Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The ambushes were quick to begin, as the lumberjacks were busy hacking away at the thick trunks of the jungle trees on the outskirts of the forest, one of them was targeted by several arrows, the projectiles converged onto the poor fellow, each of them fired from a close distance.

A deafening series of sounds rang out as the first few arrows slammed into the heavy armour and easily shattered it into pieces, even the giant was thrown of balance by that, but not for long as the second set of arrows hit nearly immediately after, leaving no time for anyone to react as the lumberjack basically exploded into a cloud of red mist, his head, and a good portion of his chest blasted apart by the absurdly powerful arrows.

Trollish regeneration could not bring him back from this, he was killed on the spot and before his remains could even hit the ground, his attackers were already taking off running deeper into the jungle, easily manoeuvring the dense vegetation, leaping from tree to tree with incredible agility.

There was nothing the other dirt-blooded soldiers could do, none of them even caught as much as a sight of the shadow of one of these ambushers.

But their commander pushed on, making a few changes to how things were done, the soldiers that had been standing guard would take things further by venturing a little bit into the jungle to check from potential ambushes, they weren't even going out of sight of the others outside the jungle, but those designated to do this felt nervous.

Having seen what the elves could do to a lumberjack, a soldier much stronger than them and who had been equipped with a heavy set of plate armour… They knew very well that a single arrow would be enough to deal with them.

And indeed, many were torn apart in the following days, but their presence did allow for the lumberjacks to be safer and least likely to be attacked, as although the local elves were stealthy and knew the jungle like the back of their hands, they couldn't easily get past a literal line of enemies without bumping into them.

As such, the lumberjacks faced very little casualties, allowing for the deforestation project to proceed at a steady pace, at least during a couple of days before a handful of elves that were still atop the mountain decided to take matters into their own hands.

It included the elf leader, that man wasn't clearly different from the rest, so Litrakq only guessed his position from the general impression he gave her, and with him were other elves that seemed to give noticeably higher impressions than normal, and indeed.

Most elves had no choice but to come down and get closer to danger to be able to land killing shots on the lumberjacks, and even then, to make sure that they succeeded, they worked together and focused fire on a single one at a time.

The elves on the mountain clearly did not have that sort of problem.

"Take cover!" she yelled at her soldiers, immediately sensing the impending danger, but the lumberjacks weren't exactly the swiftest bunch, many of them were too slow in acting, and frankly, many of them had rather poor choices when it came to finding cover.

The only saving grace that befell them was that the elves up on the mountain didn't even number in the double digits, so when they fired their bows, only a limited amount of Litrakq's soldiers were targeted, but the targets annihilated, it was honestly hard for the commander to believe that this was the work of archers working independently from one another.

Only the leader seemed to know how to wield mana amongst them at that, so most were just that insanely powerful without having to make use of anything other than their very own physiques.

The arrows came down from the sky like divine judgement, at first, they were silent, the boom they caused when leaving their respective bows came a few moments later, but by then, they were already nearing dangerously close to their targets.

The first lumberjack to be struck, for some reason, decided that it was worth a try to try to block the arrow, and had lifted his axe above his head, the result was predictable.

His weapon exploded into a blast of shrapnel, followed by his armour as the arrows pushed through it all seemingly without losing even an ounce of strength, and for his body itself, it was simply gone, there was nothing left of him, only a crimson fog and some shards.

In comparison, the other targets got off a little better, at least, some of their limbs were left intact.

Though, Litrakq did not get to assess the damage as one of those arrows was fired straight at her, the elf leader targeted her specifically instead of a lumberjack, which was not without sense, she was the commander after all, but before he could actually fire the arrow, she sensed his gaze and was, thus, not caught off guard in the least.

Gathering her two conjoined energies into one leg, she pushed herself away the moment the arrow was released, avoiding it had it come crashing down into the ground, sending cracks running through it as the arrow vanished somewhere underground.

It had been aimed precisely for the center of her mass, clearly trying to make sure that the arrow was as likely to hit as was possible, and frankly, it would have had good odds of hitting its mark if Litrakq had not felt the intentions of the elf leaders ahead of time.

Being the good sport that she was, Litrakq made an obscene gesture up toward the mountain whilst exerting her fighting spirit to enhance her voice.

Shouting orders throughout the camp.

Fortunately, the powerful elves seemed to only be willing to fire a single arrow each from up there.

'Was that supposed to be a message? A warning? Or do they not have a high amount of arrows capable of handling that sort of acceleration?' the commander felt willing to bet that the last option was the correct one, a common and obvious problem when one reached high levels of strength, was that most weapons and the likes would not be able to keep up.

This was a problem if your entire fighting style hinged on wielding a weapon, powerful human warriors all wielded fighting spirit, so they could make do by reinforcing their weapon and armour with it.

Elves however, did not wield fighting spirit at all, and mages were so rare amongst their populations that for humans, a powerful elf was often an elf that was physically powerful, without relying on any energy whatsoever.

As such, to fight with a bow and arrow, they needed great materials to be able to exert their full power.

"Pick shovels and pickaxes up, fetch me the arrows they shot' ordered Litrakq.

If they were truly limited, then she would make sure that they ran out.