Now, in the ranks of Bartel’s platoon, there were several workers engaged in a melee with his soldiers; they were struggling behind cover; some orks were shot by arrows; the goblins themselves shot, or a rifle shot came from a squad member as they were close to one another; others saw the attack coming and pulled their knives and fought like madmen against the creatures; A-Dam, Shafran, and Chatzi alike, in the middle of the chaos, all the duchy soldiers had one voice of rage.

  Orks kept rushing, but none could get closer as the platoon advanced closer and closer to the fortress. Some duchy soldiers were left behind with a combat medic because of more complicated injuries caused by the orks, and others were moving slower because of more superficial wounds.

  This made them the primary target for the goblin archers, even though they were more exposed to the duchy soldiers at the wall or closer to the fortress, who picked them up individually.

  ‘They have no end; what is happening? We killed so many, and they keep coming.’ Egor was panting.

  Egor saw Ethan’s team reaching the wall in front of him and Caleb throwing grenades into a hole in the wall to the right and left. Samal threw another grenade he had taken from his teammates through the destroyed gates.

  As they exploded, Oran ran past Caleb to the other side. Looking inside, he saw orks and goblins on the ground, screaming. Ethan welcomed Egor to his side as the rest of the squad had their backs to the wall.

  ‘Ethan, we will enter through the hole in the left.’ Egor put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder.

  ‘Prepare yourselves. We are going in the hole, guys.’ Ethan spoke to the radio.

  ‘This is crazy; we are dead; this is just an illusion.’ Asher talked to himself while shaking his head.

  ‘Are you alright, Asher?’ Caleb looked behind him for a moment.

  ‘I’m just astonished that we are not dead.’ Asher looked into Caleb's wide eyes.

  ‘Thank the goddess for that, my friend. Caleb chuckled.

  The rest of the platoon got to the wall, but there were still goblins atop the gate. Using a thick log as cover while aiming at the soldiers running towards the wall, Bartel noticed but couldn’t take the shot because other archers were shooting in his direction on the other side of the destroyed gates.

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  The soldiers, preparing to enter with their backs to the wall, saw something running from the trees toward the gate. The goblin archer was looking at the two soldiers, trying to run. Towards the wall, but before letting go of his arrow, he felt his chest being compressed, immense pain like his insides were exploding, and the sensation of being in midair. His eyes caught a figure standing where he was before as his vision faded to black.

  The scene took the breath away from Bartel, seeing the figure give a two-leg kick on the goblin’s chest and do a backflip to land where the goblin was. He widens his eyes when he notices that it is Edmund, by the clothes and white hair, as he stands there.

  ‘Edmund is here. I repeat, Edmund is here.’ The lieutenant shouted on his radio, making everyone aware.

  Edmund jumped toward the goblins, pointing their arrows at the destroyed open gate, taking them by surprise. Every strike, plumbing one of the knives on a vital point, killing the creatures instantly. He used acrobatic moves to dodge arrows flying at him but used the momentum of the move to kick the creatures so hard that it killed them instantly. All of this was happening at an incredible speed.

  ‘The path is clear; let’s go, people, enter... go, go, go!!! Bartel's voice was heard from the soldier's radio.

  Another brutal exchange began as the remaining duchy soldiers rushed inside the fortress. Goblin archers, orks throwing rocks, and a mix of the two rushed the duchy soldiers, who were trying to engage in melee combat with make-shit weapons, but the latter were more focused on what was happening in the middle of the fortress.

  Right in the middle of everything was Edmund, killing every creature that came close to him while he dodged stray shots from the duchy soldiers using acrobatic moves and using the creatures as shields at some point.

  From the perspective of a duchy soldier who took time to look at Edmund for a moment, completely mesmerized by the way he was battling the creatures, his face was calm, cold, and focused, but he didn’t know what was happening in the white-haired young man's mind.

  ‘I’m going to die!!!’ Edmund screamed from inside his mind.

  All the mental fortitude he had was to control his body so that it wouldn't just focus on killing the creatures but on self-preservation, too. Every sense that he had was being used to make sure he could feel the projectiles coming from friends or foe alike; he didn’t care if it was an arrow aimed at him or a stray shot coming from a duchy soldier; he dodged them the same while rampaging through the battlefield; but some movement couldn’t be controlled as Edmund threw one of his knives toward the duchy soldiers, hitting a goblin that was going to jump at the distracted soldier.

  ‘One less weapon, great.’ He thought.

  While throwing his other knife at an ork’s head that was struggling with a duchy soldier, his expression changed for a moment of complete disbelief at what had just happened.

  ‘There is no way I did that just now.’ He had a lapse for a moment.

  In the fortress's interior, there was rudimentary housing that the duchy soldiers were using as cover to advance. On the inside of the fortification, they noticed how large it was as they advanced, hitting arches on the walls or creatures running toward them.

  Using grenades, some of those makeshift shelters exploded, with some creatures going up in flames and others running in the open to get shot by some other soldiers right after.

  Everything was happening so fast that Asher forgot to breathe. With his eyes focused on treating a soldier who was hit by an arrow and all kinds of voices coming from his radio calling for help in pain, the word medic echoed in his mind. In contrast, his eyes focused on the soldier's torso right in front of him as the air found its way again to his lungs. He remembered that it was Samal, with one arrow lodged in his arm, a deep cut on the other arm, and another arrow in his leg.