Zhao Fu glanced over the scene, then ordered his men to attack the Elf Village. He wasn't interested in beautiful women, of course, and he wasn't actually leading his troops into the village. He had the Archers fire at it, making it look as though they were attacking.
Faced with the brazen provocation of Zhao Fu's few hundred men, the Elf Village quickly responded. More than two thousand Elves were about to charge out when Zhao Fu immediately chose to retreat.
Seeing Zhao Fu flee, the Elves had intended to let him go. Elves weren't a warlike race, but just as they were returning to the village, Zhao Fu led his men back to provoke them again. After several rounds of this, even the most mild-tempered Elves couldn't hold back their anger. Led by their chief, they set off in pursuit of Zhao Fu and his group.
However, after chasing for a while, the Elves realized Zhao Fu's group had disappeared. They also heard the sounds of a fierce battle nearby. Turning to look, they saw the Orcs and Goblins fighting each other.
The Elf chief seemed to realize something. Her beautiful face paled, and she shouted, "Hurry, go!"
But it was already too late. When the Orcs saw so many murderous Elves appear, they thought the Elves had come to help the Goblins wipe them out, so some of the Orcs charged at them.
The Goblins also saw the Elves and assumed they had joined forces with the Orcs to destroy the Goblin village. Some of them broke off to attack the Elves.
By then, it was too late for the Elves to escape. Seeing the Orcs and Goblins charging at them, they had no choice but to fight back, and the three-way battle erupted.
Zhao Fu and his subordinates watched coldly as the three sides slaughtered one another. When the snipe and the clam fought, the fisherman reaped the benefits.
By the time they had all fallen, blood had stained the ground red, and bodies were strewn everywhere. When the battle finally ended, only three hundred of the original three thousand Orcs remained; only four hundred of the more than two thousand Elves survived; and only seven hundred of the more than five thousand Goblins were left.
Seeing that the time was right, Zhao Fu led his men out and formed a vast encirclement around the three groups.
Zhao Fu had nothing to fear now. The three sides had only about fourteen hundred people left between them, and all were wounded. After a prolonged battle, they were exhausted. The Orcs were the most tired of all, having already fought two battles.
When they saw enemies appearing all around them—Goblins, Gnomes, Kobolds, and Humans—the surrounded Elves, Orcs, and Goblins panicked. They stopped fighting and looked around in fear at the people closing in on them.
Of the three groups, the Elves understood the situation best. They had realized that Zhao Fu and his men had lured them into the battle, creating this scene. The Elf chief glared furiously at Zhao Fu and shouted, "You despicable Human!"
The Goblins had the least idea what was going on. Why had the Orcs suddenly attacked them like madmen, then the Elves too, and now they were inexplicably surrounded by Humans?
The Orcs were the angriest. When they saw Zhao Fu appear, they suddenly understood everything: why the Kobolds had dared to kill their second-in-command, and why the Goblins had dared to attack their tribe. The mastermind behind it all was the Human standing before them.
With a furious roar, all the Orcs charged at Zhao Fu.
Zhao Fu calmly watched them rush toward him, then turned and gestured to Bai Qi. Bai Qi shouted, and twenty enormous Ballistas, radiating a terrifying, menacing aura, came into view.
The matter the Goblin Mechanist had reported when they first set out was that the Ballista research had succeeded. Zhao Fu had ordered his people to work on them from the very beginning, and after all this time, they had finally finished. So he had let the soldiers rest for a few days, then hurried to have twenty Ballistas built.
However, the Ballistas were very difficult to make. It had taken the efforts of everyone and several days of work to build all twenty.
Now it was time to test the Ballistas' power!
Each Ballista could fire three bolts at once. Every bolt was an inch thick and 1.4 meters long. The soldiers adjusted the Ballistas, aimed them at the three hundred charging Orcs, and prepared to fire.
"Loose!"
At Bai Qi's command, the soldiers fired.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...
A series of loud, tearing sounds rang out. The bolts flew at incredible speed, like flashes of black light, vanishing in an instant.
Thud, thud, thud...
The bolts pierced straight through the Orcs, who were already exhausted and charging with the last of their strength. Their tremendous force even carried them through one Orc's chest and into the chest of another, as if stringing them together like meat skewers. Blood sprayed across the battlefield.
More than seventy Orcs died in an instant. Their lives vanished with such ease that even the furious Orcs charging forward came to an abrupt halt at the Ballistas' terrifying power.
A bolt had also pierced the abdomen of Otis, the Orc chief who was leading the charge. Its tremendous force had nearly destroyed all his internal organs. Otis dropped to one knee, coughing up blood, and stared at Zhao Fu with hatred.
Zhao Fu calmly picked up a bow and slowly drew it, aiming at Otis's chest. He didn't want to do this either. If he could, he would have wished to live in a peaceful era, free of slaughter and scheming, without having to do things he didn't want to do.
But this was a chaotic era. If he didn't grow stronger, he would meet the same fate. This world belonged to the strong; the weak couldn't survive.
Zhao Fu understood the hatred in Otis's eyes and wasn't angry, but he still had to kill him.
He released the bowstring, and an arrow flew out. Otis, the Orc chief whose fearsome name had once resounded across fifty kilometers and struck terror into countless villages, fell dead.
Zhao Fu turned his gaze to the others and shouted, "Lay down your weapons and surrender to me, or die!"
As Zhao Fu shouted, a Goblin and the Orc interpreter he had captured earlier repeated his words for the others.
The Ballistas' power had truly frightened the others. Seeing Zhao Fu's many soldiers surrounding them, they knew they couldn't win. The Goblin village was the first to surrender.
The few remaining Orcs saw that their chief was dead. Apart from a handful who refused to surrender and charged at Zhao Fu with their weapons, only to be shot down, the rest also surrendered.
Only the Elves remained. The Elf chief looked at the Orc chief Otis, who had died on one knee, her gaze complicated. Otis, who had once dominated the land for a hundred kilometers and made countless villages tremble in fear, had now died so miserably at Human hands.
The Elf chief turned to Zhao Fu. Thinking of the young and old Elves in her village, she sighed and led her people to kneel.
"Notification! Daisy has surrendered to you. Do you accept?"
Hearing the notification, Zhao Fu turned his gaze to the beautiful Elf woman and chose to accept.
ps: Thanks to windjiang, Xuanyuan S Fei, and Xu Ni Cheng Nuo for the tips. Thanks for your support.