“Hold fire!” Adarin thundered into the sudden quiet.

  He could feel the tension rising, tipping toward panic in the Order's musketeers. The cannoneers were already hitching the cannons to their mules, retreating behind the line toward the safety of the zombies.

  He assessed the situation within split seconds."No, no. Stop the cannons. Reload canister.”

  Several cries of protest erupted.

  But Adarin cut through them—one sharp gesture cracking the air with a Root Whip. “Reload canister.”

  The white dust settled into a choking fog. Screams leaked through it like steam from a cauldron.

  Adarin turned sharply to the musketeers. Green fabric and leather uniforms. Flintlock muskets clasped in their hands—ready to fire.

  Three hundred men against a horde.

  Adarin noticed the tattoos on many arms: Level 15 — Class: Soldier, Musketeer.

  The dust settled further. Shadows emerged. The ground writhed like a wound full of maggots—

  But Adarin knew better.

  He ordered the skeletons to form a line behind the musketeers. Ordered the controlling necromancers to prepare a charge.

  No—not a charge.

  A slaughter.

  Adarin bared his teeth in a feral smile.

  This feels fucking great, he thought. Better than the distant battles of my past. Better than watching robotic waves crash into robotic waves.

  “Musketeers—ready! Acquire targets!” Sergeants barked the words down the line, the command rippling like a fuse through gunpowder.

  The dust settled into a thick fog. Confused orcs, clawing at their eyes and throats, stumbled about—

  Then Adarin spotted the real threat: Another unit. Advancing. Waiting behind the fog.

  “Musketeers—re-target enemy unit behind!”

  A few shots went off early.

  “Cease fire! CEASE FIRE!” Adarin screamed.

  The musketeers shuddered to a halt.

  And suddenly, Adarin had the attention of everything on the battlefield.

  “Look through the dust! An enemy unit—”

  A war cry erupted—and the orcs charged.

  The thunder of over two hundred guns answered like the Reaper’s scythe.

  The front wings were cut down, but the orcs kept advancing.

  “Fall back! Fall back!” Adarin ordered. “Cannons—ready!”

  “Seven seconds!” Devon shouted. The kobold’s voice, laced with cold certainty, had turned into black steel.

  The musketeers rallied behind the cannons. The black skeletons still loomed as a gloomy presence behind them.

  Reinforcements. Adarin reached out to Liora and Mathilda. Forty seconds.

  He considered the battlefield as the enemy advanced—trampling the dead and dying without hesitation.

  Suddenly, an arrow impaled itself into his wooden skin.

  Several musketeers and cannoneers screamed as they were hit. No matter. Losses are to be expected.

  Devon’s voice cracked through the din: “Archers on the left! Archers on the left! Target them! Cannons!”

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  The cannons adjusted aim.

  A second volley fired—claiming more lives.

  And still, the orc charge came in.

  Fifty meters.

  But they were slowed. Running over corpses and writhing men was no easy feat—neither psychologically nor physically.

  The white dust made it look like they were charging through living snow.

  Living snow stained with plenty of red blood.

  Adarin made a decision. ‘Liora. Mathilda. Flank them. Take the zombies around the side. Crush them.’

  Liora’s voice erupted, a defiant cut through hesitation, but Adarin hissed at her before she could get started. ’No! Connect to the wall and advance. Kill them all!’

  ‘Yes. Will do.’ Mathilda’s cold voice followed.

  Adarin assessed the distances.

  Ninety seconds.

  Again, he looked to the black skeletons. They will have to do.

  Adarin was about to give a command—

  But the next volley of canister drowned out all thought with thunder, splinters, and dust.

  The archers were just gone.

  The charge faltered.

  The musketeers—

  Adarin dismissed them with a glance. Still reloading. Far too slowly. Goddamn it. Single-shot guns. What I would give for a fucking machine gun. No matter.

  He contacted the necromancers. ‘Skeletons to the front. Advance, advance, advance.’

  The black skeletons charged. Heavily outnumbered—but they formed a line, a solid wall.

  Adarin assessed the terrain. The skeletons were now holding a line—right in front of a swampy, clogged-up channel. He stood behind them with the cannons and muskets, holding a slight ridge. It’ll slow the enemy down. Will it be enough?

  “Musketeers,” he ordered, addressing the officers via the link. “Get to the top of the ridge. Fire at my command.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The responses came back clipped, sharp, professional.

  Good. At least one thing is working here.

  Adarin reached out to the commanders of the undead.

  Three thousand zombies—close enough now that he could feel the ground tremble with their march. Thirty seconds away. If we are still here by then.

  The fractured orcs were growing desperate—and Adarin noticed something else.

  The Marholdian and Seaguardian defenders were advancing, pikes up, guns leveled, their banners flickering in the smoky dawn.

  A vicious smile split Adarin’s face.

  They are encircled in a killing ground. And obligingly… our human enemies are already entering my slaughter ground. “Good… good…” He drew out the last word. A chuckle escaped his throat.

  The battle at the frontline grew desperate.

  Fur, hardened leather, and iron—

  Met black steel and bone in a brutal clash.

  The orcish warriors sloshed forward through blood and churned mud, breath steaming, tusked mouths frothing with rage. The skeletons met them with silent, implacable discipline.

  But quantity had a quality of its own. One by one, the pseudo-liches lost limbs. Skulls were crushed. Bones were shattered.

  And soon—the first orcs broke through the line. The orc warriors were bloodied, injured—and their eyes held a furious bloodlust.

  Adarin linked to Devon. “What are the cannons loading?”

  “Normal munitions,” he replied. “We’re out of anything better.”

  “Fuck!” Adarin cursed—realizing too late that he had said that out loud.

  Devon growled in return. A cold, reptilian rasp.

  “Very well,” Adarin muttered. “See if you can target the humans from the ridge.”

  Then, to the musketeers—connected via their officers: “Whoever pierces the line, fire by squad. Kill them. Only in the sector directly in front of you. Understood?”

  Acknowledgements reached him. Orders ran down the lines—from officers to sergeants to soldiers.

  The triumphant screams of the orcs were answered by precise, individual shots—and orcs collapsed as they tried to storm the ridge.

  Then—salvation.

  The heart of the undead army arrived.

  Rotting, broken weapons at the ready—spears, axes, and bent swords—they shambled past the cannon line.

  A cheer erupted from musketeers and cannoneers alike.

  The skeletons pushed forward, facing grim annihilation—

  But the orcs’ eyes went wide, yellowed sclera stark in the torchlight, as they realized the suicidal detachment had swelled into a wall of rotting flesh.

  Finally, Adarin could see it—The encirclement.

  Waves of zombies advanced from both flanks, closing in toward the wall, closing in toward their enemies.

  At spearpoint, the slaughter began.

  “Fire at any place where resistance is brewing,” Adarin ordered the cannoneers. “Only target greenskins unless I say so.”

  Caught between the undead on three sides—and Marholdians and Seaguardians on the fourth, the orcish attackers, hundreds of warriors, were cut down without mercy, one by one.

  Wherever they rallied, cannons tore flesh asunder.

  Phase Two—the breaking of the charge—was won.

  Across the battlefield, Adarin met the eyes of the masked mage leading the enemy detachment.

  Now comes Phase Three: encirclement and annihilation.

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