212 Like Frogs on the Bottom of a Well (1/2)

From where he was standing, Helial could see a good part of the battlefield, littered with fallen soldiers. The boy was sitting on a pile of Undead corpses, cross-legged, and looking at the three heads, torn from their bodies, in front of him. One of the heads was extremely funny, he could not help but think, carefully observing the black and green bandana that covered the rotten mouth of one of the enemy generals.

All around, the Goblins were exulting, waving their weapons in the air.

Helial raised his head and smiled. ”His” men were screaming his name repeatedly, praising him as if he were a divinity.

And to think that only a few hours before, scepticism was the prevailing sentiment in the Goblin ranks. None of them would have ever imagined that an inexperienced Human boy would lead the Goblins to victory over their greatest enemies; but apparently there was nobody among the soldiers who had a good imagination. They had been very wrong.

Pseudonym and Circe, swooping behind their enemies, had surrounded and massacred everyone standing in their way.

The frontal defensive formation had acted as a pincer and nobody had managed to break it. Helial himself had used Curse of the Demon, at one point, to hold back all the Ghouls and Soldiers who were trying to escape, breaking through their ranks frontally.

At that moment, the wounded soldiers in the testudo just behind him saw a young boy, with his muscles about to explode, covered in blood from head to toe, preventing several hundred monsters from running over them. They were all exhausted and could not even hold their shields up anymore.

If not for Helial, the clash would have ended differently. Indeed, it would have had a completely opposite result.

But the young human had resisted until Pseudonym's arrival, who in a split second had killed the three Generals of the Undead and incinerated ten thousand enemies with Flame of the Black Phoenix.

The whole crowd of Goblins looked at the young man with dreamy eyes, while on Circe's face a satisfied smile opened up.

”It seems that your boyfriend is quite good,” said Zion, finally ready to recognize the Human's extraordinary value. Observing the solitary figure on the mountain of corpses, no one could avoid noticing the grandeur of the scene.

Just behind him, Pseudonym stood, with the task of protecting him from surprise attacks too powerful for Helial to counterattack. Helial's blood debt with the Sect of the Worthy would eventually be paid.

Circe looked again at Helial, and then at Pseudonym, nodding. She knew that if the armoured warrior remained on his side, the boy's life would be safe.

”Sometimes, being born in poverty, having to face life from below, can lead to incredible results.” Francesca nodded towards Orma's two saviours and smiled, taking deep breaths. ”Maybe being born rich is really a misfortune.”

Her teammates turned to her.

”The greatest misfortune,” commented Lev with his hands crossed on the tunic, behind his back, ”is to be born in the same era as certain monsters. Cursed by their presence, we, who have always believed we are strong, are only frogs at the bottom of a well. All our life we have seen only a slice of sky and we are convinced that it was everything. Helial and Pseudonym are show us that it is not so. ”

”If I were in their shoes, I would be a phoenix instead of a frog,” Sidra said, looking sideways at her brother.

”If you had been in their shoes, my dear, you would be manure,” continued Lev, laughing and approaching Sidra. He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him, but the girl tried to free herself from his embrace. ”Don't worry, the same goes for many of us.”

Lev was probably the wisest in Circe's group. He was the heir of an ancient Orma faction, which focused on Support Classes; he was a Shaman, perhaps the most incredible in the new generation. But what surprised even more of his prowess as a Shaman was the depth of his words. He spoke little, but when he did he always left a mark on the soul of anyone who listened to him.

”To burn with such intensity, a flame is at risk of extinguishing every moment. It is sometimes easy for fireflies to get confused with the landscape, while a dragon will always be chased for the value of its hide.”