Jushan

Boom! Yet another explosion detonated. In an instant, gunpowder smoke rolled thick, fire flashed, shrapnel flew everywhere, and mists of blood billowed into the air. Over a dozen orcs were blasted into mangled flesh, severed limbs flying in all directions. A charred head even tumbled across the ground, spinning several times before coming to a stop. Yet the other orcs remained unfazed. They didn't even bother turning their heads to look; instead, they gleefully scrambled to scavenge the scorching-hot shrapnel—for this had already been going on for days. This was already the third day of the orcish assault on Evindeldan. The Cinder Empire's artillery fire raged day and night without pause, while wyverns screeched continuously as they swept across the sky, dropping bombs like rain. During this time, the orcs had launched hundreds of large-scale assaults. They had even closed in on the Cinder Empire's trenches at one point, only to be beaten back by ferocious artillery fire. Every day, tens of thousands of orcs perished in this smoke-choked meat grinder. In just three short days, the surface of the wasteland had been blasted down three feet, the rolling mounds leveled flat, and the terrain carpeted with charred orc corpses. Yet Moke's special methods were far from ineffective. Within this brief span of time, the surviving orcs had grown even stronger. "Waaaagh!" Jushan let out a battle cry of utter fury, braving the overwhelming storm of artillery shells as he charged toward the Cinder Empire's defensive lines. In his hands was a massive warhammer cobbled together from countless jagged shrapnel fragments and firing mechanisms, blazing fire spewing from its handle. At the same time, Jushan had scavenged plenty of debris from the battlefield. Piecing it all together, he had gradually armored himself in a suit of exceptionally crude, ramshackle plate. "Boyz, charge with me! Their attacks'll only make us stronger!" Jushan hoisted his warhammer high, standing atop a heap of corpses. He pulled up his shrapnel visor and unleashed a thunderous roar. "Waaagh!" "Jushan! Brutal Jushan!" Amidst the cheering of the orcs, the force field radiating from Jushan grew increasingly potent, thickening to near solidity until it could dismantle incoming shells into scrap metal in midair. In the eyes of the Empire, orcish technology was laughably primitive and bizarre. Their weapons had always been fashioned from natural materials like stone and beast bone—the hallmarks of a primitive tribe. Yet the weapons these green-skinned orcs forged defied all objective common sense in the eyes of imperial researchers. According to the researchers' observations, amidst intense warfare and slaughter, orcs generated an intensely belief-driven power. Their conviction was enough to warp objective reality—much like sorcerers. As long as the orcs believed something could be used in battle, it would function without a hitch. Even the most unremarkable scrap of iron could become a lethal weapon beyond other races' comprehension. Under the distortion of that power, contraptions pieced together from scrap could unleash even more brutal, savage might. In a sense, every green-skinned orc was a latent "war sorcerer," capable of bending reality through the sheer will to wage war. They possessed their own "unique" technology—which, of course, mostly consisted of war engines cobbled together from scrap left in the wake of battle. "Is that the orc?" "That's him. General Dror's direct orders: eliminate him at all costs, even if it burns through our shells." "Understood." Datou, the ogre commander of the artillery legion, set down the communicator in his hand, spat on the ground, and grumbled, "Damn it all, these brainless greenskins are like roaches. You can't kill 'em all." He stepped into the firing position, raised his binoculars, and squinted through them for a moment. Then he roared, "See that big greenskin on the knoll wrapped in shrapnel? Blow him to smithereens, no matter the cost! Send him to see Gruumsh!" "Sir, yes, sir!" The imperial gunners swiftly calculated the angles and parameters, expertly sighting in on Jushan's position, ready to launch a precision bombardment. "Fire!" Boom—! At the ogre commander's command, dozens of heavy artillery pieces opened fire in unison with howling roars, belching shells from their muzzles. Tearing through the sky, the shells formed a dense canopy overhead, raining down toward the orcs as if guided by sight. "Huu... huu..." Jushan looked up and tightened his grip on his warhammer. His breathing grew heavy and rapid, yet the expression on his rugged face only burned with wild excitement and frenzy. Licking his protruding tusks, the orc suddenly burst out laughing. "All of 'em are headin' right for me! They... they wanna kill me! "Hahahaha! Bring it on! "Let's see what you lot got besides tossin' these explodin' iron shells! If you can actually kill me, I'll call it a proper trick!" Facing the shells raining down from the heavens, Jushan showed no hint of fear. Instead, he hoisted his warhammer high and leapt straight up toward the incoming shells, jets of flame blasting from beneath his scrap armor. "Waaaagh!" Boom! Boom! Boom! Explosions ruptured the sky in rapid succession. Disrupted by the force field, many shells detonated prematurely in midair or turned into total duds. The orc hurled the warhammer welded from artillery wreckage with all his might. From the crooked seams behind its hammerhead, a brilliant plume of flame flared out—defying both science and magic—granting it tremendous thrust. Bang! Leaving his grip, the hammer tore through the air and smashed laterally through several shells before boomeranging right back into Jushan's grasp. Immediately after, several lumpy iron balls shot from a battered mechanism on his shoulder, streaking toward the remaining shells in the sky and blowing them apart. Confronted with the final shells, Jushan roared once more, swinging his hammer in a vicious strike. Boom! Another massive fireball blossomed in the sky, while the orc warrior in crude armor crashed heavily back to the ground. Aside from scorched soot marks, he was virtually unscathed. "Jushan! Jushan! Brutal Jushan, the Jushan who makes the Cinder Empire shake!" "WAAAAGH!!!" The orcs chanted his name in fanatical fervor, whipped into an ever-wilder frenzy. And amidst that roaring tsunami of voices, Jushan's force field surged with even greater power. The fungal hyphae released by Moke linked them all together, allowing these orcs to generate a reality-bending power born of pure belief. Witnessing this spectacle, even the Empire's observers found it utterly unbelievable. Staring at the magical projection showing weaponry and armor that looked like a joke—barely worthy of being called "toys"—they muttered in disbelief, "How is this possible? By every law of nature, that thing shouldn't work at all! "Cassius above... dammit, that's just a bloody pile of scrap from disassembled artillery shells!!" The researchers were pulling their hair out in sheer frustration, clutching at their already thinning locks as they cursed viciously at the crudely equipped orcs. "WAAAGH!!!" "Loot 'em clean!" Rallied by Jushan, the orcs' offensive surged with renewed ferocity. Shouldering the scrap metal they had scavenged, they charged once more toward the Empire's defensive lines. Facing the shells plummeting from above, the orcs could now protect themselves with their homemade scrap armor and disrupt the incoming rounds with their collective force field. Orcs were still blown into gory pulp and shredded to pieces, but more rushed in to fill the gaps, howling as they flooded toward the distant fortresses. This time, weathering the dense artillery fire, the orcs finally breached to within a few hundred meters of the Cinder Empire's perimeter, drawing near the fortress lines. There, imperial combat engineers had long since established extensive fortifications. Deep trenches snaked across the landscape like giant serpents, stretching for miles. Over a hundred pillboxes of varying sizes stood in mutual support, creating interlocking fields of fire. Each bunker housed several light and heavy machine guns alongside a dozen or so soldiers, serving as lethal strongpoints. The instant the orcs crossed into the defensive sector, General Dror's furious voice echoed through the fortifications: "Fire! Open fire! Don't let them take a single step closer to the City of Wyverns!" In an instant, blazing muzzle flashes erupted from row upon row of barrels. Over a thousand machine guns requisitioned from across the front opened fire simultaneously in a spectacular show of force. "For the Empire!" "For His Majesty Cassius!" "Great Cassius above, the City of Wyverns stands with us! These green-skinned vermin won't take half a step into our lines!" The imperial soldiers inside the bunkers shouted fanatical battle cries. As dragonblooded creatures, their momentum and ferocious spirit were not the least bit inferior to the green-skinned orcs. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—! Heavy machine gun rounds poured from the barrels, raining down into the ranks of the orcs. The foremost orcs took the brunt of the fire, suffering the worst of it. Blossoms of blood burst across their chests, bellies, and skulls before they toppled stiffly to the ground. The Cinder Empire cared nothing for humanitarian concerns. Every bullet tore through flesh to churn the enemy's body into ragged pulp, engineered to maximize lethal trauma. Even orcs, with their tenacious vitality, could barely endure it. "Imperials, I'm gonna bash you into meat patties!" Jushan hoisted a massive iron shield fused from shrapnel and held it before him, charging forward like an armored vehicle. "Jushan! Brutal Jushan!" "Follow him and charge! Ignore the tiny iron bits! Just smash the soldiers hidin' in those holes and we win!" Immediately, rallying behind Jushan, thousands of orcs surged in his wake in a furious charge. "Die!" "Green-skinned vermin! Eat lead!" Under the sweeping fire of over a thousand heavy machine guns, the green-skinned orcs fell in swaths like wheat before a scythe. Even the armored orcs could hardly withstand the armor-piercing kinetic force. "Keep up with me! "The hell? Where'd everyone go?" Jushan was charging with fierce enthusiasm when he realized the noise behind him had died down. He looked back in confusion, only to see that his boyz had been riddled into sieves. They lay on the ground, gasping their last breaths, bodies riddled with bloody holes. Meanwhile, the Empire's artillery bombardment never slackened. The orcs faced butchery from both sky and ground. For all their vast numbers, advancing even half a step proved agonizingly difficult. "Kill him!" "That's the one! He's their chieftain!" The imperial soldiers inside the bunkers spotted Jushan, the ringleader, and swiveled their barrels to focus their fire, aiming to bring down this commander. Bang! Within seconds, Jushan's massive iron shield was shredded into a perforated wreck, and a burst of bullets punched straight through the plate into his muscular frame. "Aaargh!" Jushan cried out in agony. The moment the rounds tore through his flesh and ruptured within, the orc felt as if a massive chunk had been gouged straight out of his shoulder. Yet, altered by the spores, Jushan's flesh was remarkably tough and possessed astonishing regenerative power. Fungal hyphae gathered from the air, quickly weaving together to knit the bloody crater shut. "You... you dare hurt me?! I'm Jushan!" Furious rage swiftly eclipsed the pain, driving the orc into a blinding fury. His eyes turned crimson as he lost all reason, degenerating entirely into a beast of war. "Waaaaagh!!" Casting the mangled shield aside with a bellow, he charged straight at the bunker ahead, his armored, hulking frame resembling a mobile fortress. "Gonna kill you all!" Bullets repeatedly slammed into Jushan. Mists of blood rose upward, and bloody holes erupted across his frame until his body was riddled like a sieve. Yet under the power of the spore network, the ambient hyphae became an extension of his own body, continuously repairing and filling in his flesh. Under the disruption of his force field, many rounds were knocked off their trajectories, curving harmlessly past the orc. "Keep up with Brutal Jushan!" "He's the Big Boss! Stick with 'im and we'll slaughter every last Imperial!" The orcs roared, rallying once more around Jushan like a surging deluge and pouring toward the bunker line. The officer in charge of that defensive sector was none other than George. By now, he had risen to the rank of Dragonblood Count and Army Colonel in the Empire. Commanding an entire defensive sector with over three thousand imperial soldiers under his banner, he had earned a place among the Empire's senior officers. Watching the orcs charge madly in the distance, George remained composed. He picked up his communicator and said, "That peculiar orc is charging directly at Sector Five under my command. My soldiers are holding him off with everything they've got. "However, that strange force field is causing our weapons to malfunction. We require artillery and wyvern fire support." Upon receiving an affirmative reply, George set down the communicator, drew the pistol at his hip, wiped it clean, and unsheathed his officer's longsword, gripping it firmly in his hand. George looked back toward the menacing, ferocious orc horde in the distance—especially that hulking chieftain at their head—and a glimmer of anticipation surfaced in his golden eyes. He took a deep breath, savoring the scent of gunpowder smoke. It did not feel acrid to him at all; instead, it brought an odd sense of comfort and familiarity. "So this is the smell of the battlefield..." George murmured with a sigh. War was ever thus: opportunity and danger walked hand in hand. And in George's eyes, this war—fought beneath the watchful gaze of the Emperor—was unmistakably a magnificent opportunity. With that, he strode out of the bunker and made for the front lines.