Artillery Fire and Spores

Boom! An earth-shattering roar erupted as yet another bomb burst in midair, its blazing inferno devouring and incinerating everything in its wake. The air hung thick with the pungent stench of gunpowder smoke and the metallic reek of blood. The land had become utterly devastated, pockmarked everywhere with craters, jagged shrapnel, and towering heaps of charred orc corpses. By this point, however, the intensity of the bombardment had slackened considerably. Wyverns inevitably needed to rearm, and in that brief lull of relative safety, the orcs trampled over the bodies of their fallen kin, surged through the sea of fire, and charged with near-fanatical frenzy. Even as the beast hides on their backs caught fire and their feet stepped onto rocks glowing red-hot from the heat, the orcs paid it no heed, pressing forward with reckless abandon. Time and again, an orc would step on a landmine and be blown apart on the spot. The fortunate few survived only to have their legs torn off. One orc who triggered a mine actually picked up his own mangled, bloody legs. Crawling across the dirt, he writhed and dragged himself forward, growling through gritted teeth, "Ain't over yet... ol' me can still charge..." "Waaaagh!" War cries bellowed from behind him. Orcs swarmed onward like locusts, heedlessly trampling over their comrades' remains, grinding the crippled orc on the ground straight into mincemeat. The deaths of their kin did not terrify them in the slightest; instead, it drove them into an even wilder frenzy of excitement—and the spores permeating the air served as the perfect catalyst. "Get 'em! Dem big birds ran outta eggs!" "Tear 'em to pieces! Stew 'em into broth! Me boyz all burned in da fire!" "For Gruumsh!" Zealous battle cries echoed across the wasteland. Reorganizing their ranks, the orcs advanced in an overwhelming tide toward Evindeldan—or rather, the City of Wyverns. After suffering nearly a hundred thousand casualties, the horde finally drew near Blackrock Mountain, arriving just a few kilometers outside the fortress's outer walls. Yet these pitiful green-skinned orcs had no idea that those few rounds of aerial bombing were merely a warmup; the true trial was only just beginning. Even less did they suspect how thoroughly the Cinder Empire had prepared to exterminate their kind, nor how many military researchers had spent days and nights tirelessly calculating and scheming for this very war. *** Far off in the imperial positions, hundreds of heavy artillery pieces stood at the ready, their dark, gaping muzzles angled toward the sky. "Heh heh, we're gonna blast 'em good this time." Datou, commander of the Ogre Artillery Legion, had a cigarette dangling from his lips. He grinned, exposing a mouthful of yellowed teeth in a grotesque, hideous smirk. "Commander, the orcs have entered our firing range!" a scout's voice crackled through the walkie-talkie. The Empire's wyvern knights were frequently deployed as scouts, utilizing their aerial advantage to survey the entire battlefield and gather vital enemy intelligence. Datou spat out his cigarette and crushed it beneath his boot, then asked in an unhurried drawl, "How many of 'em are coming?" Circling high above, the wyvern knight raised his spyglass and squinted down at the densely packed ocean of orcs. He murmured, "Commander, their numbers... are absurdly high!" "How many, damn it? Give me a number! What're you dragging your feet for?" the ogre commander barked impatiently. The scout hurriedly looked back down at the endless sea of green sweeping across the mountains and valleys, answering truthfully, "At a conservative estimate, just the ones within our firing range come to... around three hundred thousand. And the ones behind them are simply countless!" "Three hundred thousand?" Hearing that figure, even Datou's eyes bulged in shock. Then he burst into raucous laughter. "Hahahaha! Fantastic! That many showed up? Just the way I like it!" The ogre waved his massive hand and bellowed at the gunners across the battery, "Open fire! No need to calibrate—just blast away to your hearts' content! Kill as many as you can, we've got all the ammo in the world!" "Long live the Commander!" "Long live the Empire!" "For His Majesty Cassius!" Instantly, rousing cheers erupted throughout the positions. Overjoyed, the gunners threw themselves into loading shells at breakneck speed. Anyone serving as an imperial artilleryman had a few peculiar proclivities—such as a deep appreciation for watching living creatures get blown to bits. The players within the artillery legion were even more thrilled. In war quests like this, they could rake in astronomical amounts of experience without having to risk their lives on the frontline in grueling melee. Boom—! Artillery roared. At the ogre's command, hundreds of heavy guns fired in unison. Shells carved graceful arcs through the sky before raining down toward the distant horde. Hearing the whistling shrieks and thunderous booms, the orcs looked around in total bewilderment. "Wuzzat?" "Wait... that noise again! I knows it, it's dem eggs dat spit fire! Ow! What'd ya hit me fer?" "Bullcrap! I's reckonin' only dem strange birds in da sky can lay dem eggs! Ain't no birds up dere now, where'd da eggs come from—" Before he could finish, dense salvos of artillery shells poured down like rain, detonating in midair and blasting dozens of orcs apart in an instant. Jagged shrapnel sliced through the air like red-hot blades, shearing away half the skull of the orc who had just spoken. His face still twisted with indignant rage, he flushed dark red, using his last breath to argue, "Told ya... it's... dem eggs..." Boom! The next moment, an earth-shattering blast swallowed everything in the vicinity. The imperial artillery batteries operated in a frenzy of activity. Hundreds of heavy guns fired ceaselessly, pausing to cool down only when their barrels glowed red-hot, while countless shells whistled through the air to crash atop the greenskins' heads. In many ways, the Empire's artillery bombardment was fiercer, heavier, and far more prolonged than the aerial bombing runs. Whenever a shell plunged into the packed ranks, deadly shrapnel and horrific shockwaves claimed dozens of orc lives—though these high-explosive rounds did not leave behind sprawling seas of fire like napalm. Yet the orcs remained fearless. Brandishing their bone clubs and stone spears, they charged ahead wave after wave, braving the torrential rain of shells. "Waaaagh!" "Charge!" "Dem explodin' eggs is made of iron! Loot dem strange birds, and we's got all da iron we'll ever need!" The orcs' logic was as bizarre as ever; they actually took the artillery shells and aerial bombs to be eggs laid by "strange birds." Yet given their fleeting lifespan of barely a month, any green-skinned orc capable of connecting those dots already counted as a "sage" among their kind. "Waaaagh!" "Loot 'em all dry!" Roars of defiance rolled across the battlefield, drowned out only by the deafening thunder of explosions. Moving between the craters and falling fire, these green-skinned savages somehow actually managed to push their front lines forward. The orcs in the vanguard suffered countless grotesque ends: some triggered mines, some were blown to smithereens by plunging shells, and others were incinerated by lingering napalm... Yet no matter how horrific their companions' deaths, the greenskins pressed on relentlessly, trampling the corpses of their own kind. Their simple brains could not fathom concepts like courage or conviction, nor could they process complex magical circuits. They understood only one thing—we's here to fight! *** "So that's how it is... Did the Cinder Empire's army conquer North Aethel and seize Evindeldan with this kind of power?" On a hill behind the horde, Solo ground his teeth, his expression dark enough to drip ink. Even if lesser orcs were as disposable as weeds, they could not sustain attrition like this! By his reckoning, in just half a day, the greenskins had already lost more than two hundred thousand troops! From what he observed, nearly every blast packed the destructive punch of a third-tier spell, and the Empire's army had unleashed tens of thousands of them! Did the Cinder Empire possess dozens of legendary wizards or clerics constantly firing off low-tier spells just to slaughter lesser orcs by the hundreds of thousands? What a joke! The Red Blood Tribe had spent generations tucked away in the remote Ugo Steppe, their route into the Feanso Continent severed by the Mountain Kingdom and barred by the towering Blackstone Mountains. Like the Northern Kingdom of the past, they had remained isolated in their corner of the world, wholly ignorant of shifting global powers, with the dwarven realm as their sole enemy. Several months ago, strange humans calling themselves "Starfallen" from beyond the sky had appeared on the steppe, claiming they had come to help them defeat the Mountain Kingdom. Back then, the orcs had put no trust in these aliens, eyeing them with pure greed instead—on the barren steppe, all resources were precious, and human corpses were no exception. And so, the orcs had killed those humans, chopped off their heads, skinned their hides, and even tried to brew their flesh into soup. Strangely enough, not long after, the remains of those humans simply vanished into thin air, leaving the famished orcs frustrated and deeply disappointed. Naturally, the orcs could never have imagined that the rise of the Cinder Empire had fundamentally altered the world, completely overturning the traditional nature of warfare. Solo snarled under his breath, "We can't go on like this. We have to step in, or these lesser orcs will be wiped out completely. Curse this Cinder Empire... their spells are practically free and endless..." "Moke!" he barked. Moke was the current shaman of the Red Blood Tribe. He too had received the boon of the black water, becoming a semi-greenskin "new orc" and mastering a multitude of potent divine spells. Whether the source of that divine magic came from the orc god or from some unspeakable entity, however, was another matter entirely. "Great Chief... what are your orders?" A deep, rasping voice answered as a stooped, hunched orc appeared before the chieftains. He was draped in heavy black robes. Thick, dense patches of moss clung to his exposed green flesh, presenting a ghastly sight while emitting a nauseating stench of decay. Solo let out a breath and asked, "Shaman Moke, the Cinder Empire's magic is devastating. How do we break through their line?" Moke let out a sinister chuckle. "It is simple. We need only invoke the protection of the Great Father and Mother. Then our orcs will pierce this wall of fire and claim the lands that rightfully belong to us." Solo frowned, but chose not to press who this "Mother" was. He simply instructed: "Do as you see fit. Cast your divine magic, so that those lesser orcs... no, our brave warriors can break through the enemy's barrier." "Very well, Great Chief. As you command." Moke lifted his head. His moss-encrusted face, gnarled like the roots of an ancient tree, twisted into an extraordinarily chilling smile. Flanked by several burly orc warriors, Moke advanced to the frontline. He tilted his head back, gazing up at the sky choked with artillery shells, before looking across at the charging green-skinned horde. Raising a trembling hand, Moke gripped a dark green scepter slick with viscous slime and whispered, "Ignorant children... you have no idea what power resides within you! You shall be delivered, you shall be the harbinger of ruin, you shall be the destroyers of the old world!" The orc shaman's voice grew increasingly impassioned and feverish until a bizarre gleam flickered within his cloudy eyes. Moke thrust the scepter high. Invisible to the naked eye, fungal spore hyphae continually radiated from it, permeating the surrounding soil, trees, and stone. Like creeping mist, the fungal hyphae drifted across the battlefield, connecting the green-skinned orcs into a vast web of tens of thousands of nodes, weaving them into a single organism. Every orc was constantly "reckonin'" and scheming, consumed by an innate craving for bloody slaughter and unrestrained violence, yearning to vent their primal urges. Once linked by the network, the green-skinned orcs developed a crude, burgeoning hive mind. The eyes of the connected orcs burned crimson, thick saliva dripped from their jowls, and their breath came in ragged gasps. As one, they threw back their heads and unleashed a deafening roar that shook the heavens. "Waaaagh!" Instantly, countless spores swirled into the air, coalescing into a translucent, web-like canopy as a potent force field surged around every orc's body. At the very center of this network, a massive greenskin named Jushan hurled a boulder that smashed a falling artillery shell out of the air. He roared at the top of his lungs, "Waaaagh! Follow me! Dis junk ain't nuthin' to fear! Kill 'em all!" Jushan possessed an enormous physique, standing three meters tall with muscles as hard as mountain stone. Thick veins bulged across his skull, and a fierce, suffocating force field radiated from his entire body. "He's da Big Boss!" "Yeah, he looks right 'ard! We's chargin' behind 'im!" "Waaaagh! For Gruumsh!" Cries of awe rippled through the greenskins. Instinctively falling in behind Jushan's giant strides, they charged straight toward the fortress through the blazing storm of artillery. Under the influence of that mysterious force field, numerous shells failed to detonate, while others were battered out of the air before they could land. The furious orcs even salvaged these unexploded shells, wrenching them apart and hammering the parts together into makeshift weapons. Of course, more than a few clumsy failures blew themselves to pieces in the process.