Before jumping of the wagon that brought Goran to the edge of Lake-Town, he had taken supplies and donned armour.
He had also fastened a steel sword to his belt.
But right now, Goran could only watch as the hostile troops marched into Williams camp from the flanks.
As William had focused the forces towards the front, the flanks were left with only a few swordsmen troops and archers.
They were quickly overrun as thousands of hostile troops swarmed over the barricades.
It's was night, a short while after midnight and the darkness was complete.
Only the military camps center pyre and scattered fireplaces for the troops gave any form of light.
The moon was high, but it was cloudy, and seldom it's light reached the ground.
50.000 common troops clashed with 50.000 equally well geared troops.
The rear camp had been penetrated and Williams personal guards were now fighting.
The fighting was fierce and many thousands of troops fell on both sides.
The lines became blurred and a total mix of fighting ensued throughout the camp and even outside the palisades.
Only Williams repositioned, yet vastly smaller, spearwall stood firm in front of him.
Goran had already climbed down and used his sharp night vision to evade confrontation.
'This is one big mess! So many are dying!' Goran was actually scared.
Despite his dreams of conquest, this was now reality, and he had never been this close to a real battle where humans were stabbed to death brutally.
Not that he could remember anyway.
He was hiding beneath a wagon as two troops suddenly fell down before him, fighting in hand to hand combat, wrestling while their armours creaked against eachother.
He saw the scared yet resolute face on one man, and the expressionless face on the other.
It didn't take long before the hostile troop guided it's fingers directly into the eyes of the common troops, and his scream made Goran freeze.
'I should have helped him! I could have saved him! Why do I cover here, I'm a prince! These are my troops!'
Gorans eyes was filled with tears as he was ashamed of himself.
Yet..
The mixed DNA had many advantages. Just as his body's growth spurts and his natural quick learning...
He suddenly found an iron resolve.
'I won't let anyone else die like this! It's time I rose up if I ever want to truly stand by my father! Enough with this!'
Goran wiped his eyes a last time, with a resolve and killing aura that spilled out all around the camp.
The hostile troop that had killed the fighting man by smashing his brain through the eyes, was the first that fell to Gorans sword.
Jack had actually checked on him while he slept a few times.
His growth was astonishing, and something he often spoke about with Dex.
At the time when Jack had killed his mother and punched Goran as a child.
Jack had obviously inspected the boy and what he found was scary.
The spirit power was already above 50...
And before Jack left, he had inspected him as Gorans last growth spurt had settled.
[Goran, Prince of Etal Empire]
[Fortitude: 70]
[Spirit Power: 145]
[Abilities: Blood control (Rare, Mythic Potential). Adaptive Body(Rare). Intuitive Learning(Epic). Regeneration(Rare)]
He didn't properly know about these abilities himself.
Dex had accepted that Jack wanted to teach him himself, when he returned and if Goran was still studying properly.
Yet now as he had quickly overpowered the hostile troop, Goran understood that he was far stronger than these hostile humans.
Seeing his father's General was himself under attack, Goran stopped holding back.
Intuitive learning didn't just cover learning skills and understanding quickly.
It also allowed him to steel his nerves and face the new and terrible. Even if he was scared he was able to overcome such things as they happened.
William was fighting from horseback. Slaying many troops who reached him through the breach in his surrounding wall of troops.
'How could I be so stupid! The officers academy's teachings clearly stated to reserve troops for flanking and ambushing attacks. I've let my army be breached!'
William fought with everything he had, his troops faced an onslaught of enemy troops and couldn't get to him as he was yanked down from the horse by many hands.
He fought fircely from the ground while too many hands tried to get to him.
While William, laying on the ground with his sword slashing everywhere he could, the mob of enemies upon him suddenly scattered.
'Huh? Did I kill them all? No, that's not possible!'
William quickly stood up and saw that the 20ish enemy troops who almost killed him, had backed away and faced a human standing between himself and the enemy.
With his back to William, he couldn't see who it was, but the stranger suddenly dashed forward, both hands on his still sword and directly engaged the entire line of enemy troops.
One after the other the troops fell.
'Who is this? His moves as irregular and instantaneous! He can't be a troop from my army!'
William was shocked too see how this man cut down every single one of the troops, perfectly evading the enemy's attacks and using their movements against them.
William moved to the hooded figure as the last enemy fell.
"Who are you stranger? I owe you my life."
But before the hooded figure could even turn around to answer, something eerily happened to the winds above. As if a hurricane had suddenly descended upon the entire battlefield.
Thousands of human troops, controlled and hostile, was fighting throughout the night and between the fires.
Dense shieldwalls faced off against eachother, arrows rained down and everywhere in-between, hundreds of mixed troops fell on eachother.
Being at the roots of the Bloodfall Mountains, the species of wild monsters living there, had smelled the blood and became frenzied in their hunger.
Above the battlefield, around 1500 of the small Drake race had gathered and circled around them.
Then out of nowhere, they all dived.
This race of drakes was about 4 meters long, their tails another 3 meters. The span of their wings reached almost 10 meters.
Their claws were long and hard, their long mouths contained hundreds of razersharp teeth, designed to directly rip flesh from bone.
But that was not all.
All the drakes had a sach of magma in their throats, a magma that when mixed with their hydrogenic breaths, could form into a wave of destructive fire.
Fire breaths consumed the battlefield in an instant.
Fires arose everywhere.
Tents where consumed in the inferno, the surrounding grass turned ablaze and human flesh melted in the thousands.
--
"Princess Xena! We must retreat Now!"
Gunnar came riding from the rear and charged directly through the battle zones to reach her.
Xena saw him coming.
'Finally! He must have won the battle and now comes to reinforce us!'
Xena had seen the battle last a long time, both sides taking devastating casualties. However it was still very much even and the hostile troops pushed on relentlessly.
"We need to retreat! Into the mountain path! We can hold them there!"
Gunnar had reached Xena and quickly explained the situation.
He had lost.
The initial charge of the hostile centaurs and giants had completely turned the fight.
All giants on Gunnars side had been slain, together with more than 35.000 centaurs in the fight that came after the charge.
"They still have more than 10 giants and thousands of centaurs! They will reach here soon, if we don't retreat, our army will be overrun!"
Xena quickly accepted the Generals warning and sounded the retreat.
Little did she know that not only Gunnar's side had fallen.
Empharus had called his giants to retreat, scaling the mountains to reinforce and protect his home.
This meant that the enemy troops there had a hero giant among them, and Jack's reptilians had lost spectacularly against the enemy reptilians and their giants.
That hostile army was now also approaching Xena's remaining army.
As Xena and her army scrambled to retreat to the forest to the mountain path, almost twice her numbers quickly began to pursue.
--
Nisha was running with baby Janus in her arms through the streets of Eros.
Hundreds and thousands of Eros troops and civilians had fallen.
There were no order left and even Dex and his troops had been killed.
Dex had valiantly led many troops back to the citadel as he received reports that many hostile citadel guards had won in one section of the capital and quickly advanced to the heir and lady's location.
He got there just in time to save the lady and heir, but he was cut down.
Even a skilled hero could only do so much against hundreds of epic ranked troops.
At least his life had allowed Nisha and Janus to flee.
But the citadel had been lost and the entire capital was burning.
The open gates and many common troops almost instantaneous deaths, had turned the battle favour to the hostile troops.
In the middle of the night, around 50.000 civilians managed to flee the capital.
Nisha and Janus were not amongst them.
--
Jack and the remaining lords and troops had cleared the unburning ships and the sun was rising.
Many ships still burned and some where already at the bottom of the ocean.
On the beach in Ramises town, about 600.000 hostile troops still wandered aimlessly around.
35 warships and 70 smaller boats and ships had gathered around Jacks flagship, where the lords now argued how to handle this situation, when suddenly, Jack's iris became full of notifications.
[You have slain the boss of Bloodfall Mountain]
[Gained Treasure: Small Drake next(Epic)]
[Bloodfall Mountain Territory is merging with Etal Empire]
[Conquest mission: Slay the boss of Bloodfall Mountains to claim the territory(Completed)]
[Treasure Reward: Mountain Eagle Nest]
Jack saw these rewards and couldn't help but wonder how that happened.
But the next notification left him completely emotionless.
A single tear streaked down his chin as something dark rose inside of him.
[Lord System: Etal Empire has lost a prince. Your heir has been slain!]
Jack changed, and from this moment he was not the same.
"Sailors. Throw all the lords overboard. We are sailing home! Double tempo or join the lords in the ocean!"
Jacks aura and killing intent flashed into every living soul and the troops immediately carried out his orders.
"JACK! What are you doing! Why are you turning on us! What happened!"
Jack saw Angelicas frightened expression as sailors approached her.
For just a split second, Jack regained controle.
"Brutus, Ramises and Angelica, you three survived the battle and may join me home. Sailors, put these in chains and below deck. Throw the others overboard. If any resist. Kill them."
Jack didn't spare anyone a second glance as he went to the captain next to the steering wheel.
Jacks flagship and remaining 6 warships had set full sail towards Ocean City.