The trolls, each in a disgusting rag that covered their genital regions, most of which were male, were staring at him and assumed horribly aggressive positions that more so reminded him of the way some taller, sentient species that he had previously heard of, such as orcs or sentient trolls, a rare subspecies of this one, hid in plain sight to hunt down smaller prey.
It was as if the trolls wanted the two of them, as if they didn't even taken them serious, and in Cades opinion that would most likely be their downfall seeing as Cades was still much more powerful than before, back when he was still just a mere lord rank..
Cades utilization was now much greater, seeing as that he was now capable of attacking with much less of a light-show, so, in regards to his current strength he was more of a demi, than a peak of the lord rank, a demi of whatever rank he was at before.
But that didn't matter, just as he thought about all of it he caught something from the corner of his eyes, something that distracted him from the trolls that were inventively staring at him, trying to assess how to defeat him.
There, in the edge of his eyes there was a thin bipedal creature that resembled the archer, or perhaps it was the archer, a creature that was flying far, far above the air, so fat that Cades felt a kind of envy, and his non-existent wings began to hurt once more, his heat truly ached, and soon thereafter his stomach began hurting after one of the trolls attacked him with his pole and knocked him away a feet feet, creating distance while thinking that Cades wouldn't be able to defeat him either way.
That did however also have the beneficial effect of ripping Cades out of his trance and start to look at the attacking troll, a especially big one with only one tusk, full of scratches showing that this one had probably crawled out from the ground just like many others had.
However, now this troll had begun to move in a way that resembled a laughter while pointing at Cades, holding the pole with a single hand but not exuding any kind of sound, perhaps showing that this thing in the end, was not exactly as it had been in life but more of a kind of emulation.
Something that didn't matter in the current position though, seeing as Cades already knew that he would have to run rather than continue to fight, at least until he managed to find a way to completely solve this mana-blocking problem, or rather than that perhaps meet up with the archer that might've already started running away.
And even worse than all of that the being behind the trolls, the unfinished mage puppet had now almost finished its generation, so much so that Cades could feel how every single one of his hairs was standing up by itself, he felt the power permeating the world and already knew that this was a demi, a demi that would be even higher than his current rank now that he had fallen lower.
And added further to that, Cades was certain that this being had been here, in this accursed realm for centuries at least, seeing how its body was generating as old wood, a slight but meaningful distinction for an artificer, and added on top of all of that, it probably knew countless more tricks than Cades, perhaps even belonging to an entirely different magical system than him.
But once more he was ripped out of his thoughts as the troll attacked him once more, but the massive pole was now blocked by the silver sword in Cades hand, causing him to shake with the great force behind the attack, the force that spread through his entire body and caused his bones to feel as if they would break at any moment, a phenomenon that didn't really make sense until he realized that the pole itself was enchanted, something that also explained why it had taken so long for this abnormally huge troll to attack once more, and also something that caused the troll to become multiple times stronger than before, working together with his superior power.
It was enchanted to enhance it's weight to an unbelievable degree, on the other hand it seemed as if the wielder could deactivate the enchantment in some way seeing as the troll had previously wielded the weapon in a single hand as he pointed at Cades and exuded his soundless laugh.
The pole weighed heavy on Cades as it pushed down from above with the troll struggling to heave it up once more to bash it onto Cades already failing defence, but as he did Cades simply used his sword that he was currently holding up with both his hands and thanking the gods for the fact that it was not breaking, until he was able to escape to the side and let the wooden pole sliding down across the diagonally hold blade until it crashed into the dirt on which they were now standing and causing a rather great dent to shatter the ground.
As he let it fall down he instantly started moving towards the troll that was still standing tall, as a huge fifteen foot, and began to cut after just about half a second, already starting to destroy the foot and causing the troll that had turned out to be nowhere as strong as Cades had expected to fall over and allowing him to have easier access to the vital areas without climbing up the great being.
And as the abnormal troll fell over Cades could see how the other trolls, at least one of them began moving towards Cades as he was already at the neck of the monster and had started to cut through the neck that was as thick as a big tree.
And as soon as he was deep enough to at least stop the monster from moving at first the next one already begun his attack but quickly stopped, showing a kind of reaction that could only be explained with fear.