Chapter 83: Arrogance
Fear flooded his mind like a tide, or rather like a malicious bandit who kicked open the door to Duke's heart and ran wild.
Duke's breathing became rapid, and his pupils dilated in circles.
However, he ignored the urgent warning sound from the system spirit.
Many desperate and frightening scenes appeared in Duke's mind, such as those terrible pale skeleton soldiers wielding rusty curved swords and slashing at him like in a horror movie.
Or walking by a stream and suddenly being dragged into the river by a giant black octopus tentacle, struggling desperately in the icy cold water but to no avail.
Duke struggled to shake off these terrifying hallucinations, but this fear illusion, crafted from deep within his memory, had completely taken over Duke's senses. All of his senses, including sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, felt entirely real.
The Orcs who had just humiliated Duke burst into thunderous laughter at his awkward flailing.
The Orcs, who worshipped bravery and strength, instinctively despised spellcasters. However, they showed sufficient respect for the shaman priests and even these new warlocks in the tribe.
They thought this would be another glorious slaughter feast for a warlock.
They thought the frightened mage under their control would run foolishly to their axe and be chopped down with his scrawny body.
However, the situation suddenly changed.
The hands of that mage, which were supposed to disappear, still maintained their fierce attacks, throwing out a large number of javelins.
Unfortunately, the seemingly invincible javelin tactic failed.
This Orc warlock unexpectedly pulled out an axe, deflecting all the threatening javelins with a resounding clang. If Duke was still conscious, he would realize that almost all Orc warlocks were shaman - shaman who could fight and cast spells.
Compared to simple Orc warriors, shamans were the jack of all trades in the tribe.
Duke's peculiar reaction made the warlock, Bal'sagoth, even more suspicious. He couldn't understand how Duke, who was already confused by his fear spell, could manipulate those mage hands.
Clearly, those mage hands still operated relatively independently.
Countless purple and blue lights suddenly shot out from the mage hands, and a barrage of raging arcane missiles hit the Orc warlock who was casting a spell.
However, even the system spirit didn't predict that the magic from the mage hands would bounce off the black robe of the Orc warlock, and then spread out and dissipate.
Magic is both a study of mysticism and energy.
Just like higher level mysticism can suppress lower level mysticism, lower level and low energy density arcane missiles are repelled and rejected by the dark energy of evil surrounding the warlock.
"Host! Host! Wake up quickly! I can't hold on any longer!" The system spirit screamed loudly in Duke's spiritual world.
"Weak human, I don't know how you managed to counterattack in fear, but everything ends now! Die!" The orc warlock roared in orcish language, casting a spell of Sacrifice with a wave of his hand.
With the flames of destruction, the evil demonic power spread endlessly in all directions, infecting not only the orcs who had already ingested demon blood and making them more violent and bloodthirsty, but also affecting Duke.
Suddenly, Duke felt belittled.
Belittled by someone he only considered an experience monster.
His mental state was so strange that he didn't even notice the system prompt.
"Stimulated by unknown demonic energy, you triggered the negative soul state - Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins. Your behavior will be out of control, and both you and your enemies affected by your Pride will not use any defensive measures. Among all attack methods, you will automatically select the most powerful one. If either side kills the other, it will cause double morale damage to the enemy. You are immune to morale reduction, and you automatically receive the effect of the Reckless Curse. You will not flee and are immune to fear."
"Hah-" Duke suddenly shook his body. The orc warlock was shocked to see that the flames of destruction burning Duke's body were all gathered in his hands.
Duke suddenly opened his hood, revealing an old man with white hair and a white beard, who had an arrogant and overbearing expression. He raised the corners of his mouth high.
Duke spoke in a strange language that was neither a common language among humans nor orcish language.
Oddly enough, both sides could understand it.
This was some sort of communication beyond physical language.
"Listen up, you green-skinned mongrels! My name is Hua Jia, the Death God of hundred hands!
"The world of Azeroth is my playground, and you ugly monsters have no business here.
"I'll tell you what, I've killed Kil'jaeden the boss behind Gul'dan, countless times! Gul'dan is nothing!"
"Those of you who are smart will roll back to wherever you came from! Otherwise, I your lord Hua Jia will show you what regret and despair really mean."
With these words, the orcs were stunned. They didn't know who Kil'jaeden was, but almost every orc knew about the power of Gul'dan.
This frail human actually said that "Gul'dan is nothing?" After a brief moment of shock, the orcs roared with anger.
However, Duke's arrogance remained unchanged. He lifted his chin high and looked down at the countless orcs with contempt.
Gul'dan's power came from demons, to be precise, from Kil'jaeden. This was a top-secret, and not even many warlocks in Gul'dan's Shadow Council knew about it.
But the warlock standing before them was one of them. He reached out with his powerful arm and grabbed a nearby chieftain, "Give me this arrogant guy. Your men are not allowed to interfere."
The current Warchief of the Horde was Blackhand, but any chieftain with a little brain knew that the real power was in the hands of Gul'dan and his Shadow Council. The chieftain nodded and roared at his subordinates below.
The whole place fell silent!
"Weak human! Let me, Bal'sagoth, show you the terrifying power of destruction!"
Duke raised his hand and beckoned with his index finger, "Come on!"