Chapter 143: Battle with the Tribe (Part 3)

Orgrim shook his still-dizzy head. Within a few moments, his vision refocused, and seeing that Partic did not launch a magical attack while he was vulnerable, the Warchief felt a wave of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he spotted Gul'dan standing not far away, occasionally firing off a Shadow Bolt.

The Orc Warchief muttered inwardly to himself, "I never imagined I would be saved by Gul'dan."

When Orgrim had charged at Partic with the momentum of a thunderbolt, his confidence in a single, fatal strike was absolute. Yet, at the very instant before he made contact with his target, a violent explosion sent Orgrim flying backward at an even greater speed.

In that fleeting fraction of a second, Orgrim genuinely thought he was dead. On the battlefield, any loss of consciousness invariably handed the enemy an opportunity. Even if the blackout lasted only a moment, should the enemy seize that helpless window to strike, he could very well die a glorious death right then and there.

Furthermore, did Gul'dan not hate Orgrim? The answer was a definitive yes. Having fallen unconscious from the mental backlash, Gul'dan had awakened to find that his puppet Warchief, Blackhand, was dead, and the core members of the Shadow Council had nearly all perished. The capable students and assistants he had once relied upon had all met their ends at Orgrim’s hands, reducing Gul'dan himself to little more than a slave with no hope of redemption.

Orgrim had never expected to be saved by Gul'dan. At the moment he was sent hurtling backward, his immediate thought was whether Gul'dan would seize the chance to finish him off on the spot. Judging by Gul'dan's nature and his years of dealing with demons, Orgrim guessed such betrayal would be child's play.

The Orc Warchief took deep breaths of the frigid surrounding air, trying to use the biting cold to clear the lingering discomfort in his head. Gul'dan was still engaged in a guerrilla-style skirmish with the enemy leader. Seeing that Orgrim had regained his grip on his warhammer, Gul'dan slowly retreated back to the Warchief's side.

"He is a formidable spellcaster. Right now, I can barely hold my own against him," Gul'dan said, glancing at Orgrim beside him. "Those forest trolls have already fulfilled their agreement, breaking into the southern reaches of the Eversong Woods from the flank. The main Orc army cannot be bogged down here by the enemy."

"Even you are no match for him?" Orgrim was astonished. Gul'dan had once been the premier warlock of the Orcs. Though his power had noticeably waned since his recent bout of unconsciousness, he remained the foremost warlock among their kind. If even he could not defeat the short statured enemy leader, things were growing rather troublesome.

After a brief moment of contemplation, Orgrim made his decision. "Inform Zuluhed. It is time to deploy our trump card."

***

Taking advantage of the brief lull in attacks from Orgrim and Gul'dan, Partic wasted no time in purging the curses clinging to his person while using dissolution energy to strip away the lingering fel corruption. Fel corruption possessed formidable potency; although Partic had consistently used his arcane barrier to keep the corrosive energies outside his physical body, the barrier itself had nearly degraded to the breaking point under the relentless corrosion. He had been forced to continuously pump out vast amounts of mana simply to maintain the shield's integrity.

As the final wisps of fel energy were stripped away, Partic was finally able to shake off that parasitic energy gnawing relentlessly at his flesh. This single clash had consumed seventy-five percent of his mana reserves, and combined with the recent purging of the fel taint, he felt as though his personal mana pool was scraping the bottom.

Once again, he had to rely on Ellen for his magical sustenance. Battling two opponents of the exact same tier simultaneously was indeed a tricky endeavor, but with such a powerful energy source residing within him, Partic retained a degree of quiet confidence. Moreover, Orgrim, who should rightfully have been a legendary-tier combatant, had been forcefully suppressed down to the ninth tier in terms of energetic output. Despite the two-on-one disadvantage, Partic remained entirely confident in the outcome of this battle.

The battlefield seemed to revert to its opening stance. Partic faced Gul'dan and Orgrim once more; Orgrim’s eyes had cleared entirely, while Gul'dan watched him with wary vigilance, seemingly preparing another spell.

In the next moment, a magical message flashed out, shooting toward the rear of the Horde army. At the same time, Orgrim shook out his arms, preparing to launch yet another charge.

Gul'dan gathered shadow energy within his palms, apparently charging up a few more powerful Shadow Bolts to unleash the moment Orgrim initiated his assault.

As Ellen released her restraint on the mana, the magical energy originating from the spiritual realm began to flow freely through his body once more, filling him to the brim. Normally, Partic preferred Ellen to keep those reserves tightly bound—he utilized Ellen’s stored magical energy and their synchronized mental casting as his ultimate trump card. In daily training, it served to hone his skills, while in major battles, it allowed him to seize the initiative and catch adversaries completely off guard.

"How is this possible? His mana is recovering, and his spiritual power is returning to a state of fullness?"

The exclamation came from Gul'dan. As a high-tier spellcaster who had once attained the legendary realm, how could he fail to perceive Partic's transformation? Watching the enemy inexplicably recover his peak condition before his very eyes, the former premier warlock of Draenor found it hard to believe, yet the reality unfolding directly before him left him no room for doubt.

"We must stall him! As long as Zuluhed arrives, victory will be ours," Orgrim roared in the ancient Orcish tongue, snapping the momentarily dazed Gul'dan back to reality.

Seeing Orgrim charging headlong at him once again, Partic merely smiled faintly. After several intense exchanges, how much strength could Orgrim and Gul'dan possibly have left? Moments ago, they had barely managed a stalemate with him; the odds were vastly different now.

Partic simply re-erected his arcane barrier, directly beginning to condense flame energy within his hands. Though he still did not understand why the red dragons had not appeared during the battle, Partic dared not delay. The main Horde army was closing in, and the sooner this war ended, the better.

The condensed flame shockwave blasted straight outward. Orgrim neither dodged nor bothered to evade, simply swinging the Doomhammer forward. The massive iron hammer, wreathed in crimson-tinged rage, directly shattered the incoming flame burst. As he closed the distance, he suddenly dropped low, unleashing a secondary strike from the Doomhammer aimed straight at Partic's legs.

As Orgrim bent his torso, Partic spotted three trailing Shadow Bolts following closely in the wake of the hammer, targeting three fatal points: his head, his throat, and his heart. Without a second to spare, Partic triggered the arcane mimicry effect, instantly weaving spatial restriction and a frost barrier into the protective matrix of his arcane shield.

In a flurry of flying ice shards, Orgrim's hammer and the three Shadow Bolts merely shattered the outermost layer of frost armor. The space within the barrier had already been entirely locked down, leaving Partic completely unharmed. Giving Orgrim no time to process this, Partic countered instantly with a Frost Nova, returning the favor to the Orc warrior.

Though deeply frustrated to see his attacks fail to injure the enemy, Orgrim reacted instantly. He used his physical endurance to weather the first wave of Partic's frost magic while leaping backward to evade. Although the secondary explosive wave of frost was successfully batted away by Orgrim, the chilling effects of the initial wave had already taken their toll.