Chapter 74

Ash decided he would have to keep the worm occupied at least until the others took care of Gurg. He used his lightning step to escape its sucking vacuum and catch its attention. It worked and the warlock above shouted pointing at him and the worm moved towards him. As it so happened the worm had another way to attack, the warlock attached to its head wasn't just for pointing enemies, it could throw powerful magical attacks without any cane. 

Ash had to get away from it's reach because the fireballs he was throwing were too big and powerful. 

"Just how much mana does this thing have?" he thought as the warlock kept throwing attacks in every direction.

He had to get on top of the worm to get to the man, but the spikes on the worm's bodies looked too deadly and were secreting some kind of liquid which was most probably poisonous. 

He couldn't throw an attack from a distance because the worm was wiggling very fast and because of the size difference the man moved even faster on top of it. 

Things weren't going too well on the other end too, Akash was having trouble dealing with Gurg now and the others were also being pushed back by the too many red elves and then there was a horde of goblins coming from the other side too. He was again starting to panic like he had when he first entered the battlefield. But then he saw what he had been waiting for and a sense of relief came over him. 

From the corner of the battlefield, two men were coming riding horses followed by men and women wearing different shades of armor, the sounds of the coming horses spread throughout the battlefield. 

Ash used lightning steps at full power to reach Ronin and Michael as fast as possible. 

"Send half of them to deal with the goblins and the other half over there," he shouted when he reached them.

"And who the hell are you to order us, do you know this elf?" asked Michael to Ronin.

"I do feel like I have heard his voice before," said Ronin.

"It's me!" he hissed taking off his helmet a bit.

"Woah, you look pretty different from the last time we saw you," said Michael.

"Yeah well look around, and why did it take you so long to get here?" he hissed.

"Did you want me to make my men march without sleep? They wouldn't have been in any shape to fight even if we would have reached earlier," said Michael.

"Fine, fine, now focus we have two big problems to deal with," said Ash pointing behind him.

"Yes, I can see both," said Michael.

"I'll go and lend a hand to Akash and the others," said Ronin.

"yeah, I'll send half my men with you, and the rest of us will deal with the goblins first, after all, we came here to kill some green monsters," said Michael, and they separated. Ash followed Michael just to see if he could fight at all. 

The new forces had an instant impact, the morals of the elves were back too, and Michael's soldiers indeed looked full of energy as they went about killing goblins faster than ever. 

"Now, the big one for me," said Michael and went right up to the worm. The goblin on top of it saw the big man approach and turned to it. Michael had his hand on his sword's hilt for a while but hadn't taken it out yet. The goblin raised his hand above his head and a big green fireball appeared which kept getting bigger.

"Hmm, it must be absorbing all the mana from the worm, with its abnormal size it is like a walking well of mana," said Mana.

The goblin made to throw the ball, Michael finally pulled out his sword and it came out ablaze with blue hot flames, he must have been charging it from the start. The blue flames were flowing around in a whirlwind and in the next moment, the whirlwind exploded outwards and engulfed the whole worm.

The flames stayed for a full minute and when they extinguished there was a big piece of burnt skeleton left there. 

"Now let's deal with Gurg, the goblins shouldn't be a problem now, they will deal with them," said Michael, and they turned in the other direction.

Most of Gurg's men that had come with him had been defeated, many were running for their lives or had surrendered. Gurg was surrounded now from every side, by strong fighters like Akash, Forin, Silv, and Ronin in a circle, and Maya and others forming another circle behind them. Michaela and Ash joined them too.

Ash finally took his helmet off and looked straight at Gurg with triumph.

"You!" he growled.

"It's over Gurg, surrender now, we have a witness against you too, wait till the council finds out about you," said Ronin.

"Do you think they will believe this human?" laughed Gurg.

"He has fought alongside us, and saved many elven lives," said Aria.

"Doesn't matter what he has done, you can try it if you like," said Gurg.

"Why do we need to prove it anyway?" asked Ben.

"Because I am General Gurg, if they want to lay a hand on me, they need a solid reason because the council will ask their questions later," grinned Gurg.

"There is one more witness," said Ash making Gurg stop grinning immediately.

"An elf," said Ash.

Akash looked at him and he nodded.

"Well we don't need to hold back now," said Akash.

"So what if there is a witness, do you think you can defeat me?" asked Gurg.

"Don't be overconfident, Gurg, you are outnumbered," said Silv.

"Maybe you could take me in your best state, but you have all been fighting since the morning, you are all tired, and even if you have numbers, I'll take at least some with me, do you want to sacrifice your friends," said Gurg. 

"Then let me take care of him, I have been waiting for a good fight and I am not tired at all," said Michael stepping forward.

"Me too," said Ronin moving closer.

"Fine, if you wish to die by my hands," said Gurg and pulled out his sword, it was glowing with some kind of red energy.

Michael and Ronin got serious too and so did the others, they weren't going to let him escape. Gurg and Michael both moved at once too fast to see, Ash had to pour a lot of mana into his eyes until they started itching to be able to see them and still, they weren't slow just observable. 

Michael was indeed very powerful, but Gurg wasn't backing down either, every other moment Ash thought one of them would chop the other's head off with their powerful blows, but they kept exchanging blows, and he wondered just how much mana they were spending with each attack, he could feel it rippling off of them, each attack was even more powerful than the previous one. He was sure someone would run out of mana soon. 

Gurg landed a lucky blow to Michael's armor and he skidded back.

"Fuck! The bastard has got all kinds of mana-boosting artefacts on him," hissed Michael.

"It's probably that dragon-skinned armor," said Ronin.

"Let me deal with it now, we will have to do it like this, he will run out of mana soon," said Ronin and took Micheal's place while he recovered. Again they both clashed with each other, Ronin's moves were much more graceful and faster but they weren't that powerful, the fight was now about skill versus power. Ronin was able to land some hits on Gurg but his armor was too strong and Gurg pushed Ronin back too. Ronin had already started panting when he came down.

"Ha, I have dueled with dragons, you are no match against me," said Gurg looking down on them.