"It's started! It's started!"
Within the City of All Laws, the mages gathered around the crystal mirror, their masked faces alight with excitement.
"I swear this fight won't last ten minutes," one of them chuckled.
The Central Magic Empire's magicians lived long, and in their centuries of life, they had seen endless battles. Few things entertained them anymore, but the clash of half a million orcs against a mere twenty thousand humans was too strange to ignore.
---
The Battlefield
On the hillside, Gavin Ward raised his binoculars, scanning the sea of orcs. Five hundred thousand enemies surged forward in perfect unison, the ground shaking beneath their boots. From the rear, the war drums boomed like thunder, shaking the earth itself.
But the Ross position was well chosen. The hill sat like the neck of a gourd, its slopes steep and the land below narrow. The orcs could only funnel through the low-lying plain at the base. For all their numbers, their strength was trapped, compressed into a killing field.
Gavin's gaze lingered on the sky. "The griffins," he murmured. "Fifty thousand is… excessive. They're the only real threat."
Then, raising his hand, he gave the signal.
"Artillery, ready! Target the orc army. Open fire!"
Behind the trenches, the ground shook as sixty 155mm guns lowered their barrels. Alongside them rumbled forty T-34 tanks, their cannons angled down toward the horde.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The sky split with fire. Shells screamed across the battlefield, plunging into the packed orc formations.
Explosions ripped through the heavy infantry. Orc bodies shattered, thrown high into the air, axes and shields clattering down beside broken limbs. Flames consumed entire ranks, leaving nothing but smoldering wreckage.
"What sorcery is this?!" Longdan Gol roared from his war platform, his tusks bared in fury. His soldiers had not even touched the enemy, and already thousands lay dead. "Did they set a magic array?!"
---
The Griffins Strike
Overhead, the Griffin Legion dove. Tens of thousands of riders angled their five-meter lances, shrieking as they descended.
"Fire!"
The Ross anti-air gunners pulled their triggers. Hundreds of 14.5mm twin-barrel guns erupted. Tracer fire streaked upward, tearing into the griffins.
The sky became a storm of blood and feathers. Griffins screamed as bullets tore through wings, riders hurled screaming into the void. Some fell aflame, crashing into their own advancing infantry.
Below, the MG42s swiveled upward, streams of lead slicing through the diving cavalry.
"Invisible barriers!" a griffin rider howled as the man beside him exploded in midair. They could not even see the source—only the tearing of flesh and the spray of crimson.
In desperation, one squadron leader shouted, "Javelins! Drop them from above! Don't charge!"
He never finished. A 14.5mm round smashed through his skull, exploding his head like a melon. But his command echoed—hundreds of riders loosed their long, enchanted javelins.
Most fell harmlessly, embedding deep into the earth. A few found their mark.
For the first time, Ross soldiers screamed.
One was impaled clean through the chest, nailed to the ground. Another staggered, blood pouring from a wound in his thigh. A handful of bodies slumped in the trench.
It was small—barely a scratch compared to the slaughter the orcs faced—but it marked the first real casualties Gavin's army had suffered since its campaign began.
---
Orc Sorcery Unleashed
Watching his precious griffins die in droves, Longdan Gol's patience broke. He turned to his wizards, his fury shaking his armor.
"Prepare the circle! Now!"
One orc wizard faltered. "But Majesty, if we unleash it now, the Griffin Legion—"
"I don't care!" Longdan Gol's roar silenced him. "If the cavalry must burn, then they burn! I will crush these humans today!"
The wizard lowered his head. "...Forgive me." He turned to the rear, where three hundred orc wizards gathered. Together, they began to weave the long-range array.
The air grew hot as a massive circle opened, burning crimson into the sky. Flames coiled within it, and fireballs the size of wagons began to form.
"Release it!" Longdan Gol bellowed.
The fireballs streaked across the battlefield, tails blazing red. They seared the sky, smashing indiscriminately into griffins and humans alike.
Some struck griffin riders mid-flight. Screams turned to shrieks as burning bodies fell in spirals of flame.
Others crashed into Ross trenches. Explosions tore through the defenses. Fire engulfed a squad, seven or eight men flailing, their uniforms alight. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
---
The Machine's Harvest
Yet even as fire rained, the Ross line held.
"Keep firing! Don't let them close!"
MG42s poured steel into the charging infantry. Mortars plopped shells overhead, their blasts ripping orc formations apart. Every sweep of a machine gun cut down dozens, every shell tore through clusters like a scythe through wheat.
A Ross gunner gritted his teeth, his face slick with sweat. "Come on, you bastards!" His MG42 roared, stitching death across the slope. Orc after orc fell, their heavy armor nothing before the storm of bullets.
Platoon leaders barked orders. Mortars fired again, shells exploding among the densest ranks. The explosions tossed bodies high, their screams drowned in thunder.
Yet still the orcs came. A tide of bodies, surging forward despite the mountains of corpses left behind.
One griffin rider, spear lowered, dove low. He skewered a Ross soldier in the trench, the man's cry cut short. But before the rider could rise, a 14.5mm round smashed through him and his mount. Both crashed dead into the earth.
---
The First Casualties
For all the slaughter inflicted upon the orcs, Gavin Ward's men had taken their first true wounds.
In one trench, seven soldiers lay still, their bodies blackened by fireball strikes. Elsewhere, a handful bled from javelin wounds. One platoon had lost three men when a griffin crashed directly onto their position, crushing them beneath its bulk.
For the first time since the Ross army's creation, the casualty tally rose beyond single digits. Dozens of soldiers lay dead or dying.
Gavin lowered his binoculars, his jaw set. His heart was steel, but within him, a flicker of grim acknowledgment stirred. This was no longer a campaign of effortless victories. It was war.
Behind him, the thunder of artillery continued, the MG42s roared, and the anti-air filled the sky with fire. Orc after orc fell, griffin after griffin burned—but for the Ross army, this was the first battle where blood ran on both sides.
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