An imperial soldier gathered his courage and stepped forward. Placing a hand before an orc's snout, he cried out in disbelief, "By Cassius above, they aren't breathing!"
"What... these orcs are all dead?"
"As expected of His Majesty! With a mere gesture, tens of thousands of orcs have perished!"
The surrounding imperial soldiers erupted into a commotion. They were stunned by the effortless demise of these beasts, and equally awestruck by Cassius's godlike might.
This was an orc army tens of thousands strong! These creatures were robust, savage, and utterly fearless of death; even the empire's elite would have required considerable time and effort to crush them.
Yet before the Cinder Emperor, they were like ants trampled underfoot, snuffed out silently without mounting the slightest resistance.
A paladin from the Dragon Oath Sanctuary seized the opportunity to preach: "Such is the divine might of His Majesty Cassius! Anyone who dares offend or desecrate him will face the ultimate punishment—death! Praise His Majesty Cassius! Praise the Great Red Dragon!"
The Dragon Oath Paladin raised his flaming greatsword high, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Praise His Majesty Cassius!"
"Praise the Great Red Dragon!"
In an instant, the imperial populace knelt toward the red dragon, their expressions fervent and devout, their voices soaring straight into the clouds.
Even the players stood dumbfounded, wearing expressions of varied shock.
One player stared with fiery, envious eyes. "Holy crap, what kind of AoE skill did Brother Cassius just use? One burst of light and every single orc dropped dead!"
"Keep dreaming. That's definitely a boss-exclusive skill. The damn devs would never let us have it; they just want us to grind as cannon fodder."
"Isn't that spear a legendary artifact? Could I steal it? Wouldn't that make me completely invincible?"
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Never mind whether you even have the skill to steal it—even if you pulled it off, you'd be slapped with the high crime of desecrating the Emperor. The Imperial Guard's tieflings would camp your respawn point until you'd have to delete your character and restart."
Another player winced in visible agony, clearly an obsessive grinder. "Tens of thousands of orcs, wiped out just like that by an NPC cutscene... What a waste! What an absolute waste of EXP!"
Cassius slowly beat his wings, blood-red divine radiance swirling around his body as his talons gripped the crimson spear formed from the divine power he had seized from Gruumsh. He looked down upon the slaughtered orcs and the fanatic, worshipful imperial soldiers below.
As for the blathering players, he deliberately tuned them out.
In this state of wielding divine power, Cassius could feel the faith flowing from the soldiers with even greater clarity, watching delicate motes of light ascend from their bodies—that was pure faith.
War, strength, victory, territory, industry...
Their shared perception of Cassius coalesced, channeled through divinity and divine domains into divine power across various spheres, granting him unimaginable strength.
God of War, God of Strength, God of Empire and Territory, God of Industry and Machinery—this power of faith seemed to manifest as golden thrones, each representing the sovereign authority of a deity.
It was so alluring that an endless greed surfaced within Cassius's golden vertical pupils.
*Apotheosis... truly a temptation powerful enough to make anyone lose their reason. But now is not yet the time,* Cassius warned himself inwardly.
He knew the prerequisites for ascending to godhood were far from complete.
If he ascended without thorough preparation, he would meet the same doomed end as Karsus, the "God of a Moment," or the old emperor of Holy Faelan.
*The most urgent task right now is to eliminate the lingering perils left behind by the Lady of Fungi and the Orc God.*
With that thought, Cassius composed himself. He beat his wings fiercely, ascending nearly a hundred meters amidst countless devout and zealous gazes, his voice ringing out with imperial majesty.
"These orcs are the root of calamity. Chaotic, disorderly, and innately murderous, they have committed the grave crime of defying me and provoking the Empire! In the name of the Cinder Emperor, I sentence these orcs to absolute extinction!"
His voice was tremendously grand and solemn, like the verdict of a god or a bolt of earth-shattering thunder, rumbling across the scarred and battered wasteland.
"His Majesty Cassius!"
"Praise the Great Red Dragon!"
The imperial soldiers across the wasteland roared in jubilant celebration, exhilarated by their emperor's righteous retribution upon the orcs.
In the eyes of these imperial troops, any nation or race that dared provoke the Cinder Empire deserved nothing less than total extermination—not a single soul spared!
Cassius's proclamation was meant not only for the subjects of the Cinder Empire, but also as a stern warning to the lurkers watching from the shadows, cautioning them against offending the Empire.
When Gruumsh's avatar had descended, the resulting waves of divine power had drawn the attention of countless factions: emissaries from the Church of Amaunator, angels from the Seven Heavens, divination wizards from the City of Myriad Laws, devil lords from Baator, legendary rangers from the Harpers...
Countless powerhouses had been observing the clash in secret. Most of them had hoped Gruumsh's avatar and Cassius would slaughter each other, and if they fell just short of finishing each other off, they would not have minded intervening to deliver the final blow.
Yet the outcome had defied all expectations—the Cinder Emperor had actually joined forces with his former adversary, Dumathoin, dealing Gruumsh a devastating blow.
"That cursed dragon..."
"He may have spotted our hiding place. Move!"
"To think that red dragon possesses such power. We must report this to our master at once!"
Cassius cast a cold, detached gaze toward the figures concealed in the shadows. Employing various arts—tearing through space, casting teleportation spells, vanishing into thin air, or streaking away as beams of light—they disappeared completely within seconds.
"Hmph, a bunch of rats lurking in the gutters," Cassius scoffed. He had ways to wipe out these spies, but the time had not yet come to tear off all pretenses.
Under countless watching eyes, Cassius spread his wings and swept through the sky, casting a colossal shadow over the Ugo Steppe, a land smothered in smoke and war.
The crimson brilliance spread swiftly along with his flight, enveloping the earth beneath the red dragon.
The moment they were touched by the bloody light, those orcs hiding in the shadows—still secretly congratulating themselves on surviving the disaster—perished instantly.
In dark alcoves, the orcish fungus burst apart one after another, and the green-skinned orcs still gestating in the soil turned into puddles of rotten flesh.
Aside from the Red Blood Tribe that had submitted to Solo, many other tribes and clans had hidden in remote corners of the steppe, living self-sufficiently and keeping their distance from wider orc society.
In a secluded valley, an elderly orc trembled all over, his expression so ecstatic that his deep wrinkles squeezed together. "Th-this is the Father's aura! I was once a clan shaman; I could never mistake it! Quick, let us welcome our Father's arrival!"
"Long live the orcs!"
"The Father descends upon the world! Our race shall rise!" Brandishing their spears, the orcs of that tribe charged out of the valley.
Yet when they raised their heads, they were stunned to see an unimaginably colossal red dragon spreading his wings and soaring across the horizon.
The old orc who called himself a shaman staggered back several paces, muttering in dazed confusion, "How... how can this be? This is clearly our Father..."
*Swish—*
A wave of bloody light swept across the valley. More than a dozen orcs collapsed stiffly to the ground, their eyes vacant, blood trickling from the corners of their mouths.
Grasping the blood spear, Cassius showered the earth with the crimson brilliance that had once belonged to Gruumsh. Unlike the Orc God's blessing, however, Cassius's divine light bestowed no strength—only slaughter and death.
Like a reaper descending upon the mortal world, the red dragon wielded the crimson light as a scythe, reaping orc lives without restraint.
In just a few short days, Cassius flew across the entirety of the Ugo Steppe, eradicating every last orc—whether hiding in the shadows, buried beneath the earth, pure-blooded, or green-skinned.
Through absolute action, Cassius fulfilled his verdict, using the divine power claimed from the Orc God to drive the orcs of the Ugo Steppe into complete extinction, leaving not a single survivor.
He did not even need to worry about stragglers slipping through the cracks; as the chief deity of the orc pantheon, Gruumsh's power could effortlessly slay any orc in the multiverse beneath the legendary rank.
It was originally an authority Gruumsh used to demonstrate his supreme rule, yet now Cassius had turned it into an instrument to butcher the god's own children—a rather poetic irony.
Amidst a ripple of spatial disturbance, Trump appeared beside Cassius with a deferential smile. "Master, congratulations on vanquishing the Orc God, eliminating the orc menace, and incorporating the vast Ugo Steppe into the Empire's expanding dominion. Now, news of your triumph over a greater deity has spread across the multiverse; every living being who hears your name will be filled with awe and reverence..."
Cassius gave an amused chuckle. "Enough with the flattery. You should know well enough—that was merely an avatar, possessing less than one percent of the Orc God's true might."
"Yet it was Gruumsh all the same. Your power has already broken through the shackles of the Material Plane, rivaling that of true deities."
Sensing the red dragon's growing impatience, Trump quickly turned to business. "Perhaps because you provoked Gruumsh, the Empire's merchant caravans and expeditionary forces across various planes have suffered orc attacks to varying degrees. It seems... we have become a common enemy to all orcs across the multiverse, much like the elves and dwarves. As you once put it, this hatred has practically become a factory setting. Our experiments showed that even newborn orc infants bite at us frantically, having lost all basic reason."
Cassius remarked coldly, "From the moment I resolved to exterminate the orcs, I was prepared for this. In that case, go and issue an imperial decree: all citizens of the Empire are authorized to kill any orc on sight!"
Trump nodded vigorously. "Yes, Master."
Cassius continued his instructions: "As for the Ugo Steppe, it is vast and sparsely populated—ideal to serve as the Empire's newest pasture and hunting ground. Go relocate a portion of the lizardfolk and goblin clans here, and transfer part of the dragonbeast ranches from Storm Heights. We must rear at least five hundred land dragonbeasts here to supply northern Feanso with hides and meat."
"Master, I shall carry out this task with all my strength and never fail your trust."
As they spoke, Cassius flew dozens of li. Ahead, he could already see the fortress built against the mountainside: Evindeldan, the former dwarven capital, now known as the City of Wyverns.
*Roar—*
Inside the City of Wyverns, the wyverns raised their heads in thrilled roars, welcoming the return of their sovereign.
Cassius beat his wings, landing heavily atop the peak of Blackrock Mountain with a thunderous boom. He gazed north across the boundless expanse of the Ugo Steppe.
Spreading his wings, the red dragon declared word by word, "From this day forth, everything north of Blackrock Mountain belongs to the Cinder Empire."
***
Nishrek.
Inside an immense, grim iron fortress hundreds of meters tall, a burly, one-eyed orc sat upon a throne, radiating an aura of terrifying divine pressure.
Within his fortress were countless orc warriors, either laboring relentlessly or standing guard.
Outside his fortress lay countless vast battlefields where innumerable orcs from across various material planes slaughtered one another. The ultimate victors of this bloody spectacle would receive Gruumsh's favor and earn the right to enter the iron citadel.
At this moment, Gruumsh had no heart to watch the carnage. An uncontrollable fury erupted from his single eye as his right hand gripped his bloodstained spear tightly.
As if feeling the deity's wrath, the sky of the entire plane turned crimson. Dark clouds churned, thunder roared, and blood poured from the heavens like torrential rain.
"Cassius..."
Gruumsh spat the name through gritted teeth, as though eager to tear its bearer apart and swallow him whole.
Over the past several days, he had felt his faith from the Material Plane—more specifically, from the Ugo Steppe—grow increasingly faint, until now, when it vanished entirely.
That audacious red dragon had not only plundered his avatar, but had also slaughtered every one of his children on the Ugo Steppe, completely ruining Gruumsh's grand plan to trigger a savage tide of calamity.
How could he not be furious?
Under the deity's wrath, colossal, blood-red eyes manifested across the sky of Nishrek, driving every entity in the divine realm into sheer terror.
Suddenly, another orc appeared outside the iron fortress. He likewise radiated divine pressure, yet his body was battered with wounds and he panted heavily.
"Lord Gruumsh! Those cursed dwarves are still assaulting our territory! Caught off guard, our forces suffered catastrophic losses! The enemy has over thirty legends, twelve demigods, and an intermediate deity! As for their supernatural army, it is beyond count!"
Gruumsh narrowed his eye. "Which dwarven deity is it?"
The orc god stammered in haste, "Dumathoin! It is Dumathoin!"
"That bastard again!" Gruumsh rose furiously from his throne, hefted his bloodstained spear, and strode toward the gates of his divine realm. "I will make those dwarves pay!"
Corpses of dwarves and orcs drifted through the Astral void. Severed limbs and broken bodies floated everywhere, and splashes of golden divine blood formed a morbid asteroid belt of flesh and gore, turning hundreds of surrounding li into an expanse of brutal carnage.
Upon a floating island the size of a continent, countless dwarven and orcish warriors clashed violently, fighting for their races, their faith, and their living space. The titanic silhouettes of dwarven and orcish deities stood behind their hosts, facing each other from afar while unleashing boundless, crushing pressure.
This war between pantheons had raged intermittently for thousands of years, consuming hundreds of millions of dwarven and orcish faithful, with no end in sight to this eternal torment.
***
*"The green-skinned orcs were indeed the creations of an evil god's influence. Yet the downfall of the orc race stemmed not so much from their wild ambition to conquer the continent of Feanso, but rather from their growing ability to realize that ambition—an ambition that blocked the path of the Emperor.*
*History has proven that the founding of the Empire was like lighting a blazing fire. Everything standing in the way of the Emperor's conquest of the world either became firewood for this flame or was burned to cinders.*
*Such was the doom of the orcs, just as it was for the Mountain Kingdom before them."*
—From the Prison Notes of a Heretic Historian
Chapter 683