Under the cover of the retreating night, the elite extraction team moves like a single, steel shadow. Forty-five Elite Imperial Cavalry, leading twenty-five riderless warhorses, slip out of the fortified walls and into the hellscape beyond.
The terrain immediately outside the walls is a graveyard. The mud is slick with blood, and the air reeks of iron and decay. Mikhail leads them with silent, ruthless efficiency. Whenever they encounter small, scattered scouting parties of Orcs, he signals for evasion rather than engagement. Kill the small ones, and the big ones notice, he reasons. Stealth is our only armor right now.
They reach the forest line without incident, vanishing into the dense canopy. Here, the pace slows. The undergrowth is thick, and the massive warhorses have to pick their way carefully.
Along the path marked on the Eldrathian map, they stumble upon the first signs of life: six Eldrathian soldiers, huddled in a hollow log, shaking with terror. They scramble out, weeping with relief at the sight of the Imperial crest.
Mikhail looks down at them from his high saddle with barely concealed disappointment. "Get on the spare horses. Keep quiet and follow," he orders coldly.
This is not enough, he thinks, his irritation mounting as they press deeper. I risked my life and my best men for this? I need to find more—and better—soldiers, and fast.
The forest begins to thin as the sky turns a bruised purple, the first hint of dawn bleeding into the horizon. They're entering a large clearing, a valley pass that leads to the suspected mercenary fallback point.
"Pick up the pace," Mikhail commands. "We cross the open ground fast."
The convoy breaks into a gallop, thundering toward the other side of the clearing. Suddenly, a sound like a cracking whip, but amplified a thousand times, tears through the air.
WHOOSH.
"My Lord, look out!" a knight screams.
Mikhail ducks instinctively against his horse's neck. A massive oak tree, roots and all, sails over his head, missing him by inches. It slams into the earth behind them with the force of a meteor, sending dirt and splinters exploding outward.
Mikhail whips his head around. Emerging from the tree line they'd just left is a nightmare made flesh.
It's a Titan Orc.
Standing nearly fifteen feet tall, its skin is a mottled grey-green, scarred and thick as plate armor. Massive iron chains hang from its neck and wrists, dragging on the ground as it roars—a sound that shakes the very leaves off the remaining trees. Flanking it, pouring out of the woods like insects, are hundreds of normal Orcs, screaming for blood.
"What kind of monstrosity is that?!" one of the rescued soldiers shrieks, nearly falling off his horse.
"Ride!" Mikhail bellows, kicking his stallion into a full sprint. "We are almost there! Ride with everything you've got! Do not look back!"
The convoy surges forward, the ground trembling not just from their hooves but from the thundering strides of the giant behind them.
Mikhail risks another glance backward at the behemoth. It's tearing another tree out of the ground with one hand.
That thing is definitely a Boss, he analyzes rapidly, his gamer mind taking over the panic. Wait... I remember the design. The chains, the size... It's their Siege Unit. In the game, they're called War Machines.
In the game, these things were damage sponges that required a full raid party or siege weaponry to take down. They hit like trucks and had AOE attacks that could wipe a squad instantly.
I am not ready for a Boss Fight now, he thinks grimly, urging his horse faster as the second tree crashes into the ground to their left, crushing a boulder.
He looks ahead at the narrowing pass where the mercenary signal had come from.
You mercenary bastards, he grits his teeth, leaning into the wind. You better be worth my troubles. If you're just trash mobs, I'm going to kill you myself for making me deal with this.