From the beginning of the attack nothing went as expected for Miruban. He hated the group of orcs that he had to direct. They were some of the most bull headed being that he had ever seen.
For starters, they didn't have spatial storages. They carried everything on their backs. This made sense for the orcs as except for the shaman everyone else were body cultivators who couldn't use spatial storage without spirit sense. So, it was a habit of the orcs to not have spatial storages.
But this made Miruban's life miserable. Usually for such missions, he would have the food and supplies carried in their storages, but with limited size rucksacks, these orcs had to hunt for food. They also preferred to hunt rather than let him store their food in his storage as they wanted to eat fresh kills.
His orders were to direct the orc to the convoy guarding Jean Creek. Once they killed all the guards and captured Jean, he is supposed to come back and halfway back kill all the orcs and only bring Jean alone. If it failed, the only thing waiting for him would be death in hands of his own employers.
This way, the world would assume that the orcs tried to capture Jean Creek and were slaughtered on their way. Jean Creek would be considered missing and with the orcs dead, no one would know about his employers, thus tying up all lose ends.
From the start, he wanted his men and the orcs to assassinate, the guards in the dark of the night. But the orcs didn't want to. They wanted to fight them head on. They said that it would be an easy fight for them and it would be too boring if they made this entire trip without a good fight.
The bandits that he commanded were being held back by the mercenaries protecting his target. So, he suggested the orcs to attack. But even then, the orcs disappointed him especially Grikal. They barely revealed themselves before Grikal's mount has been impaled and Grikal lost his staff.
Now, he started to try and make them surrender. He could have tried to make the other orcs rebel against Grikal, but he already had been observing them all along the route here. They considered Grikal to be some sort of teacher and they trusted him a lot. There is a good chance he might end up convincing them. Moreover, he also knew that none of them would be a match for Grikal.
He then thought about taking Griksaul captive and order Grikal. But immediately put it out of his mind. During the past few days, he understood Grikal's intellect and experience to a certain amount. He knew that the moment he shows his true strength, Grikal would realize that he had been hiding his strength and acting subservient to him all this time. It only made sense if he wanted to betray Grikal later. So, this plan was immediately thrown out too.
So, he couldn't wait for them to react. He had to take charge. He had to kill or knock out Grikal before inducing suggestions to the other orcs who he believed were easier to manipulate. But there were two others beside Grikal who he was vary of. Especially Raban.
Miruban felt a strong sense of fear when he saw the man. So, he had to first put Raban out of the way before he could attempt to kill Grikal. Giving a death blow to Grikal wasn't hard. He was an assassin. A small opportunity was enough for him. He wanted Grikal diverted else, he knew that Grikal was adept enough to hold him back with the war axe in his hand.
He started to clap as Grikal began to try and convince the other orcs. He continued to clap moving towards Grikal.
"I really can't allow you orcs to surrender, now," said Miruban smiling walking towards Grikal.
"Miruban," muttered Grikal. It was at this time that Grikal realized that he didn't care about the man who had helped him reach this location. If it weren't for Miruban, they would have had a very hard time travelling all this way and also back. At the same time, Grikal felt that Miruban shouldn't be this calm and smiling after the deaths of all the humans that came along with them.
Miruban only talked now so that the other orcs would notice him. Griksaul had been directly in between Miruban and Grikal incidentally. If he wanted to deal a quick fatal attack to Grikal, he would need to get close to Grikal as possible without any one in straight line between them. Even Griksaul took a step to the side and turned around to look at Miruban due to the claps.
"Shut up, you old fool," said Miruban as he now was ready to attack.
He quickly pulled a spear from his storage and threw it towards Raban using a baron stage technique. He was sure Raban would block it and be delayed. If Raban evaded it, it would go and hit another hunter who would be seriously injured or killed. So, Raban would be forced to block it.
But he didn't care about the impact of the spear attack, he quickly needed to reach Grikal. So, as soon as he threw the spear, he turned around to look at Grikal and ran his fastest speed to reach him. As expected, the attention of all including Grikal was diverted towards the spear and Raban.
As he reached closer to Grikal, his hands transformed. The skin of his hands tore apart as a pair of ridged taut black hands appeared from within. His nails grew long and sharp like the talons of an eagle as he reached for Grikal's throat. He wanted to kill Grikal before Grikal saw him come close.
Just as he was going to cut through the orc shaman's throat, he found two small knives reaching his own throat and heart. They had the glow of mana around them. These shining knives would definitely cause him critical harm if they struck. He had instinctively used both his hands to block them.
The clang of the knives against Miruban's claws also brought the attention of many, back to him, instead of Raban. Grikal also held the axe in a defensive position on guard against him.
Miruban knew that those two knives were thrown by Syam. By that time, Raban blocked the spear with a shield that he removed from his storage and also moved closer to Grikal and Miruban.
"No. No. It wouldn't be that easy," said Syam putting up a finger and waving to the sides. He felt like Syam was mocking him as he gnashed his teeth in anger.
"You intended to kill us after captured the boy," said Grikal aloud as he realized the truth.
He had believed that Syam was a baron staged cultivator. Else, there was no need for him to always be looking at Grikal keeping his guard up in case of an attack. If he was a duke staged cultivator, he wouldn't need to keep his guard up like that.
"You are not at baron stage?" Miruban asked surprised.
"What's it to you?" replied Syam giving him no face.
"He he," chuckled Miruban. He looked around. Not only were the mercenaries (hunters) around him ready, but also the orcs were all now looking at him in anger instead. Clearly, even the orcs were vary of him after hearing Grikal's words.
"He he he he," he continued to chuckle as he played with the claws on his hands making weird clicking noises.
Everyone was looking at him as they held their breaths in. In the past few minutes, they have seen one new thing after the other. With Miruban chuckling like that they began to feel that there would be another surprise as held their breath, ready to move.
"You think you have me cornered. Don't you?" Miruban asked smiling. He looked at Syam and then at Raban. He had long stopped caring about the orcs. They had been fooled all this time and he wasn't that concerned about them.
His main concern were the humans who were against him. As long as he kills them, the kingdom would always treat any statements of the orcs as lies.
Miruban was a cautious fellow. He always tried to be as prepared as possible.
Always, preferred to have things in his control. He kept a method or two that were completely in his control.
Even now, though it appeared that he was cornered.
He didn't feel so.
He still had one last thing card left to play. One thing that would still give him a chance to achieve his objective.
His mission was to kill the orcs after they captured their target. It wasn't possible to do that just by virtue of his prowess in fighting. In a life-or-death situation, if Grikal went all out, he would not be sure of defeating all the orcs.
If Grikal didn't care about his own life and attacked him in a suicidal attempt, he would not be sure of defeating the old orc either.
He wasn't confident on sneaking up on Grikal to assassinate him either. He believed that he would have a chance to do that only if Grikal was distracted. Just the way, he had tried a few seconds ago. He had to use the deaths of other orcs and attack him from another direction to kill Grikal.
So, he had long made preparations for that.
Now, the situation has changed. He just hoped that his last card could damage his adversaries enough and provide a distraction that would allow him to go after the target himself and then he could be used as a hostage to escape.
But for that, he had to divert their attention to himself. So, he did.
From chuckling at a low volume, he suddenly started to laugh like a crazy person in a loud and boisterous manner.
Everyone looking at him were unnerved, but none dared to move their eyes of Miruban.
Raban and Syam were especially concerned. There were just not sure whether to attack Miruban and kill or whether he was baiting them. This delay was all that Miruban needed.
As Syam was struggling to make a decision, he suddenly all the members of the hunter squad react behind him. Some were clearly cries of pain while others indicated surprise.
"Aaaaaah"
"Impossible"
"No."
"Look out"
He initially thought for a moment that those shouts were a distraction, a kind of ventriloquism. But he also saw the expressions of the orcs looking behind him change and was sure that something happened.
It was at this time that Raban realized what Miruban's plot was. He dashed towards Miruban slashing a large broadsword to kill.
As Syam turned around, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Till now, everything happened as he had expected more or less, but now the camp was truly in chaos. A third of the squad was injured heavily. Bleeding these men tried to seek cover
As he looked at the coaches, he could see that two of the hunters were out of commission. One had his right leg chopped off right below the knee and the other had a sword sticking out of his belly.