Until the giant star that illuminated Perditia hid its last ray of light below the horizon, the forward reconnaissance post did not see any enemy approaching. The entire world plunged into pure darkness, with only unfamiliar stars twinkling across the sky.
"How much longer do we have to wait?" Garry, lying in the shadow of a dune, couldn't help but let out a big yawn. "Perditia doesn't have a moon at night. In a little while, we won't be able to see anything."
"It doesn't matter if we can't see," his partner, AlphaBravo, holding a telescope, whispered. "Anyway, we have an IFF system, so even if we can't see, we can still hit our targets every time."
"That's true," Garry mumbled. "It's mainly that waiting like this is too boring. If it weren't for the thought acceleration being 1:10 now, we've only actually waited for 50 minutes. I would have definitely gone offline already. Do you think the command post made a mistake? Those orks aren't coming from this direction at all..."
"They're here," AlphaBravo suddenly said.
"What? They're here?!" Garry tensed up, quickly rolled over, and raised his high-magnification observation telescope. Through the lens, the once-silent yellow sand horizon in his field of vision began to roll, as if some colossal creature was churning beneath the ground.
Soon, he could clearly see the enemies—leading the charge were orks driving steam-powered vehicles emitting thick black smoke. The vehicles were crude and wild in design, like monsters cobbled together from scrap heaps, bumping along the sand, emitting deafening roars.
"Damn, they really are coming from this way," Garry's eyes widened, his tone filled with disbelief. "It's incredible, how did Joker and the others guess that?"
"Just a few terms they spat out, and I knew they were far more professional than us," AlphaBravo said calmly. "We ordinary gamers just need to obediently follow their commands, and it'll be AOK."
AlphaBravo picked up the walkie-talkie and, using a pre-set code, began to report the situation to the main position behind them. Garry, meanwhile, somewhat eagerly took out a hand grenade and an automatic rifle: "What do we do? Fight?"
"What's the rush?" AlphaBravo held him back. "Looking at this situation, these orks have no intention of scouting; they definitely won't discover us. Let's first see how many of them there are and what their troop structure is before deciding."
He glanced at the excited Garry and added, "And haven't you read military books? You must have watched anti-Japanese dramas, right? At the very least, you should wait for the front troops to pass before attacking!"
Both of them refocused their attention on the observation mirror. The ork vanguard rumbled past the dune where they were hidden. Immediately after, the subsequent troops entered their field of vision. The moment he saw the middle and rear sections of the troops, Garry's eyes quickly widened, and his mouth slightly opened: "Damn, the art style difference is a bit big."
If the orks in the vanguard, driving steampunk-style motorcycles and wearing crude, clearly welded but at least polished and cut steel armor, were in the Steam Age,
Then the orks in the middle and rear sections, their technological level plummeted as if they had ridden a time machine. They rode giant Squiggs like prehistoric dinosaurs, with almost no decent protection on their bodies, just haphazardly wearing some tattered cloth strips.
Their green skin was haphazardly smeared with various pigments, forming patterns of unknown meaning. Perhaps, in their own eyes, these patterns were fierce, powerful, and very WAAAGH!
Their necks and arms were adorned with a large number of teeth and bones, and their weapons were clearly large stones picked up from the ground, roughly sharpened a few times to serve as Wahammers and axes. This art style directly regressed from steampunk to the primitive era of eating raw meat and blood.
"What is this?" Garry was stunned. "Why is there such a big difference between the front and back? Do orks also have class divisions?"
"Not enough resources, I guess," AlphaBravo, who had finished reporting, put down the walkie-talkie and explained. "No matter how amazing the 'I reckon' power is, you can't expect orks to rub sand into steel—in fact, it's already quite incredible that they can churn out such a large quantity of steam-powered vehicles in this desert."
"Moreover," AlphaBravo's tone became serious, "I advise you not to underestimate those primitive-looking orks. With the terrifying strength of orks, it makes no difference to us whether the big choppa they hold is made of steel or stone; either way, it's instant death. I definitely don't want to get hit by one of them."
"So when do we open fire? These orks are already in the middle to rear sections," Garry said. "I can feel it, the machine spirit of my automatic rifle is already parched for blood! She craves slaughter!"
AlphaBravo didn't look at him, merely answering calmly: "Wait until the vanguard of these orks steps onto our landmines."
No sooner had he spoken than a flash of fire erupted in the distant darkness, followed by a dull explosion that echoed far into the silent night sky.
"Bang!"
AlphaBravo, without hesitation, grabbed his rifle: "Fire!"
...Just as the vanguard of the ork convoy entered the pre-set minefield, a dull explosion ripped through the night.
A leading steam-powered vehicle was blown onto its side, its wheels still spinning uselessly in the air. The ork driving it didn't even have time to let out a scream before being torn to shreds by the shockwave and shrapnel.
This sudden explosion caught the high-speed orks behind them off guard. Driving their crude vehicles, they instinctively slammed on the brakes, and the screeching sound of metal friction echoed across the sand sea. However, in such a chaotic charging formation, the consequence of a sudden brake was disastrous.
The immense inertia caused vehicle after vehicle to crash into each other like dominoes. The vehicles behind had no time to react, plowing into the rear of their companions' vehicles, sending both vehicle and driver flying. Those further back simply ran over the wreckage of their comrades. For a moment, the sound of steel colliding with steel, the orks' screams, and the crunch of breaking bones became a cacophony.
And this was just the beginning.
The ensuing artillery fire plunged the huddled orks into despair. A sharp whistle came from the sky, and then, orange-red fireballs exploded among the crowded convoy. Each falling shell unleashed a storm of flesh and blood. Broken metal parts and dismembered ork limbs were hurled high into the sky, then rained down.
The orks were in complete chaos.
An ork boy scrambled out of the wreckage of a burning vehicle. He frantically ran to an unusually tall ork and screamed, "Boss Redeye, we've fallen into a ummie ambush! The front is full of mines, and shells are raining down from the sky, we're finished!"
Before he finished speaking, the boy was kicked flying by Redeye with a powerful blow, tracing a parabola in the air before crashing heavily onto the sand, motionless.
"Damn it, what are you scared of?!"
Redeye spat a mouthful of blood-flecked saliva onto the sand, then violently stood up from the wreckage of the vehicle. He raised his steel gauntlet, larger than a sandbag, and his towering height of three and a half meters made him stand out like a crane among chickens, casting a huge shadow in the firelight. He used all his strength to unleash a deafening roar from his chest:
"WAAAAAGH!"
This explosive roar seemed to contain a strange magic. All the confused and bewildered orks, upon hearing this roar, instantly had their eyes turn crimson. The chaos and fear in their minds were replaced by a more primitive, more fanatical battle lust.
They all, without prior agreement, raised their weapons towards the sky, towards the artillery fire, towards the unknown enemy, and responded in unison, their voices even drowning out the roar of the artillery:
"WAAAAAGH!!!"
"My boys will attack as if landmines and shells don't exist!" Redeye roared, every word filled with unparalleled violence and fanaticism. "Charge! Kill these ummies who only know how to backstab!"