บท 112: Chapter 112: A Statue for You
If it were before, Duke would have thought he was insane.
But now, he felt a bit like a gambler. He could have withdrawn earlier, but he hoped to win everything back through a desperate comeback.
He staked even more on this, just to defeat Medivh and gain more recognition, while also retrieving his own dignity.
However, there was a deeper reason for this seemingly crazy move.
Khadgar was gone. The heavy burden of fate that belonged to Khadgar now fell on Duke's shoulders.
The fate of the kingdom, the fate of humanity, and even the fate of the entire planet of Azeroth were all determined by Duke's choices.
Certainly, Duke could have saved his dignity and let the elite soldiers of Lothar fight to the death in the current situation. Although they had already put life and death aside, who could guarantee that sacrificing them would bring victory? Who could guarantee that passing this chess game would not require sacrifice in the next one?
Could Duke live up to their burning, trusting eyes?
Duke was not clear whether he was standing at a crossroads with countless forks.
Countless people stopped at this crossroads that required immense courage, because of human instinct, people tended to choose self-preservation. Perhaps they chose the path of escape because of cowardice, the path of sacrificing others without principle because of indifference, or the path of looking down on everything because of arrogance.
But unconsciously, Duke chose to follow his own heart - he wanted to change this history, change the course of the river of destiny.
Therefore, he took a step that he had never dared to think of before...
Lothar had always been straightforward, and Garona, as a half-orc, also had a keen sense. The two of them almost immediately noticed Duke's change.
Before this, a tragic atmosphere had spread throughout the team, and everyone was prepared to sacrifice themselves. But with the change in Duke's soul fluctuations, everyone suddenly realized that they had many, many more "comrades" around them.
Over a thousand fishmen with comical shapes, holding extremely primitive weapons, roared at the orcs across from them.
More than two hundred giant gnoll, each over two meters tall.
Nearly a hundred naga, including a female naga priestess.
"What is this..." Suddenly surrounded by such a large group of monsters, Lothar's elite soldiers were dumbfounded.
"Our reinforcements!" Duke laughed loudly.
"Oh oh oh--"
"Hahaha!"
"Hail Lord Marcus!"
"Victory! Victory--"
Morale suddenly surged.
But Lothar was puzzled, then a faint sadness crept over him. He approached Duke and whispered, "Did you pay with your soul as the price?"
"Screw that, I'll just pick it up again if I lose it." Duke originally wanted to say this, but the words twisted on his tongue. "Is it appropriate for me to sit comfortably in a safe zone while everyone else is ready to sacrifice themselves for humanity?"
"You..."
Staring at the orc in front of him, Duke's gaze seemed to transcend this strange chess space, surpassing Karazhan, and even the entire world. "If there comes a day when I lose my soul and fall into madness, please destroy me with your own hands."
For some reason, Duke's smile looked so light and carefree, yet so heavy as a mountain. Lothar suddenly found himself choked up, and he slapped Duke on the shoulder.
"Okay! If that day comes, I'll personally do it. But if I'm lucky enough to return to Stormwind City, I'll spend the rest of my life sculpting a giant statue of you in King's Valley for all the people to see."
This was a man's promise, a hero's promise.
Duke suddenly realized that he had fully gained the recognition of this epic hero Anduin Lothar.
A faint smile appeared on Duke's face as he turned his head. "Let's clean up these guys first."
The power balance between the two sides had changed due to Duke's soul recharge. At the cost of 5% of his integrity, Duke gained an increase in power, changing the overwhelming disadvantage at the beginning to a power ratio of 45 to 55.
And this was not just a simple numerical increase.
Duke could not expect these guys he killed to perform very well.
Hogger and his minions, along with the Grey Scaled Naga priestess and a group of male Naga, as well as over a thousand unreliable murlocs, made for an extremely unreliable land-sea combination.
Duke and also Lothar saw it.
"Duke, can you control these guys?"
"Yeah. I plan to let the murlocs attack from the right, while the gnoll come in from the left."
Lothar was a tactician himself, and he immediately understood Duke's plan - a pincer movement to distract and then a sudden strike through the center.
"Good idea."
"Yes, this damn game ends when the enemy general is dead."
On the black and white checkered tiles, the murlocs were taking their comical strides and charging forward under the naga's whip.
The entire battlefield was filled with the murlocs' incomprehensible war cries. They were like a black wave sweeping towards the orcs, seemingly with enough force to drown them.
But appearances could be deceiving.
The orcs at the front formed a wall of green.
The murlocs at the forefront thrust their crude spears towards the orc army. If nothing went wrong, they would penetrate the chest of the orc in front of them in three seconds.
Unfortunately, the world is never short of mishaps. They crashed into an invisible wall made of heavy weapons - as if they had hit a real wall. The huge hammers or axes coming down easily crushed their crude weapons and their ridiculous fish heads into pieces.
The devastating power of the orcs halted the entire murloc army's momentum. The murlocs in front tried to retreat upon seeing this, while the ones behind, for unknown reasons, continued to charge forward, squeezing their comrades' space.
"Hahaha! You fish scum! Die! Die!" The berserk war chief's guards opened their big mouths with bloodshot eyes and sharp teeth, shouting and attacking like they were cutting through melons and vegetables.
Each swing of their weapons could smash multiple murlocs into minced meat or chop them into pieces. The murlocs were clearly bewildered by the orc's wild attack, and chaos quickly spread. Hundreds of murlocs collided in the center of the battlefield, creating a chaotic mess.
If not for the nagas' shouting and cursing from the back, the murlocs might have already collapsed.
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