens of thousands of orcs that Ramon has deployed on the border are both a reserve force and a guarantee to ensure the smooth retreat of the main army.

Now that the opposing legions are no longer holding them back, the human troops who were holed up in the fortress have effectively broken free and could come out at any time to pose a threat to Ramon's rear.

Therefore, even though the pass in front of them was already on the verge of collapse and could be taken in three days at most, Ramon could not risk his most elite and loyal main force.

Even if he had to retreat, Ramon didn't intend to flee back in such a sorry state. His troops still controlled tens of thousands of human prisoners and a large amount of gold and silver treasures looted from human territory. These spoils of war could not be lost and had to be taken back with them.

Ramon had long ago experienced the wonders of money. As long as he had a lot of real gold and silver, human black market merchants would risk their lives to bring him all kinds of supplies that the orcs desperately needed, such as food, medicine, ironware, and even slaves. He could buy whatever he wanted from the black market merchants.

Ramon also wanted to find out the details of the human army that raided the orc capital, and preferably find out who their commander was.

Meanwhile, in the city of Ideide, due to a series of strategic errors and tactical blunders by Marquis Richard, two-thirds of his 100,000-strong army was annihilated by the orcs in just a few days, leaving only 30,000 men holding out in the devastated city of Ideide.

The army's morale had completely plummeted. If it weren't for the orcs outside the city eating people, the soldiers inside the city might have already raised the white flag and surrendered.

As for Richard himself, he was probably mentally unstable.

On the second day after the orcs besieged Ideid, they held an open-air barbecue right under the noses of the humans inside the city. The food was made from the cannon fodder legions that had been abandoned outside the city gates during the first day of the battle because Richard had ordered them to close.

The army that was lined up outside the city to meet the enemy numbered more than 30,000, but it collapsed in less than two hours.

Tens of thousands of people scattered and fled like startled rabbits. Some were killed on the spot by the orcs, while others chose to kneel down and beg for mercy. After being captured alive, they thought they had been lucky to escape with their lives. However, when they saw the orcs starting to build fires and grills the next day, they belatedly realized that they might have suffered less if they had died on the battlefield the day before.