Ashen Dragon

"Wait..."

"Look quickly!"

"General Fearn, look, what's that in the sky?"

"Whoosh——"

Hearing the piercing screech, the dwarves all raised their heads. They saw dozens of pitch-black metallic ovoids streaking toward their direction.

"This is..."

Even the fearless General Fearn's pupils shrank sharply.

He recognized this weapon—these were the ones that had claimed the lives of countless dwarf comrades, destroyed their walls, and mercilessly ravaged the mountains and lands they held sacred...

With a series of muffled sounds far quieter than ordinary bomb explosions, the projectiles burst open. The ground was engulfed in clouds of white mist-like gas.

Fearn roared at the sky, "Imperial people! Are you bluffing? You think this will scare a dwarf warrior?"

The next moment, his pupils reflected a fierce blaze of fire.

"Boom——"

Before the dwarves on the ground could grasp what was happening, the earth suddenly trembled. The white clouds erupted with a deafening roar that shook the skies. Scorching fireballs rapidly expanded, engulfing a radius of hundreds of meters, greedily depleting all the air.

In just an instant, the dwarf prisoners tied to the pillars were devoured by the flames, reduced to charred fragments. Even the chains binding them melted and fused with their remains. Dwarves at the epicenter of the explosion were instantly vaporized.

General Fearn, still frozen in his defiant stance, had been reduced to an unrecognizable mixture of molten metal and biochar.

Not a single one of those dozen dwarves survived, not even leaving complete remains behind.

The high-pressure shockwave from the explosion swiftly spread to a radius of hundreds of meters, sweeping through the entire cavern—including the dwarves who had come to rescue their kin.

Not even the thick rock walls could withstand the high-heat, high-pressure aftermath of the blast. Under this devastating force, the dwarves contorted in agony, their screams echoing endlessly.

"Ahhhhh——"

"So hot! By Moradin—"

Within a single breath, the cavern's air was completely consumed, fueling the explosion's fireball.

Under the scorching onslaught of materials heated to thousands of degrees, even the dwarves, priding themselves as children of the forge, could do nothing to stop their lives from being claimed. For all their resilience, they were still flesh and blood, no match for the Empire's engines of war.

Afterward, imperial researchers surveying the site found that the dwarves' structures had been reduced to rubble. The victims were either roasted or suffocated, resulting in catastrophic casualties.

What was peculiar, however, was that the corpses of the dead were largely intact, with no signs of shrapnel wounds. Instead, their mouths were gaping, and many had bitten through their own throats in their final moments—an utterly hellish scene.

In the wake of this refined execution method, the Empire developed an even grander and more terrifying mode of execution—bombing exterminations.

"Holy shit, those bomb-crazed researchers really outdid themselves. This level of destruction is insane!"

Overlooking the ground consumed by fire and thick smoke, where explosions erupted one after another with blinding fireballs, Earl Mantou couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement.

[You have killed a Dwarf Resistance Soldier and earned 500XP.]

[You have killed a Dwarf Officer and earned 800XP.]

[You have slain [Freedom Hammer - Fearn Rock Favored]...]

As strings of notifications flooded across his interface, Mantou initially froze. Then, a look of immense delight spread across his face.

"I just wanted to carry out a demonstration mission, and I ended up wiping out a boss? And all these mobs too? Did I just blow up an entire dwarf nest?"

"Well done, Earl Mantou. You have successfully completed the Empire's demonstration mission."

There was a faint trace of amusement in Holan's tone. In truth, the method of using new bombs to execute dwarves and intimidate rebels had been the brainchild of this Great Goblin officer.

Elsewhere in the sky, Singo gazed upon the burning land. Watching the charred encampments and orcs wailing amidst the infernos and smoke, he couldn't help but smirk. "This is getting more and more interesting..."

...

Wuge Prairie, Red Blood Valley.

"Waaagh!"

"Kill them all!"

The orcs crowded together like a raging flood, pouring out of the valley. Their eyes were crimson, faces consumed with frenzy, and saliva dripped from their mouths. It was clear they eagerly anticipated the imminent war.

Wielding their weapons, the orcs shouted Gush's name, though even louder were their fervent cries: "War! We need war!"

Slaughter, combat, blood, death...

These were the deep-seated desires of every orc's soul. This chaotic spirit had even merged into their peculiar hybridized cells—part plant, part animal—coursing through every drop of their blood.

Beyond the valley's plains, pungent, foul-smelling mushrooms grew everywhere. Beneath the mushroom caps, green clawed hands were breaking through the soil.

Deep in the earth, in rock crevices, the green mushrooms thrived uncontrollably, greedily siphoning resources from the barren prairie to sustain the growth and breeding of the orc race.

"This is my legion! This is the power of the orcs!"

Solo stood atop a cliff, overlooking the ocean of orcs stretching endlessly into the horizon. His chest swelled with immense pride as images of Gush leading his people to conquer the land against dwarves and elves thousands of years ago flashed through his mind.

At this moment, history was repeating itself.

Once, he had believed Batu to be Gush's Chosen One, favored by their Father God.

But now, Solo saw Batu as nothing more than an incompetent failure. It was he, having consumed the Black Water and poised to lead the orcs into a glorious future, who was the true Favored of the Gods.

Raising his bone spear high, Solo roared with unrestrained fury and determination: "March! We will conquer Aivendel Dan and fulfill the thousand-year-old dream of our ancestors! Waaaagh!"

"Waaagh!"

"Conquer! Conquer!"

The million-strong orc horde had largely been born from spores, their ages ranging from mere hours to several days. They knew nothing of "ancestral glory" or "the Father's honor."

But within their simple, crude, yet strangely intuitive minds, one word resonated clearly: war. War was good!

War meant tearing enemies to shreds, painting themselves with their blood, savoring the sweetness of brain matter, and unleashing every desire within their being.

This was the most universal belief among orcs. And no matter how much Solo tried to cloak it in grandiose rhetoric, the fact remained that green-skin orcs were nothing but war-obsessed maniacs.

Looking southward, Solo brimmed with confidence. After all, he commanded an army of two million, a number that continued growing at a staggering rate. Even he no longer knew how many were under his banner.

Not even the mighty giant dragons could withstand the relentless waves of millions of fearless orcs. Sooner or later, they would fall, hunted down like wounded prey.

"Imperial people, prepare to pay the price for your pride!" Solo smeared crude runes across his face, his lips curling into a feral grin.

"Whatever I see, it's all mine!"

"Whatever I take, it belongs to me!"

"Whatever lives, I'll kill it all!"

The orcs surged forward like a storm, sweeping away beasts and even tearing up the grass beneath their feet.

Despite Solo's efforts to rally them, he couldn't transform this green-skin horde into an organized army. They marched on chaotically, millions of orcs singing crude, vulgar songs of their own making, charging south like an unstoppable tide.

They believed they were charging toward exhilarating battles, blood-drenched combat with endless foes. They had no idea they were walking into an imperial trap, meticulously prepared to greet them.

In the distant sky, wyverns clad in steel armor soared, their razor-sharp wings slicing through the air with a shrill whistle...