Clash

Daniel behind Duke was absolutely flabbergasted, his brain doing a full-on reboot. The sheer raw power of each spell Duke unleashed usually demanded the full, undivided attention and strength of a top-tier archmage. But Duke? Oh no, Duke was out there juggling chainsaws while tap-dancing on a tightrope, casting three monstrous spells at once, and snapping his fingers to make them happen like it was going out of style!

And from the looks of those two hulking orcs, they weren't just any run-of-the-mill grunts; these were clearly big shots!

"Boss, who in the blue blazes are they?" Daniel whispered, though Duke insisted that both Daniel and Anya always call him 'Boss' in private.

"Oh, just a couple of big kahunas," Duke replied with a casual shrug, as if he were discussing the weather. "The chief of a top clan and the next chief of the entire Horde, no biggie."

Daniel's face immediately went from pale to the color of a Smurf, his jaw hitting the floor so hard it probably left a crater.

Thanks to Garona's tireless efforts in popularizing tribal knowledge among the middle and high-level brass of the entire Stormwind Kingdom, most military officers and Royal Mage Corps mages, like Daniel, now had a general idea of the enemy's capabilities.

The widely accepted wisdom was that human legion commanders couldn't beat a top-tier chieftain with a stick and a prayer, though they might, on a good day, manage to fight a second-rate chieftain to a draw.

This grim assessment was, unfortunately, backed by a mountain of evidence: multiple cases of human legions being disbanded faster than you could say "retreat."

It was a simple, brutal truth: the general bought the farm, and their laundry got aired out for all to see.

Many a large-scale clash between Stormwind and the Horde had seen tragic incidents where a legion commander was instantly vaporized and their flag snatched. Only Lothar, the kingdom's undisputed god of war, had ever managed to dispatch a second-tier chieftain, barely keeping their heads above water in the process.

Even that small victory didn't stop Llane from ordering a full-blown withdrawal.

Having your flag taken by the enemy was a disgrace that stuck like glue. A flag that's been snatched is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine for leading troops to victory. This was an eternal iron rule, passed down from the time of Emperor Soladin himself.

So, when Daniel witnessed Duke single-handedly putting the squeeze on two of the Horde's most infamous heroes, his jaw dropped so low it could scoop up pennies from the floor.

But just when Daniel thought he'd seen it all, Duke pulled a fast one, letting out an immediate, booming exclamation: "Oh my god!"

Daniel didn't quite grasp the full implications of that particular "oh my god," but he knew, deep in his gut, that it was the kind of "oh my god" that usually precedes a meteor strike or a really bad hair day.

Duke was indeed teetering on the edge of a cliff, blindfolded, while juggling flaming torches. If it weren't for the system AI constantly scanning the surrounding environment, he'd be toast.

Why do mages need a whole entourage of followers, anyway?

It's simple: a mage's powerful firepower and their ridiculously weak vitality form a striking contrast – they're a glass cannon in a china shop.

Without a mana shield, an ice shield, or some similar magical safety blanket, a wizard could die if a stiff breeze blew too hard, let alone if the weakest militiaman poked them with a toothpick.

This inconvenient truth forces mages to keep a healthy distance when squaring off against a warrior.

Duke was already having a hard time dealing with two chieftain-level heroes. Those two superhuman guys were about as subtle as a brick through a window.

But then, the universe decided to throw another curveball, and this one was on fire.

The system AI went into full meltdown, blaring the highest level of warning! The alarm bells weren't just ringing, they were doing the Macarena. A huge red exclamation mark screamed across Duke's retina, pointing directly to the mountain on the left side of his vision.

A set of footprints, impossibly far, far away.

If the system AI hadn't specially marked them, Duke wouldn't have even realized these were a series of footprints made by one person. Each print was at least ten meters apart, like someone was playing hopscotch with a rocket booster.

Though no one was actually visible in his field of vision, the system AI used a simpler, more direct method: it outlined a sturdy human figure with a glowing red frame.

And this figure was barreling towards Duke like a runaway freight train.

"Hah!" Duke bellowed, and with his left hand, an ice tornado, thick with freezing air, suddenly rolled towards the thin air, as if he was trying to catch a ghost with a snow cone machine.

A burly human figure was forced to materialize, popping out of thin air like a jack-in-the-box on steroids.

An orc swordmaster!

Duke recognized the orc at a glance. He had a scarlet flag plastered to his back, a necklace of large brown-black, strange beads around his neck, a white beard fluttering wildly in the wind, and a long, single-edged sword clutched in his hand.

Samuro!

He was an orc from the infamous Burning Blade clan, a martial arts master whose legend preceded him. Historically, he'd been a prominent figure in both the First and Second Dark Gate Wars. Samuro was a stealth expert; he could hide in a phone booth and you'd never know. His stealth skills had been used to the extreme in the recent Battle of Elwynn Forest, where he'd left a trail of bewildered and very dead Stormwind commanders in his wake – as many as 34, including two generals and a deputy legion commander.

The Burning Blade Clan was legendary among orcs for its sword masters. Countless masters of the blade had been born into this clan. Their supreme fighting talent, blinding agility, and raw destructive power made ordinary warriors look like toddlers with pool noodles. Almost all orc warriors held an inexplicable, almost religious, worship for sword masters.

The very moment Samuro appeared, the large group of orcs not far away, who were still determined to get close to Duke, burst into a roar that could curdle milk.

The cheers seemed to make even Kilrogg's perpetually grumpy, dead-eyed face crack a smile, or at least something resembling one. With a loud shout, his body shot up like a growth spurt on steroids, lengthening by a full 30 centimeters. If Orgrim was a berserker, then Kilrogg had maximized his speed and magic resistance to an absurd degree.

The freezing air from Duke's blizzard slowed him down for a nanosecond before Kilrogg shrugged off the effect like it was a gentle summer breeze, its impact reduced by 70% in an instant.

Samuro's figure vanished faster than a free donut at a police convention. Needless to say, he'd activated his Wind Step, which came with a built-in stealth effect, and was now pouncing towards Duke like a phantom.

All of a sudden, the three clans' most famous heroes decided to throw a party, and Duke was the main course.

"Boss?" Daniel called out, his voice laced with a questioning tone that screamed, "As in, 'are we still doing this, Boss, or should I start digging a hole?'"

In the plan they'd cooked up earlier, Duke was supposed to light the fuse and beat a hasty retreat. But when, exactly, to beat that retreat was still entirely up to Duke.

Duke knew, deep in his bones, that if he faced any of these three tribal heroes in a one-on-one situation, he'd have about as much chance as a snowball in hell.

Duke was practically pulling his hair out, trying to figure out why the orc heroes' physiques could enhance their magic resistance. Was it some bizarre 20% mutation that threw a wrench in his perfectly organized magical universe? Or was it just the sheer level suppression brought to him by these monstrous orc heroes?

This was a very serious problem, one that would determine whether Duke would run for the hills whenever he saw Horde heroes in the future, or find a way to kill them directly.

Heroes cannot be copied!

Heroes with leadership abilities were a finite resource, and every one killed was one less to worry about. Before the first generation of Paladins came out, facing the powerful Horde, the human side really only had Anduin Lothar to keep the wolves from the door.

In fact, before Bolvar Fordragon became a paladin, Bolvar's strength was so second-rate he couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

If possible, Duke still wanted to see if he could take down one or two tribal heroes, or at least figure out if they were playing with a full deck, or if he was just losing his mind.

Duke stretched out his hands as if he was trying to arm-wrestle a mountain. When he opened his hands completely and stretched his body into a spread-eagle position, looking like he was about to hug the entire mountain, an unbelievably huge cover, swirling with a blizzard, suddenly erupted over the entire peak.

What would happen when the range of a mage's Ice Barrier was expanded hundreds of times, fueled by unimaginable magic power?

The answer, my friends, is the Wide-Area Ice Shield now shimmering before your very eyes!

Any enemy foolish enough to enter this frosty fortress would be slowed down to a crawl and have a certain chance of being turned into a human popsicle. It was the magical equivalent of a fortress made of pure nope!