CHAPTER 961: COUNTER-ATTACK!

Alexander said nothing, quietly waiting for Orion to continue.

He watched him, a flicker of recognition in his eyes. He saw a shadow of Arthas in Orion.

Birds of a feather, Alexander thought. Both are the quiet, intense type, full of cunning schemes. And deep down, a cold, crazy lethality is etched into their very bones.

As Alexander was lost in his analysis, Orion’s voice boomed again.

"A counter-attack!" he declared, slamming his fist on the table. "We invade Dragonflame Island. We hit the dragons back, and we kill those goddamn lizards!"

Getting it all out seemed to sober him up instantly. The drunken haze was gone.

"Bro, you know the Dragon Crucible is built, but it needs a sea of dragon corpses and blood to run. Arthas’s undead forces don’t need it, but everyone else’s troops are chomping at the bit for it. How are we supposed to fire it up if we’re not hunting dragons? Am I right, bro?"

Orion’s energy was infectious as he raised his cup.

Alexander stared at him for a long moment before finally lifting his own goblet to meet Orion’s. After they both drained their cups, Alexander fell silent for a moment before speaking, his voice calm and even.

"I’ve already given you command of the battlefield. Do what you think is right. You’re calling the shots this time."

He paused. "As for the dragon demigods, the rest of us will handle them. I guarantee they won’t interfere with you."

The words were spoken so plainly, yet it was that very flatness that let Orion feel the unshakable confidence and resolve behind them.

"Bro... you’re not kidding, are you?"

Orion was completely sober now. At the mention of such a massive undertaking, a surge of his transcendent power had burned away the last vestiges of alcohol.

Alexander didn’t speak, just shot him a look of mild disdain.

"That mirror avatar you have stationed in the Emerald Dream Realm isn’t in great shape. You’re not planning on having him lead the counter-attack on Dragonflame Island, are you?"

With that, Alexander’s form vanished from the Silent Goblet.

"He’s got a point. That avatar really needs to be swapped out," Orion muttered to himself. He decided he would dispatch another one of his mirror images from Blackstone City to replace the damaged one in the Emerald Dream Realm. If they were going to do this, they were going all in.

Emerald Dream Realm, the Kasenna Sea.

The truce with the dragons’ high-tier forces had left Orion, Kraken, Makareth, and Isabella in a state of post-battle chill. The three of them were sprawled in a row on their beach chairs, the picture of lazy indolence.

"Ugh, I miss Big Boss Leonidas," Demon Makareth groaned, rolling over. "If he were here, he could at least tell us stories about the third layer of the Abyss, or cool shit from other worlds."

Without a fight, he wasn’t just bored; his whole body felt twitchy and uncomfortable.

Just then, Orion, who had been resting with his eyes closed, suddenly stood up. He walked over to the large glass tank where Kraken was recuperating.

"Kraken. Are you more or less recovered?"

The massive octopus, who had seemed to be sleeping, opened its eyes before Orion even reached the tank. It shifted, propping itself up on the edge of the glass.

Kraken’s tentacles had all grown back. The healing factor of a deep-sea race like his was on another level, perhaps even more monstrous than other races. On top of that, the Deputy Commander had sent over a supply of restorative magical plants, speeding his recovery even further.

"I’m about eighty percent," Kraken’s voice echoed in their minds. "But my confidence took a bigger hit than my body. That was my first real fight after ascending to arch lord."

The ambush had left a mark. Kraken had already decided that after this war, he was going to find a way to create an avatar. He would never again fight with his true form on the line. Fighting was necessary, but survival was paramount.

"Why do you ask? You don’t show up unless you want something."

"Get ready," Orion said, his voice low and serious. "We’re launching a counter-attack on Dragonflame Island."

The atmosphere on the beach went dead silent.

"What? Bro, what did you just say?" Demon Makareth was the first to react, leaping in front of Orion with his scimitar already in hand. To him, the word "counter-attack" was the sweetest music. He cupped a hand to his ear, making a show of having misheard, begging Orion to say it again.

"You heard him right. I heard it too," Isabella said, walking up to Orion’s side. She stared at him with her beautiful eyes, a look on her face she had never shown him before.

"Get ready," Orion repeated, letting out a breath. "I’ve made my decision. We are counter-attacking the dragons. We are invading Dragonflame Island."

Alexander had given him command, and with it came a sense of effortless control, the feeling that the power to decide the fate of thousands was his.

"Uh... what about the demigods?" That was Kraken’s first reaction. With that level of threat hanging over them, he wasn’t about to get reckless. He was here in his true form; he had to play it safe.

Makareth and Isabella, on the other hand, hadn’t even considered such a thing. They were already fantasizing about how many Legendary level dragons they could capture to bleed out for materials.

"Alexander has already spoken with me. They will tie up the dragon demigods," Orion explained. "This time, I am in command of the war below the demigod tier. I will lead the charge, and with you, the storm avatar, the bone dragon, and the ancient giant-horned whale, we will sweep over Dragonflame Island."

He spoke with the calm, unshakable confidence of a mountain.

"For real?" Kraken asked, his mind racing.

The dragons had come with eight arch lords. The newly ascended Alexander had killed three with a single sword stroke. By that math, they still had five arch lord dragons left. On the Champions Alliance side, including Orion, they also had five arch lords. If it’s one-on-one...

A spark of hope ignited within him. His confidence had been shattered on the battlefield; the only way to get it back was to return to that same battlefield.

"Relax," Orion said, his voice ringing with power. "With me here, even if a few more arch lord dragons show up, I’ll slaughter them all."

This was the confidence he’d gained from his battle with the demigod phantom. As long as he wasn’t facing one of those peak-level monsters, with his fighting style, no one could stop him from slaying dragons.

"When do we move?" Kraken asked, his excitement growing.

"Three days." Orion looked at each of them in turn—Kraken, Makareth, Isabella—his expression deadly serious. The three-day delay was because Arthas’s bone dragon had its wings broken and needed that long to fully repair itself in its graveyard.

Just then, the air in Leonidas’s keep shimmered with void energy. A handsome man with long, flowing white hair, dressed in white robes and carrying a long-bladed executioner’s sword at his hip, stepped out of the portal.

"Elder," he said, bowing his head to Orion. "My name is Sever. I have been sent by the Hall Master to lend you my strength."