The voice of Eagle had barely faded when the previously silent wasteland instantly erupted.
In a flash, countless tongues of fire spewed from the surrounding desert and piles of jagged rocks from all directions, converging entirely upon the rampaging warboss.
Unexpectedly, amid this downpour of lead, the high-energy laser beams of sniper rifles—the standard weapon for precision termination—were in the absolute minority. Replacing them was a direct torrent of autocannon shells and the sharp whistling of large-caliber mortar rounds arcing across the sky.
After all, to this group of players, who ever decreed that an assassination had to play out like a movie with a silenced pistol or a sniper rifle taking heads?
In their logic, the greater the firepower, the better. If you can complete the mission by hitting the target right between the eyes with a single sniper round, I can achieve the exact same result by chucking a massive high-explosive satchel charge to level the entire building, foundation and all. As long as the target dies, the mission is successfully accomplished, and it even saves them the step of confirming the corpse.
Furthermore, the target they were assassinating today was a damn greenskin warlord!
The sheer vitality of these fungal organisms completely defied the basic laws of biology. A standard sniper round hitting them might not even pierce their subdermal fat layer. Even if you shot them straight through the head, there was no guarantee the bastard wouldn't keep thrashing around for a few minutes to counter-kill you.
Facing monsters like this, surgical precision took a backseat; firepower density and casualty radius were king.
This was precisely why the vast majority of players lying in ambush here chose to crawl up the hills like ants moving houses, carrying heavy autocannon components and mortar baseplates on their backs. Once they reached their designated positions, they expertly assembled the pieces and opened the system mall without a shred of stinginess, spending their accumulated merits to exchange for high-explosive ammunition.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The fiery flashes of explosions instantly engulfed the path of the charging greenskin boss.
The stampeding Ghazghkull—dubbed "Scarface" by the players—was furious, but his combat instincts as a warboss allowed him to immediately sense a fatal danger. His massive frame suddenly pulled an abrupt brake that defied physical inertia, his colossal feet carving two deep trenches into the ground.
Right after, the first wave of dense artillery fire detonated less than five meters ahead of him.
Though not a single shell managed a direct hit on his crown, for large-caliber high-explosive shells, this was close enough. Artillery rounds didn't exactly demand surgical precision; it was much like a 75mm mortar round—whether it landed right on top of your head or half a meter away from your feet, the core result was identical: you would be torn to shreds by the shockwave and shrapnel.
Acrid smoke and dust instantly formed a massive mushroom cloud, completely cloaking the green silhouette.
"Did we get him?" Name gripped his binoculars nervously.
Before the smoke and dust could dissipate, a staggering figure stubbornly charged out.
Ghazghkull looked utterly wretched right now. The trophy armor he took so much pride in was shattered into fragments, his entire body was riddled with shrapnel, green blood erupted like a fountain, and even his left arm hung at a bizarre, mangled angle.
But he was still alive! And he could still move!
The heavily wounded greenskin boss seemed to realize that charging in a straight line made him a sitting duck, and he began to display a cunning completely at odds with his massive size. He stopped roaring, lowered his posture, and began to pull off an erratic, zig-zagging "snake walk" between the bomb craters.
This immediately caused massive trouble for the distant players.
Whether it was the direct-fire autocannons or the high-angle mortars, both felt somewhat inadequate when dealing with a high-speed infantry target moving on a completely randomized trajectory. After all, while the blast radius of these two weapons was decent, it wasn't large enough to blanket an entire football field. Slipping even slightly off-target meant nothing more than a mild itch to the thick-skinned greenskin boss.
"Damn it! Did this greenskin spec entirely into evasion talents? How are we missing?!" Curses echoed all over the voice channel.
Right at this momentary gap in the fire output, the greenskin camp finally reacted.
Seeing their boss ambushed by a bunch of despicable humies using such underhanded tactics, the Ork Boyz—who had just been enjoying the show—instantly flew into an absolute rage.
"WAAAAAAAAAGH!!! KILL 'EM ALL!!!"
Accompanied by the earth-shattering roar, the entire camp resembled an erupting volcano. Ramshackle warbikes sped out spewing black smoke, truks and Looted Wagons plastered with steel plates rumbled across the Gobi, and countless Mekboyz frantically cranked levers as crude artillery positions began a blind counter-barrage toward the hills that had just flashed with muzzle fire.
To make matters even more desperate for the players, deep within the camp, a Great Gargant that originally looked like a pile of scrap metal actually sputtered to life with a piercing whistle!
The iron behemoth, moving like a mobile skyscraper, took a stride forward. The countless turrets across its body began to rotate, all for the sake of covering their battered, retreating boss.
Watching the greenskin boss rapidly escaping the kill zone and about to be reinforced by his main force, many of the players entrenched on the hilltops felt a deep wave of regret.
Was this perfect ambush trap ultimately going to fall short due to a lack of firepower after all—or was it?
"Haha, Name, get on the bike! It's time for our show!"
Eagle suddenly leapt up, ripping off the dust-covered camo netting from his body. He turned around, strode a few meters toward a sand dune behind him, and forcefully yanked off another oversized camo net heavily buried under the sand.
As the dust swirled, a vicious-looking iron monster was exposed to the sunlight. It was a heavily modified two-seater dirt bike. Its original streamlined chassis had been entirely stripped away, replaced by rugged crash bars and exposed mechanical structures. The rear tire was twice its original width, and a massive engine sat completely bare, looking as though it were begging to roar.
This contraption was clearly custom-built for a suicide charge like this.
Without a second word, Name tossed his binoculars aside and swung his leg over the back seat.
"Hold on tight!"
Eagle twisted the throttle. The modified engine unleashed a beastly howl, its rear tire kicking up a storm of yellow sand. The motorcycle shot out like an arrow from a bow, heading straight for the cliffside at the edge of the high ground.
"Woohoo—!!!"
Accompanied by Eagle's excited, eccentric shout, the two of them along with the bike soared right off the high ground, carving a heart-stopping parabola through the air.
Gravity swiftly claimed them, and the motorcycle slammed heavily onto the desert below with immense kinetic energy.
Thud!
The reinforced suspension system let out a gut-wrenching groan, compressing almost to its absolute limit before violently rebounding.
The colossal impact nearly threw Name off the back seat. Fortunately, his reflexes were sharp, and he locked his arms tightly around Eagle's waist, hanging onto the driver like a koala on a tree.
Before he could even catch his breath, the motorcycle accelerated again, bouncing wildly across the boulder-strewn wasteland.
"Don't you dare flip this bike!" Name yelled at the top of his lungs.
It wasn't that he was losing his temper out of spite; rather, with the howling wind rushing past his ears and the deafening roar of the modified engine, the driver up front wouldn't hear a single thing unless he screamed with every ounce of strength he had.
"If I don't drive this fast, we won't make it!" Eagle roared back without turning his head.
Through his goggles, he could see the scattered greenskin boyz driving all sorts of ramshackle vehicles, moving at maximum speed to converge on their boss's position like sharks smelling blood, attempting to build a wall of flesh.
If they couldn't break through before the perimeter closed, it would truly be game over.
The motorcycle drifted to avoid a massive crater. As Eagle frantically twisted the throttle, he shouted over his shoulder:
"And another thing! Keep a tight grip on that backpack in your arms! That's a mini-tactical nuke we spent half a month's worth of merits to get the Tech-Priest to forge! Do not drop it! Time it right and detonate it!"