Chapter 1 The Orc Commander

Standing over two meters tall, with terrifying, knotted muscles and coarse, oily skin, Gusmoth, the Orc commander, was a sight to behold. Dragon-like veins pulsed beneath his skin, a coarse black mane billowed in the wind, and the indescribably foul stench assaulted human senses. Topping it all off was a pale, pig-like head covered in swollen lumps.

He raised his giant axe high, and the blade erupted with an intensely scarlet light. A moment later, the light exploded outward in a shockwave that engulfed all the surrounding Orcs within a radius of four or five square kilometers.

The Orcs caught in the crimson wave roared from the depths of their throats, brandishing their weapons, their eyes burning with greed and bloodlust.

Gusmoth's super-tier Bloodthirst spell was on par with Gandalf’s own power, solidifying his position as commander.

The next second, Gusmoth brought his axe crashing down with a furious swish, the back of the blade slamming into the hardwood pin below. The pin shot away, and with a resounding "crack," four thick, rope-like cords whipped through the air, snapping taut.

These cords, made of leather, hair, giant beast tendons, and the rendered fat of subterranean creatures, provided immense kinetic energy to the lever arm when stretched. It swung in a wide arc, launching the massive stone projectile within.

As if on cue, all one hundred and fourteen catapults surrounding Minas Tirith hurled their boulders skyward. The heavens seemed to darken as a cloud of stone rained down.

Minas Tirith had been spared the ravages of war for nearly a century, leaving the city's peaceful character undisturbed. The elegant, garden-like structures built into the mountainside were a testament to this era.

These structures, imbued with Gondorian flair, captured a rich interplay of light and shadow. Sunlight softened the imposing walls, while intricate sculptures, both high and low relief, created unique decorative art.

But their one flaw, like a novice prostitute, was their fragility.

The Orcish catapults unleashed a barrage of at least eighty-seven tons of stone in their first volley. The rocks, spinning and tumbling at initial velocities exceeding five hundred meters per second, slammed into the walls of Minas Tirith.

The sculpted structures crumbled like molting skin, obliterating the years of painstaking work by countless artisans, revealing the ugly, sturdy wartime defenses beneath, with their arrow slits and hidden passages.

The beautiful Minas Tirith had finally donned its brutal armor.

Amidst the long, mournful blasts of horns, nearly forty towering siege towers appeared, each taller than the giant catapults, slowly advancing toward the city walls.

The siege towers' frames were constructed from iron birch, grown in the frigid northern lands. The innermost layer consisted of animal hides, clay, and branches, reinforced with the most basic Earth-to-Stone spell cast by half-orc priests. This process was repeated, layering hides, clay, and magic, so that the towers resembled nothing so much as indestructible, colossal rocks slowly approaching the city.

Of course, moving these behemoths required the prodigious strength of trolls. Despite being clad in full armor, these creatures with their loose, grayish skin possessed astonishing power within their massive frames.

The siege towers were precisely aligned with the height of Minas Tirith's walls, and were filled with elite Uruk-hai warriors. Once they reached the walls and leaped across, the result would be a slaughter.

This was the Orcish way of war: simple, efficient, and brutally direct.

In the face of overwhelming force, the best tactic was no tactic at all. A simple, brute-force assault was the ideal strategy.

*

No Contractor would join the initial assault wave.

While being in the vanguard was glorious, the casualty rate was guaranteed to be at least seventy percent.

With the battle underway, the only thing the Contractors from Noah C-space could do was wait.

With past connections erased, only a few Contractors could speak to Gusmoth, one relying on a token identifying him as a disciple of Saruman, and Fang Senyan among them.

The +3 Legend stat was terrifying enough to deter even Ringwraiths and powerful Orc commanders.

But having a voice didn’t mean he could influence Gusmoth. The eerie calm within Minas Tirith suggested a trap, but its nature remained elusive.

Fang Senyan's mind raced:

"What is the core of this siege? The siege engines, of course. Without them, the Orcs' blades cannot breach the thick walls. The enemy must see this. So how will they deal with the engines? These things have hit points and armor too; they’re not flimsy."

"Yan-ge! Yan-ge!" Sanzi said, approaching him. "Kurutguo senses abnormal earth element power gathering in the city!"

Fang Senyan gasped.

"Could it be...?!"

*

Meanwhile, inside Minas Tirith,

nearly all the Contractor leaders had gathered in the city's dungeon.

They looked tense but also expectant.

A live feed of the battle played before them.

"Closer, closer! Almost there. Based on our simulations, we strike in seventeen seconds for maximum enemy casualties!"

A refined-looking man said calmly, but his shaking hands betrayed his anxiety.

Jue Shi was present, in a position of command. He turned to a woman in an earth-yellow mage robe:

"Onyxia, how's your end?"

"All three major magic arrays are ready. We got an unexpected bonus: Gandalf modified the array's runes, extending our output by 23%."

Jue Shi raised his wine glass, taking a small sip. He waved his right hand, and a clear image appeared mid-air: a topographical cross-section of Minas Tirith projected like a computer simulation, complete with contour lines and density data!

"The power of science is truly magnificent," Jue Shi murmured.

Knowing the final battle would be in Minas Tirith, Jue Shi had quickly utilized his team's strengths, discussing various defense strategies. One person suggested analyzing all available data on Minas Tirith.

The goal was to divert the Anduin River to flood the enemy, and this initially garnered strong support.

Then, the Stockholm team used its real-world connections and resources, combined with data from The Lord of the Rings, to create a detailed deep terrain map of the Minas Tirith area using supercomputers.

Research showed that a water assault was impractical, but a Contractor with geological expertise suggested:

The battle would be at the intersection of the Pelennor Fields and Mount Mindolluin.

Mountains often formed from the collision of tectonic plates. The stress, unable to go down, could only push upward, creating the basic conditions for inducing a natural disaster.

Computer simulations revealed deep structural deformation characterized by reverse thrusting and dextral shearing, so they concluded that inducing a controlled earthquake beneath Minas Tirith was feasible. The geological conditions, though stable, relied on several key points. By systematically disrupting these points, the likelihood of success would be high.

It sounded complex, but the principle was simple: like a vase on a table, to make it fall forward, you cut the legs closest to you; to make it fall backward, you cut the legs furthest away.

Changeable, but fundamentally just an extension of this simple principle.

Moreover, Minas Tirith was built on Mount Mindolluin, whose rocks were renowned for their hardness, so the odds of an accidental landslide were negligible.

After thousands of simulations, they arrived at the optimal solution: combine explosives and magic. First, detonate large amounts of explosives in a specific area, then activate the magic to trigger a minor earthquake. The earthquake's energy would follow the fractured path created by the explosions.

This balanced the power of explosives and magic, greatly reducing the demand for earth mages, and halved the noise they generated when casting spells, minimizing the risk of detection.

Suddenly, Jue Shi raised his glass, saluting the outside world from the dank dungeon, and smiled.

"Good luck, gentlemen."

With that, Project Cataclysm was fully underway!

*

On the chaotic battlefield, with the catapults hurling stones and the massive siege towers only meters from the walls!

On the western edge of the vast Pelennor Fields, three or four kilometers from the battle, a muffled roar erupted underground. Seven or eight vents opened near the source, spewing columns of yellowish-brown sand fifty or sixty meters high!

Then came more terrifying sounds from beneath. Everyone on the battlefield felt unsteady. A fissure appeared at the initial blast site, rapidly extending toward the center of the battlefield!

Starting at less than half a meter wide, the fissure widened with the tremors, eventually reaching dozens of meters! It extended slowly, powerfully, and unstoppably in a curving arc across the Pelennor Fields beneath Minas Tirith. Orc morale plummeted as they fled in terror. Half of the catapults were swallowed by the gaping chasm.

It was just a small earthquake, but its consequences were devastating!

Minas Tirith was now protected by an unfathomable, twenty-meter-wide abyss. The fissure, stretching over six kilometers, meant any ground assault on Minas Tirith had to detour around it, adding nearly five or six kilometers to the journey!

The unfathomable crack was like a ghastly scar on the Pelennor Fields!

Even worse, the fissure ran only one or two hundred meters from Minas Tirith, cutting off the twenty or so siege towers from the main force. Rescuing them required either bypassing the chasm or crossing it.

After the initial shock, the defenders' morale soared. The tall, pristine White Tower emitted a dazzling light, achievable with a few dozen Contractors using basic Light spells. This simple tactic, usually dismissed as impractical by Noah C-space, instantly boosted the defenders' morale!

"A miracle!" echoed throughout Minas Tirith, as hundreds of catapults rained stones down on the isolated siege towers. A large contingent of Contractors and five hundred heavy cavalrymen surged from the city gates, carrying something with them. Their target was the trolls pushing the siege towers. There was no better time to strike.

Seeing this, Gusmoth was momentarily stunned, but he rallied quickly, riding his hyena mount to encourage his troops.

Under his command, the Orcish army split into two, flanking the chasm to engage the enemy and rescue their comrades. From above, they looked like a giant black crab extending its pincers toward the city.

But Minas Tirith, with its superior vantage point, had anticipated Gusmoth's move. The sortie returned safely before the Orc reinforcements arrived, without even engaging in a probing attack. However, Fang Senyan clearly saw them dropping something as they retreated.

They had left behind water pouches. The water soaked the ground, turning it muddy. The Pelennor Fields were already fertile, so this only exacerbated the effect.

Then, on the first level of Minas Tirith, the earth mages who had triggered the earthquake gathered again to cast spells, but not powerful ones. They used a low-tier spell like Light:

"Mud Swamp."

This spell was low-tier because it was extremely dependent on the environment. It was useless in deserts or bodies of water, and its effectiveness diminished in drier areas.

Its primary purpose was to counter cavalry charges. Now, it forced the Orcish reinforcements to wade through kilometers of mud. The elite Uruk-hai from the siege towers would also have to struggle through the mire.

And they were all within range of Minas Tirith's archers, becoming helpless targets!