Gruumsh!

An ancient, desolate war chant resounded across the scarred and battered land, and the presence of the one-eyed orc grew ever more terrifying. The moment He appeared, a horrific, chaotic spherical force field erupted outward with Him at its center, spanning several kilometers and snuffing out the nuclear explosion's searing thermal shockwave. Toxic black rock seeped from fissures in the stone, and geysers of venomous fluid erupted from the earth—the ominous herald of a descending deity. The wyvern knights circling in the sky could hold on no longer. Falling unconscious one after another, they plummeted straight down from thousands of meters above. Yet the orc paid them no heed. His gaze looked right past the wyvern knights, as though fixing upon the colossal silhouette lurking far behind them. "Arrogant red dragon! Your pitiful empire shall fall, for you have provoked a true god! "From this day forth, you are the sworn enemy of countless orcs across the multiverse! We shall wage endless war upon you! I will raze your home, ravage your lands, and slaughter every last one of your people!" The one-eyed orc’s voice boomed like thunder across the wilderness, grander and more ferocious than the blast that had preceded it. It resonated with an awe-inspiring might—a divine vow, the sacred oath of a racial deity against His mortal foe. In an instant, from the 1st layer of the Abyss to the 666th, from Avernus to Nessus, from Arborea to Pandemonium... Across the magnificent, sprawling multiverse, whether orcs were locked in battle, fleeing in terror, or slaughtering civilians, a single command surfaced in the minds of nearly every orc alive. —The Cinder Empire is your enemy, in an unending war to the death! Cassius Claubau Norixius is your foe! In a remote corner of Arborea, an extraplanar trade caravan from the Cinder Empire was doing business with an unknown orc tribe. They were trading pots and pans for metal ore and orc slaves, and the negotiations had been proceeding quite amicably. Yet right then, the expressions of the orcs twisted into vicious snarls. Their gazes turned toward the merchants, burning with hatred and murderous intent, as if staring at their born enemies. "You're imperial scum!" "To the death!" "By the All-Father's will!" The orcs roared and bellowed, brandishing their spears and battleaxes as they scrambled to charge the imperial caravan. "These orcs have gone mad! Kill them!" Amid alarmed commands, the caravan guards raised their firearms and took aim with practiced ease. Gunfire and dying howls echoed through the valley as acrid gunpowder smoke choked the air. Similar scenes played out across planes wherever imperial subjects were present. At that very moment, hundreds of clashes erupted simultaneously. On some planes, the imperials used their advanced weaponry to massacre the orcs; on others, the orcs relied on their brute strength and overwhelming numbers to tear unprepared imperials to shreds. Much like an orc's innate hatred for elves and dwarves, this command instilled in every orc an instinctive loathing for the Cinder Empire—even if, hailing from other worlds, they had never seen an imperial citizen in their entire lives. Their children and grandchildren would be born with an inherent hatred for the empire, overcome with the urge to kick even an imperial dog if one crossed their path. As the old proverb went: Love what God loves, hate what God hates. Such was the supreme authority of a race's chief deity! With a single command, a single glare, or even a fleeting thought, He could turn an entire species against a single foe! Only the orcs and half-orcs living within the empire's borders managed to shield themselves from the divine decree and cling to their sanity. Even so, their orcish nature constantly tempted them with uncontrollable urges to shatter order and destroy themselves. Given enough time, they too might succumb, becoming sworn enemies and rabid haters of the empire. For a mere few words to exert such a cataclysmic influence across the cosmos, the identity of that one-eyed orc was self-evident— He was the mighty Watcher, He-Who-Never-Sleeps, the One-Eyed God, and the undisputed leader of the orc pantheon—Gruumsh, the chief god of the orcs! Now, after the nuclear bombing of Ilneval Valley had nearly wiped out the green-skinned orcs, and answering Solo's final, desperate plea, the chief god of the orcs had finally manifested as an avatar, walking upon the mortal earth! Gruumsh surveyed His surroundings. Across the scorched plain lay the scattered remains of the orcs, most of them carbonized into blackened skeletons. Though He already knew everything through His divine omniscience, a fury He could not suppress flared in the eyes of the orc god at the sight of such slaughter. The "Chaos Orcs" He had created to conquer the Material Plane—at the cost of bitter sacrifices and an alliance with the Abyss—had been wiped out by the Cinder Empire! Almost none remained! How dared they! How dared that red dragon do this? It was an open declaration of war against the entire orc race! Months ago, He had taken special note of the red dragon, admiring and approving of the beast's slaughter of the shield dwarves and repulse of Dumathoin's avatar. He had even sought an alliance with the Cinder Empire. Yet Gruumsh had never imagined the red dragon could be arrogant to such an extent! The dragon had not hesitated to offend both sides just to greedily swallow that city whole! Over the long ages, Gruumsh had seen far too many dragons who possessed immense power yet scorned the gods. They almost always perished in their own madness—and He was certain Cassius Claubau Norixius would be the next. As Gruumsh's rage flared, a crimson gale swept over the land. Stretching for dozens of miles around Him, it surged like ocean waves, drenched in chaotic, violent, and evil power. Merely catching sight of that crimson glow from afar was enough to strike mortals with boundless terror; those swept up in it passed out, while weak-willed hares and marmots dropped dead from fright. Anyone at the epicenter of His domain, staring directly into the avatar's eye, would tremble so violently that even a legendary monk of iron resolve would fall to their knees under the crushing pressure. As for ordinary mortals? Before they could even draw near, the divine aura of chaos, evil, malice, and war would ravage their minds, driving them insane on the spot or popping their heads like overripe fruit. Gruumsh's brow furrowed in bitter anger as He looked upon the orc remains. He raised His spear, pointing its bloodstained tip toward the sky. Opening His mouth, He spat out an ancient, harsh, and venomous incantation in the Orc tongue from deep in His throat: "No orc shall ever die until their foes are slain." Before the words faded, lost souls lingering in the air swooped down, seeking out their former vessels. Under the orc god's spell, a dark, eerie mist rose from nowhere and blanketed the earth. The surviving orc spores gathered together, gradually revitalizing the butchered remains. Even so, the orcs who had stood at ground zero could not be brought back. They had been completely vaporized by the terrifying blast, reduced to molecules in the air without leaving a scrap behind. Even with Gruumsh's personal intervention, fewer than twenty percent of the orcs were restored, numbering barely over a hundred thousand in total. "All-Father..." "Curse those imperials..." "Me'll kill 'em, me'll kill 'em..." Amid vengeful, venomous murmurs, tens of thousands of orcs picked up their weapons and slowly hauled themselves up from the ground, their bodies covered in jagged, blackened burn scars. These orcs had already died in that horrific detonation, yet under Gruumsh's divine might, they had risen from the dead! Within the orc god's domain, they even grew taller, stronger, and more fearless than they had been in life! Gruumsh pointed His blood spear straight to the south. "My warriors, arise! March to claim vengeance against the Cinder Empire! Slaughter every last one of their people!" Instantly, the wasteland erupted into a frenzy once more. The resurrected orcs cheered and roared with fanatical fervor, surging toward the south like a mad tide. *Boom!* Gripping His spear, Gruumsh took a single stride that carried Him tens of thousands of meters. The surrounding space shattered and warped, and the crimson domain flashed forward in sync with His steps—a walking natural disaster. In merely a few strides, He led the resurrected orc army across hundreds of miles, arriving north of the Blackstone Mountains to stand once more upon the cratered, corpse-strewn battlefield. A dozen miles away in Evindeldan—the City of Wyverns—imperial officers and soldiers looked upon the encroaching, sky-blotting crimson domain with growing panic. "Look!" "Wh-what is that?" "Orcs... How is that possible?! We practically wiped them out! How can there still be so many?!" "Damn it! That pressure... It feels almost like His Majesty Cassius is standing before us! Wh-who the hell is that?" Under Gruumsh's divine pressure, even the most loyal and valiant imperial soldiers could not stop their legs from shaking and their hearts from trembling. It was an instinctual, primal fear of an absolute sovereign. Atop the watchtower, a sharp *clatter* rang out as the spyglass slipped from Dror's hands, its crystal lens shattering on the stone floor. The hobgoblin general collapsed, trembling violently. Streams of blood leaked from his tightly shut eyes as terror, anger, and hatred twisted his face. The instant he caught sight of the one-eyed orc in the distance, overwhelming dread and malice surged through Dror's heart, as though a sharp awl had been driven into his eyes. The orc and goblin pantheons had waged war for tens of thousands of years; terror and hatred of Gruumsh were etched into the very marrow of every goblinoid soul. A towering physique, pitch-black armor, a bloodstained spear, and that unmistakable, singular eye. In a split second, Dror identified the orc and was instantly seized by frantic urgency. Hearing the disturbance inside the watchtower, the hobgoblin guards stationed outside rushed in with their rifles ready, asking anxiously, "General Dror, what happened?" Dror wiped away the blood trailing from the corners of his eyes and forced himself calm. "Go! Find Lady Misha! Tell her to contact His Majesty immediately! You must tell her—the god of the orcs has descended upon the mortal realm!" "Yes, General!" The hobgoblin guards gasped in shock, their hearts churning like stormy seas. Acknowledging the command, they sprinted toward Misha's quarters like the wind. By this point, Misha had already sensed the deity's arrival. Her golden eyes were brimming with dread, and she had long begun praying to her master, the Emperor of the Cinder Empire—Cassius. Clasping her hands and closing her eyes, she whispered, "Master of the Cinder Empire, Lord of Thunder and Flame, my supreme sovereign..." Unlike Dumathoin, who leaned toward a neutral alignment and maintained his own bottom line, Gruumsh was a chaotic evil entity akin to an abyssal demon, acting without regard for consequences. Faced with the empire's slaughter of His orcs, such an evil god would stop at nothing to demand an eye for an eye and blood for blood! Moreover, Gruumsh was a greater deity. A being of such stature, even suppressed by the Material Plane and walking as an avatar, could effortlessly level an entire city with a wave of His hand! If Emperor Cassius did not intervene in person, the City of Wyverns would inevitably fall, and the imperial garrison stationed here would be annihilated! Misha's deduction was entirely correct—Gruumsh intended to obliterate this city completely to display His supreme might. In the past, Gruumsh would never have dared to act so brazenly. It would have drained His divine power and provoked severe backlash from the Material Plane. Now, however, the world was in turmoil and plagued by unending disasters. Fissures had even torn open across the planar membranes; this was an era of unprecedented chaos and epochal transition! It was the prime opportunity for a deity who thrived on war like Gruumsh to rise! Meanwhile, the deities of the elven and dwarven pantheons were largely pinned down by His abyssal allies. At last, He could destroy Evindeldan, shatter the natural barrier of the Blackstone Mountains, and leave nothing to stop the orcs from sweeping south! Gruumsh reached out and drew a massive iron torch from the void, raising it high overhead. With a sharp crack of displaced air, the torch burst into wild flames, blazing in an intertwined fury of red, black, and green. His spear was stained with the blood of elves, and the eternal flame of the torch reflected within His solitary eye. "Foolish imperials! You bow to a laughable reptile, blind to the true god you have provoked. "And that shall bring you nothing but—ruin!" Gruumsh's expression turned grim as His muscles bulged and veins corded across His flesh. He hurled the blood spear with all His might! Its tip passed through the torch flame, rocketing skyward enveloped in endless fire! *Rrrrip!—* The blood spear pierced the air and tore open the heavens, rocketing tens of thousands of meters upward. The divine power of the orc god caused it to swell and lengthen, expanding in the blink of an eye into a hundred-meter-long colossal lance. The titanic spear plummeted from the sky, trailing a crimson hurricane and furious fire, its divine pressure weighing down like a collapsing mountain. Even before the giant spear struck the City of Wyverns, buildings throughout the districts began collapsing in heaps. Hundreds of imperial soldiers died where they stood, and wyvern after wyvern shrieked in agony as they crashed to the ground. Spellcasters in the city attempted to flee, only to discover in horror that the space within a hundred miles had turned into a chaotic tempest under the divine aura—like an ocean in a violent storm, where the slightest misstep would tear a traveler to pieces. The imperial officers and soldiers in the city looked up at the sky, their faces pale with terror and despair. Such power was far beyond anything they could hope to withstand. "Cassius above..." "No! Is this the power of the orc god? Are we... are we going to die here?" "Everyone, do not panic! His Majesty will come! He will defeat this orc deity!" Some panicked, while others waited for death in despair. Yet many more firmly believed that their Emperor would save them, and they threw everything they had into trying to save themselves. "Quick! On my command! Activate the third-tier protective force field!" "Activate the formations within the city walls! Raise the Wall of Greater Dispel Magic!" "Deploy Prismatic Wall!" "All imperial mages present—join me in constructing Greater Otiluke's Dispelling Screen!" In the eyes of the imperial citizens, the fire-trailing spear loomed larger and larger, threatening to pierce heaven and earth alike and reduce the city to rubble. The spell shields and barriers in the sky were utterly helpless before that divine might, torn and punctured with effortless ease. Layer after layer of defenses shattered, and the despair in everyone's eyes deepened. *ROAAAR—!* Right then, an earth-shattering dragon roar echoed between heaven and earth. The space above the city tore open, and from the planar rift surged torrential fire—along with a colossal dragon claw. In an instant, a fanatical, hope-filled light blazed in the eyes of the people below.