**Chapter 122: War**
For the past two months, Golden Harbor’s surface remained as prosperous as ever.
The port’s docks were perpetually crowded with merchant ships, their sails snapping in the wind, while the shouts of laborers echoed endlessly.
At the “Drunken Dolphin” tavern, Jie Ming occasionally met with Old Gray, gleaning bits of street gossip.
“The border’s getting restless again, Jack,” Old Gray said, downing a mug of malt ale and wiping his mouth, his voice low. “The orcs are stirring up trouble with constant skirmishes. Those green-skins got thrashed like dogs by the wizards before, but now that the wizards have eased their offensive, they’re getting cocky again.”
Jie Ming nodded calmly. “I heard the nobles plan to renege on the promised supplies?”
“Hah, nothing new there,” Old Gray scoffed. “Those nobles screw over their own kind, let alone some green-skins.”
He took another swig. “Still, I don’t know what these nobles are thinking. It’s wartime, and they’re bold enough to pull this stunt. Aren’t they afraid of orc retaliation?!”
“Probably… blinded by greed,” Jie Ming said, shaking his head.
He could sense the city’s nerves gradually unraveling.The local nobles, especially those who’d amassed fortunes through wartime smuggling and hoarding, had grown extravagant, oblivious to external threats.
Perhaps they saw the dangers but let immense profits cloud their judgment, willfully ignoring the risks.
“However… according to Amy’s intel, the camp has halted its offensive and even started pulling back defenses. Looks like the wizards plan to exploit the situation here.”
At this thought, Jie Ming took a sip from his mug, hiding the slight curl of his lips.
…
…
At night, during a noble’s private banquet, goblets clinked, and laughter filled the air.
In the city’s central noble district, elegant silk gowns and glittering jewels were everywhere. Nobles swayed wine glasses in opulent salons, their soft murmurs laced with the arrogance of victors.
“I hear the green-skins are stirring again, with constant border skirmishes,” a corpulent local baron, fingers adorned with gem-encrusted rings, said, raising his glass to an earl beside him at the private feast.
“Just a bunch of barbarians without mage protection. What waves can they make? They scurried like rats when the wizards crushed them last time. Now that the wizards have slowed down, they think they’re tough again?”
The earl smirked disdainfully. “The orcs should be grateful! No need to fully honor the promised supplies. Toss them a bone to keep them fighting the wizards on the frontlines—that’s the best outcome. The wizards have pulled back their lines anyway; clearly, we’ve scared them off.”
His words spoke of wizards, but his eyes gleamed with scheming, clearly focused on how to shortchange the orcs further.
To these local nobles, who’d grown rich through wartime profiteering, this “peace” was the fruit of their cunning and wealth.
Yet, in the shadowed corners of this thriving city, a different scene unfolded.
Exiled nobles from other regions, stripped of ancestral lands and income, lived in poverty.
They sold off their remaining assets, renting in Golden Harbor’s remote districts. Though their clothes remained neat, they couldn’t hide the exhaustion on their faces or the resentment in their eyes.
Jie Ming’s Hundred Flowers Dew was mostly collected by the servants of these exiled nobles.
In fact, the dew’s rewards had become the sole livelihood for many of them.
But Jie Ming’s resources were limited; his arrival merely delayed the inevitable eruption of tensions.
Still, his presence had postponed the city’s underlying conflicts, plunging Golden Harbor into a false peace.
Under this illusion, the city’s defenses grew appallingly lax.
Guards on the walls idled, playing dice and casting bored glances outside.
Port patrols gathered in twos and threes, boasting about tavern women and their escapades.
Commanders were consumed by internal power struggles, their minds fixed on seizing more land and wealth post-war.
The city was like a grand ship, basking in false calm before a storm, its hull already riddled with rot.
…
…
Night fell again, and Golden Harbor’s bustle quieted.
Jie Ming returned to his villa, sitting cross-legged in the study, entering deep meditation.
His mental sea was a tranquil lake, where sorcery runes intertwined with his soul, faintly glowing.
Suddenly…
A subtle tremor rose from the earth’s depths, nearly imperceptible, yet it made Jie Ming’s heart skip.
Then, a faint evening breeze carried the stench of blood and slaughter, mixed with the scent of charred wood, abruptly invading his senses.
In the distance, an unusual roar—feral and beastly—echoed faintly before being swept away by the night wind.
Jie Ming’s eyes snapped open, his icy gaze piercing the thick walls toward Golden Harbor’s edge.
He stared in a certain direction, a low chuckle escaping him. “It’s begun.”
The next instant, Golden Harbor’s silence was shattered by an earth-shaking explosion!
To the west, a fiery blaze shot skyward, accompanied by a booming blast. The city wall there had been blown open, leaving a massive breach.
“Roar!”
“Kill!!!”
Beastly howls and deep, savage roars thundered through the night sky.
Countless towering figures surged through the breach like a tide—green-skinned, clad in crude armor, wielding massive, rudimentary weapons.
Orcs!
Simultaneously, chaos erupted across the city.
Through his pre-arranged Dimlight Eye detection system, Jie Ming clearly saw the city’s upheavals.
While the western gate was blasted open by magic, the other seemingly sturdy gates were silently opened from within.
Dark figures—some in noble servants’ garb, others in tattered mercenary armor—flashed with fervent, furious eyes. They stabbed their comrades, tearing fatal gaps for the orcs to pour through.
These were the exiled nobles and their private soldiers.
The disparity caused by war’s upheavals, contrasted with the bloated wealth of local nobles, made them easy prey for orc manipulation, determined to “redistribute” the city’s wealth.
“Kill! For the Earth Mother!” The frenzied orc vanguard, like bloodthirsty wolves, charged toward the city’s core and guard headquarters.
Adorned with war tattoos, wielding giant axes and bone blades, each step shook the ground.
Among them, Jie Ming spotted massive berserk war boars carrying spear-wielding orc riders, unstoppable as they barreled through streets, and swift wolf cavalry darting like black whirlwinds between buildings.
Golden Harbor’s already feeble defenses, caught off guard by this internal-external assault, were powerless.
The command center was ambushed and destroyed instantly, paralyzing the defense system.
Wall guards were stabbed from behind or eliminated by orc arrows before they could react.
Chaos spread like a plague.
Flames soared, houses collapsed under orc trampling, and screams, curses, desperate cries, and excited orc roars blended into a hellish symphony.
Blood flowed in rivers through the streets. Local nobles and merchants, caught unprepared, saw their lavish robes soaked in blood, torn apart like rag dolls by the orcs.
Yesterday’s decadence became today’s wreckage.
The orc vanguard didn’t pause, their goal clear: clear the city for the main army.
Jie Ming’s area, a hub for nobles and merchants, was naturally a prime target.
*Thud! Thud! Thud!*
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Heavy footsteps and crude war cries rapidly approached the villa.
But as the orcs entered the wealthy district, their swift advance slowed.
The hired forces of nobles and merchants far outclassed the city’s official guards, and many nobles were formidable themselves.
With abundant magical tools, they used the district’s buildings as fortifications, momentarily halting the orc assault.
But that was as far as it went.
As other gates were silently opened, orcs compressed the residents’ living space, herding more toward the wealthy district.
Fearing spies among the crowd or disruption of their lines, the nobles couldn’t let them in.
Under such pressure, their defenses would soon crumble.
Torchlight pierced the curtains, casting flickering shadows in the room.
As the roars grew closer, Jie Ming rose slowly, his aura shifting from calm to an abyss-like stillness.
He extinguished the villa’s lights with a wave, plunging “Dawn Manor” into darkness, like a beast lurking in the night, exuding intangible danger.
Outside, the gate shuddered under the charge of berserk war boars, then collapsed with a “boom.”
A group of orc warriors in crude leather armor, flanked by turncoat human soldiers, roared as they stormed the villa, grinning savagely, ready to plunder.