Day 2 of the War. Dawn.
Location: The Western Border, Allied Lines.
The dawn did not bring light; it brought a heavy, suffocating grayness. The fog from the swamp had spilled over, covering the entire left flank of the Allied Army in a soup of cold mist.
The drums had stopped. The screaming had stopped.
But the ground was vibrating.
In the Golden Center, Cassius Thorne stood in his command tent, sipping hot spiced wine while his squire buckled his greaves. The tent was warm, heated by a precious Mana-Stone Stove that cost more than a peasant village.
"The silence is insulting," Cassius muttered, tossing a grape into his mouth. "Gorr is mocking us. He should be throwing wave after wave against my shield wall. Why is he waiting?"
Duchess Lydia, sitting in a high-backed chair reading intelligence scrolls, frowned.
"The scouts report movement in the Forest of Bones opposite the Swamp Sector. Heavy movement. Trees are being knocked down."
"The Swamp?" Cassius laughed, a sharp, barking sound. "He is obsessed with Rian. Good. Let the Orcs mire themselves in the muck. While they play in the mud, I will prepare a cavalry charge straight up the middle to decapitate the Warlord."
"Do not underestimate the Warlord," Lydia warned, her eyes sharp. "And do not underestimate your brother's... luck. The reports say a 'White Star' blinded the assassins last night. The soldiers are whispering that Rian has a pact with a Star Spirit."
"Peasant superstition," Cassius waved his hand, grabbing his helmet. "It was a scroll. A one-time use item he probably bought with the last of his money. He is out of tricks, Mother. If Gorr sends anything heavier than a goblin, Rian breaks."
The Terror of the Tremor
Location: The Swamp Sector (The Gray Line).
Baron Aris felt the tea in his tin cup ripple.
Ripples. Concentric circles spreading from the center.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
It wasn't drums. It was footsteps. Massive, heavy impacts that sank deep into the earth.
"Stand to!" Aris screamed, his voice cracking. "Form the shield wall! Pikes up!"
His men, the "Iron-Leftovers," scrambled out of their dugouts. They were terrified. They stood in the mud, clutching their rusted spears, peering into the dense fog.
Next to them, Rian's Gray Coats were calm. Eerily calm.
They stood on the firing steps of their trench, their Muskets resting on the parapet. They didn't hold pikes. They held those strange iron tubes wrapped in wood.
Rian stood on the command platform, looking through his Binoculars.
The fog swirled.
Then, a shape emerged.
It was gray. It was lumpy. And it was twenty feet tall.
"Mountain Trolls," Rian whispered.
They were nightmares of biology. Massive, hunchbacked humanoids with skin like granite. They didn't wear armor because they didn't need it; their hide was three inches thick, covered in natural moss and stone deposits.
But Warlord Gorr had upgraded them.
Crude iron plates were stapled directly into their flesh—massive breastplates made from melted-down castle gates.
In their hands, they carried tree trunks wrapped in chains.
[Ding! Enemy Unit Analysis]
[Unit: Armored Mountain Troll (Regenerator Class)]
[Quantity: 20]
[Threat: Extreme]
[Weakness: High-Caliber Kinetic Impact / Fire prevents regeneration]
[Notes: Small arms fire (Muskets) will be ineffective against the iron plating.]
"Twenty of them," Varg hissed, his hand tightening on his saber. "Boss, the mines won't stop them. They'll just walk over the explosions and heal the damage."
"I know," Rian said calmly.
He looked at the distance.
800 Yards.
"Baron!" Rian shouted over to the neighboring trench. "Get your men back! Do not engage! Your pikes are toothpicks against that!"
"We have to hold!" Aris yelled back, terror in his eyes. "If they breach the line, they flank the King!"
"Retreat behind my line!" Rian ordered, his voice cutting through the panic like a whip. "Clear the field of fire! Now!"
Aris hesitated, then signaled the retreat. His men scrambled back, hiding behind the mounds of earth Rian's men had dug.
The March of the Indestructible
The Trolls roared. It was a sound like tectonic plates grinding together.
They charged.
But it wasn't a sprint. It was a lumbering, unstoppable momentum. They splashed through the swamp water, ignoring the mud that would trap a horse.
BOOM.
The first Troll stepped on a mine.
Mud and water geysered up. The explosion blew the Troll's toes off.
The Troll roared in annoyance, stumbled, and then... kept walking.
Through the binoculars, Rian watched the flesh knit back together. Smoke rose from the blackened stump as new toes sprouted in seconds.
"They are immortal!" a soldier from Aris's unit screamed. "We are dead! Run!"
The panic began to spread. The sight of an enemy that could walk through explosions was breaking their morale.
600 Yards.
500 Yards.
The Trolls were getting closer. The ground shook so hard that mud slid off the trench walls.
"Boss," Varg asked, looking at the covered wagons behind the trench. "Now?"
Rian checked the wind. It was still. Good. The smoke wouldn't blow back in their faces.
"Unmask the Battery," Rian said softly.
The Unveiling of the Iron Beasts
Varg whistled. Two sharp notes.
Behind the infantry trench, the canvas covers were ripped off the ten "Supply Wagons."
Underneath was not grain. Underneath was Cast Iron.
The 12-Pounder Field Cannons sat low and heavy on their oak carriages.
They were ugly weapons. Short, thick barrels painted matte black. They didn't look like elegant Elven bows or shiny Knightly swords. They looked like industrial pipes designed to channel hellfire.
"Gun crews! Stations!"
Fifty men—Rian's most elite engineers—swarmed the guns.
They moved with the precision of a factory line.
Sponge. (Clean the embers).
Charge. (Insert the powder bag).
Ram. (Seat the round).
Prick. (Pierce the bag).
Prime. (Insert the fuse).
Baron Aris watched, mouth agape. "What are those? Giant cauldrons?"
"Solid Shot," Rian ordered. "Aim for center mass. Break the plate. Break the bone."
The gunners turned the heavy iron screws at the rear of the cannons. The barrels elevated.
400 Yards.
The Trolls were roaring now, sensing the fear of the humans. They raised their tree-trunk clubs, ready to smash the trench into paste.
"Battery A... Ready!"
"Battery B... Ready!"
Rian stood on the platform. He didn't use a wand. He didn't chant a spell.
He raised a simple red flag.
"The King wants thunder?" Rian whispered. "Let's give him thunder."
He dropped the flag.
"FIRE!"
The Physics of Destruction
It wasn't a sound. It was a physical blow.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
Ten cannons fired in a rippling volley.
The overpressure wave flattened the grass for fifty feet in front of the guns.
Thick, white sulfurous smoke billowed out, instantly creating an artificial storm cloud.
But the Projectiles moved faster than the sound.
Ten solid iron balls, each weighing 12 pounds, screamed across the swamp at supersonic speeds.
Physics took over.
A Troll is strong. Magic makes it tough.
But a 12-pound iron sphere moving at 1,400 feet per second carries 250,000 Joules of kinetic energy.
There is no biological armor in the world that can stop that.
CRACK.
The lead Troll took a cannonball directly to the chest.
The crude iron breastplate didn't stop it; it shattered into shrapnel.
The ball punched through the iron, through the granite skin, through the massive ribcage, and exited out the back, taking the spine and half the lungs with it.
The twenty-foot monster didn't fall forward. The kinetic impact was so massive it was thrown backward, flipping into the mud like a discarded toy.
SPLAT.
Another ball hit a Troll in the shoulder. The entire arm—and the tree trunk it was holding—was torn off, spinning away in a spray of purple blood.
CRUNCH.
A third ball hit a Troll in the knee. The leg vaporized. The Troll collapsed, face-planting into the swamp water.
In one second, the front line of the "Unstoppable" Trolls ceased to exist.
They weren't injured. They were deleted.
The Silence of the World
The firing stopped.
The smoke hung heavy over the trench.
On the battlefield, seven Trolls lay dead or dying. The regeneration factor couldn't cope with having a torso turned into a hole.
The remaining thirteen Trolls stopped.
Their tiny brains couldn't process it.
They were used to arrows that bounced off. They were used to swords that chipped.
They had never seen their brothers exploded by invisible punches.
In the neighboring trench, Baron Aris and his men were frozen. They weren't cheering. They were stunned into catatonic silence.
They looked at the smoking iron tubes. They looked at the carnage.
"By the Gods..." Aris whispered, crossing himself. "What magic is that? Dragon's Breath?"
Rian didn't celebrate. He walked down the line, checking the guns.
"Reload!" Rian barked. "They are confused, not dead! Use Canister Shot! If they charge again, turn them into hamburger!"
The gun crews moved instantly.
Sponge. Charge. Ram.
The Confusion of the Enemy
Location: The Orc Lines (The Forest Edge).
Warlord Gorr dropped his spyglass (stolen from a human corpse years ago).
He saw the smoke. He heard the thunder—a sound deeper and angrier than any drum.
He saw his Trolls—his expensive, armored tanks—broken like twigs.
"What..." Gorr growled, his voice trembling with rage. "What hit them?"
"Lightning?" Nash suggested, cowering. "Did they have a Storm Mage?"
"No lightning," Gorr snarled. "No blue light. Just smoke. And thunder."
He watched the Trolls hesitating.
"Recall them!" Gorr roared. "Pull them back! The Gray Humans have a Siege Weapon hidden in the mud!"
The horn blew the retreat.
The surviving Trolls turned and lumbered back toward the forest, terrified of the invisible hammers.
The Ripple Effect
Location: The Royal Center.
The sound of the volley had reached the center.
BOOM... BOOM...
It echoed off the canyon walls.
King Aric looked up from his map.
"Thunder?" The King frowned. "Is it storming on the left flank?"
Duke Ironwood looked toward the swamp. He saw the massive plume of white smoke rising.
"That is not a storm, Sire," the Duke said slowly. "That is... smoke. Gunpowder?"
"Gunpowder?" Cassius Thorne laughed nervously. "You mean fireworks? Rian is setting off fireworks to scare the Orcs? Does he think this is a festival?"
"Whatever it is," the King said, his eyes narrowing, "the Orc flank just collapsed. The pressure on the left has vanished."
He looked at the messenger running from the swamp sector.
"Report!"
The messenger was breathless, mud-splattered, and wide-eyed.
"Your Majesty! The Viscount... The Viscount's 'Tubes'..."
"Speak sense, man!" Cassius snapped.
"He destroyed the Trolls, My Lord!" the messenger gasped. "Twenty Armored Trolls. He killed half of them in one volley. They... they were blown apart."
The tent went silent.
"Blown apart?" The King stood up. "With what? Magic?"
"He calls them... 'Dwarven Thunder-Tubes', Sire," the messenger stammered. "He says they use 'Alchemical Expansion'. It... it sounds like the world ending."
Cassius's face went pale.
Trolls were the bane of Knights. To kill a Troll usually required a team of five knights and a Fire Mage.
Rian had killed seven in seconds?
"Alchemy," the King mused. He stroked his beard. A glint of greed appeared in his eyes.
"The boy has been busy in the North."
"Send word to the Viscount. Tell him to hold his position. And tell him... I will be visiting his trench personally when the fighting stops."
The Aftermath in the Mud
Back in the Swamp Sector, the adrenaline was fading, replaced by the ringing in ears.
Rian's men were swabbing the cannons, cooling the bronze cores with water. Steam hissed into the air.
Baron Aris walked up to Rian. He looked at the cannon, then at Rian. He didn't look at Rian as a superior officer anymore. He looked at him like he was a warlock holding a leash to a demon.
"Viscount," Aris said, his voice hoarse. "That wasn't alchemy. I've seen alchemy. Alchemy is potions and flash-powder."
He pointed to the cannonball hole in a distant tree.
"That is Death. Pure and simple."
"It is a tool, Baron," Rian said, wiping soot from his face with a handkerchief. "Like a plow. A plow turns the earth. This turns the tide."
Rian looked at the System readout floating in his vision.
"Cover the guns," Rian ordered Varg. "The show is over."
"But keep the Canister Shot ready."
Rian looked toward the forest. He knew Gorr.
"He tried assassins. He tried brute force."
"Next, he will try Magic."
"And for that... we need to change the ammunition."
Rian walked back to his tent. He needed to write a report. A report that downplayed everything.
Dear Father, he drafted in his head. We encountered some wildlife. The mining equipment proved useful for defense. Hope the center is holding. - Rian.
Outside, the soldiers of the "Iron-Leftovers" looked at the Gray Coats with awe.
They didn't call them "Peasants" anymore.
They called them the "Thunder-Guard."
As night fell again, the fear in the camp shifted.
They still feared the Orcs.
But now, they also feared the quiet young Viscount who carried thunder in a wagon and killed monsters with math.
End of Chapter 73