Chapter 138: Ancient Colossal Junk

“What happened to the boss? What is with this fighting style?”

Qin Ji watched Wang Ming battle various Ork bosses bare-handed, and asked the recently arrived traveler beside him in confusion.

“Er... it might have something to do with that video you filmed.”

The traveler chopped down an Ork that charged at him, then answered Qin Ji.

“Ah... Well, should I hide out with the Deathwatch for a while?”

Qin Ji watched Wang Ming rip an Ork boss’s head clean off its body, then asked the traveler beside him in a small voice.

“You’ll still have to come back after you die.”

The traveler looked at Qin Ji, rejecting his ostrich-like attempt to avoid the problem.

“You’d better think about how to delete that video.”

After saying this, the traveler swung his sword and sent an Ork’s head flying.

“All right.”

Qin Ji looked weakly at Wang Ming’s retreating back as he slaughtered the greenskins. He was currently racking his gene-forged transhuman brain for a way to solve the problem.

Wang Ming was having the time of his life. He gripped one greenskin by the neck with one hand and another by the foot with the other, then began spinning among the Orks like a windmill.

Wang Ming became a grinding wheel of slaughter. Holding the two greenskins in his hands, he hammered every Ork foolish enough to approach into bloody pulp.

The maneuver was highly effective, though it was rather wasteful of greenskins. Under Wang Ming’s assault, the two Orks he was using as weapons had their entire upper bodies smashed to pieces.

Looking at the two greenskins he had wielded as weapons, Wang Ming tossed them to the ground with some regret. He glanced at the dead Ork bosses littering the area, shook his head, and rolled his neck. His outburst was over. The rest was the mission.

Wang Ming looked at the few remaining Ork bosses left after his earlier rampage and raised his power sword. His speed was like a gust of wind as he swept past one greenskin boss after another. No one could make out his figure. Every Ork boss he killed merely felt a breeze pass by before its head slid from its shoulders.

As the headless corpses toppled one after another, Wang Ming nodded in satisfaction. The objective had been achieved. The greenskins’ entire command structure had been eliminated. It would probably take the little ones a long time to raise another group of bosses—but Wang Ming had no intention of giving them that time.

“Commander Andras, the greenskin command structure has been decapitated. Has there been any change on the front line?”

Wang Ming watched the greenskins gradually retreating around him and asked Commander Andras over the communicator.

“My lord Primarch, the greenskins on the front line have stopped charging. They are... er, how should I put it? They are retreating. Good heavens! This is the first time I have ever seen these beasts retreat!”

Andras stared in shock at the greenskins withdrawing from before the trenches.

“They like war, but they aren’t stupid. They may spend most of their time behaving like dim-witted beasts, but they understand the wisdom of preserving their strength.”

Wang Ming looked at the greenskins around him. They kept glancing at him as they backed away, as though they feared him.

Greenskins were... well, one could even call them a kind of plant. They simply loved fighting and war. They would not line up in droves to throw their lives away in a situation that was obviously suicidal. Besides, the greenskins around Wang Ming had personally witnessed a giant killing every one of their bosses. Their morale had already collapsed.

With both the boss and the war leaders dead, the greenskins’ morale had vanished along with them. Greenskins possessed morale too, though it differed from that of other species. Battle and death did not break their spirits. On the contrary, those things only made them happier and more eager to fight.

But when their bosses and leaders died, the situation changed. Greenskins generally regarded their bosses and war leaders as the strongest individuals among them. They worshiped those bosses and the one supreme war leader. Once such special greenskins died, the morale of all the greenskins who worshiped them would collapse.

Wang Ming understood greenskin morale like this: one boy saw his boss hacked to death and began to wonder. If even the boss had been killed, then he surely could not win either. He would then pass the news to the other greenskins, who would begin wondering the same thing. If even the boss had been killed, then they certainly could not win. As the news spread, more and more greenskin boys concluded that they could not win, and their morale collapsed.

Then all the greenskins would begin retreating in confusion. The morale of the entire tribe would not recover until a new boss had been chosen.

Of course, all of this was merely Wang Ming’s speculation. To humans, the entire greenskin race looked like a collection of beasts, and Wang Ming had no way of knowing exactly how their society functioned. It was not as though he could send Hu Jin undercover among the greenskins to gather intelligence.

“Commander Andras, prepare to attack. We’ve been fighting positional warfare for long enough. We have to go on the offensive eventually. Remember to bring the flamers. Today, we’re roasting mushrooms.”

Wang Ming watched the greenskins around him begin to run and spoke to Andras.

“Yes, my lord Primarch.”

Andras watched the greenskins flee in disorder and relayed the Primarch’s order to the Mortal Auxilia.

As the order went out, every armored vehicle in the position roared to life. The vehicles advanced toward the greenskins ahead, while the Mortal Auxilia divided into squads and followed behind them. A simple skirmishing formation combining infantry and armor took shape.

The Auxilia pursued the greenskins. Fortunately, the Orks had few vehicles, and the soldiers soon caught up with them. The heavy flamers mounted on the various armored vehicles—originally used against the Plague Zombies of the Gobe World—now proved their worth. Serpents of fire appeared among the greenskins, and the intense heat of the promethium fuel reduced those caught directly in the flames to drifting ash.

The greenskins did not simply allow themselves to be slaughtered. They launched a counterattack of their own. Boys carrying massive choppas charged the Auxilia, trying to hack the puny humans into pieces. But the soldiers gave them no chance to get close. Whenever a greenskin boy charged, the Auxilia opened a neat hole in its head with their lasers—one that usually vaporized the entire skull.

Under the Auxilia’s pursuit, the greenskins grew fewer and fewer. But this was only true on the surface. Unless the ground traveled by the greenskins was thoroughly cleared after they were destroyed, a new crop of cheerful, war-loving giant mushrooms might sprout here the following year—or even sooner.

Once the greenskins had been dealt with, specialists would be sent to cleanse the area. Biological agents and various chemicals would treat every patch of ground where the greenskins had existed. The soil would become a dead wasteland where no plant could grow.

This would have little effect on the inhabitants of Kossel IV. The planet’s primary exports were various minerals, and whether its soil could grow anything was irrelevant to them. In any case, the natural environment of Kossel IV could not grow much of anything.

“Dakla, I reckon that puny boss is dead tough. He’s bigger than the old boss, and he fights even better. I reckon that puny boss is even more of a Waaagh than our old Warboss.”

On a hillside, two greenskin boys held a telescope cobbled together from unknown scraps and watched Wang Ming pursuing the fleeing Orks.

“Oi, you two! Stop gawking at that big git! Get over here! I’ve finished building it. This Gargant is going to be a right proper Waaagh!”

Just as the two greenskin boys were discussing whether the golden-skinned giant or their former Warboss was stronger, an Ork Big Mek suddenly appeared behind them.

“Well, it seems none of the greenskins are brave enough to come near me now.”

Wang Ming looked at the fleeing greenskins around him and thought helplessly to himself. He had wanted to keep playing with the Orks that dared to fight him.

“Boss! Look behind you!”

Qin Ji, who was pursuing the greenskins in front of Wang Ming, suddenly glanced back and shouted urgently.

“Behind me? What could be behind me? Judging by that look on your face, is it an Ork Gargant?”

As Wang Ming considered Qin Ji’s words, a tremendous roar suddenly came from behind him. He turned quickly and saw an Ork Gargant the size of a Warhound sprinting toward him.

“Damn, why is something that big moving so fast?”

Wang Ming stared at the Gargant in astonishment. Its speed was completely abnormal. What had that greenskin Big Mek installed in it? The Gargant was moving far too quickly. Barely a minute after Wang Ming spotted it, the machine had already raced through the retreating greenskin mob and reached him.

“I’m gonna stomp the golden-skinned git flat! I’ll be the next Warboss! Waaagh!”

Dakla brought the Gargant up to Wang Ming and swiftly brought one enormous foot down on him.

“What the hell?!”

Wang Ming looked at the descending steel foot and instinctively made an incredibly foolish move. He actually raised his arms, trying to block the machine weighing more than three hundred tons.

With a heavy impact, the Gargant crushed him into the ground.

“Hahaha! I stomped the golden-skinned giant flat! I’m the Warboss! Waaagh!”

Dakla stared at Wang Ming beneath the Gargant’s foot, baring his huge teeth in delighted laughter. He was convinced he had killed Wang Ming and was about to become the next Warboss.

“Boss!”

The traveler pursuing the greenskins nearby stared in shock as Wang Ming was stomped into the ground.

“Damn! The boss got crushed by the Gargant!”

Qin Ji looked at Wang Ming pinned beneath the machine and shouted to the traveler beside him.

“Er... probably not. The boss is a Primarch. Something this heavy should not be enough to kill him.”

The traveler regarded the Gargant with perfect calm. A Primarch could not possibly die so easily.

“Wait! Look at the Gargant’s foot! It’s being pushed up!”

As Qin Ji and the traveler spoke, they suddenly saw the foot pressing down on Wang Ming rise into the air. Wang Ming was lifting the Gargant itself.

“See? I told you.”

The traveler looked at Wang Ming with an expression of complete vindication.

“Good Lord... That thing must weigh at least three hundred tons!”

Qin Ji stared at Wang Ming, wide-eyed and speechless. He now truly understood the terror of a Primarch. On the scale of the galaxy, even a Primarch could not wield particularly overwhelming strength—but on a ground battlefield, even the weakest Primarch was a terrifying engine of war.

Wang Ming gritted his teeth and braced the Gargant’s foot, forcing it upward through sheer strength. He was a strength-oriented Primarch—at least in terms of physique. Even so, he could not support a machine weighing more than three hundred tons for long.

The void shield on Wang Ming’s armor had not activated at all. At such a distance and with the attack moving so quickly, it had no time to respond. The defensive field had absorbed part of the impact, but it had not lasted long beneath three hundred tons of pressure before overloading. Fortunately, Wang Ming’s power armor was sturdy enough, and he himself was unharmed. Only a human-shaped crater had been left in the ground.

“You miserable bastard... You thought you could stomp me, did you?”

Wang Ming looked up at the Gargant’s foot and shoved upward with all his might, sending the machine staggering.

Taking advantage of the Gargant’s unsteady footing, Wang Ming quickly escaped from beneath it. But he did not run. Instead, he leaped onto the machine, seized its outer shell, and rapidly climbed toward the cockpit in its head.

Like a lizard, Wang Ming clung to the Gargant’s armor and scrambled toward the cockpit.

“Dakla! You ain’t Waaagh enough! You didn’t kill the golden-skinned giant!”

Inside the Gargant’s crude cockpit, two greenskin boys watched Wang Ming climbing toward them. One of them shouted.

“Lies! I’m plenty Waaagh!”

Hearing his companion, Dakla angrily grabbed his choppa and opened the cockpit hatch. He would prove to his companion just how Waaagh he was.

“Waaagh!”

Wang Ming had reached the halfway point when a greenskin roar came from above his head. He looked up and saw that the Gargant’s cockpit had been opened. A greenskin stood in the doorway, holding a massive choppa and staring down at him.

“What is he trying to do?”

Wang Ming looked at the greenskin boy in bewilderment. Was this idiot planning to jump down and chop him?

Wang Ming stared at the greenskin boy, and the greenskin boy stared back at Wang Ming. Wang Ming wondered what the boy was planning, while the boy wondered whether he should jump down and hack Wang Ming apart.