"DIE!!"
Hazem looked like a sinister demon. The smile on his face grew wider and wider as the arrow flew closer to Eden's head.
Even Naib slightly relaxed as he thought: 'Great job, Hazem! That's one down…'
However, a few milliseconds later, the scene Hazem was expecting didn't happen. No popped heads, no brain matter splashing everywhere, there wasn't even any blood at all.
"Nice shot" Eden said with a mocking smile plastered on his face as he brilliantly dodged the [Powershot] using his own skill, [Tumble].
Not only did he manage to magnificently dodge the opponent's shot, but he also started casting his own [Powershot].
The best feature of the [Tumble] skill was that, although its repositioning range was quite short, the skill wouldn't interrupt the casting of another skill, thus, allowing him to save one second in casting time leaving only half a second for Hazem to react.
*FWOOOSH*
Right after shoulder rolling sidewards, Eden's own [Powershot] coated by green arrow intent beamed through the air, accompanied by a gale and screeching sounds, as it headed directly towards Hazem who was still confused about what was happening.
One second later, Hazem finally reacted, unfortunately for him, it was too late.
"NO!!"
*SPURT*
The [Powershot] was too fast, too accurate to dodge using simple diving motions.
As a result, although Hazem's head stayed intact, his entire right arm separated from his body as he fell to the ground with a thud, his blood flowing from the chilling wound in alarming volumes.
Even if he managed to miraculously stand up, there was no way for him to pull the nock of his bow anymore.
The battle between rangers was over.
Though both were wounded, one ranger was standing upright while the other one dying face down on the ground.
"HAZEM!!"
Naib exclaimed as he narrowly avoided a lethal attack.
He wanted to go over to Hazem's side but his hands were full. He could do nothing but watch as one of his brothers, Hazem, slowly died.
Similar to Helena's bond with her generals and regiment commanders, Naib had the same deep bonds with his brothers-in-arms.
Hence, Hazem's situation was actually killing him inside. Naib wanted to stop the battle so he could take care of his subordinate but such a thing wasn't possible in the bloody battlefield.
"HAAAAAAHH!"
His eyes were bloodshot as he aggressively charged toward Helena, swinging his shamshir, the Voidreaver, with reckless abandon.
Hazem's situation made him go through various emotions, ultimately ending in him raging as a way to cope.
Unfortunately, how could his excessively wide full-powered swings hit Helena who was not only masterful in the way of the sword, but also as cool as a cucumber?
Naturally, his overly aggressive swings only made him susceptible to Helena's counterattack.
Sure enough, after just a few seconds, Helena managed to perfectly dodge one of his blows and quickly counter-attacked by slashing her greatsword diagonally upwards.
If not for Naib's absurdly fast reflexes, his lower body would've already separated from his upper body.
Fortunately for him, the close brush with the grim reaper served as a wake-up call, allowing him to temporarily free his mind from all emotions except fear.
Naib took a deep breath after realizing that he lost his cool due to the unfortunate event that befell one of his brothers.
'Crap…That was way too close…Focus on your own battle first…' Naib reprimanded himself as he took another deep breath before assuming his battle stance, fully ready to fight the fierce adversary right in front of him.
The mercenaries were visibly affected by the death of one of their commanders, Hazem, making them slightly falter in the face of the mighty Rougenfortian Army.
They slowly lost ground, as they gradually got pushed back.
Naib knew that the morale of the army suffered a huge blow after such a disaster and he could only hope that one of his subordinates would defeat an enemy general to tip the tides of morale back to their favor or at least return it to neutral.
Fortunately for them, although Eden won, he was severely wounded so he had to slowly remove the arrows in his body before he could drink a greater health potion which would allow him to help out in the battle of the military leaders.
To summarize, Eden was out of the battle for at least half an hour but after that, the Timberwolf Mercenary Group was probably screwed.
Naturally, Naib knew this so as the leader, he had to come up with a contingency plan.
The gears inside his brain shifted and turned as he started to think of a solution to their current thorny situation.
His initial arrogance was completely gone as he strived to simply stall the Rougenfortians for three days, wholeheartedly accepting that routing them was close to impossible with how strong their military leaders were.