A Feast of Slaughter

"This is so thrilling! I hit the jackpot this time!" High up in the sky, Mantou stared at the dense flood of experience notifications scrolling across his interface, crying out in sheer delight. "I feel like I've forgotten how to count. Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands... Holy shit, just how much exp is this?" Gaze fixed on the climbing numbers on his panel, Mantou began to suspect his eyes were playing tricks on him. In just a few bombing runs, Mantou had blasted thousands of orcs to bits, not to mention the countless more consumed by the subsequent sea of flames. Faced with such an intensely packed tide of orcs, the Empire's various new munitions displayed their devastating might to the fullest. Although most of these orcs were low Challenge Rating minions, their staggering sheer numbers provided Mantou with an enormous haul of experience—more than enough to push him past the Level 10 threshold. Mantou spoke into his communicator, "Sing-dog, how much exp did you get?" "Twenty-three thousand." "Damn, that's insane! How did you get even more than me?" Mantou could hardly believe it. "You need to get out more. This is the efficiency of warfare in the Imperial Era," Singo replied flatly. "You probably don't know this, but the high bishops of the Machine Cult have maxed out their exp pools ages ago." Twenty-three thousand experience points—that was the bounty for slaying a formidable boss of Challenge Rating 15 or higher. Yet they had merely ridden wyverns, followed operating procedures, and dropped bombs under unified command to scoop up that much exp with ease. If not for the expansion's level cap, Mantou suspected he could just keep farming this orc tide all the way to max level. At that thought, Mantou looked down at the carpet of orcs surging across the earth like a rising tide. An avid hunger gleamed in his eyes. To him, they no longer looked like savage, repulsive foes, but like walking piñatas of pure experience. "Gotta seize this chance and rake in as much as I can!" *Whoosh—* Alloy-plated dragon wings sheared through the air with an ear-splitting shriek, dazzling jets of flame erupting from the steel exhausts at the trailing edges of their wing barding. "All units, climb rapidly and prepare for the next bombing run. We're using napalm bombs again." The unit commander's voice crackled through the headsets. "Copy that." Mantou, Singo, and the other wyvern knights responded at once. Promptly and practicedly, they throttled up, increased their angle of attack, adjusted the armor's elevators, and guided the wyverns beneath them into a steep climb toward the upper atmosphere. Nearly all of them had spent hefty sums of exp to unlock proficiency in modern riding. At the time, Mantou had winced at the cost, only parting with five thousand experience points under Singo's prodding to scrape the skill up to +6. But compared to the yields now, that small expenditure was completely negligible. A single napalm run was enough to make it all back with interest. Mantou's only regret was not maxing out the skill on the spot. Take Singo: the guy had jacked his modern riding proficiency straight to +18 in one go, pulling off heart-stopping aerobatic maneuvers as easily as breathing. *Awoo—* The wyvern continued to climb. Reveling in the thrill of cutting through the slipstream and the powerful thrust pushing it from behind, it let out an exhilarated roar. Mantou muttered, "Don't know why, but the commander's voice sounds kind of familiar..." Singo said, "You've met him. The commander for this mission is Curtis, a bishop of the Order of Restoration." "It's him? Isn't he..." "Curtis knows the exact parameters of every bomb type and participated in the design of the Skyfire armor. Naturally, he's qualified to command this bombing operation. That said, we'd better watch our backs. The guy's an antisocial sociopath and a paranoid fanatic—an absolute lunatic." "Keep it down. What if he hears you?" "We're on a direct private channel, not the flight wing's general frequency. Shouldn't be a problem." "Heh. Speaking of others behind their backs is hardly good form. Please focus on the task at hand." Curtis's voice cut abruptly into Mantou's headset. His tone was as flat and even as ever, carrying a subtle edge of veiled warning. Mantou flinched violently in fright and blurted, "Yes, sir!" *That madman definitely built a backdoor into our comms!* Mantou thought, sweating buckets. By then, the wyverns had reached their apex. Under their riders' control, they banked around, drawing graceful arcs ten thousand meters in the sky. Curtis's emotionless voice sounded in the headsets. "Maintain level flight. Drop napalm." At the command, the wyvern knights depressed their release toggles in unison. In an instant, the bomb bays beneath the wyverns' bellies sprang open, and munitions rained down once more. *Whoosh—* The bombs plummeted like heavy hail, crashing into the dense mob of orcs before erupting in violent concussions. Blinding fireballs surged forth, engulfing every orc in their blast radiuses. Incendiary chemicals splashed outward like falling petals, coalescing into roaring conflagrations... Another successful strike. Wails, roars, detonating thunders, gusts of scorching wind, and the crackle of ravenous flames resonated across the wasteland. Choking black smoke smothered the sky, billowing toward the clouds, while savage dragons of fire tore across the earth below. The armored wyverns sweeping through the heavens were like the grim reaper's scythes, swinging again and again, harvesting orc lives by the thousands. It was a feast of gluttonous slaughter. With the orcs packed so tightly and the new bombs packing such devastating firepower, the wyvern knights didn't even need to calibrate targeting parameters. Even dropping blind would wipe out swathes of greenskins and inflict catastrophic casualties. And up to this point in the battle, the orcs had not even laid eyes on the Empire's ground defenders; they were simply enduring a one-sided massacre. ... "Great Chief, the Cinder Empire's spellcasting might is too terrifying. Should we... fall back for now to avoid the brunt of it?" On a low hill, a clan chieftain lowered his head and asked gingerly. Gazing at the smoke-choked sky and the inferno consuming the earth, Soro, the Great Chief, held up a hand and gave a resolute shake of his head. His voice was heavy. "No. We cannot retreat." He looked up at the wyverns skimming the skies and said, "What extravagance. Truly fitting for a realm that conquered North Etheld and the Mountain Kingdom, putting those proud spellcasters to work like this. "Still... magical bombardments of this intensity cannot last long. Even if every rider astride those wyverns were an archmage, they couldn't keep releasing high-tier fire spells at this rate. We can simply use the vanguard's lives to drain their magical reserves and ease the pressure on our main push." Soro's tone overflowed with confidence. There was, however, another reason he did not say aloud: the word "retreat" did not exist in a greenskin's vocabulary. Even if he gave the order, the battle-crazed greenskins would likely ignore it, continuing to scream "Waaagh!" as they charged into the inferno. What was more, he carried that bloodline himself and knew all too well the savage frenzy pounding in their hearts. Soro knew full well that his prestige was far from enough to alter the fundamental nature of millions of greenskins. Most of them merely admired and feared his sheer might, acknowledging him as their titular "Boss." Yet if a chance arose to usurp him, these simple-minded, muscle-bound greenskins would swarm forward without hesitation to tear him to shreds. Hearing Soro's reasoning, the clan chieftain beside him beamed with sudden realization, clapping his hands in approval. "Right! Great Chief, we can use the lives of those lesser orcs to burn through their spell reserves!" Another chieftain grinned, chuckling coarsely. What did it matter? Those lesser orcs sprouted from the dirt anyway; their lives were cheaper than dirt and weeds. Soro looked back across the battlefield, then raised his spear to point toward smoke-shrouded Evindeldan. "Brothers—that city will become orc territory in the end. The Empire's spellcasters are undeniably formidable, but can they butcher millions of lesser orcs to the last? The moment their power runs dry is the moment our Red Blood Tribe marches in!" Then Soro climbed to the crest of the hill, brandishing his spear and bellowing to the greenskins below, "My kin! Keep charging! They can't hold out much longer! Once the fire from the sky ceases, you can breach that fortress and plunder those rich humans and dwarves clean!" "Waaaagh!" Hearing Soro's roar, the greenskins' morale soared. Waving crude bone clubs and stone spears, they charged headlong into the flame-blanketed battlefield. Orcs never feared death; they only feared having no fights to brawl, no loot to pillage, and no foes to slaughter! Within the Red Blood Tribe today, the greenskin orcs sprouted from the soil were called "lesser orcs," looked down upon by the blood orcs for their sheer numbers and weaker physical stature. Some pureblood orcs, disgusted by the lesser orcs' disregard for tribal traditions, actively bullied, beat, and even slaughtered them. In the storyline of his previous life, Daya had led the greenskins in a "Bloody Uprising," butchering all the pureblood orcs, establishing greenskins as the true heirs of Feanso's orc kind, and setting off the northern cataclysm known as the Orc Scourge. Yet now, the rise of the Cinder Empire had completely upended that history. *Boom!* Another earth-shattering detonation erupted. A dense rain of bombs exploded mid-air and on the turf; sky and earth shuddered violently as orcs howled in the inferno. The Aviation Wing's fourth bombing run had begun, and the greenskins answered with bloodthirsty war cries, hurling themselves into another charge. ... The Great Anzetta Waste, Dragonblood Mountain. The red dragon lay coiled atop the peak, spreading his vast wings. He exhaled a plume of sulfurous white smoke as the dragon crystal embedded in his chest blazed with boundless radiance, like a blazing sun. Cassius was still digesting the divine power of Amaunator, the sun god. Intermingled with that golden glare was a thick, earthy-yellow sheen—the divine energy Dumathoin had left behind in his avatar upon descending, primarily governing the domains of earth and minerals. Cassius had deployed his engineering corps to excavate every scrap of surrounding stone, turning the subterranean strata inside out to extract the residual divinity. At the same time, the red dragon's eyes flickered with faint light. Through the Cataclysmic Dragon Eye, he was observing the war on the Ugo Steppe—or more accurately, the slaughter. From Cassius's vantage point, the earth had become a sweeping conflagration ceaselessly swallowing greenskin lives, yet wave after wave of orcs continued to plunge headlong into the flames. Even so, he keenly noticed that these orcs were gradually evolving! As they thrashed in the fire, spores clinging to some of the orcs adhered and secreted a tough protective membrane to resist the blistering heat, though in the end, those orcs were still incinerated. At the sight, even Cassius could not help marveling inwardly, *Tch, terrifying adaptability. Producing mutations like that in a matter of seconds... Unreasonable abominations like this really must be nipped in the bud.* The red dragon tightened his claws, the knuckles grinding against one another with a crisp crunch. In his memories, greenskin orcs engineered by the power of the Abyss were pure war machines. What made them truly terrifying was not their raw strength, but their unhinged will, rapid proliferation, and frightening adaptability. When freshly birthed, greenskins were exceptionally frail, fragile as saplings. Before long, however, their spores multiplied swiftly, developing traits suited to their surroundings. They were the abominable offspring of evil deities coupled with the Abyss—a species spawned solely to kill and sow chaos, living bioweapons in the truest sense. Ordinarily, these orcs would grow through battle, growing steadily stronger until they evolved into terrifying harbingers of calamity. Unfortunately for them, this time they had crossed paths with Cassius, and with the Cinder Empire under the red dragon's iron grip. Looking upon the battlefield cloaked in fire and smoke, Cassius's pupils flared. The power of his Bloodline Boon traversed time and space, carrying the Emperor's decree to the hobgoblin general ten thousand li away: "Dror, make it clean. Exterminate every last one of those greenskins. If necessary... you may destroy the very soil that sustains them." Atop the heights of the City of Wyverns, Dror heard that grand, majestic voice and dropped instantly to his knees. His heart, pumping scalding blood, thudded against his ribs, his expression turning feverishly ecstatic. Small wonder Dror was so thrilled. This was an edict issued personally by the Cinder Emperor, the direct conveyance of the great red dragon's will! Across the Empire's vast, plane-spanning territories, few individuals ever received such an honor. Even his direct superior—Imperial Army Marshal, Minister of War, and First-Class Dragonblood Duke Duoluo—rarely received verbal decrees like this, underscoring just how seriously His Majesty Cassius viewed the matter! It also meant Dror could use this opportunity to display his prowess before the Emperor, winning his favor and becoming one of His Majesty's trusted confidants. Kneeling on the ground, Dror answered in a ringing, resolute voice, "Yes, Your Majesty! I will fulfill the mission without fail—exterminate every last orc, leaving none alive!" The hobgoblin lifted his head to gaze at the orcs surging like a tide on the distant horizon. In his golden eyes hung an almost tangible killing intent, along with a deeply concealed trace of ambition. *For the glorious cause of the Empire, for the red dragon's grand design, and for my own splendid future... you must die,* Dror thought.