Chapter 152: The Changes in the Greenskins

On the battlefield, several artillery shells streaked across the sky, landing evenly amidst the mass of Orks. Upon impact, massive walls of fire erupted among the greenskins, the scorching high temperatures of the napalm consuming a vast number of them.

Screaming in agony within the intense inferno, the Orks writhed and rolled continuously on the ground, desperately attempting to extinguish the flames devouring their bodies. But was the fire of napalm so easily put out?

The answer was a definitive no. The gelatinous substance of the napalm adhered to the bodies of the Orks, a thousand-degree heat continuously burning their flesh. Even rolling in snowbanks proved futile; the melted snow could do nothing to quench the fire.

"Holy shit... absolutely brutal..."

On the frontline, Hu Jin, Ye Fan, and a group of transmigrators lay collectively at the edge of the trench, raising their binoculars to observe the destructive efficacy of the napalm strike. Seeing the devastation inflicted upon the Orks, they all drew sharp intakes of breath.

They were shocked by the destructive power of the napalm, yet delighted by the miserable state of the Orks.

"Hey, Boss, the observation results are in. It's too effective; recommend scaling it up."

Hu Jin switched on his communicator and reported the damage assessment of the napalm to Wang Ming, who was currently at the artillery position watching the symphony of Basilisk artillery fire.

"Understood. I'll requisition some more for the artillery regiment. It really is marvelous—burning the Orks and the earth together, once and for all."

Hearing Hu Jin's report, Wang Ming replied with a smile.

The burning effect of the napalm was exceptionally useful. While killing the Orks, it incidentally scorched the ground where they had appeared, thereby purifying the soil tainted with Ork spores as well.

Wang Ming planned to have the First Engineering Company build factories directly on these scorched tracts of land, as the soil was rendered entirely incapable of growing plants anyway.

The Orks struck by the napalm turned into individual torches within the horde. Through their agonizing struggles while burning, they continuously flung the gelatinous incendiary substance onto their unignited peers, causing a sea of fire to spread rapidly through the Ork ranks in an instant.

However, the reaction speed of the Orks was relatively quick. After roughly a quarter of them had been ignited, the Ork nobs finally organized the boyz to shoot down the burning Orks, preventing them from drawing close to others and causing the fire to spread further.

Under the command of the Ork nobs, the burning Orks were systematically isolated. The Ork boyz used their crude firearms to pump bullets into the bodies of the burning greenskins. Yet the marksmanship of the Orks was mediocre at best; what began as somewhat orderly volley fire directed by the nobs soon degenerated into a free-for-all of various weapons firing wildly across the mob.

Shells, grenades, shootas, and even autoguns looted from the PDF joined this chaotic revelry. The Ork horde dissolved into near-total anarchy. What started as merely shooting the fire-engulfed Orks soon escalated into nobs with mutual grudges firing covert shots at one another, which eventually culminated in a full-scale brawl across the entire greenskin mass. Led by their respective nobs, the Ork boyz continually opened fire on rival greenskins, while the nobs seized the chaos of the napalm attack to vie for the position of Warboss.

Because of their infighting, the burning Orks were neglected. Capitalizing on the chaos, they charged into other Ork groups, setting them ablaze. The spreading sea of fire, which had paused momentarily, resumed its expansion among the Ork boyz due to the squabbling of the nobs.

"Uh... what are these Orks doing? Why are they suddenly turning on each other?"

Watching the burning Ork horde on the battlefield, Ye Fan asked Hu Jin in puzzlement, utterly failing to comprehend why these greenskins had suddenly started fighting among themselves.

"Ah, well... tell me, is there a possibility that their nobs are fighting over the position of Warboss?"

Hu Jin looked at the warring greenskins and offered a tentative guess to Ye Fan.

"Is that even a possibility? Fighting over the Warboss title under a napalm bombardment? Are these Orks really that stupid?"

Ye Fan glanced at the Ork horde twice more before questioning Hu Jin.

"Well... don't overestimate the intelligence of an Ork, but don't expect their brains to be working very well either."

Hu Jin looked at Ye Fan and said slowly.

"Notify the artillery regiment; give them another round to make their little party even livelier."

Observing the chaotic greenskins, Hu Jin retrieved his communicator once more, preparing to contact the artillery regiment for a repeat barrage.

"This is Hu Jin. Requesting another round of bombardment from the artillery regiment. Coordinates uploaded."

With that, Hu Jin uploaded the coordinates of the Orks to his combat terminal.

Before long, Wang Ming witnessed the artillery position roar to life once again. Shells of napalm flew in a scattered, even pattern toward the Ork horde, and the wall of fire materialized anew, thoroughly igniting the Orks that had previously escaped the flames.

The sea of fire raged across the bodies of every single Ork. Even the crude iron cans of the Orks had their outer plating roasted by the intense heat, and the Gretchin pilots inside were baked alive. Anyone walking past those scrap metal cans might have even caught the scent of roasted mushrooms.

The fires generated by the napalm continued to burn fiercely among the Orks, with countless greenskins screaming in agony within the blaze. As the napalm consumed the fuel, the surrounding air was rapidly depleted, and the combustion produced massive amounts of breathable-depriving carbon monoxide. Yet this was not the most lethal factor for the Orks; the sheer damage from the flames remained the critical cause of their demise. As the oxygen dwindled, the fires gradually sputtered out.

Fresh air slowly flowed back into the vacuumed zone. A vast number of Orks had already been burned to death, though a handful managed to survive the onslaught, albeit reduced to a state where they were virtually stripped of any combat capability.

Severe, sauce-colored burn wounds covered the bodies of those surviving Orks. Although the lethal chemical agents within the napalm could not kill an Ork outright, they inflicted excruciating agony.

"Alright, have the brothers get ready. The Orks are practically dealt with; prepare to clear the battlefield."

Raising his binoculars to survey the wretched state of the Orks on the battlefield, Hu Jin spoke to Ye Fan beside him.

"Understood."

Ye Fan also cast a glance at the surviving Orks on the field, acknowledged Hu Jin's order, and went off to rally the transmigrators.

"Beep, beep, beep!!!"

Three loud bugle calls of the charge rang out. Spearheading the charge, arranged by Wang Ming in the First Company of the Second Regiment, were the three Krieg brothers. Those three resounding charges instantly awakened their dormant memories.

Wielding power entrenching tools, they charged straight toward the surviving Orks. Behind them, the other transmigrators cast strange glances their way; their speed in climbing out of the trenches was simply too fast.

Those three Krieg brothers acted as though they had rehearsed the sequence countless times. While the other transmigrators were still scrambling out of the trenches, they had already bolted forward without a single trace of hesitation.

Following a brief moment of utter bewilderment, the remaining transmigrators also hefted their weapons and charged toward the surviving Orks, the combat style of the Second Regiment's transmigrators being notoriously fierce.

The transmigrators rushed into the mass of Orks—now reduced to heaps of disgusting, charred tissue—and swiftly dispatched the remaining survivors one by one with precision bolter shots.

The bolter rounds granted those suffering Orks a swift release. A few still dragged their shattered, broken bodies forward in an attempt to attack the transmigrators, but they could not draw close to any of them before being obliterated by a single bolter round.

The relentless echoes of bolter fire across the icy plains, combined with the concussive impacts of the shells hitting Ork flesh, synthesized into a magnificent symphony.

These surviving Orks were completely eliminated by the transmigrators within ten minutes. Once the task was finished, the transmigrators promptly withdrew from the battlefield, leaving the subsequent chores to be handled by the Mortal Auxiliary forces.

A series of pre-prepared machinery whirred to life, and massive bulldozer blades scooped up all the Ork remains into a single pile to facilitate a secondary incineration shortly afterward. With creatures like Orks, one could only rest easy once they were entirely reduced to ash.

Furthermore, the Mortal Auxiliary units treated the terrain over which the Orks had marched. A deluge of potent chemical agents thoroughly transformed the soil into a dead zone incapable of sustaining any plant life, obliterating the lingering Ork spores within the earth with lethal toxins.

"The results are promising. Well worth rolling out on a larger scale."

Watching the footage recorded by Hu Jin, Wang Ming said with a smile. The combat efficacy of the napalm left Wang Ming thoroughly satisfied. Its lethality was exceptional; clustered Orks stood zero chance of surviving such an assault, and even the fortunate survivors were left crippled and entirely devoid of combat utility.

Following Wang Ming's resupply orders, vast quantities of napalm were dispatched to various major battlefields. Equipped with these devastating armaments, the transmigrators initiated relentless, unbridled artillery barrages.

The artillery regiments ceased fire for no sector of the Orks. Once the napalm supplies arrived, all conventional high-explosive fragmentation shells were entirely replaced with napalm.

Across one battlefield after another, gigantic walls of fire rose amidst the Ork hordes, and countless greenskins, ignited by the gelatinous fuel, wailed as they set their comrades ablaze in turn.

On certain battlefields, burning Orks attempted a final desperate struggle by charging toward the transmigrators' positions, yet under the concentrated fire of various heavy weaponry, they failed utterly to approach the lines.

The napalm doctrine was remarkably effective, though it relied upon a massive logistical foundation of ammunition. The transmigrators cared little for ammunition consumption, with Wang Ming serving as their ultimate backing.

Yet, as effective as napalm proved to be, after several prolonged engagements, the transmigrators were astonished to discover that the Orks had adapted in response. Enclosed armored vehicles began appearing in significant numbers among the greenskins, who had even concocted makeshift equivalents of flame-retardant suits.

After roughly a month of continuous warfare, the Orks had fully adapted to counter napalm, and their combat tactics began to display the rudimentary shadow of tactical coordination.

The Orks began organizing into small, dispersed groups across the battlefield to prevent the devastating area-of-effect damage of the napalm from cascading through their mobs. This tactic successfully severely degraded the lethality of the napalm strikes. Some Orks had even commenced counterattacks against human lines, resulting in heavy casualties along certain sectors not manned by transmigrators but defended solely by Mortal Auxiliary forces.

In their battles against the transmigrators, the Orks had begun learning human methods of warfare. Along a trench line garrisoned by the Fifth Company of the Fifth Regiment, an Ork tactical infiltration squad was even discovered.

"Hoo~, everyone, I bring bad news. Based on the behavioral shifts of the Orks over the past month, Captain Jiang Tao estimates that another Warboss has likely emerged among them."

Inside the governor's office, Wang Ming held a vacuum flask in one hand while swiping across a datapad on the table with the other, addressing the assembled company commanders around him.

The governor's mansion had now been converted into a temporary command center, outfitted with an array of equipment. Wang Ming had even set up a holographic projection screen in the governor's office capable of real-time battlefield surveillance.

As Wang Ming swiped across the datapad screen, reconnaissance images captured at the cost of transmigrators' lives materialized before the gathering via holographic projection.

"The Warboss that has surfaced this time is far more cunning than the previous one; it has begun adopting certain tactics of ours. Would you believe it? Our tactical reconnaissance squad recently stumbled upon an Ork artillery position, and those greenskins actually pieced together artillery pieces using piles of steel pipes."

Hu Jin looked over the images, recounting a peculiar discovery made in his sector.

Prior to this, responding to the changing behavior of the Orks, the First Company of the Second Regiment had dispatched a tactical squad to infiltrate enemy lines behind Ork positions and conduct reconnaissance. While passing through a valley, they were astonished to uncover an Ork artillery assembly area.

The greenskins had literally cobbled together cannons out of massive quantities of steel pipes. The transmigrators had eradicated the Ork artillery position the moment they laid eyes on it.

Upon subsequently inspecting the captured Ork guns, the transmigrators were shocked to discover that the barrels of these cannons had been fashioned from oversized municipal underground exhaust pipes.

The greenskins had simply carved crude rifling into the interior walls. Inspecting the weaponry, the transmigrators were completely baffled as to why the tubes had not ruptured from chamber pressure; structurally speaking, those exhaust pipes were entirely incapable of withstanding the pressures generated during shell projection. Was the Waaagh! field truly this absurd?

"Indeed. Take a look at this."

Listening to Hu Jin, Wang Ming nodded in agreement and pulled up several additional images.

On the holographic projection, various categories of Orks classified by Captain Jiang Tao were highlighted with markers.

"This is the Ork classification chart compiled by Captain Jiang Tao based on their morphology. Have a look."

Wang Ming directed his words at the surrounding transmigrators as he gestured to the visuals.

On the holographic projection, the appearance of the Ork boyz differed markedly from previous encounters. They had even donned standardized uniforms, the cuts and camouflage patterns of which bore a striking resemblance to the starry camouflage fatigues worn by the Mortal Auxiliary—albeit rendered in a much cruder fashion.

As for the Ork nobs, they wore heavy armor pieced together from unknown materials. Upon closer inspection, one could discern that the armor plating on the Ork nobs bore a superficial resemblance to the transmigrators' MK10 power armor, though judging by its appearance, it was likely nothing more than ordinary, superficially similar plate armor.