When the Leader of the Nameless Ten gave his order, his eight subordinates split into two groups and launched an attack from the right and left sides. The female orc, who was the only archer within their ranks, was beside the leader, waiting with her bow—as tall as her—drawn to the fullest with a purple arrow nocked.
"There's no need for you to actively fight. Stay here and intervene if there's anything I can't see!"
They didn't just fight while passing through Hueso's tunnel filled with death traps; as a result of all those struggles, they had rebuilt the hierarchical order within their group from scratch. The bow-wielding orc was now the second-in-command of the Nameless Ten, possessing full authority to make and execute decisions during battle.
While she watched the attack of the others with the purple alloy arrows she nocked on her bow, which she had received as a blessing from the ancestors, her eyes were wide open to not miss the slightest detail. The mercenaries, who were separated from her friends on her right and left sides, were in the same situation as her, tracking the movements of the orcs charging towards them from behind their shields.
"They're only ten people, and we are more than three hundred. Get ready, we're going to start crushing the wretches who dared to step outside the walls!"
When a soldier wearing heavy armor from head to toe stepped forward, two more people with the exact same equipment followed him, and the soldiers remaining behind them divided into three and lined up behind these individuals. Lining up in a V shape, the mercenaries raised their shields and waited for the orcs; they were in a position where they could both defend and attack at the same time.
Seeing this, the eight orcs regrouped and chose the armored soldiers standing at the tip of the formation created by the three groups as their targets. As if anticipating this, golden-yellow sparkles began to appear on the metal armors; it was obvious the equipment on these three people wasn't as simple as it seemed.
"It seems the equipment on the armored soldiers is the type that can store energy, and judging by the golden sparkles it emits, it has high defensive capabilities!"
When Dimitri caught the change on the battlefield with his sharp merchant eyes, he wanted to explain what was happening to the others as well.
"A heavy armored soldier at the front and soldiers with shields lined up in a v shape behind him is one of the three basic battle stances of the Golden Leaf Merchant Guild's mercenaries."
Bookworm chimed in as soon as Dimitri's words ended, making it clear that he knew very well what was happening in the ongoing struggle at the bottom of the walls.
"Don't look at me like that, the Orc Military Academy actually has a class on these subjects!"
When Dimitri, the leader of the Balsici Family, and his apprentice Sasha looked at him, Bookworm showed his arrogant face from beneath his mask of humility.
"The ten orcs down there aren't the ten strongest orcs trained by our Military Academy, in fact, there are many orcs even within their own generation who possess greater strength than them, but when it comes to the Mercenaries' Lodge, they are the most successful team to date!"
Clarifying the question marks in their heads, Bookworm turned his face back to the battlefield, for the time had come for the orcs he mentioned to clash with the enemy. There were three orcs facing the three heavy armored soldiers, and the others were following them in a single file right behind them.
The first blow came from the warrior on the left side of the group, who brought down his axe, the national weapon of the orcs, onto the armored soldier at the tip. The mercenary hiding behind the shield covering his entire body was expecting this, and the bodies of his friends standing just two steps behind him had also taken a step forward to support him. Their goal was to exploit the opening left by the orc warrior whose first blow they stopped; it was possible to read their intentions from the outward movement of the soldiers in the third row of the V formation.
The armored soldier at the tip and the duo behind him were absorbing the blow, while the three people one row behind them would thrust their long spears into his body when the enemy tried to make a second attack. This formation, which could instantly switch from a defensive stance to an attack position, was both reliable and had proven its usefulness countless times, but it wasn't without a very crucial flaw.
Opening his left foot wide and taking a large step forward, number four of the Nameless Ten executed a swing from bottom to top with his axe brought from his right side. His arms, equipped with massive muscles, drew a half-moon, and when the strike ended, he had raised his axe all the way above his head.
It wasn't just his axe that rose; the heavy armored soldier, possessing a shield large enough to hide his massive body, had also gone airborne with it. Yes, both feet of the soldier, who looked like a small castle, had left the ground, and when he landed again, the three rows behind him were crushed beneath him.
When the key, the cornerstone of the formation, was dislodged, his two friends lying in ambush behind the orc who made the magnificent strike slipped past him and lunged forward. Their friend's move was powerful and heavy; after clearing the way, he wouldn't be able to attack for a short while, but this much was more than enough for the two of them.
The warriors, wielding weapons almost never used by orcs, sped up from the right and left, descending like a nightmare upon the soldiers struggling to turn their shields. The arms of number three, who used double swords that curved slightly towards the tip and were sharp on only one side, were appearing and disappearing.
"I hadn't noticed before, but are his arms longer than normal?"
Hammerstriker usually kept quiet since he was tactless whenever he spoke, but this time he couldn't hold back and chimed in.
"Yes, that's the reason why he earned his double swords, a blessing from the ancestors. Number three's arms are a handspan longer compared to his height, and he wields his weapons so fast that a normal person can only catch their afterimages!"
The soldiers falling one by one must have been the normal people Bookworm mentioned, because by the time they turned around and raised their shields, number three had already made it halfway through the section he entered. While he advanced like this, his other friend wasn't standing idle either; with his double-edged sword, four fingers thick and five handspans long, he was pruning the enemies' limbs like pruning a tree.
Grasping the long hilt of his weapon from above with his right hand and from below with his left, number six looked as if he was drawing a zigzag while advancing on a straight line. The sword, almost as long as an axe, changed direction so fast that the orc warrior, who wasn't very burly compared to the others, completely dominated a line three meters wide. When his weapon tilted to the left, his steps turned in that direction, but a breath later, he could take the head of the enemy headed toward his right side.
"What a clean mastery of double swords. I might sound like I'm exaggerating, but I can comfortably say he is on the same level as the Knights of Light, the pride of the Lands of Light."
While Master Leonardo praised number six's mastery over his weapon, he received an answer he never expected from the purple-robed orc beside him.
"Actually, the technique used by number six of the Nameless Ten is the famous double sword technique of the Lands of Light adapted for orcs. Of course, I can't say our version is superior, our warrior can't channel the power of the elements into his weapon, but no one knows what will happen when he combines the technique with his lineage power!"
Bookworm was both praising his warrior, showing that his hands reached everywhere in the World of the Six Civilizations, and stating that he knew everything about the ten orcs under his command. He was completely justified in boasting; how could he be humble? Three members of the Nameless Ten were flattening the group on the left side, which had more than a hundred soldiers.
There was no longer an interesting situation on this front; the Balsici Castle soldiers watching the battle from the top of the walls turned their gazes to the armored soldier and the orc with bronze-colored massive muscles locked together.