Inside Ilneval Valley, newly born green-skinned orcs were greedily devouring the surrounding soil, vegetation, and even rocks, turning everything into nutrients for their own growth.
Suddenly, an ear-splitting screech rang out. Some orcs looked up in astonishment, only to see a blurry black dot appear in the sky.
"What's dat?"
"Me don't know either. Looks like a big black bird egg."
"Can ya eat it?"
"Nah, dat fing looks like it's made o' iron. Got lights on it, too. Prolly could make an iron club outta it."
Having spotted something they had never seen before, the newborn green-skinned orcs raised their heads in curiosity, jabbering in a chaotic clamor that turned the valley into a noisy ruckus.
Little did they know that this was the gift Cassius and the imperial military engineers had prepared for them—a magical fission bomb.
Inside the pitch-black metal casing were two dragon spit beads personally crafted by the red dragon, each capable of instantly detonating with the explosive power of a ninth-tier spell, inscribed with Contingency spell matrices.
Enriched plutonium, jointly extracted by monks of the Primordial Return Order and the empire's archmages, served as the nuclear charge.
When the two dragon spit beads detonated simultaneously, they would generate a massive implosion wave, compressing the outer payload toward the center until its density exceeded criticality.
Immediately following, the nuclear material would release immense energy and a barrage of neutrons, triggering a chain reaction that unleashed energy equivalent to tens of thousands of tons of TNT within a few hundredths of a second—a nuclear fission explosion.
This was currently the Cinder Empire's most advanced weapon of mass destruction, a crystallization of technology and magic. It incorporated multiple nested, high-tier spell arrays of seventh tier and above, costing nearly a hundred thousand gold coins to produce.
Its first test had been conducted in the uninhabited wastes of the Vahara Glacier. Rumor had it that after that earth-shattering blast, everything within dozens of li had been reduced to a scorched wasteland choked with thick smoke and toxic fire.
However, it was not called an atomic bomb; instead, the head of the imperial military engineering department had named it the "Dragon's Wrath Bomb"—symbolizing the fury of the Cinder Emperor.
Yet the newborn green-skinned orcs knew nothing of this, still gazing skyward and babbling about the strange, giant black egg.
"Don't let it fall!"
"Stop it!"
Solo looked exceedingly furious. His roar reverberated through the spore network into the minds of every green-skinned orc, and the chaotic force field grew violently intense.
"Wot's goin' on? Did me hear the boss's voice?"
"Wot is dat fing anyway?"
Amid the noisy chatter, the green-skinned orcs were still utterly baffled, completely oblivious to the apocalyptic catastrophe looming overhead.
Meanwhile, the black iron sphere in the sky drew closer and closer, its screeching wail growing so shrill it threatened to rupture the orcs' eardrums.
Less than a hundred meters above the ground, the two dragon spit beads were triggered, producing a colossal implosion wave.
The magical fission bomb detonated!
The wrath of the Cinder Emperor descended upon the world!
At first, the heavens and earth fell dead silent. Yet beneath this silence brewed a horrific cataclysm, like the fleeting calm before a tempest.
Instantly, a blindingly brilliant flash of light burst across the sky, stretching from horizon to horizon and eclipsing the brilliance of the sun.
"Me eyes! Me goin' blind!"
"So bright!"
"Gruumsh above!"
The green-skinned orcs clutched their eyes and scrambled toward shadowy hollows. Since their birth, they had never seen light so searing; dark scorch marks broke out across their skin.
Immediately afterward, the flash released horrifying heat, heating the surrounding air to millions of degrees Celsius in an instant.
The extreme thermal radiation was enough to ignite every combustible substance in a split second, churning up blistering flames. A colossal fireball coalesced at ground zero, expanding at breakneck speed in a blended glare of white, orange, and red.
In this multi-million-degree inferno, all surrounding matter proved utterly fragile, vaporizing in an instant.
"Divine punishment... this is nothing short of divine wrath! Could the god behind the Cinder Empire be the Sun God?" Moke's face was filled with utter disbelief.
"No! My gift!" Solo roared frantically, hurling his spear toward the bomb—but it was already far too late.
Within an instant, the green-skinned orcs within the fireball's radius were destroyed, melted, and vaporized before they could even utter a wail. Not a trace of ash remained.
The water molecules in their bodies were ionized, and their muscles and bones carbonized in a flash. The entire process of their bodies "vanishing into thin air" took less than a tenth of a second.
Then, the shockwave generated by the blast surged outward, tearing across the heavens and earth and churning up vast clouds of dust and smoke.
*BOOM—*
The earth roared, the sky bellowed, and the entire world trembled before this magnificent explosion!
In an instant, the blazing, high-pressure, lightning-fast shockwave flattened everything within kilometers.
*Boom!* Peaks shattered and the valley caved in. The broad Bindler River boiled violently, billowing vast plumes of white vapor as its waters were evaporated dry, presenting a sheer apocalyptic tableau.
Heaven fell and earth shattered!
The colossal blast sent tremors violently shaking the ground, tearing open countless fissures. Rubble and trees were hurled into the air, and the atmosphere filled with dust and burning debris, reducing visibility to a haze.
*Rumble!* Another tremendous roar sounded as countless boulders fractured and disintegrated under the searing heat, collapsing like a tidal deluge to bury Ilneval Valley for good!
The gases, dust, and smoke rapidly surged upward, bearing titanic energy as they expanded toward the heavens, forming a colossal mushroom cloud that soared into the sky!
Its base burned deep orange, shifting to an ash-gray white as it gained altitude. The cap of the mushroom cloud reached an altitude of more than a dozen li into the sky, spanning heaven and earth in spectacular grandeur.
Beyond the light and fire, thermal radiation swept through a radius of hundreds of kilometers, sending temperatures soaring. Trees, wild grass, beast pelts, and all manner of combustibles ignited rapidly, filling the air with dancing sparks.
The earth looked like the surface of a pond struck by a gargantuan boulder, sending out blazing ripples that scoured everything across a hundred li.
A single stone stirring up a thousand waves!
"Run!"
"Me don't wanna die!"
The orcs fled desperately toward the perimeter, shoving and jostling one another as they scrambled into the river.
Yet the waters quickly boiled, scalding to death the orcs that plunged inside. In the span of a single breath, even the outer river dried up, its bed scorched black and piled with unrecognizable charred remnants of green-skinned orcs.
Under the baptism of the superheated shockwave, the yet-unborn orcs deep underground were also burned clean away, reduced to mere dirt.
In the sky, burning debris rained down like hail, visiting death and devastation upon the earth.
"No, no, I have not finished the Mother Goddess's task..." Moke raised his staff and rasped in a ragged roar. Rare expressions of rage, despair, and panic broke through his gloomy visage.
He thrust the staff high, and countless spore hyphae swarmed from every direction, wrapping tightly around his body to weave a thick, massive cocoon over twenty meters tall, sealing Moke inside.
Yet before the scorching gale and rolling smoke sweeping the earth, it was nothing more than an insignificant speck of dust.
*BOOM—*
Violent thermal energy surged forward like a roaring tsunami. Moke's giant cocoon lasted barely a second before bursting into flames, turning into a blackened fireball.
From within that fireball came Moke's venomous, agonizing shriek: "No! How could it be the Sun God?! How could He still be awake?!"
Soon, the orc shaman caught fire in the wave of heat, all moisture baked from his flesh until he was reduced to a blackened humanoid lump of charcoal.
Even in death, the orc believed this was divine retribution from the Sun God, refusing to believe this godly wrath had been wrought by mere Imperials—the power was simply too horrifying, rivaling the cataclysms of ancient divine wars.
Solo knelt on the ground, his eyes clamped shut. The flesh across his body steadily incinerated and dried out, billowing wisps of white smoke. Yet the resilient vitality of a legendary creature allowed him to cling to life, barely enduring in the thermal storm without dying instantly.
The last orc chieftain trembled from head to toe, his voice quivering: "H-how can this be? I was supposed to be the savior of the orcs! How could this happen?!"
Kneeling on the red-hot, scorching earth, he abruptly snapped his head back in prayer, his face twisted in madness: "Mighty, majestic All-Father Gruumsh! Those damned Imperials have destroyed everything we had! I curse them! I beseech you—"
*CRACK!*
A streak of crimson lightning abruptly flashed across the sky, tearing through the suffocating smoke to strike Solo directly.
When the orc opened his eyes again, his left eye was dull and dead, while his right flared with a turbid, frenzied light. Hideous, bizarre totemic patterns etched themselves across his skin.
Standing unmoved amidst the horrific heatwave, "Solo" slowly opened his mouth, his voice laced with irrepressible fury.
"Cassius..."
"You will pay for this..."
...
"Full throttle! Climb, climb!"
"Move it! We have to get out of the blast radius right now, or we're all done for!"
Shrill engine screams cut through the air, yet set against the deafening detonation below, they sounded utterly insignificant.
Silhouettes trailing blazing plumes of flame streaked across the firmament, breaking through the dense smoke of the explosion as they climbed vertically, quickly reaching an altitude of more than a dozen li above the ground.
They were the Cinder Empire's aviation corps—the true culprits behind the cataclysm.
Staring at the mushroom cloud billowing from the earth below, Mantou was dumbfounded, muttering with lingering dread, "L-lucky we were fast, or I'd have ended up burnt to a crisp again."
At this moment, playing quite fittingly through Mantou's headset was an explosive, impassioned track—*aLIEz*.
"Holy sh*t, a nuke!"
"Damn it all, we were almost wiped out!"
"Who knew that thing packed such a punch? There wasn't even a special warning label on it—I thought it was just a thermobaric bomb!"
"If we got hit by the radiation, would we mutate? Like growing three eyes and four legs? Sounds kinda cool."
"Why don't you go drink some nuclear wastewater and find out for yourself?"
Singo clicked his tongue in marvel. "A magical fission weapon. It's Curtis's handiwork after all, that lunatic. To think they actually pulled off something like this—talk about ancestral instincts kicking in."
"A nuclear weapon?"
Mantou was shaken. He had thought he was playing a sword-and-sorcery fantasy adventure game, but now... why was the tone drifting so wildly off course?
Muskets and cannons were one thing, but how had they even cooked up nuclear weapons? The Machine Cult was truly unhinged!
Singo leaned in with an air of mystery. "That's not all. Rumor has it they've even developed a spatial collapse bomb capable of destroying small demiplanes. It's just not very stable yet."
Mantou broke out in a cold sweat, secretly swearing never to mess with these explosives maniacs—especially Bishop Curtis, who looked so gentle and refined on the surface.
Another wyvern knight asked, "After taking a hit from that thing, there shouldn't be anything alive within a dozen or so li, right? Is our mission over?"
"Hard to say. I haven't received a mission completion notification yet. We'd better stay alert." Singo gazed down at the earth.
The mushroom cloud had yet to dissipate, and the ground remained cloaked in dense smoke as the superheated, high-pressure shockwave continued to ripple outward.
Even Singo, Mantou, and the others, who had long escaped the blast radius, could feel gusts of heat washing against their faces.
Mantou chuckled. "We just bombed orcs, not Saiyans. You really think they can tank a nuclear blast with their bare flesh?"
Singo shook his head. "Not necessarily. Powerhouses at or above the legendary tier in Elege are terrifying beyond our current understanding. Even a nuclear weapon might not guarantee their deaths."
He turned to glance at Mantou flying alongside him before adding, "Like that orc warrior who skewered you like a candied hawthorn from hundreds of meters away."
"Damn it..."
At those words, Mantou was instantly plunged into deep depression. He fell silent, nursing the phantom pain of all that lost EXP.
The wyvern knights circled high in the sky, carefully observing the aftermath of the blast.
"Ilneval Valley has collapsed and is buried under lava. No surviving orcs detected so far."
"The Bindler River has dried up."
"The orc temple on the mountainside is reduced to rubble. No survivors spotted there either; the orcs inside must all be dead."
As the wyvern knights conferred, static hissed through their headsets before connection with command was restored.
Curtis's voice came through once more: "What a splendid display of fireworks. I wonder if you are all satisfied with the 'little surprise' prepared for you? Heh heh... the name of that magical fission bomb happens to be 'Fat Boy.'"
Hearing this, the wyvern knights remained silent, but in their hearts, they cursed in unison: *Lunatic!*
"Wait—"
Curtis's voice suddenly cut off, and his tone turned deadly serious. "We have detected an extraordinarily powerful energy signature, far exceeding our instruments' upper limits. There is a legendary—no, a beyond-legendary entity near you! It is very likely the avatar of a deity!!"
*BOOM!*
A tempest howled as a pillar of blood-red light surged skyward, tearing right through the dense smoke blanketing the earth.
The squad looked over in alarm. There, clad in scarred, pitch-black full plate armor, stood an enormous orc bearing a single eye in the center of his forehead. Clutching a blood spear, he glared up at the sky, exuding an overwhelming aura of terrifying pressure.
Even gazing at that abyss-like single eye from tens of thousands of meters away, their souls shuddered and their bodies trembled, nearly sending them tumbling from the sky.
"Cassius—"
The orc roared in blind fury, his shout shaking the very earth.
Chapter 675