High upon that towering mountain, the red dragon lay indolently coiled within his cavern. His colossal form virtually packed the cave wall to wall, radiating an overwhelming, crushing aura.
"Gruumsh above..."
For a moment, Nur was profoundly shaken. He had never beheld a dragon of such staggering proportions. Even that detestable ancient gold dragon seemed insignificant before the Cinder Emperor.
As if sensing the arrival of visitors, the red dragon opened his eyes and slowly pushed himself up from within the cavern. Crimson scales scraped against the surrounding rock walls with sharp, grinding crunches. Loose stones tumbled from the ceiling, and the entire mountain reverberated with a deep, muffled rumble, as though his slightest motion was enough to bring down landslides and split the earth.
The red dragon extended his massive head, looking down imperiously at the orcs. Flames flickered within pupils that resembled spheres of molten lava. Behind him, vast dragon wings unfolded slowly, casting the orcs in deep shadow.
"Father God above..."
"H-How can this be?"
Beneath the dragon’s terrifying dread presence, half of the orc delegation blacked out. They collapsed directly to the ground, frothing at the mouth and convulsing.
The remaining half dropped to their knees one after another, pressing their heads low to the floor. Incapable of normal thought, they clung to consciousness purely through sheer force of will.
Nur, who prided himself on being a tribal warrior, hit the ground with a dull thud, his forehead pressed tight against the dust-laden stone. His blood surged furiously, and his heart pounded so violently it felt ready to burst through his ribcage.
He truly is the Cinder Emperor who conquered North Aethel! To possess such horrifying might! Even Lord Batu in his prime could never have triumphed over such a dragon...
If we can forge an alliance with a being like this, what would that vile gold dragon or that dwarven king amount to? Even Evindeldan, renowned for its impregnability, would shatter like brittle clay before such a behemoth.
In an instant, fear, shock, and exhilaration swirled together in Nur’s heart. A glorious future—avenging Batu and conquering the Mountain Kingdom—seemed within arm's reach.
With that in mind, the orc warrior gathered every ounce of strength he possessed, desperately recalling the wizard’s earlier reminder. He stammered, "G-Greetings, Your Majesty Cassius... We are envoys from... from the Red Blood Tribe.
"We heard tales of your glorious conquest of Aethel, and come to... to bring you the deepest respects of High Chieftain Soro."
Cassius pulled back his lips into a sinister grin. "Guests from the steppe," he said slowly, "there is no need to be nervous, and certainly no need for fear. After all... I have no intention of swallowing you alive."
"Hoo... hoo..."
Nur and the surviving orcs felt their bodies instantly lighten as the crushing weight on their shoulders abruptly lifted. Gasping for air, they finally began to recover from their sheer terror and panic.
Nur forced a fawning smile onto his grotesque, fang-studded face. Digging deep for every poetic flourish known to orcish bardic tradition, he flattered desperately: "Your Majesty Cassius, your form is loftier than the mountains, and your aura grander than the wide steppes...
"Your Majesty, we were not terrified, but awestruck by your boundless might. Only after witnessing your magnificent visage with our own eyes do we truly understand how you conquered North Aethel."
Having delivered his clumsy flattery, the orc lowered his head again, pressing his brow to the stone as he awaited the emperor's further questioning with trepidation.
They knew all too well that unlike metallic dragons, chromatic dragons were wicked incarnations, and red dragons were notoriously fickle tyrants. Any slight misstep could trigger fatal wrath.
A heavy voice like rolling thunder boomed above their heads. "Orcs of the Red Blood Tribe, why—have you come?"
"We wish to form an alliance with the Cinder Empire," Nur blurted out hurriedly.
The red dragon’s eyes gleamed, having clearly anticipated this. He murmured the word in a soft rumble.
"An alliance?"
Nur hastened to lift his head, his voice vibrant with excitement. "Yes, Your Majesty Cassius! Your empire has just conquered the North Aethel Plains, boasting immense military power and monumental victories.
"The logical next step of your conquest should be the Mountain Dwarf Kingdom of the Blackstone Mountains! It boasts boundless rich veins of ore and countless dwarven smiths capable of forging exquisite weapons and armor..."
Cassius cut him off directly. "Conquering the Mountain Dwarf Kingdom is indeed a fine notion. However... the Cinder Empire is sufficiently powerful on its own. What reason do I have to ally with you?"
Nur clearly had not expected such a blunt dismissal. After scrambling for thought, he offered a flustered explanation: "Our people have waged war against the dwarves for thousands of years! We have breached Evindeldan multiple times and know their inner workings intimately. We are without question the empire’s ideal ally..."
Cassius cut him off once more. "And yet, from what I hear, you have never claimed ultimate victory. In fact, just a few months ago, your entire host was wiped out, sending your remnants fleeing north in utter disgrace."
"No, Your Majesty, we only..."
The red dragon lowered his massive head, venting scorching, sulfurous white smoke as he sneered, "What right does a pack of failures like you have to stand as equals in an alliance with my empire?"
Boom!
Dust whirled and shattered rock sprayed outward as the subterranean stone groaned.
A tremendous aura cascaded down once more upon the orcs’ shoulders. The stone floor buckled and sank under the pressure, pressing shallow craters beneath their knees. Several more orcs fainted dead away, leaving barely a handful still holding on.
"No..." Nur muttered in despair.
The magnificent dream of conquering Evindeldan and exacting vengeance upon the dwarves was splintering into countless fractures, on the brink of shattering entirely.
No, he had to persuade this emperor! He had to avenge Batu and overturn the thousands of years of tragic misery suffered by the orcish race!
With head bowed and his entire body trembling violently, Nur struggled to brace himself upright. Spitting bloody foam, he rasped through a strained throat, "Y-Your Majesty, our Red Blood Tribe can definitely provide immense aid to the empire!"
Cassius looked down upon him, unfurling his wings slowly, his tone dripping with mockery. "As far as I can see, you orcs possess neither mighty physiques nor refined armaments. Aside from a barely passable tenacity for survival, you are utterly worthless.
"I am quite curious—where does your confidence come from?"
"Your Majesty Cassius..."
Nur recalled what Chieftain Soro had told him prior to his departure: if the emperor refused to cooperate or sought to eliminate them, he must reveal the true power of the orcs—the divine blessing of Father God Gruumsh!
He had to make the red dragon respect and value the orcs, fulfilling the millennium-old ambition of his kin to annihilate the Mountain Dwarf Kingdom!
With that resolve, Nur reached into his fur satchel and pulled out a clay jar etched with crude runes, raising it to his lips.
The jar held a foul, rancid black sludge so pitch-dark it seemed capable of swallowing all light.
Chieftain Soro had discovered this sludge in the Bindler River and named it the Blood of Gruumsh, declaring it a divine gift bestowed by the Father God that only the tribe’s bravest warriors were worthy to consume.
"The confidence of the orcs stems from our ancestors, and from our great Father God, Gruumsh!"
Nur’s voice rang with resolute fervency. Throwing his head back, he parted his jaws without hesitation, and the black liquid surged eagerly into his gullet like ravenous beasts.
"What is this...?" Cassius observed the bizarre spectacle without moving to stop it. He seemed to sense a familiar aura within the black sludge.
The Abyss.
Chaos, madness, corruption... The power sealed within this viscous fluid bore an eerie resemblance to the chaotic energy of the Abyss, yet it was laced with peculiar, alien components that intrigued Cassius.
Whoever was pulling the strings behind these anomalous greenskins was likely not just the Abyss, but also some mysterious, unknown power.
Sure enough, after swallowing the Blood of Gruumsh, black liquid surged violently through Nur's veins. His frame visibly swelled, growing vastly more massive and burly, while the tusks jutting from his mouth lengthened continuously.
Moreover, the transformation was profoundly unnatural. It bore no resemblance to organic biological growth, resembling instead the rampant proliferation of fungus. Hyphae and clusters of repulsive, moss-like matter sprouted across the orc’s skin, rapidly coalescing into new muscle and hide...
"WAAAGH—!"
The orc threw back his head and let out a guttural, furious roar, his eyes flaring with crimson madness. His body, originally under two meters tall, ballooned in moments to over three meters, packed with bulging, knotted sinew.
"Emperor... Is the orc... worthy of an alliance... now?!"
Nur grinned, baring vicious, protruding tusks. Viscous black slime dripped from the corners of his mouth, giving off a heavy, nauseating stench.
Cassius did not reply. He merely scrutinized the "evolved" orc from head to toe, looking at him as one might an intriguing experimental specimen, an amused gleam in his eyes. "So this is the so-called blessing of Gruumsh?"
That tough green hide appeared to be photosynthesizing, continuously leeching energy from the surroundings. The colossal body was also shedding microscopic green spores into the air, while generating a wild, reality-warping force field.
"Heh, what a fascinating life form."
In Cassius’s view, compared to the brutal humanoids they had been, this grotesque, sharp-fanged greenskin looked far more like a fusion of fungus and animal.
Receiving no response from the red dragon, the orc seemed to flare with rage. His features contorted as he snarled, "Cinder Emperor! We have displayed such mighty power—why do you still refuse an alliance with the orcs?!"
"Mighty?"
The red dragon scoffed dismissively. Snapping his vast wings, he kicked up a howling gale as he loomed over the orc.
Before a dragon exceeding fifty meters in length, even the "evolved" orc was no more than a tiny ant.
The hulking orc looked up. Feeling the hurricane-force winds crashing against him and beholding the silhouette that blotted out the sky, he finally realized his folly.
Even Lord Batu, favored of the Father God, could never have defeated the red dragon before him—let alone himself.
"Before true power, you are utterly beneath notice! Far from allies, you greenskins are better suited as test subjects for my empire!" Cassius roared, reaching out an immense claw.
A shimmering claw of magical force materialized before the red dragon. It snatched the three-meter-tall mutated orc straight into the air while casually crushing the unconscious orcs below into paste.
Nur thrashed and twisted frantically in midair, letting out a hoarse howl: "Cinder Emperor, spare my life! We are the offspring of the great One-Eyed God, Gruumsh! Are you not afraid of inviting the Father God's wrath?!"
"Would the god of orcs give a damn about the life of a single orc? Besides... after what you have become, can you truly even be counted as an orc?"
Cassius sneered coldly. Increasing the force in his spell, the invisible grip crushed and pulverized the creature's frame until its tough green hide ruptured, spraying out murky blood thick with spores.
"WAAAGH!"
The orc roared again, his body broadcasting a chaotic field of force in an attempt to disrupt the dragon’s Scratch spell.
Yet as an epic sorcerer and transcendent spellcaster, Cassius’s magic was of peerless caliber. Even a cantrip like Scratch was far beyond what this greenskin could hope to perturb.
Crack!
With a crisp rupture, the orc burst apart in midair, crushed to death by the red dragon’s sheer arcane might. Nur’s fleeting fantasy of conquering Evindeldan and avenging Batu vanished alongside his extinguished life.
Green blood, shattered flesh, and broken limbs splattered across the stone floor.
Cassius noticed with slight astonishment that the spores within the shattered remnants immediately took root in the dirt, proliferating rapidly as they greedily leeched nourishment and energy from their surroundings.
Left unchecked, they would likely sprout mushroom-like growths and spawn entirely new orcs. From this single corpse alone, dozens or even hundreds of fresh greenskins could be produced.
"They are... reproducing."
Cassius stared at the severed remains, unable to suppress a murmur of astonishment. "What terrifying reproductive vitality. No wonder the orcs of my past life could unleash a 'Greenskin Cataclysm' across the continent, toppling kingdom after kingdom."
The red dragon exhaled a gout of searing dragonflame, reducing the greenskin’s remains to ash and entirely neutralizing the spores.
Hooking a claw lightly, he gathered some of the black sludge and fragments of green flesh, stowing them inside a sealed bag of holding.
"I'll still need to send these over to Trump. Let the empire’s Department of Technology study them thoroughly." Cassius nodded in satisfaction.
Hundreds of miles away, the seven Trumps buried under mountains of administrative paperwork had no inkling that an entirely new assignment analyzing mutated orcs was about to land on their desks.
***
In the northern reaches of the Ugo Steppe, within Paris Valley.
Deep in the shadows, an orc knelt on the ground and reported in hushed tones, "Lord Soro, Nur and his party have sent no word for days. According to the shamans’ divination, they are most likely... all dead."
"I know. Utterly useless, the lot of them." An immensely hulking orc slowly rose from a bone throne overgrown with green moss, a vicious sneer spreading across his face. "No matter. We have no need for so-called allies anyway. The Red Blood Tribe is already strong enough!"
This was the Red Blood Tribe's current chieftain—Soro Blooddrinker. Yet he had now grown to a towering height of over six meters, resembling a green-skinned giant. He was far taller and mightier than the former chieftain, Batu Skullsplitter, fitting the orcish ideal of sheer, unbridled dominance to perfection.
Soro raised the bone spear in his grip and bellowed in wild frenzy, "Under the protection and blessing of Father God Gruumsh, the mighty orc race shall conquer the entire world!"
"WAAAGH!"
Before Soro, countless orcs were packed together like a vast green tide. Raising their weapons, they clamored in feverish, deafening roars that shook the heavens.
And far below in the damp, sunless depths of the valley floor, colossal green mushrooms grew in suffocating density, blanketing the gorge as they voraciously sucked nourishment from the earth.
Chapter 633