Chapter 260: Common Goal
"Is this everybody?"
Fogan looked at his remaining troops, who had survived from all battlefronts. From 20,000 strong warrior orcs, only half of them were left.
The eastern battlefront against the Liu Clan was not going well. All troops that Fogan had sent to capture eastern cities were obliterated by Liu Bian's main forces.
Fortunately, the northern expedition troops had it easy after Qiang Sui left the area. They managed to eradicate three human cities, except for the Tian Long Forest. They got some loots at the cost of several thousand 5th-stage orcs.
As for the southern campaign, things didn't look good. Fogan had confirmed that Kzarka had been killed by an unknown orc, who looked like one of the Wood Orcs.
Fogan hated it. The wood orcs always acted as if they were righteous, having sexual integrity, being gentlemen, and keeping their honor. Yet, they still ravaged women and plundered human cities as the other tribes did.
From Fogan's perspective, wood orcs were hypocrites, and they deserved to be excommunicated.
But for now, the matter about wood orcs didn't matter as he had received a new order from the emperor.
"This is everyone, warchief," Fogan's subordinate finished reporting their army's status.
Fogan waved his arm and bellowed, "The emperor has given me a decree. We are to focus on our base defense and complete the portal as soon as possible! All available combat units will fortify the fortress, and the workers will abandon other tasks other than completing the portal construction and provision!"
The orcs saluted and rushed to their posts, relaying Fogan's orders.
Fogan gazed at his subordinates for a moment before he looked toward the south, where Siren City was located. His face grimaced.
'Is the Heretic King in the prophecy a wood orc? Should I jump ship right now and join the Heretic King's army or should I kill him and get rid of the source of calamity for good?'
An orc shaman back home had warned Fogan about the Heretic King and entrusted him with a piece of ancient mural, which held the secrets of an unknown art.
In an ancient mural, which Fogan had been protecting and keeping with him, unknown beings had left their legacies about their cultivation techniques, but they were incomplete. The other parts of murals were in the Zhang Clan and the Liu Clan's hands, and the two clans had been hiding them somewhere in the Holy Land.
The mural piece that Fogan had contained detail of a strange technique, which could slow the time for a moment. However, it also contained a prophecy of a calamity, started by the Heretic King.
At first, the piece of mural didn't contain anything other than the impractical technique. But last year, weird series of a story, aka the prophecy, had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. The Blood Orc's head shaman was the one who had noticed it first, and he had informed Fogan about it.
In the text, the Heretic King would emerge on the Aves Continent. He would lead an army of freaks, whose individual strength was strong enough to flip every continent upside down. The freaks and the King would slaughter fate bearers, demolish top clans, slay world guardians, and enslave half of the mortals, causing the world to become his personal playground.
Unfortunately, Fogan didn't have other details about the King. Thus, he assumed that the wood orc that had killed Kzarka might have been the king in the prophecy.
Intimidated by his imaginary King, Fogan shivered in fear every time he gazed toward the south.
As Fogan was absentminded, he didn't notice the newcomer, who had disguised himself as an orc worker.
...
'EXP... EXP is everywhere!'
In the orc's military kitchen, a thin red orc had been busy stirring the soup in a giant cooking pot. Although a hundred orc workers were nearby, none of them paid attention to this weak orc.
He was Zhang He, who had consumed a disguised pill to survive.
Currently, Zhang He had been working as one of the local militia in the northwestern area, but his city had been attacked by the orcs. This morning, his unit had been obliterated, and his city had been occupied. Zhang He was forced to go undercover to survive, and he got dragged to this camp to work as a laborer.
Still, Zhang He had the Isekai protagonist's mentality. He thought of these orcs as mobs in games, which could be farmed if he could fulfill a certain condition.
"Newbie!! How long are you going to stir that pot!? Get it over here already!"
"C-Coming!"
Zhang He carried the pot to a wooden cart and pushed it toward the kitchen supervisor. Then, he ran back to his post and brought out another black pot. He began cooking another batch of soup.
As Zhang He blended into the crowd of workers, no one cared about what he did.
While everyone was minding their own businesses, Zhang He dropped a green pill into the boiling water. It was a poison pill that he had concocted using his system cheat.
Zhang He didn't say anything other than working diligently. He cooked one pot after another, but he always mixed a poison pill into each pot.
After he had finished cooking the 27th pot, he received a series of system notifications.
Ding
[You have killed an orc worker.]
[You have gained 8,000 experience points.]
[You have enough EXP to increase your cultivation base. Will you increase your strength with the collected experience points now?]
Zhang He grinned. He pressed [No] to postpone his advancement. Then, he walked out of the orc kitchen.
"Where are you going!?" The kitchen supervisor yelled at Zhang He again.
"Toilet."
"Make it quick! Don't forget to wash your hands! I don't want my men to eat your piss!"
"I know, I know."
Zhang He skittered away. However, he never returned to the kitchen as he had completed his primary objective - Scoring some EXP to level up.
Ding
[You have killed an orc worker.]
[You have killed an orc worker.]
[You have killed an orc worker.]
Series of notification messages spammed his system screen, warning him that his poison pills began to take effect, and it was the time to bail.
Zhang He left the orc camp and headed east, hoping to get away from this battlefield as soon as possible. After all, a muscle tampering realm weakling like him didn't belong to grand-scale warfare.
As he was leaving, he could hear a loud commotion from behind. All guards and combat orcs rushed toward the chaotic site, ignoring the suspicious worker orc.
Without looking back, Zhang He kept walking away.
'Meet agent 47, motherfuckers! Hahahaha!'
...
RUMBLE
Chicken Ann City, a prefecture-level city, west of Red Sun Capital City, was once an ancient capital of a demon empire. But now, they became the gathering place for Liu Bian's undead army.
30,000 ghouls had finished carrying corpses of orc warriors and human cultivators to the west gate of Chicken Ann City. Countless dead bodies had been arranged in lines, waiting for Liu Bian to resurrect them.
Liu Bian, the overlord of this undead army, was also there. Several dark skeleton soldiers stood behind the new emperor, holding their modern rifles. Their marine uniform stood out from the rest of the troops inside the city, but no one cared.
After all, all soldiers here were no longer living beings. They were skeleton soldiers, vampires, ghouls, zombies, and death knights.
Among the undead crowd, Zhang Rang, dead eunuchs, and dead generals were also there! These men had been killed and resurrected as Liu Bian's slave soldiers. Now, they only listened to the young emperor.
Zhang Rang now became a vampire, but his strength degraded to 6th-stage. The 7th-stage general also degraded to a skeleton soldier with the strength of a 5th-stage cultivator.
That didn't include the middle-aged Caucasian marine with a night goggle and modern gears. The odd marine, whose face was similar to Clifford Unger from Death Stranding, had been leaning against the city wall, smoking a cigarette. He was also the assassin, who had assassinated Zhang Rang and other exhausted generals.
The man called himself with his alias - Wang Yun. He was another transmigrator who had come here many decades ago, just like CJ. However, he didn't serve any dao god as he was confident in his abilities. Yet, he had been working for Liu Bian as a mercenary for a year now. The marine was also a 7th-stage cultivator, who hid his abilities and existence from the public's eyes.
Wang Yun lazily glanced at the young emperor performing a ritual.
"Arise!"
Liu Bian stood there, crossing his arms behind his back. With his command, 10,000 corpses came back to life. Some returned as skeleton soldiers, but many of them became zombies. Though a few 4th-stage soldiers turned into 2nd-stage or 3rd-stage ghouls.
No death knights or vampires were born from this batch.
"Haiz. A pity. I guess my current power isn't enough to get more death knights," Liu Bian complained.
Wang Yun snickered, "Give me a break! Isn't this more than enough to conquer the world? What else do you need?"
Liu Bian sighed, "You have no idea how strong orthodox 7th-stage cultivators are. So far, I've been relying on death knights to keep those powerful guys in check, but I still lost in the last battle."
"Wasn't that because you purposely wanted to lose?"
"My death knights were pushed back by that stupid monk. If I have to fight him again seriously, I will need more men to kill him."
"Just overwhelm them with numbers. That monk will run out of Qi and you can take advantage of that later."
"It's easier said than done. That monk won't fight my army alone. When we meet him again, he will surely bring more allies into the fight."
Wang Yun shook his head. He chain-smoked and tossed the old cigarette butt away, "Then, don't fight on their home ground. Lure them to fight in our turf, like Vietnamese in the Vietnam War. Try to mix guerilla warfare into the battle to surprise them."
"... I'll try. But hey, can you go back to our base and train more shadow marines? I need more assassins to destroy Wei Huang's men after this."
"Well, if that's your order. Are you sure that you don't want my help here?"
"Nah. The orcs are stupid. I can deal with them. Even if they have multiple 7th-stage guys, my death knights are enough to deal with those mindless fools."
"... If you say so."
Wang Yun lazily sighed as his body sunk into his own shadow. He left Chicken Ann City, going back to Red Sun City, where Liu Bian's pylon tower was located.
Liu Bian ignored the lazy marine. He waved his hand and pointed in the direction of the orc's camp.
"Bring me more bodies! Kill everyone you find, including humans!"
The undead army roared. The ghouls screeched and sprinted west. As for the zombies and other undead, they ran at their own paces.
The smarter undead soldiers, such as skeleton knights, vampires, and death knights remained with Liu Bian.
The young emperor walked back toward the city gate. The 5-meter bronze gates opened, revealing the bloody road. However, no corpse or bone was left behind since all of them had been turned into undead soldiers.
No living human remained in the city. Liu Bian and his army had slaughtered everybody, including women and children!
Yet, the young emperor was unperturbed by the scene. On the contrary, he took a deep breath as he enjoyed the bloody scent.
...
Siren City
Town Square, in front of the constructing Pylon Tower, Cao Mao and all elders gathered as the former had called them over.
Zhao Bao, Pang Lingming, Ma Ping, Ma Shoucheng, Jia Wenhe, Jia Shan, and Ju Shoufen were present. Most main fighting forces of Siren City came here as Cao Mao had told them that he had something to discuss with everyone.
One dao soul expert, two nascent soul experts, four core pillar experts, and one abnormal freak joined together in this meeting. If any small clan were to hear of this, they would have rushed over and beg to be their subordinates as these people would definitely make a scary organization together.
When everyone was present, Cao Mao coughed and began the meeting.
"I'll make it brief. Everyone should have seen that giant orc from earlier, so you should have guessed what I want to do."
Everybody nodded. As Jia Shan and Ma Ping had gone through a fight, they were aware of the potential crisis of this city.
"I wish to ask senior Zhao for a favor. Since you're now the strongest person here, I wonder if you can do us a favor and get rid of the orc camp on the north?"
Zhao Bao smiled and nodded, "Amitabha, for the sake of everybody's safety, this monk can go out and preach to the orcs that attacking humans is bad."
"... Err, I want you to get rid of them, not preaching them."
"This monk is upholding the monastic rule. This monk can't possibly kill a fly at the moment."
Everyone rolled their eyes, not believing in this bullshit. He was acting like a thug not long ago, now he was talking about the monastic rule?
Cao Mao quietly arranged a pile of 1,000 essence cores on the ground. He held his hands in prayer and knelt down as if he was a diligent Buddhist, praying to the monk.
"Please accept this donation as a tribute to Lord Buddha."
The monk grinned. He collected the essence cores into his spatial ring and coughed, "This monk shall take a stroll toward the north. He has just advanced to the 8th-stage, and he needs to work out a bit to stabilize his foundation. This monk will be back tomorrow."
Everyone: "..."