Starting from the Planetary Governor

Lacroix was one of them; he had even personally stabbed one to death.

In close combat, humans were naturally at a disadvantage, even though many of the Green Skin Orcs were wounded or killed by the blasts. The remaining four still managed to slay seven soldiers.

But overall, the exchange ratio between the two sides was only one to one.

In the past, these dozen Green Skin Orcs would have been enough to wipe out their entire platoon.

However, the battle was far from over at this point. Their position had been thrown into disarray, and it seemed like the Green Skin Orcs seized this opportunity, sending in more troops to launch an assault on them.

Tonight was moonless, but with the help of the searchlight illumination from the position, Lacroix could clearly see at least fifty Green Skin Orcs forming layers of dark shadows, charging toward their piece of the battlefield.

At that moment, he was extremely tense, frantically opening fire along with his comrades.

It seemed like everyone knew there was no way out. There was no escape; they couldn't outrun these Green Skin Orcs.

At this moment, their only thought was to take at least one enemy with them before dying.

And just then, a whistling sound came from above their heads!

Lacroix remembered that before coming to reinforce, the platoon leader had said that as soon as the fight broke out here, the company commander would send a telegram to the rear joint artillery regiment. If they held on, they could get artillery support!

And here it came!

At least three artillery shells landed in front of them.

The huge explosions almost deafened him.

But Lacroix was inexplicably excited!

This is what fighting in a war was like!

The orcs had thick hides and flesh, but they were still made of flesh and blood. Under the power of the 155mm howitzer, those within a radius of five or six meters from the explosion were obliterated; within fifty meters, the shock wave and the dense shrapnel were lethal enough to kill.

The three shells hit their mark precisely. If the Green Skin Orcs hadn't been so spread out and had known to lie down and hide when the shells were coming, those three shells would have been enough to kill them all.

But even so, at least twenty Green Skin Orcs were finished.

The rest, howling, got up and continued to charge up the slope.

But by then, more of the surrounding firepower points had reacted, opening fire frenziedly on this position, with at least ten machine guns targeting here, and countless rifles as well.

The G9M light machine guns, paired with the G9A automatic rifles, formed a fire network that was many times more powerful than the old iron-barreled rifles they had used before. Under the dense fire of the network, the Green Skin Orcs eventually all fell on their way to the charge.

After that, the entire night and the entire defense line seemed to come alive as if battles were raging everywhere. The sound of gunfire was faintly heard from as far as ten kilometers away, and the constant roar of artillery never ceased.

Lacroix and his men also suffered several attacks after that; they too sustained many casualties, especially when those Green Skin Orcs got within thirty to fifty meters, as the enemies' crude firearms could ensure the death of one of their own with a hit.

But when has there ever been a battle without casualties?

Tonight, what Lacroix could assure was that at least on his stretch of the front, more Green Skin Orcs died than his own men did.

After dawn, the Green Skin Orcs' offensive stopped.

After tallying losses and counting the enemy dead, there were over fifty Green Skin Orc corpses in front of them. Thirty to forty of them had been killed by artillery and rocket launchers, about ten had been shot, and five or six had been bayoneted to death after charging into close combat.

On Lacroix's side, they had lost thirty warriors.

A new platoon, carrying their breakfast, took over their position at ten o'clock in the morning.

Lacroix and his comrades, after fighting all night and losing 30% of their combat strength, were allowed to retreat and rest for a while.

He himself didn't even feel tired, his heart was actually filled with excitement, and he even wanted to fight another battle!

...

Roastaxe felt exhausted and incredibly irritated, yet he still wanted to fight another battle.

Fighting, killing, and seeing blood splatter... These were the biggest hobbies of the Green Skin Orcs, ingrained in their genes as a natural instinct.

They were savage, ferocious, battle-driven by nature, fearless of death. The one thing they feared the most was not having a fight, and losing a battle would also put them in a foul mood.

Today was one of those not-so-happy days.

To avoid losing, Roastaxe could only temporarily order his boys to withdraw.

A few mad surgeons were performing surgeries on Green Skin youths with severed hands, feet, and heads. If a hand was missing, they'd chop one off another Green Skin and sew it on; the same with feet.

Some of those hit by the cannons were missing quite a few parts, but as long as the head was still there and they weren't dead, they'd just cut the head off and transplant it onto another body with a more intact physique but a ruined head...

Roastaxe watched his boys being put back together again and felt a little bit better.

I like to fight, I ain't afraid to die, but that don't mean I don't know when a fight can't be won. Living is for fighting another day. Too many Green Skin boys dying makes it bad for future battles.

He returned to the makeshift barracks built from the rubble, grabbed a red, crudely made communicator with no apparent system, and fiddled with it to contact the boss at the rear.

However, the communicator crackled with electric noise but failed to connect.

Roastaxe grew angrier. He yelled out, "Carcha! Carcha! Get in here!"

A guy who looked much skinnier than him, but actually was stronger than the average Green Skin Orc, came in holding a wrench.

"Boss Roastaxe, what do you need me for?"

"Fix this thing for me! I need to talk to boss Ripflesh!"

"It's broken again?"

Carcha took the communicator from Roastaxe's hand, scratched his head, then tapped it a few times with a small hammer, and dismantled some parts with the wrench.

Then, he handed the communicator back to Roastaxe, "I reckon it should be good now."

Roastaxe didn't care much; he fiddled with it again and, indeed, it connected.

He gave Carcha a kick in the butt, sending the wrench boy on his way. Once he heard familiar panting from the other end, Roastaxe couldn't wait to shout, "Boss Ripflesh! I listened to you and led the boys in a charge during their shift change! We lost a whole lot of lads, and we still didn't break through. Those shrimps' cannons are too fierce. I want big booms!

I want trucks! I want speed bikes!"

"No!" boss Ripflesh refused, "You just hold there! Any boy who wants to fight should go fight! The elders say to wait a bit longer, and we can have a big thing, a big boom! We can't reveal it yet! Once we get new boys and new squigs grown, we'll take these big booms and wipe out all those shrimps in one go!"

"Alright... you're the boss, I'll listen to you," Roastaxe spoke grudgingly, "but you gotta promise me, when it's time, you'll give me extra big booms!"

"You'll get them, you'll get them!"

...

With a smack, the communication was cut, and the big boss of the Iron-Tooth Clan, Ripflesh, with heavy steps, went to find the elder.

He was an old orc, with teeth nearly all fallen out.

Among the Green Skins, elders were rare. An orc that couldn't fight wouldn't live very long, for Green Skins had no tradition of respecting the elderly or caring for the young.

But on the other hand, if a Green Skin managed to survive to old age but still held a position of great importance within the clan, it meant they must have something special about them and were definitely not as feeble as they appeared.

In the presence of the elder, even boss Ripflesh, the leader of the entire clan, maintained some respect—an arduous task for a Green Skin.

"When will our big booms be ready?" Ripflesh asked. "The boys keep asking and demanding support. If not, I can only have them pull back. Some new shrimps have arrived, and they're giving the boys a real beating!"

After a moment's thought, the elder said, "We still need to fight, more deaths, more WAAAGH, more new boys, even more deaths, even more WAAAAGH, even more new boys, and more and more deaths... and then we'll win! We all can become bigger orcs! The boys at the front need to push harder. If not, send more squigs up there. We've got too many of those squigs.

We don't need that many. The new mushrooms are growing well, but we still need more land to grow even more mushrooms."