183 Orcs I (1/2)

Li took note of the positioning of the adventurers, and found no complaints. Launcelot and Vahid were positioned equidistantly from each other at the very front, each leading a group of bronze warriors that were meant to intercept any orcs that managed to scale up to their position from the creek.

Right behind them, the mages and rangers were in position, ready to rain down projectiles and damage.

Everybody was silent, a certain tenseness lying heavy in the air. Launcelot had his shield drawn up already while his free hand was balled up into a fist, showcasing his spiked gauntlets. Vahid's greatsword was drawn and held in front of him like a barricade, ready more to shove orcs down back to the creek rather than to cut and cleave.

The bronze adventurers were fidgety, some pale, some sweating, some breathing heavily. All nervous. Five years of training in various adventurer's guilds across the duchy allowed them to remain standing in position and likely fight with all their might, but even then, it was difficult to truly quell the primal fear of death.

Li had told them that he had scouted the orcs' positions out and that they were to appear within a few minutes. He had bidden them silent and ready for engagement.

Noticeably absent were the priests of light. No Gael the Immeasurable, despite Ivo's belief that the man would appear to fight. No matter. The word of the adventurers, some of them paladins having priestly training themselves, would spread well enough.

Li checked up on Ivo by feeling his presence, and ascertained that the high priest was healthy and brimming with power that Li channeled to him right now, granting him and the other priests more than enough strength to easily wipe out the orcs.

The druids were stationed below, by the creek, and they were disguised as large bushes, simply waiting for the moment the orcs stepped foot into the creek, and they were here now.

The two hunchback scouts appeared first. They made tentative steps into the creek, their light footsteps splashing ever so slightly through the flowing of the creek's water. Li could feel the adventurers grow even tenser, many of them holding their breaths.

The scouts passed the creek, weaving past the many large bushes around it. When they reached the soil wall, they looked up, and their snouts flared, sensing the scent of adventurers.

Li clapped his hands in that moment, starting the signal for Ivo to and his druids to attack.

The bush disguise around the druids dispelled immediately into clouds of leaves, and they, all their eyes glowing with an influx of divine energy from Li, began their attack.

The hunchback orcs turned around, roaring to meet the threat, but before they could do anything, an eruption of vines from the druids' hands shot forwards and entangled the orcs' limbs, wrapping around their bodies and keeping them from doing anything.

[Vine Grasp] was a weak ability on its own, being merely D-ranked, but spells had two parts to them. A base damage and a scaling modifier that enhanced effects based on the spellcaster's stats.

Under Li's divine blessing, [Vine Grasp], a basic spell that had low base damage and low scaling, could scale off of a portion of Li's stats instead of that of the priests, and considering Li's monstrous stats, even a D-ranked spell would be unspeakably powerful in this new world's standards.

While the scouting orcs struggled under the grasp of the vines, Ivo opened his palm and cast [Moonbeam]. His palm lit up in bright white like a spotlight, casting a beam of sparkling silver light over the orcs's heads.

When the light touched the orcs, their flesh dissolved away in an instant, their heads vaporizing and leaving cauterized and headless neck stumps.

A collective murmur of wonder echoed throughout the adventurers as they saw two Spikeridge Orcs, threats they believed would cause many casualties, instantly dispatched with seemingly little to no effort.

”Now, my druids!” said Li as he made his way past the adventurers past the tree line, making himself visible at the edge of the dirt and rock formation that separated the adventurers from the creek below. ”Show the people of Riviera how the Old Faith defends all who accept it.”

Ivo and his fourteen other druids stood side by side, each spaced a few meters out from each other, each ready to cast another round of spells.

Li focused his eyesight through the trees and to the rest of the orc group. He saw they had frozen. They had a few courses of action. They could pass the creek to reach Riviera, in which case they had to wade through a heavily fortified position, or they could try and split up and circle around, in which case Li had Justicars in position to intercept them. If they attempted to retreat, then they would also find Justicars behind them, boxing them in.

Yet Li did not expect them to do anything more than a frontal charge. He had researched the Spikeridge orcs of this world, and they were similar to their game counterparts in that once they began a fight, they did not easily run.

As expected, a row of ten orcs charged forwards, their massive frames letting out heavy footsteps on the forest floor. They ran with intent purpose, charging with reckless abandon.

Charging, as Li noted with some confusion, more like sprinters than warriors, not giving any thought to attacking or defending and simply putting their all into moving as fast as possible.

”Druids!” roared Ivo. ”Lay waste to these intruders! Let their bones sustain the soil beneath us!”

With that, Ivo kneeled down and slammed his fist into the dirt. A bolt of green energy flashed from his hand into the soil, and his [Crushing Overgrowth] spell came into effect.

From where his fist was planted, a massive outgrowth of vines and roots burst forward, towering high like a living tidal wave of plant matter that subsequently crashed atop a group of orcs, smothering them entirely and crushing them upon the soil.

The other druids cast the same spell, each creating an overgrowth that swamped the orcs charging at their end and flattened them into mulch.