Chapter 471: The Immortal Flame – Kelthas
In the end, the four true gods agreed that mortal-level duels would take place beneath the Holy Sword Fortress, while battles between the true gods would be held above the rugged and desolate Rocky Hills. This way, even if one of them made a mistake, it wouldn’t cause too much damage to the main world’s environment. After all, both were newly ascended gods, and before establishing their own divine kingdoms, they didn’t want to be expelled from this world due to their own actions.
The area designated as the battlefield had been cleared. With so many orcs killed earlier, the ground was covered in limbs and blood, along with pits left by the attacks of those giant beasts, creating a chaotic scene. For mortals, cleaning up this mess would be troublesome, but for true gods like Donald, it was merely a trivial matter.
After a surge of divine power, the area turned into a vast open space several miles in diameter. As agreed beforehand, each side would send two commanders—a Gold Rank shaman and a Legendary Rank warrior—to lead a squad of no more than a hundred elite fighters.
The orcs were the first to appear. They sent a Gold Rank shaman-priest and a Legendary Rank sword master. Following them were a hundred fierce orcs, at least three heads taller than ordinary orc warriors. These special orcs wore crude leather armor, carried massive clubs, wore curved knives at their waists, and rode giant bovine beasts the size of Asian elephants from their past lives.
These were the mighty Bull-Totem Warriors, renowned for their combat prowess within the orc tribe. Skilled old shamans had inscribed totem runes on their bodies using secret techniques to communicate with the spirits of the earth and ancestors, granting them immense strength. They could wield totem poles as thick as a human’s arm as weapons.
These totem poles were also like enchanted weapons, providing effects such as speed, strength, and resistance to elements, allowing these Bull-Totem Warriors to largely ignore spells below level five. Riding on powerful bovine beasts equivalent to level three magical beasts, they could charge through armies.
This was the strongest combat force the orc race had since the fall of the Orc God Ughesh. Unless the chief shamans agreed, even the chieftain of their Bull-Totem tribe couldn’t easily deploy this force of just three hundred men.
On the human side, the forces sent into battle were the Griffon Knights of Dalaran, along with the Tower Wardens from the Tower of Twilight and a pair of young Black Iron Mages, each no more than twelve in number. In total, there were just over forty people, all of whom were under thirty years old, yet the humans seemed to have great confidence in these young warriors.
As for Selt’s commanders, if this were considered a battle at the mortal level, deploying demi-gods like Uther and Amps would be considered bullying the orcs. Therefore, Donald adhered to the rules and sent only one Legendary Sword Saint and one Golden Archmage. The Sword Saint was naturally the Magic Sword Kaelar, while the Golden Archmage was Kaelthas, the renowned commander of Dalaran’s mercenaries among various human factions.
The reason all these strong fighters came from Dalaran was not because the kingdom’s own strong warriors were weaker, but because Donald and the other true gods discussed the situation and decided to send the most suitable candidates to prevent the orcs from using underhanded tactics if they lost. Compared to ordinary warriors of the same rank, both Kaelar and Kaelthas had the strength to challenge those above them.
As a divine prince, Kaelar need hardly be mentioned. Even if he denied his status as a direct descendant of a true god, the power and potential bestowed by his divine bloodline could not be denied. As for Kaelthas, a pure-blooded elf with the appearance of a sun elf, his reputation as the Immortal Flame grew after several battles in the New World. Due to his mastery of fire spells, people gave him the title of the Immortal Flame. After all, the ability to summon a Fire Phoenix—a high-level intelligent being on par with dragons, a powerful existence that only appeared in ancient times—is truly extraordinary. Nowadays, they are nearly extinct, and aside from songs by bards, little is heard about them. This made the title of Phoenix Knight even more famous than that of ordinary Dragon Knight. It should be noted that dragons are also divided into different tiers; in fact, most Dragon Knights in history rode lower-class dragons or drakes, as the truly powerful dragon races disdain forming contracts with mortals. Unless one is powerful enough to be considered legendary or beyond, such beings can no longer be called mortals.
Coupled with Kaelthas’s exceptional mastery of fire spells, he was now in the spotlight, and his appearance caused great excitement among Selt’s forces. Kaelar, whose fame was not as prominent, could only draw some cheers by leveraging Kaelthas’s influence.
The orcs, unwilling to be outdone, let out earth-shaking roars. Compared to humans, orc warriors had much louder voices, and they also had a numerical advantage. Soon, their roars drowned out the cheers of the humans. This caused the human warriors atop the fortress to become somewhat demoralized. Seeing this, Count Dawson shook his head with a smile and used his sword energy skills to spread his voice throughout the entire fortress. “What’s the point of comparing your voice to that of a bunch of beasts? Does winning make you proud?” These words made the human army laugh, dispelling the impact of the orcs’ roars. Only in such a situation could others realize that this dignified yet kind-hearted old man was not only the commander-in-chief but also a true master swordsman of the Silver Sword. Upon seeing the mockery from the human army, the Orc Plunder God hidden in his domain let out an annoyed snort, causing the orc commanders present to fall silent immediately. Urged by the true god, the orc Golden Priest and the legendary Sword Saint stepped onto the battlefield right away, while Kelthas and Carlisle also descended from the city walls along with their troops at Donald’s signal. Whether it was the Griffon Knights or the Mage Guard, they were all capable of easily ignoring the height of the city walls. Without much ado, the two sides began fighting. Faced with the orc Bull Totem Warriors charging forward with the thunderous sound of their beasts, the human Griffon Knights calmly rose to fifty feet in the air, while the twelve young mages stood on the battlefield and performed a synchronized action. Soon after, a sound even louder than that of the orc cavalry arose, revealing twelve figures as tall as small mountains standing before them.