Air Raid

Catch them off guard and take their lives!

Li Wei refused Falrodan's offer to accompany him, telling him to wait in the city and watch the show. He packed his materials, quietly broke open two Cobblestone blocks, and slipped outside the wall.

Those Orcs would never have imagined that while they were building ladders, he would actually dare to leave the city. Not only leave it, but even take the initiative to launch a sneak attack.

One man, ambushing a hundred.

In the Orc leader's big-headed calculations, whether Li Wei and Falrodan waited for them to finish the ladders and attack their way in, or fled the city while they were making them, his side came out ahead either way. They would need the ladders to take the castle eventually, and it made no difference whether the enemy was killed after they stormed in or fled without fighting.

That was why the leader had not even bothered leaving scouts behind. There was a remarkably accurate archer in that castle, after all. Leave too few soldiers behind, and they might return as corpses; leave too many, and there would not be enough manpower here. No matter how he looked at it, there was no need.

It had to be said that while most Orcs were stupid and weak, there were always a few that developed well enough to grow some muscle and brains.

Unfortunately, this strong Orc was destined to miscalculate this time.

"Move it, trash! Get those ladders assembled! If I'm not sitting in that castle before dawn, I'll throw every last one of you to the Wargs!"

In the woods, the Orc leader loudly berated the Orcs responsible for building the ladders.

Elsewhere, a Warg on guard twitched its nose, its scarlet eyes shifting as it instinctively glanced beyond the forest. Yet it did not spot anything moving.

Still, its attentive rider noticed the movement.

"What is it? Did you smell something?"

The Warg panted and carried its rider outward. After moving some distance away from the group, it suddenly spotted a stone pillar in the open space ahead, stretching straight into the sky. It was perfectly square, exactly one meter wide.

Confusion rose in the Orc rider's heart. He raised his head and peered upward with all his might, vaguely sensing something moving at the pillar's top, though he could not make out what it was.

Even holding his torch as high as possible, he could only barely see a shadow at the top.

A bird? A crow?

At first, the rider paid it no mind, assuming it was some small animal.

Until the stone pillar suddenly extended outward from its very top in a way that defied common sense—toward where the Orcs were constructing the ladders.

The Orc rider scratched his head.

"What is that? A living stone?"

Click.

Li Wei wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Squatting at the edge, he placed another block and extended the platform one more square outward.

A casual glance downward made his legs go weak.

His fear of heights had kicked in.

"Wait, that's...?"

A thought suddenly flashed through his mind. Li Wei forgot his fear and quickly leaned out to look down again.

At the edge of the clearing below, beside the block he had built upward from, there was now a tiny point of light.

A torch.

Li Wei narrowed his eyes and looked.

Not good. It looked like he had been spotted. He needed to hurry!

Taking several deep breaths and forcing his weak legs to cooperate, Li Wei sped up as he built toward the ladder construction site, while doing his best to hide himself from those below.

However, perhaps he was simply too close, or perhaps even among a bunch of blockheads there would always be one or two sharp ones.

By the time Li Wei had built to a point seventy or eighty meters directly above the construction site, an Orc finally looked up. Seeing the vague shadow overhead, he could not help asking:

"What is that?"

His words drew several pairs of eyes upward.

Several Orcs stared blankly at the sky, even forgetting to patrol.

"Damn it, I think I'm hallucinating. There seems to be someone up there?"

"Someone?"

"I can see clearly that it's a crow."

"What if it really is a person?"

"What are you yapping about? Whether it's a person or a crow, just shoot it down and find out."

An archer drew an arrow, raised his bow, and prepared to fire into the sky. At a distance of seventy or eighty meters, he still had a chance of hitting it if his aim was good enough.

But he was destined never to get that chance.

"Look! Something in the sky is glowing!"

"Idiot, aren't there glowing stars all over the sky?"

"It's not a star..."

Before he could finish speaking, a red object shining with white light fell from high above, landing right in the middle of the Orcs.

BOOM!

The instant it hit the ground, a tremendous explosion erupted, blasting a crater several meters wide into the earth. A nearby tree was caught in the blast, its branches blown clean off.

As for the Orcs at the heart of the explosion, their limbs flew everywhere as they were torn apart on the spot.

Just as expected.

TNT's maximum damage was a full sixty-five points. How could these insignificant mobs, with barely over a dozen health points on average, possibly withstand that?

Li Wei had calculated the height perfectly. If TNT was ignited from more than seventy meters up, it would explode the very instant it struck the ground.

It gave those Orcs no time to react at all.

"What was that?!"

The leader was immediately alerted by the explosion. He grabbed the large wooden hammer beside him and led a group over to investigate.

Yet when he arrived, all he saw was a huge crater and several severed limbs and mangled remains.

"What happened?"

The leader demanded an answer, but no one replied.

Suddenly, a sharp-eyed scout pointed overhead and shouted, "Look! What's that?!"

A group of Orcs followed the direction of his finger. They saw seven or eight glowing red objects rapidly plummeting from the sky, about to hit the ground.

A sense of foreboding suddenly struck the tall leader. He immediately held the large wooden hammer crosswise before him as a shield. But that still did not seem safe enough, so in that very second, he retreated several steps in succession and placed his subordinates in front of him.

Every pair of eyes followed the red glowing objects until the TNT blocks struck the ground one after another.

BOOM—!

Explosions, white flashes, and screams. As the TNT detonated one after another, crater after crater was blasted into the ground. The Orcs nearest the blasts, caught in their centers, were blown apart and scattered in all directions, instantly vaporized. Those farther away could not escape being thrown into the air either. Many Orcs may have still had a breath left while they were flying, but by the time they came down, that breath had finally left them.

"AAAAARGH!!!"

Although the Orc leader had fortunately not been vaporized at the center of the blast, the shockwave still sent him tumbling. He rolled all the way until he slammed into a tree, barely clinging to life.

Clang.

The large wooden hammer he had used as a weapon fell to the ground, blackened with scorch marks.

Ignoring his own injuries, the strong Orc struggled to his feet and looked toward his squad.

At that moment, after a round of bombardment, most of the squad could no longer be recognized as Orcs. Black blood and scorched flesh covered the ground. Mutilated limbs were smeared across the earth, hung from trees, and a few lucky survivors—though hardly intact—struggled to crawl along the ground. Clearly, they would not last much longer.

They had been nearly wiped out.

Looking at the hellish scene before him, the leader's mind went blank.

What happened? What was going on?

From beginning to end, he had never seen where the enemy was, nor did he know what had attacked them.

They had simply been wiped out in an instant for no reason at all.

Right, the sky!

The attack came from the sky!

Having finally identified the source of the attack, the Orc leader was furious and terrified. To launch such powerful attacks from high above... could it be a legendary dragon?

At that moment, rustling came from the nearby bushes. Several Warg riders arrived after hearing the commotion. They froze when they saw the craters and corpses all over the ground, then spotted the blood-covered Orc leader.

Several Orcs immediately jumped from their Wargs and ran over eagerly. "Leader, we're here to support you!"

As they spoke, a large group of Warg riders charged out as well, spreading out to stay alert and search for the attacking enemy.

Clearly, nearly all the forces of this Orc squad were gathered here now.

Realizing something, the leader's expression changed at once. "No—"

But it was already too late.

More than ten glowing TNT blocks fell from the sky.

The work has been signed, so feel free to keep reading. Thank you all for your support.

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Note: Orcs, also called Goblins, are both correct terms in The Lord of the Rings. Generally, just use whichever one rolls off the tongue better.