Strike when they least expect it, take their lives!
Declining Faradon's offer to accompany him and telling him to stay in the castle and watch the show, Levi gathered his materials, quietly broke open two cobblestone blocks, and slipped outside the walls.
These orcs could never have foreseen that while they busied themselves crafting siege ladders, he would dare venture beyond the castle walls... and not merely venture out, but boldly strike first in a surprise assault.
One man against a hundred.
In the orc leader's mind, the outcome was certain either way: whether Levi and his ally waited within for the ladder assault or used the distraction to flee the stronghold, victory would be his. They would storm the fortress regardless... it mattered little whether the defenders died fighting or ran like cowards.
Thus, the leader saw no need to post sentries. After all, that accursed archer still lurked within the castle walls. Too few guards would return as carrion, yet too many would weaken his assault force. No matter how he reasoned it, watchers seemed unnecessary.
It must be said that although most orcs were stupid and weak, there would always be a few well-developed ones who could grow some muscle and brains.
However, this time, this strong orc was destined to miscalculate.
"Hurry up, you trash! Get those ladders assembled quickly! If I'm not sitting in that castle before dawn, I'll throw you all to feed the wargs!"
In the forest, the orc leader loudly berated the orcs responsible for making ladders.
On the other side, a warg on guard duty twitched its nose, its crimson eyes turning as it instinctively glanced outside the forest, but found nothing moving.
However, this action was noticed by its attentive rider.
"What's wrong? What did you smell?"
The warg panted and carried its rider outward. After leaving the squad for some distance, it suddenly discovered a stone pillar reaching straight to the sky in a nearby clearing... perfectly square in shape and exactly one meter thick.
The orc rider was puzzled and looked up, straining to see upward. He felt like something was moving at the top of the stone pillar, but couldn't quite make out what it was.
Even holding his torch as high as possible, he could only vaguely see a shadowy mass at the top.
A bird? A crow?
Initially, the rider paid no attention, thinking it was just some small animal up there.
Until this stone pillar suddenly and inexplicably extended outward at its very top... extending toward the direction where the orcs were working.
The orc rider scratched his head.
"What is that thing, living stone?"
Pat.
Levi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, crouched at the edge, and placed another stone block, extending outward by one space.
Glancing down by chance, his legs went quite weak.
His fear of heights was acting up.
"Wait, that's...?"
His mind suddenly brightened. Levi couldn't care about being afraid and hurriedly stuck his head out to look down again.
He saw that beside the clearing where he had been building upward, a small point of light had appeared.
It was a torch.
He squinted and peered down.
Not good... it seemed he'd been discovered. He had to speed up!
Taking several deep breaths to overcome his weak legs, Levi accelerated his building toward where the siege ladders were being constructed, while trying to hide his form to prevent those below from seeing him.
However, perhaps because he was too close, or perhaps because among a group of blockheads there would always be one or two clever ones.
By the time he had built to seventy or eighty meters directly above the construction site, finally, an orc looked up and couldn't help asking as it stared at the vague shadow in the sky:
"What is that thing?"
One question drew several gazes upward together.
Several orcs stared blankly up at the sky, even forgetting to patrol.
"Damn it, I think I'm hallucinating... there seems to be a person up there?"
"A person?"
"I clearly see it's a crow."
"What if it is a person?"
"Stop making noise... whether it's a person or a crow, just shoot it down and we'll know."
An archer drew an arrow and raised his bow to shoot at the sky. At seventy to eighty meters distance, if his aim was good enough, there was still a chance of hitting.
However, he was destined not to have this opportunity.
"Look, something's glowing in the sky!"
"Idiot, isn't the sky full of glowing stars everywhere?"
"It's not stars..."
Before the words were finished, a red object flashing with white light fell from high above, landing perfectly in the middle of these orcs.
BOOM!
The moment it hit the ground, a massive explosion erupted, directly blasting a crater several meters wide on the spot. A nearby tree was unfortunately caught in the blast and had its branches blown off.
As for the several orcs at the center of the explosion, their limbs flew everywhere as they were dismembered on the spot.
As expected.
You had to know that TNT's maximum damage was a full 65 points... how could these small fry with an average of only a dozen hit points withstand it?
The height of over seventy meters was calculated by Levi. TNT ignited from this height would explode the instant it hit the ground.
Giving those orcs no time to react at all.
"What was that!"
The leader was immediately startled by the explosion sound and hurriedly grabbed the large wooden mallet beside him, leading a team to investigate.
However, when they reached the scene, they only saw a large crater and several torn limbs.
"What happened?"
The leader angrily demanded, but no one answered.
Suddenly, a sharp-eyed scout pointed at the sky and shouted, "Look, what's that!"
A group of orcs looked in the direction of the pointing finger and saw seven or eight glowing red objects rapidly falling from high above, about to hit the ground.
The tall leader suddenly had an ominous premonition and directly held the large wooden mallet horizontally in front of him as a shield. However, feeling that this alone might not be safe enough, in that second he repeatedly retreated several steps, placing his subordinates in front of him.
All eyes followed those red glowing objects until the TNT blocks landed one after another.
BOOM!
Explosions, white light, screams... as the TNT exploded one after another, the ground was blasted with crater after crater. Orcs close to the explosion centers were directly blown to pieces and scattered, instantly vaporized. Those slightly farther away couldn't escape being blown into the air either. Many orcs might have still had a breath of life when blown skyward, but when they came down, that breath finally gave out too.
"Ahhhhh!"
Although the orc leader was lucky enough not to be instantly vaporized at the explosion center, he was still knocked over by the shockwave, rolling until he crashed into a tree, barely alive.
Clang.
The large wooden mallet he had used as a weapon fell to the ground, completely charred.
Not bothering to check his own injuries, the strong orc struggled to get up and look at his squad.
At this moment, after experiencing a round of bombardment, most of the squad was unrecognizable as having once been orcs. Dark blood and charred flesh were everywhere, incomplete limbs were either splattered on the ground or hanging from trees, and a few orcs that had luckily survived but were hardly intact struggled to crawl on the ground... clearly they wouldn't last much longer either.
Nearly total annihilation.
Looking at the hellish scene before him, the leader's mind went blank.
What happened? What was going on?
From beginning to end, he hadn't been able to see where the enemy was or what had attacked them.
Just inexplicably, in an instant, they were wiped out.
That's right, the sky!
The attack came from the sky!
Finally finding the source of the attack, the orc leader was both angry and afraid. To launch such a powerful attack from high above... could it be the legendary dragons?
At this moment, rustling sounds came from nearby bushes as several warg riders arrived at the sound. Seeing the craters and corpses covering the ground, they were first stunned, then saw the blood-covered orc leader.
Several orcs immediately jumped down from their wargs and ran over to curry favor. "Leader, we've come to support you!"
As they spoke, a large group of warg riders charged out, patrolling and searching everywhere for the attacking enemy.
Obviously, almost all the forces of this orc squad were now here.
The leader's face immediately changed as he realized something. "No..."
However, it was too late.
Over ten glowing TNT blocks fell from the sky.
[Chapter Complete]
***
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