While Alex went about harvesting lives with masterful swings of his sword, his men wielding swords and round shields came after him. They were much lighter than the Shieldmen, whose shields were almost as tall as they are.
Seeing his brother moving through the orcs and leaving dead bodies in his trail, Alec got fired up. "Shields!" he bellowed, and the shieldmen around him ducked behind their shields, narrowly avoiding bone clubs.
Alec dashed out of the formation and slammed his foot against an orc. The impact of a silver-ranked shieldman, especially one with a talent that increases his strength twice as much as normal, launched the orc backward.
Alec used his shield to defend himself from the attack of another orc, and at the same time, he pierced through another orc at his right. "Ah!"
He grunted heavily.
As he pulled back his shield from the other, he spun, swinging his spear with so much momentum that the sound of the shaft hitting the other orc's head went far.
Thud!
The orc fell.
Alec looked back and saw his men were struggling to keep the formation as more orcs caught up. They had lost their advantage of surprise, so it was up to their skill and tenacity. "Where is Lord Asher?"
He looked around and spotted Asher ahead of him. Asher, who was supposed to be at the back, was now before the slope, pulling his spear out of an orc.
He was sweating profusely.
Before Alec could panic, he saw his brother going toward Asher.
After watching a soldier die under the brutal attack of an orc, Asher lost it. By the time he recovered, he was already standing above the orc with the spear of the dead soldier.
Hu Hu~
He breathed heavily.
"Lord!" Alex's voice fell into his ears.
Asher turned and saw Alex coming toward him. The intensity of viciousness in his men's eyes had doubled as they saw him exact revenge on their fallen comrade.
"For Lord Asher!" Alex yelled with his sword raised high.
"For Lord Asher!!"
With their morale back on its feet, they fought till they had to chase the remaining orcs to their tents and thrust their weapons through them. Only a few female orcs were found, but no young orcs.
This made Asher come to the conclusion that they fought against an orc army and not against a tribe, as he first thought.
Nevertheless, the females weren't spared.
After all, what were they going to do with barbaric female orcs?
While some soldiers ransacked the tents, others gathered the bodies of their dead, and after counting, Alec came to Asher.
"We lost 30 men. 18 shieldmen and 12 swordsmen." Alec's tone was heavy, laden with the news of sorrow that also lingered in the depths of his eyes.
Asher shut his eyes for a long while and opened them. "Prepare their bodies. We'll bury them." He turned and left.
"I did not see any sign of sorrow in his eyes. Is our lord going to be a heartless one?" Alec asked, but at the same time, it seemed as if he already had an answer. He turned and was about to leave when Alex called him back.
Both of them traced Asher's path and found him sitting by a tree with his head lowered. Unlike them, Asher felt more pain, which was why he found it hard looking at their corpses. Being a lord seemed easy when it was a game, and you knew those characters were NPCs, but here, he faced reality.
The burdens of their deaths weighed on him.
"I had a feeling he wasn't what you thought." Alex said and was about to go comfort Asher when his twin brother held his arm.
"Don't. He needs some time alone."
Although Alec's face remained expressionless, a gleam of recognition flashed through his eyes. Asher was a young lord indeed.
....
After a while, Asher returned to see his men camped around fire, roasting their breakfast. Although the skies were still dark, it wouldn't be long before first light.
Once the soldiers saw him, their chattering was quenched, like when a sword fresh out of the forge was dipped into water.
"Lord Asher…" Alex stood up.
"Where's Sirius?" Asher asked with a hoarse voice.
He saw everyone look behind him, so he too, turned, and what he saw was his pet beast standing tall. He could perceive the stench of blood from the wounds, deep and shallow, that could be found everywhere on Sirius' body.
It collapsed before him, causing Asher to rush toward it.
[Criteria fulfilled. Would the host like to upgrade Sirius, your pet beast, to become a Celestial Ice Wolf? Yes or No.]
'Yes.'
Swoosh!
As the light went down, all the soldiers were frightened out of their seats. The beast they gazed at was a 7-foot-tall and 14-foot-long wolf that had white fur and blue at the tail, claw area, and in the middle of its eyes.
A sudden cold breeze swept through everyone, causing their breaths to produce mists as if it were winter.
Sirius' gold rank aura suppressed the entire army. Should it choose to attack, then none of them would survive.
The gulf between silver and gold wasn't as small as a single rank difference. A gold-ranked warrior had officially become a knight! In Boundless, being a knight meant that the warrior would be recognized everywhere, and knights could sweep the battlefield like lords if not put in check.
This made Sirius a knight-beast.
Asher noticed Sirius' blue claws and bent. The moment he touched it, his forearm became numb and began to hurt!
"The ice in his name isn't for a joke."
In the next moment, his muscles and bones experienced another upgrade. Before the eyes of his soldiers, he grew more muscular, and his hair also grew longer. At this point, he looked like a warrior who had been training for decades.
"What kind of overpowering talent does the Lord possess?" A soldier gaped.
Unknown to him, another notification was before Asher's eyes.
[Your sheildmen have fulfilled certain criteria and are available for upgrade. Would the host like to upgrade them to a bronze-ranked shieldmen? Yes or No?]
[Your swordsmen have fulfilled certain criteria and are available for upgrade. Would the host like to upgrade them to a bronze-ranked swordsmen? Yes or No].