Another squad of ten Griffin knights was deployed. It was ten minutes after the first squad. They were all going at full speed. Prince Horace was attacked, and no teleportation circle could take them to go to rescue.
Griffin Knight 03 was the captain of the second squad. As an experienced leader, he judged that it was already too late to make it into the scene. The teleportation circle was already destroyed. It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that the orcs had total control over the fort. He knew that Head Commander Dunmore was there, but he alone was not enough to secure Prince Horace’s safety.
Still, that didn’t make him slow down, even just a bit. The order he received was to get to the castle and rescue Prince Horace. Even if there was no one when he got there, he was supposed to bring every man with him.
As 03 was trying to think of his next move, an evil presence suddenly appeared next to him. Then, a cursed cloud appeared right next to the Griffin knights. Cursed rain started dropping, and light of curses started appearing on his head.
03 screamed, “It’s the spell of “fear!” Ready your Griffins! The orc priests are here!”
With a flash of his combat qi, 03 wrapped himself and his Griffin around in his combat qi armor. At the same time, he readied his bow so that he could aim towards his enemies.
The other three knight head commanders did the same thing. Yet, six of them weren’t fast enough to react. The “fear” curse got to the Griffins that they were riding, and they all started panicking even when their masters told them not to.
The “fear” curse was a very hard curse to dodge. Once it got to its target, the chances were that the target would most likely be affected. Still, as the strongest soldier type of the Kingdom of St. Ellis, the Griffin knights were well-acquainted with the sort of training that would help them endure this situation. If they could manage to spread the “fear” effect between themselves and their Griffins evenly, it’d be much easier to wait for the effect to completely wear off.
When six of the Griffins were traumatized by the curse, they started panicking in the air. This completely ruined the formation of the knight squad.
03 screamed as loudly as he could, “Still! Keep still!”
It was of no use. The Griffin knights could survive the curse, but it would be impossible for the Griffins to get back to normal when they were first hit. Besides, judging by the enemy attack area, the curses must have come from more than one orc priest. This way, the effect of the curse would definitely be much harder to get rid of.
03 gave up on screaming at his men after the second time. Instead, he and the other three head knight commanders looked towards the sky. They could see four sky sparrows that were appearing. Next to them were ten pace eagles, and each of them had one intermediate orc priest on their backs.
03 was shocked. He didn’t expect to see an aerial force like this in the human world. Without a second thought, he fired an arrow towards their direction. He didn’t aim at the sky sparrow. As timid as these creatures were, their bodies were simply too big for the tiny arrow tips to do any damage.
The arrow was shot at an intermediate orc priest. Without even batting an eye, the orc priest drew a spell rune with the bone staff in his right hand. He was shooting out a “bone arrow” of his own. In a second, the arrow pierced right through the body of a Griffin knight that just covered from the “fear” curse.
The other intermediate orc priests also attacked at around the same time. The four Griffin head knight commanders had no choice but to keep dodging the incoming arrows. They had no chance to maneuver the advantage of their Griffins. The difference in strength was simply too much. Pace eagles were supposed to be the fastest flying mounts there were, and ten of them was basically about half of what the Orc Empire possessed in total.
03 had no choice but to watch six of his men fall from their Griffins. He was angry. He was sad, but none of his attacks were doing much to the intermediate orc priests. Every single orc priest was a very versatile fighter. With their pace eagles’ speed, they managed to dodge all the attacks while pressing closer towards the Griffin head knight commanders.
Soon, a cloud of curse appeared on top of one of the Griffin head knight commanders. Cursed rain dropped, and the light of curse appeared on that man’s head. The Griffin he was riding started panicking. It turned towards the man that was riding it, and it started pecking at him. That was when three “bone arrows” were shot at him. Since he couldn’t move with his flying mount, all three of the arrows managed to hit him simultaneously.
“Retreat! Call for reinforcements!”
03 was very anxious to see another one of his comrades gone. He didn’t mind if his whole squad went down, but the bigger concern was that the same thing would occur to other Griffin knights. If they were all going to die, the least they could do was to tell the others not to die the same way.
More bone arrows fired. This time, it targeted a Griffin head knight commander trying to use a signal bomb. 03 had no choice but to block with his own Griffin knights. Griffin knights weren’t supposed to wear a lot of protective gear, so the most he could do was to protect his own mount with his combat qi armor.
While channeling his own combat qi, 03 managed to create a giant sword of flame and slashed at the bone arrows. The bone arrows didn’t quite fall elsewhere because of this, but their speed was definitely slowed. Anyways, it was enough for 03 to pick the body parts that he didn’t mind being shot at.
The bone arrows went through 03’s combat qi armor. They hit at both of his shoulders. The death qi instantly sucked away some of his vitality energy. To clear off the death qi that was trying to erode his entire body, he withdrew his fire combat qi so that it could dig into the deeper parts of his wound. He wanted to clear off the death qi that was already inside of him. In a situation like this, he had to resort to burning himself with his own combat qi.
Meanwhile, a fireball was shot towards the sky. When it burst, a unique symbol appeared from the flames that sparked out. It was supposed to be a signal, which specifically translated to “the enemy was just stronger than us. Don’t bother fighting.” Of course, it was meant to be a warning rather than a call for help.
“Damn!”
The voice came from the intermediate priest. As far as he would have it, this signal that the humans sent would reduce their rewards by a lot.
Another intermediate orc priest shouted, “Surround them all and kill them!”
The ten pace eagles were on full speed now. The curses and bone arrows continued to fly across the sky. There were four combat qi smokes that were rising from the ground. 03 and the remaining three head knight commanders went down with their fallen comrades.
“Capture the Griffins!”
With a flash of the bone staff in his right hand, the intermediate priest cast a blinding spell on one of the Griffins. The Griffin was terrified to have lost its sight, and without someone to rear it, it quickly lost its sense of direction.
All this time, the four sky sparrows were told to stay out of the battle zone. They stayed in the air the whole time. The blinding did shock them a little, but they were among the steadiest beasts that the Orc Empire prepared for this mission.
After the bearmen captured the Griffin with a giant net, they dragged it to the back of a sky sparrow. To prevent it from going berserk, they used a special drug that made it stay unconscious. As professionals who spent their careers capturing spiritual beasts, they were all very familiar with this procedure.
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