Chapter 127: One Billion Orcs
The great battle in space was filled with constant booming, and amid the flashing lasers, gravity bombs struck the orcish warships, ten kilometers long.
The data repository on the bridge, comprised of thousands of people working simultaneously, continuously sent the latest instructions to the company commanders based on the current battlefield situation and the Primarch's orders. The company commanders also reacted swiftly to changes.
The Alpha Legion, with over two thousand warships combined, relied on gravity bombs and superior command skills to destroy the Orcs' fighting power in space systematically.
One Month Later
More than two thousand Alpha Legion space warships besieged the remaining eight hundred orc fleets. The dense barrage of fire destroyed the orc warships one by one methodically, and Astartes could be seen boarding the stationary orc warships from time to time.
At that moment, a red light flashed inside the ship as a notification: Omega had received word of the arrival of the final fleet and was pleased with the overall battle situation.
"Any later and this space war would be over completely!"
More than a thousand Alpha Legion ships arrived from the galaxy behind them, and after making contact with the two Primarchs directly, they immediately rushed over at high speed to join the battle.
Seeing that they had a clear, decisive advantage, Alpharius launched a landing operation ahead of schedule.
Above Planet Nephis, numerous ground-based orc strongholds continuously fired into the air. However, the Alpha Legion's hypersonic aircraft, hampered by the attack, still managed to re-enter the atmosphere successfully.
The aircraft, flying at high speed through the atmosphere, swept across the ground below, passing numerous orc war bases and orc cities. Like barbarian steel cities, these cities were filled with orc boys, swarms of gretchin, and Snotlings.
Some orc cities were already prepared for war, with millions of orcs scattered across the mountains and plains.
Upon seeing dozens of flying machines soaring overhead, the orcs shouted "Waaagh!" loudly.
Orcs had cultivated Planet Nephis for decades. Orc spores were everywhere, turning it into a completely orcish habitat. As a result, the orcs had become so numerous that they were fighting each other on the planet's surface constantly.
On the ground below, millions of orcs were engaged in a fierce battle between two opposing armies, with numerous dreadnought mechs clashing with over thirty-meter-tall Gargant mechs.
Orcs were warlike by nature; after scanning the planet thoroughly, the spacecraft found tens of thousands of orc wars of their own across the entire planet!
Based on the intensity of the war, the data repository was astonished to discover that the orcs themselves were losing millions of lives every month in their own wars alone, and the situation was even more alarming when facing the Alpha Legion's fleet directly.
The estimated number of orcs reached an astonishing one billion total, leaving Omega and Alpharius utterly shocked.
Human civilization had a huge population advantage in fighting other alien races. Still, the orc civilization had the same advantage, as their asexual spore reproduction was more efficient than humans' biological reproduction.
With the Alpha Legion's force of over 30 million men landing, the orc army could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers alone.
On the bridge of Alpharius, the two Primarchs met and, after discussing the matter carefully, Omega, knowing that a direct assault on the entire legion would cripple them, suggested cautiously...
"Let's start with a hundred orbital bombardments and see what the effect is!"
Alpharius nodded, then chuckled and asked, "You just received a gold medal for saving a human planet. Aren't you worried about impacting the planet's environment with such a heavy-handed move?"
"It's better than heavy casualties. I've never said we should abandon bombing tactics entirely!"
"I agree!"
After the two Primarchs agreed on a strategy, one group of warships began to hunt down the remaining Orc warships, while the other group immediately began orbital bombardment. A large number of warships hovered in space above Effie.
The condensed ion cannon light blocked out the sun's light completely, and hundreds of ion cannon spears, each hundreds of meters long, pierced straight down through the clouds.
Boom!
On the surface of the planet Effie, numerous orc cities were entangled in a standoff between energy shields and light spears in mid-air, with dazzling energy shockwaves filling the entire planet with high-density energy fluctuations.
A small orc war base could not withstand the attack. The light spear destroyed the energy shield and crashed down violently, turning countless orcs and the base into ashes.
One orc city after another was destroyed systematically. The energy shields of medium-sized orc cities withstood a powerful orbital bombardment, not to mention the energy shields of large cities, which remained completely unaffected.
This scene astonished the tech-priests observing, and Alpharius exclaimed, "They're completely different from the orcs we fought in the Veredian system; their technology seems incredibly advanced!"
"The orc civilization is entirely unreasonable. I was worrying about this planet for nothing!" Omega estimated that the more orcs there were, the bigger the war would be, and the more advanced the orc civilization would be, so this explanation was plausible.
Omega never seriously doubted the technological level of the orc civilization; if needed, they could easily create an artificial moon and use gravity weapons.
The orcs' technology is all in their genes; they only need to tap into their potential through Waaagh.
If one launch fails, then another orbital bombardment!
As the hypersonic aircraft discovered more and more orc armies clustered on the surface, the orbital bombardment also included these orcs in its bombardment range, with dazzling ion cannons continuously blasting into the planet Effie.
On the planet's surface, in a forest and wilderness, there were countless green-skinned orcs, millions of them, wielding weapons and roaring at the sky.
A dazzling beam of light descended from the sky, striking the very center of the orc army directly, covering and bombarding an area of hundreds of kilometers.
Countless orcs were wiped out instantly, and energy shockwaves swept across the surrounding area for thousands of kilometers.
A Month Later
Hundreds of orc cities on Planet Nephis had been wrecked, leaving large craters on the ground.
The remaining orc fleet in space had long since become space debris, with countless orc fleet junk drifting in large clumps. The Alpha Legion officially began its landing operation, with a large number of Thunderhawk gunships, bombers, and transport planes flying into the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, ten war bases were rapidly taking shape on the planet's surface.
Everything proceeded smoothly according to the previous steps. Given the overwhelming number of orcs, no large-scale troop deployment was undertaken initially; instead, ten war bases were established to concentrate forces against the enemy.
Millions of bombers entered the atmosphere and began bombing the coordinates of tens of millions of orc positions, while a large amount of detailed data was continuously uploaded.
Meanwhile, countless missiles from the war base bombarded the orc army at a distance.
If it were a massive orc army of millions, a hydrogen bomb would be launched to destroy it in one go; if it were fewer than a million orcs, conventional missiles would be used.
With the completion of the detailed planetary model of Nephis, the bombing's progress became clear and intuitive.
The war on the planet's surface was raging intensely. Omega read the statistical reports from the data think tank and, combined with the overall battlefield data, gained a comprehensive understanding.
The previous month's orbital bombardment had wiped out over 300 million orcs, mainly due to the sheer number of them and the high efficiency of the concentrated orbital bombardment. However, considering the planet's capacity to withstand the bombardment, they did not continue.
The bombardment had been intermittent for a month, and the planet was nearing environmental collapse.
Of course, the Alpha Legion did not abandon orbital bombardment entirely; instead, it conducted bombardment in intervals, trying to avoid concentrating the bombing in a short period to prevent irreversible damage to the planet.
Hydrogen bombs were more effective at detecting orc armies on the planet's surface, as the impact of a hydrogen bomb explosion was not as significant as that of orbital bombing.
At this moment, the countless orc armies on Planet Effie were not afraid of the orbital bombardment. In response to the aerial bombardment, the orcs organized robust anti-aircraft defenses and intercepted missiles, shooting down the fighter jets.
As time passed, the scattered orc armies began to converge systematically.
The orc army ranged in size from tens of thousands to millions or even tens of millions.
The entire planet was engulfed in a green swarm as countless orc boys wielding weapons, fearless orc mechs, orc mechs over ten meters tall, and an orc army composed of ancient scrap over thirty meters tall marched in with overwhelming force.
The data repository quickly tallied the size of the orc army, which jumped from nearly 100 million to over 300 million, and the number was still rising steadily.
The orcs were a nation of warriors; even the weakest gretchin could take up arms and fight.
Such a terrifying orc army surged towards the ten war bases from all directions simultaneously, with fighter jets and missiles being shot down from time to time. The sheer number of enemies made everyone in the Alpha Legion extremely nervous.
[End of Chapter]
Sorry for the late update. Couldn't do much work in the hospital in peace.