Tarnes felt spiritual exhaustion course through him, his brain producing obvious stabbing pain as his magical power neared complete depletion. He quickly terminated the spell in his hands.
He lowered his staff and scratched the back of his head, relieving the pain somewhat.
The reason the first Comet Azur could last nearly half a minute was because the physick flask he had drunk was mixed with Cerulean Hidden Tear. This tear allowed Tarnes to cast spells without consuming any of his own magical power for fifteen seconds.
The second Comet Azur purely consumed Tarnes' own magical power, so it ended quickly.
But such intense magical consumption also brought Tarnes tremendous results.
Whether it was the warg scouts or the Orc warg riders behind them, more than seventy percent had died by his hand.
While the Orcs hadn't yet reacted and were all frightened by his spell, Tarnes quickly took out his Cerulean Flask from his spatial pack.
He drank two mouthfuls of the liquid from the flask in succession. The cool but somewhat fiery liquid poured into his throat, rapidly replenishing his exhausted magical power, and his headache eased considerably.
Tarnes put away the Cerulean Flask that could be drunk from at most three more times, switched the Azur's Glintstone Crown he wore back to his White Wolf helmet, and changed the staff in his hand back to his greatsword.
After a brief panic, the Orcs, to Tarnes' surprised gaze, they... they actually ran away.
"It's, it's that wizard in wolf armor! It's the Orc Bane! He's here!"
They shouted in panic as they fled.
Huh?
Tarnes was stunned for a moment, but having experienced the large-scale Orc night raid, he quickly understood.
Could it be that he had just eliminated the captain leading this Orc army? That was pretty good luck.
Tarnes thought to himself. He had originally assumed Orc captains would be cowardly and hide behind their main forces, only emerging when victory was assured.
He didn't forget to take out the spirit extractor that Teacher Sellen had made for him, absorbing the souls of those dead Orcs and wargs.
When this expedition ended, it would definitely allow the Erdtree to grow rapidly by a large margin.
Just then, Thorin and the others' war cries came from behind Tarnes.
The Dwarves raised their weapons high, their two thick short legs striding forward, running almost as fast as the fleeing Orcs.
The unknowing Orc warg riders saw a mass of (actually less than ten) Dwarves charging out with murderous intent, thinking they had fallen into an ambush. They fled even faster, wishing their wargs had two more legs.
Some Orcs had originally been puzzled by the charging Dwarves because there were too few of them, thinking it might be a bluff.
But when the people from Davy's village also charged out aggressively with hunting bows and farming tools, those doubting Orcs finally gave up completely and fled on their wargs.
During this process, Igon shot down three more slow-running Orcs. The pressure from the divine archer made the Orcs' flight even more justified.
Thorin didn't chase after the fleeing Orcs with the other Dwarves but stopped beside Tarnes, looking at him with some surprise in his gray-blue eyes.
Tarnes touched his faceplate and asked strangely: "What's wrong, Thorin?"
Thorin's Adam's apple moved several times as he said: "I didn't expect you could use such powerful spells. A wizard's strength is somewhat beyond my imagination."
Then Thorin's expression relaxed, and he smiled: "But this also means our chances of defeating that evil dragon are even greater."
Then several footsteps approached. Millicent and Bernahl came over, followed by a somewhat hurried Gandalf.
"Millicent and I just checked the other directions of the village separately, worried that Orcs might attack from those positions. Fortunately, they seemed to only plan to attack from the west," Bernahl explained first, seeing Tarnes' questioning gaze.
Millicent nodded, concern showing in her golden eyes as she asked softly: "Are you injured anywhere?"
Gandalf looked Tarnes up and down with a wonderful expression and loudly answered for him: "Injured? No, I think the only thing in Middle-earth that could injure him now is probably that evil dragon in the Lonely Mountain. For these small Orcs and wargs to harm Tarnes, he'd have to not bother defending himself."
Tarnes looked strangely at Gandalf, who was suddenly shouting loudly, because this was the first time he'd seen Gandalf speak so loudly, even louder than the Dwarves' shouts.
Gandalf hurriedly came to Tarnes' side, raised his aged hand to grab Tarnes' arm, and pulled him aside.
"You..." Gandalf looked at Tarnes, wanting to say something aggressively, but seeing Tarnes' confused face, he swallowed his words back.
Tarnes looked at Gandalf. The other's gaze seemed to be saying: Why can you casually use such powerful spells?
But Gandalf seemed to realize why Tarnes could use such spells, and finally sighed: "I know you have extraordinary origins, Tarnes. Since you're permitted to use them, anything more I say would seem verbose. But I still want to say that I hope you try not to use such dangerous spells against friendly factions and try not to cause indelible effects on the landscape."
Tarnes nodded: "I understand this principle, Gandalf. Personally, I very much dislike turning beautiful scenery into corrupted wasteland because of strange spell effects."
The pale Orc's attack targeting Thorin and Tarnes ultimately ended with less than twenty percent of the Orc riders escaping. If the Orc captain Yazneg, who died under Comet Azur, knew of such severe losses, he would probably be grateful to have died in this battle of vastly unequal strength.
Otherwise, even if he had led his forces back, he would definitely have been thrown to feed the wargs by Azog.
After the Dwarves who had chased the Orcs returned, the old hunter led the guard to very respectfully thank Tarnes.
While the two groups exchanged pleasantries, Gandalf left them and found several relatively intact Orc and warg corpses to examine.
The more Gandalf examined the crude armor worn by these Orc corpses, the more severe his expression became.
He even sat on a warg corpse without disgust, took out his pipe to light his tobacco, and began puffing away.
Tarnes noticed Gandalf's appearance, declined the old hunter's invitation, and pulled Bernahl over to chat with the villagers about this and that, while he himself walked to Gandalf's side.
"What's wrong, Gandalf? You're showing that expression of thinking about important matters again?" Tarnes asked.
Gandalf exhaled smoke and said in a low tone: "Because I've indeed discovered something quite remarkable, Tarnes. These attacking Orcs aren't those Orcs that sneak west to rob and pillage. Look at what they're wearing, Tarnes. Though they can't compare to your territory's army, these Orcs are already specially trained elite soldiers among their kind."
Tarnes tilted his head, catching the white light emanating from Gandalf's staff, and looked at the Orc corpses on the ground.
(TL NOTE: Unfortunately, my LOTR: Playing Minecraft in Middle-earth book was mistakenly flagged as spam on Webnovel and removed. I'll re-upload it under a different title by today at the latest. Thank you for your patience!)