It was precisely because they saw through all these tricks and deceit of the gods that the adepts, who prided themselves as the incarnations of intelligence and wisdom, had such an unharmonious relationship with the gods.
To maintain the purity and singularity of faith in their planes, the gods strictly forbade the entry of adepts into their worlds. That was to prevent the spread of any ‘evil’ knowledge. After all, no adept could naturally be born from a primal and chaotic land. Even from their very nature, the gods and adepts were at odds with each other!
Both parties would fight to the death when they ran into each other, with no possibility of yielding ground.
The information Greem had received from Alice revealed the real reason for Death Witch Khesuna’s rallying of the Northern Witches into Strongwoods Plane. It might appear to have been vengeance for the Beast God destroying one of her lesser planes. In truth, it was because of a conflict that had broken out between the beast god pantheon and the Great Witches in the outer realms.
These two forces went back and forth, destroying each other’s planes and assassinating the opponent’s leaders. Hundreds and thousands of planar worlds had been dragged into the conflict of these two factions.
In all seriousness, Khesuna was herself responding to the declaration of war put forth by the Great Witches. Otherwise, she would never have had anything to do with the Beast God’s plane, trillions and trillions of kilometers away. Most of her territory was within the World of Adepts, after all.
When Khesuna led the Northern Witches into Strongwoods Plane, the Great Witches were also intercepting a squad of reinforcements from the beast god pantheon. Why else had the Northern Witches not run into any clones or incarnations sent down by the beast god pantheon, despite having been here for more than thirty hours?
Still, the perimeter of the Great Witches wasn’t wholly impenetrable. If the war dragged on, the gods of the pantheon would be able to find ways to cast down clones. This war of the witches would become much more difficult.
After all, a clone cast down by a god might be Fourth Grade, but their knowledge and combat techniques were far superior to a Fourth Grade witch trapped within a plane. Thus, even the powerful Khesuna had to be concerned about the possibility of fighting against the same-grade clone of a beast god.
On the third day of holding Witherwater City, Khesuna gathered all the various witch factions and started assigning elite squads to destroy the Beast God temples located all over the Orc Empire.
As long as these powerful faith nodes were destroyed, the beast god pantheon would lose their foundation to descend upon Strongwoods Plane, even if the Great Witches failed to stop them. At the very least, the clones and incarnations of the gods would become much weaker without the support of these faith nodes. They would not be as strong as they usually were!
Chapter 826 - Embark on the Journey
In truth, this was a necessary step in the invasion of all god planes!
The first step was to find a way to send scouts into the plane through the use of spatial rifts. They were to function as agents there.
This step might be risky, but as long as the agents could adapt to the changes in situations, they had a relatively high chance of success.
As every single plane was different and unique, the agents either had to have a powerful ability to defend themselves or the ability to assimilate into the local society. Otherwise, they would have trouble traveling the alien world and finding a suitable location for teleportation.
The scouts that had entered the Strongwoods Plane this time were a coalition group of Death and Deceit Witches.
After determining the teleportation point, the second step was to work from both within and outside the plane to open the portal and allow the invading forces to enter.
It was undoubtedly the riskiest step of all!
The scouts had entered the enemy plane through the use of natural spatial rifts inside the plane or other similar paths. These paths were not only narrow but extremely dangerous. They did not allow any truly powerful individuals to traverse them. Only some small ‘rats’ could jump in and out of these rifts.
Dozens of incidents of planar invasions would happen to every plane on an annual basis. Most of these ‘invaders’ were just unfortunate fools who had been accidentally dragged in by spatial turbulence. Of course, some amongst them were planar travelers who were journeying everywhere across the world!
The local magical creatures would probably devour the weaker ones among these travelers before they could even walk out of the wild lands. The more powerful ones might be able to stir some trouble and hide in certain areas.
However, if the identities of these people were exposed, they would most definitely be faced with the full force extermination of the local ruling creatures of the plane.
As such, entering the plane from a spatial rift might not be able to attract the gods’ attention. However, if someone was trying to open a stable portal within the plane that led to a different world, the unusual spatial flux could not be concealed from the powerful gods who had mastered the planar laws.
That was why the first thing the invading party had to deal with upon crossing the portal was the massive swarm of natives who had come to kill them. The brutality of planar wars was proportionate to the forces of the plane’s locals!
The planar invasion that Death Witch Khesuna organized this time had been very successful. It wasn’t until the planar portal had completely stabilized that Beast God Aruger gave his holy decree and rallied the nearby orc believers to intercept them.
Unfortunately, Witherwater City could not be considered a significant city in the Orc Empire. The strength and power of the believers here were limited, and it was why the invading witch forces had so easily beaten them. They lost not only all of their elite forces, but also Witherwater City itself.
Now that they had completely taken control of Witherwater City, the witches couldn’t wait to push the planar war into the third phase.
It was an all-out attack; a wild assault to destroy all foundations of faith in the Orc Empire!
The witches would send out hundreds of parties consisting of hundreds of undead across the vast realms of the Orc Empire. These undead were to invade and exterminate orcs wherever they went, attacking whatever villages they ran across. Meanwhile, the orc cities and towns with a little bit of size would have to be personally dealt with by the witches. They would either do so through plague or fire. Either way, no chance of reprieve would be afforded to the orcs.
Meanwhile, the Fate Witches led by Alice were assigned three orc cities to deal with. They were all small cities with a population of thirty to fifty thousand. These cities were all on the same marching route and were ideally suited as targets to be destroyed in a single go.
It wasn’t just the Fate Witches. The other seven witch factions were also assigned similar compulsory missions to exterminate orcs and destroy the Beast God’s temples. In comparison, the task left to the Fate Witches was relatively easy. Take, for example, the Death Witches. As the ones who had started this planar war, they naturally had to shoulder a greater and more difficult burden.
A powerful undead expedition army prepared to march on Pompes, the capital of the Orc Empire, under the leadership of a Fourth Grade Death Witch. They would try their best to anchor the main military forces of the Orc Empire near the capital and prevent them from disrupting the plans the witches were making at Witherwater City.
They hadn’t invaded the plane to conquer it; they were here to destroy it. As such, the witches would arrange an extremely ‘grand’ blood ceremony in Witherwater City. They would use a special method to taint and destroy the planar origins of Strongwoods Plane. This process required an astonishing amount of ‘native materials.’ It also required the witches to send troops to search the surroundings and capture native orcs.
Greem and the others only stayed in Witherwater City for a short two days before packing their bags and embarking on their j
ourney toward the mission location.
Three hundred and eighty-nine magical machines and thirty magic energy chariots carrying large amounts of resources brazenly marched into the distance under the escort of two hundred eyeball combat machines. The accompanying goblin engineers and technicians also became the operators of the chariots and the ones who maintained the magical devices. The existence of Split-Off Brain Gru, on the other hand, provided the army with the capacity for sustained combat.
What appeared in front of them upon exiting Witherwater City was a boundless plain.
Desolate and quiet, with withered grass quivering in the wind.
When one stood upon the only dirt road of the plain and looked around, they would only be able to see tall grass around them. The official road wound on and stretched into the grass, extending into the distance.
The orcs were almost all barbaric people with brawns for brains. Naturally, they would not understand the importance of convenient transport and traffic to a ruling class with a vast territory!
Though there were quite a lot of wise individuals among the subordinate races, their status was lowly, and thus their words were of no consequence. They could not possibly convince the orc rulers to take a tremendous effort, time, and resources to construct and maintain important roads within their territory.
Thus, the only road before Greem and his soldiers was this uneven, dirt road full of wild grass and moss.
When the magic energy chariots, each six-ton heavy, rumbled across the middle of the dirt road, two deep wheel ruts marked the ground. The magical machines stowed all their weapons and ran alongside the chariots with uniform steps.
The tops of the chariots had been opened, revealing the helmets and heads of the goblins with goggles on their faces. They had pairs of binoculars hanging from their necks which they would occasionally lift to their eyes to look around them.
However, the grass here was too dense and tall. The goblin lookouts would not be able to find any enemies even if there was a squad of orcs crouching in the grass right beside them.
Something whistled through the air, sending wild winds rippling across.
An eyeball combat machine the size of a human head rapidly dashed across the plain. The wild currents it propelled out of its body blew the grass about violently. Suddenly, it dove down from the sky and stopped three meters above the grass, as if it had made some discovery.
A blinding Scalding Ray shot into the grass.
A short moment later, the eyeball machine dove into the grass. When it returned to the skies once again, it held a furry brown rabbit in its small robotic arms. A hole had appeared on the rabbit’s head. It couldn’t be any more dead!
The goblin lookouts in the chariots all let out some soft cheering.
They would have fresh rabbit meat for today’s lunch.
The army continued down the winding dirt road quickly. Their numbers were many, but they were still traveling at a shocking forty kilometers per hour.
Pillars of thick black smoke could be seen in the distance along the way. Every column of smoke represented an orc village that had been baptized by the undead. The orc civilians caught in the planar war were either killed by the undead and joined their number, or they were abducted to Witherwater City and turned into a sacrifice for the blood ceremony.
To these orc civilians, both options meant the end of their lives and the loss of their home.
Fairness, justice, and rights were no more than a luxury in this terrifying universe where might made right!
The magical machine squad sprinted at a high pace, occasionally running into witch squads that were heading in the same direction. These witches were either riding on giant slave beasts or herding their voodoo beasts, making haste toward the destination of their mission.
Whenever Greem’s party ran into such a group, they would quickly split off on their separate ways after a short greeting.
The witches that were slowly ‘crawling’ on the ground couldn’t help but be envious when they saw the army of the Fate Witches thunder past their sides with their tight formation and excellent weaponry.
If it wasn’t out of consideration for their servants and voodoo beasts, the witches could quickly fly five hundred kilometers in a single day. However, this was a different world, not the safe and peaceful World of Adepts. As such, they could not put aside the guards and voodoo beasts that ensured their safety.
That, in turn, severely limited the mobility of the witches.
The high-grade witches might dare to move freely, fight whenever they wanted, and retreat to safety whenever they liked. However, most of the First Grade witches on their side did not have the courage or ability to do so. Their chances of survival and retaliation were not pretty if they ran into orc powerhouses without the protection of an army of voodoo beasts.
They were here to conquer and destroy this world, not to die!
That was why they would rather go slower than risk their lives and venture into where orc powerhouses were active.
Compared to that, the Fate Witches’ ride was both safe and fast. It made them both envious and jealous.
All the witches knew the situation of the war now!
The main reason that they were having such a leisurely time was due to their actions catching the Orc Empire by surprise. After exterminating the Witherwater City army, large orc cities and armed forces could not be found within five hundred square kilometers.
The Orc Empire would have to take the effort to rally stronger armies from distant places if they wanted to extinguish these witches. However, with the broken and primitive road systems of Strongwoods Plane, it would take them weeks to do so.
That was why the quicker the witches could finish their respective missions, the safer they would be.
If they dragged it out for too long, they were likely to run into orc reinforcements during their mission. When that happened, it would be the witches’ turn to flee in a hurry!
Chapter 827 - Elegy of the Orcs
The journey had also allowed Greem and the others to truly witness the valiance of the orcs!
Whether it was the orc wolfriders that formed groups and came howling like wild beasts, or the lone orc warrior intent on ambushing stragglers from the witch forces, every one of their actions could not escape the eyes in the sky.
If it were just a solitary orc, a volley of Scalding Rays from the sky would be enough would turn them into skewered meat. If there were too many attacking orcs, the magical machine army would be able to rapidly spread out and fortify their position with a warning from the eyeball machines. They could then put up plenty of terrifying magic energy cannons. The Archers would flank either side of the chariots and bombard the orcs’ position with their rifles.
The wolfriders were courageous. They endured the rain of cannon fire and charged across the plains with their vicious wolf mounts, roaring and waving the gleaming blades in their hands around. Meanwhile, the orc warriors were naked from the waist up, lifting their wooden shields in front of themselves and waving their crude wooden sticks as they strode after the wolfriders.
The dense volley of cannon fire exploded in the grass, and the violent flame shockwaves ravaged outward, sending bits of grass, dirt, and dust flying everywhere. The wolfriders were mostly dressed in leather armor with a wolf helmet on their heads. Their defenses were so crude that it was hard to take them seriously.
Even slightly harder clumps of dirt would leave bruises on their bodies, let alone the magical flames. When the fire engulfed these wolfriders, they and their wolves would instantly be ignited. They could only roll on the ground and cry out in pain then.
With the eyeball machine in the sky pointing out their position, the orcs were exterminated from a distance before they even entered within range of vision. Some courageous fellow might occasionally charge out of the bushes despite the odds, but they would instantly be blown to bits by a magic energy blast to the face.
The orcs were well-known as a race with n
o elementium affinity. It was hard to find a trace of any magical weapon throughout the Orc Empire, let alone magical accessories distinguished by their more refined and delicate artistry. Trying to brave the penetration of magic energy beams with their strong bodies and without any external magical resistance was no more than a joke!
It wasn’t that the orcs were not courageous or that they were not terrifying enemies. Rather, all of these became inconsequential when their enemies were powerful adepts from a different plane. Apart from falling to the ground and howling in agony, they could do nothing to the magical machines.
Overwhelming defeat. It was a blatantly overwhelming defeat!
Even the powerhouses amongst the orc tribes could not escape being bombarded by the magic energy cannons if they appeared within one and a half kilometers of the army.
The adepts continued forward, slaughtering as they went!
The orcs wildly and recklessly assaulted this magical machine army, sustained by the unique bravery and savagery of their race. Unfortunately, the difference in combat power between both parties was too significant. It left the orcs with no means of realizing their courage and martial might. Their assaults had turned into tragic acts of suicide.
The Crimson Clan adepts stayed inside the magic energy chariots in very comfortable conditions. They smoked cigars and drank wine as they slowly appreciated the sight of the struggling orcs through their monitoring crystals. The only enemy that disrupted their peace was a Third Grade orc blademaster.
This orc relied on his sharp senses and amazing speed to break through the outer perimeter and reach the chariots.
After which, he very tragically ran into Third Grade Thunder Dragon Arms and interrupted his happy times.
This Third Grade thunder dragon had no discretion. He even brought his concubines along with him when he went out on missions. Still, he did not hesitate at all when he saw the Third Grade orc blademaster. He immediately transformed into his thunder dragon form after charging out of the chariot wrapped in bedsheets.
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