Before he could observe more clearly, a big force erupted from the direction of Miruban, throwing him forward into the air. It wasn't just him. He also found the orc shaman who was much heavier than him also flying in the air. The pair of them were throw away a distance of about ten meters.
As soon as he felt the force push him, he realized what it was. It was the aftershock of clash between Raban and Miruban going all out and attack each other with their full strength.
When he was pushed by the force, he also saw that the large green barrier spell which Raban had erected blinked out of existence. This indicated that Raban had to put in his all to fight Miruban and couldn't spare concentration or mana to maintain the barrier.
He had never expected that senior Raban would need to go all out to block Miruban. He knew Raban was a peak duke and limit breaker, whose strength is close to that of a king staged cultivator. So, he expected Raban to subdue him without much kickback.
The sudden shock wave knocked him out for a couple of seconds. At that time, all his thoughts were on understanding what was happening to his squad behind him. He trusted that Raban could block Miruban and let his guard down in his hurry.
So, the shock of being thrown put him in a dizzy state. When he woke up, he already found Grikal standing beside him swinging an axe destroying something which he didn't even see properly.
"Get up boy," yelled Grikal as he looked around. It was clear that the orc shaman had decided to protect him when he was knocked out. Frankly, he was a bit embarrassed that a waning old orc managed to adapt to the sudden shock and recovered much faster than him, and protected him.
It was like a small explosion happened where Raban and Miruban clashed and a small dust cloud had formed and is moving away from them in a circular manner. It was already night and it was hard to see under the starlight. Now, the shockwave had blown out the campfires and with the dustcloud, they couldn't see their squads.
"Miruban must have some external talisman that pushed his strength temporarily," realized Syam as he pushed himself up quickly.
"Thanks, but what attacked my squad?" asked Syam. All he could see was the splattered flesh on the ground. He couldn't even guess the nature of the attacker quickly by looking at it.
"I am not sure," said the old orc. Syam felt that the orc was hiding something, but didn't want to force him now. He would prefer the orcs to be on his side and he was just guarded by the orc. So, he couldn't put aside his gratitude and question the old orc.
"It looks like Raban pulled Miruban away so that we wouldn't be affected by their clashes," said Syam. If they were still fighting or if Raban or Miruban were near them, they wouldn't be in this situation.
"Grikal, rally the orcs and help us. We won't imprison your squad and lead you close to the edge of the forbidden forest as long as inform us of the traitors and fight against them," said Syam looking at the old orc.
"Sure. It isn't like we can continue to help Miruban at this stage now," said Grikal. "We can't trust them anymore."
Saying so he started to move away to reach the members of his squad. The last time, he saw them a third of them were injured. He also couldn't run fast towards them in a hurry with his reduced visibility. He still didn't know what had harmed them and running blind might end up injuring him.
A few seconds later, he was able to clearly see the members of his squad and their opponents as the dust started to settle down a bit.
It was at this time, he realized how Miruban had managed to attack them. He understood that they had missed a vulnerability open, but even in hindsight it would be hard to tackle it in such a situation.
The main attackers were none other than the bandits. All the bandits who were dead were moving and waving their weapons around. Even beheaded or sliced in two, their arms moved around if they were connected to their torso.
They were like some kind of puppets who were being manipulated to move around through some sort of strings. Not even undead would be able to move beheaded, but these bandit's dead bodies managed to silently move and attack them.
"That Miruban must have put some kind of technique in them before the attack," realized Syam. Else, they would have noticed if he did it after they killed the bandits. It became clear to him that Miruban must have long planned for this. It was probably meant to deal with the orcs after they captured Jean, but ended up being a hidden blade against his squad instead.
Though the dead bodies stopped moving again after Raban clashed with Miruban, Syam couldn't give Miruban another chance. He decided to destroy all the bandit and wolf dead bodies.
Syam rushed forward striking the dead bodies of the bandits, each strike pulverizing them. He didn't care about the energy expenditure and began to destroy their limbs to make sure they wouldn't be able to attack.
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When the dead bodies first attacked, almost all the hunters were taken unawares and some even got frightened. It took a few seconds for Syam to get to his senses. In a surprise attack, the first few seconds were the ones which decided the outcome. These were the crucial moments which decide the outcome and the time when a leader needed to be most active and direct his men, but Syam was unconscious. Luckily, the members of hunter division were used to making decisions without their superiors' orders in times of emergencies.
Though they had been taken unawares and injured, given a few seconds, their instincts for survival honed through the years kicked in. They just destroyed the hands of these bodies as without the hands to grip onto weapons, even a dead body which could move wouldn't pose a serious threat.
Most people and guards would have been flabbergasted by the attack. To any layman, it would look like some kind of hell were the dead came back to life to punish them. Even most necromancers couldn't raise undead which would kill and attack without heads. But these experienced veterans managed to keep their wits about. Since they couldn't stop the bodies from moving, they chose the next best thing. They decided to destroy the parts which could wield weapons.
The experience members of the squad managed to keep their senses for these few seconds, but it was completely different case for the new trainees.
When the trainees first saw the huge orcs, they were afraid of their huge bodies. But still, they could process it. Though they gave up hope, they survived. Seeing Syam and the other veterans injure them and then kill all the bandits made them realize that the squad was filled with strong men and women who could protect them.
But when the dead bodies of the bandits moved, the guards who they considered their protectors were the ones to first cry out in pain and fear.
When the first cry was heard everyone was looking at Miruban wondering what would happen next. They suddenly they heard multiple cries of pain and bewilderment. The closest was a guard behind them. The man who protected them all this time fell down to his side on the ground clutching his leg in pain. The sudden pain made him drop his weapons and fall down.
Beside him there was a torso cut at the waist waving a sword. It was a blood gory sight as it used one hand to push itself forward while using the other to swing the sword. It was like a nightmare.
Another guard beside immediately went toward his fallen comrade to drag him away from the being, but as he took a step forward, he felt a piercing pain as a sword stabbed into his belly from his right side. Looking to his side, he found the walking headless corpse of the bandit he had beheaded.
The one which chopped his comrade's leg at least had a head and he thought that it was some necromantic spell which awakened the body. But this just confused him as the most common method was to deal with undead was to destroy their head. So, a headless body was really an unexpected thing.
At the same time, as the trainees saw the headless body wielding a sword, they lost control. Timothy and Pete turned around to run. Jean started yelling undead with his eyes still on the first body and hasn't yet noticed. Glen and Brad just started yelling loudly stuck in place. This was
Ajax was nearest to the guy and as the headless body moved, the dried blood form the neck splash on his face. He had seen many zombie and other horror movies in his past life. He would have been the same as the others, but those movies had desensitized him a bit to such things.
At first, Ajax also didn't know what he should do. Then, he saw that the sward was stick in the belly of the guard. He was holding it tight preventing the bandit body from pulling it back. His old instincts kicked in as he realized that guard was trying to not worsen the wound by preventing his attacker from pulling it back.
As Ajax understood that the guard was actually holding the dead body in place, he felt that he had a chance to strike if he acted fast. He quickly struck the arm of dead body with his axe cutting it off above the elbow. He planted a swift kick on the body's chest pushing it away, before moving back along with the injured guard.
At that time, he saw the guard who was pretending to be Jean, stopping Timothy and Pete from running away. They honestly couldn't run away as Raban's barrier was still covering the whole camp.
"Stop!" yelled the man. "With the barrier around you can run far. With me you will have a better chance."
He quickly saw that Jean was still yelling "undead" pointing to first body. He didn't even move from his place. He slapped to Jean had on his cheek to get him out of shock. Being slapped suddenly, Jean's fear was suddenly replaced by pain and then, anger. But he quickly realized that Ajax had actually helped him.
"Thanks," said Jean as he saw Ajax tilting his head towards Glen and Brad. They quickly followed with the same approach toward Glen and Brad. Luckily, it worked for Glen while Brad was knocked out unconscious be Jean and they had to drag him towards the others.
By this time, they started to hear someone yelling.
"Burn the bodies or destroy them."
This was the best and easiest way to keep the dead from moving. It was common to do this whenever they battle against necromancers or undead.
The guard who had dressed in Jean's armor and also reacted in time he started to punch and destroy them while he pulled the other guard to safety. He pulled them closer to Jean so that it would be easy to guard them.
"Glen. Burn the wolves. If they get up, it will much harder to deal with," yelled the guard. "Also, someone wake up Brad."
"Do as he says. I will cover you," said Ajax as he put his axe back into his storage. Jean started to try and awaken Brad.
Ajax quickly picked up the sword dropped by Brad holding it aloft in a defensive stance. He could use the axe well enough, the others didn't know. They had seen him clumsily drop the axe while he pretended to train a few moments ago. So, he used the sword in stead.
Glen started to burn the wolves as two other dead bodies moved towards them.
By this time, Ajax had noticed that though they were dead bodies moving, they were much slower than the bandits in real life. If not for the surprise factor, these things wouldn't have been able to hurt the squad.
So, he was felt a bit confident that he would be able to at least block them.
Just as they were coming near him, they all heard a large booming sound as Raban and Miruban collided against one another, creating a big shock wave.