Redeye's roar was like a drop of water falling into boiling oil, instantly igniting the entire ork tribe into a frenzy.
Chaos vanished, replaced by a far more terrifying force—a singular, overwhelming collective will. Fear was purged from every ork's instincts, and every Green Skin Kid was consumed by the same thought:
Charge. Tear them apart. WAAAGH!
The horde reorganized almost instinctively. Roaring the battle cry that embodied everything about their race, they surged forward without hesitation, charging straight into the deadly minefield.
Bang!
The first Green Skin Kid vanished in an explosion, his body ripped apart by a buried landmine.
The orks behind him didn't slow for even a heartbeat.
Not one of them glanced at the shredded remains. They simply stepped over their fallen comrade's still-warm corpse and kept charging.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Landmines erupted in rapid succession, each blast hurling several orks into the air. Above them, artillery shells screamed through the night, churning up earth, fire, and bodies alike.
Yet nothing could stop the green tide.
Ignoring the carnage around them, the orks trampled over mangled, twitching corpses, using the dead to carve a path of flesh and blood through the minefield.
Far behind the front line, inside the regimental command post, Joker watched the slaughter unfold through a pair of high-powered binoculars. Slowly lowering them, he found the grisly images still lingering in his mind.
"So this is why orks conquer worlds instead of dying out in their savage age," he murmured. "They're... unbelievable. Are they even living creatures?"
"Can we stop them?" Archer asked quietly.
Joker answered without hesitation.
"There's a reason cavalry charges disappeared after Maxim machine guns entered the battlefield."
His confidence returned as he spoke.
"If all they know how to do is charge, they won't break through my defenses."
Then he frowned.
"...But I just saw something that bothers me."
The artillery barrage never relented. Every second, tons of steel and high explosives rained onto the ork advance.
Still, the green horde forced its way through the minefield by sheer momentum.
Farther out in the darkness, two small flashes briefly flickered before disappearing.
The forward reconnaissance outposts.
Surrounded by overwhelming numbers, their defenders had detonated their remaining explosives rather than be captured. Their final act was little more than a faint spark swallowed by the thunder of the battlefield.
The ork tide soon reached the dune ridge.
Exactly as Joker had predicted, they emerged within the overlapping fields of fire of the heavy stubber emplacements.
Twin streams of heavy-caliber rounds crossed the crest like giant steel scythes, shredding everything that appeared.
Orks climbed the ridge only to be torn apart moments later. Green flesh, shattered armor, and broken weapons rained across the sand. Corpses piled atop one another, only to become stepping stones for those charging behind them.
Yet Redeye merely grinned.
If the humans believed orks knew nothing beyond blind charges...
Then they were about to learn otherwise.
He raised his massive steel gauntlet.
"Painboys!" he bellowed.
"Deploy da Squiggs!"
Immediately, several groups of boyz rushed forward carrying piles of bizarre metal parts. Under the supervision of the specialist Painboys, they began assembling crude machines with astonishing speed.
They hammered crooked beams into place, tightened bolts with oversized wrenches, and forced mismatched components together until several ramshackle contraptions resembling medieval catapults stood behind the front line.
The Painboys hauled up heavy wooden crates that shook violently from within, loading them onto the launch arms.
At a shouted command, a Green Skin Kid hacked through the Squigg-tendon release rope with his choppa.
THWANG!
The launch arm snapped upward, hurling the crates high into the night sky.
The launchers were spectacularly inaccurate.
Most crates described absurd arcs before crashing harmlessly into empty dunes.
But luck favored the greenskins.
One crate landed squarely in the middle of a heavy stubber position.
It burst apart on impact.
A deafening swarm erupted from inside.
Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of bee-sized flying Squiggs exploded into the air. Their needle-like jaws snapped furiously as they formed a buzzing black cloud and descended upon the defenders.
"What the hell are those?!"
The players reacted instantly, opening fire the moment they recognized the threat.
Lasguns and autoguns lit up the trench.
Dozens of Squiggs were blasted apart midair.
It wasn't enough.
The swarm engulfed the position in seconds.
The defenders barely had time to scream before they disappeared beneath the living cloud. Moments later, only bloodstained skeletons remained.
The heavy stubber, which had thundered across the battlefield moments before, fell silent.
The Squiggs didn't stop there.
Their buzzing swarm spread toward the neighboring trenches.
"Flamethrowers!" the platoon leader roared. "Burn them!"
A Promethium trooper rushed forward without hesitation and pulled the trigger.
A torrent of burning fuel erupted from the nozzle, washing over the trench like a dragon's breath.
The inferno incinerated the Squiggs almost instantly.
Several unfortunate players, unable to escape in time, were caught in the blaze as well—but the breach was sealed before it could spread.
The entire engagement lasted less than two minutes.
It was enough.
Without the heavy stubber's suppressive fire, groups of ork beastmen surged dozens of meters closer.
Behind them, Stikkbomb throwers finally reached effective range.
Shrieking with excitement, they hurled their crude explosives toward the Imperial trenches.
The Stikkbombs arced overhead.
Some landed wide.
Others landed perfectly.
The recently reclaimed heavy stubber position disappeared beneath a chain of explosions, sending weapons, sandbags, and defenders flying through the air.
Ironically, several ork throwers misjudged their own throws.
"Oops! Threw it wrong!"
Their final words were followed by explosions that launched themselves—and several nearby comrades—straight toward Gork and Mork.
Even so, despite their self-inflicted casualties, the exchange favored the orks.
For the first time that night, the Imperial defensive line had been forced back.