Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 161 Black Tide Shaman War Economics

As the pale sunlight barely pierced through the clouds and illuminated the Frost Plains, the orc army once again arrayed itself before the city.

Compared to yesterday's army, today's orc legion exudes a completely different aura—more dangerous, more frenzied, like a volcano about to erupt.

The mesmerizing music still lingered in the minds of some orcs.

Tens of thousands of orc warriors stood in a massive, imposing square formation, though not perfectly orderly. Each of them had bloodshot eyes and their pupils burned with a pent-up, restless, and uncontrollable rage.

The flames were so intense, it felt like a scorching fireball lodged in my chest!

I can't let go, I can't empty myself out.

They need to vent!
The orc army lined up outside the attack range of Skyfrost City, like a black tide gathering and surging on a dam, about to rush down into the wasteland. A venting, all-out attack destined to be incredibly brutal was about to begin.

The orc shaman appeared on the battlefield before launching the charge.

They were spread out, with each orc attack group equipped with three to five shamans.

These guys are clearly different from orc warriors just by looking at them.

Compared to the muscular warriors, these shamans mostly looked rather thin. They did not wear armor, but instead wore sacrificial robes made of the fur of various wild beasts.

The fur, weathered by time, is stained with years of bloodstains, dust, and unidentified fluids, giving it a dull, shiny dark brown hue.

Well, to use Earth's terminology, it's all patina-covered!
The shamans' necks, wrists, ankles, and even waists were covered with layers of jingling ornaments.

Ivory carvings, roughly polished miniature totems, giant bear claws with drilled holes, various beast tusks strung together with leather ropes, and even the heads of some dried, shrunken, grotesque, and unrecognizable small creatures...

The ornaments collided with each other as they walked, making a dull and eerie "clattering" sound, like the whispers of some kind of ghost.

There's a joke in the necromancer world: if you capture a seasoned shaman, the bones he carries can be pieced together to form two complete skeleton warriors.

Well, including the shaman's own bones, there are enough for three sets.

Of course, what is most eye-catching is the huge and magnificent headdress they wear.

The base is made of a tough yet lightweight wood, intricately inlaid and glued with all sorts of bird feathers, creating a dazzling and colorful display.

It's hard to understand how these shamans managed to maintain such vibrant colors during the long march: fiery red like flames, deep green like a pool, azure like a clear sky, and inky black like the night sky, interspersed with dazzling bright yellow and pure white...

Some of the feathers were so long they were almost exaggerated, swaying and dancing with the shaman's movements, creating a wild and unrestrained, rather jubilant scene.

Beneath this enormous feathered crown, the shamans' foreheads, cheeks, necks, and even every inch of skin exposed from their robes were covered with ancient and strange runes, dyed with some kind of indigo natural dye.

These tattoos seem to contain a strange power, subtly flowing in the dim light.

He has the look of a gangster boss with a full face and arms covered in tattoos. Although the shaman looks a little thin, that's only compared to the orcs. In a human community, he would be an absolute muscle man, and the belly of an ordinary gangster boss can't compare.

Finally, there is the shaman's signature long "ancestral staff."

Orcs practice dual worship, namely ancestor worship and beast god worship.

Shamanism emphasizes the former and is a typical example of primitive ancestor worship.

According to somewhat uncertain legends among humans, every shaman is identified through a mysterious selection ceremony in their childhood, and on the day of their formal initiation ceremony, they go to the sacred mountain of shamanism, which is also the ancestral mountain of the orcs, and plant a sapling with their own hands.

After that, they need to be watered regularly and nurtured with care, growing together with the ancestral gods under their witness.

When the shaman comes of age, the sapling will have grown to the thickness of a forearm and be full of vitality. The shaman who planted it will cut it down by hand, taking the most spiritual part from the center of the trunk. After the blessing of the tribal elders and some simple carving, those with a family background will have gemstones inlaid, while those without will have some animal teeth tied to them. In the end, it will become a staff that accompanies him throughout his life.

The staffs made in this way are believed to house the spirits of their ancestors who are connected to the shaman's soul, and are an important medium for them to cast various enhancement spells and communicate with the will of their ancestors.

Before the army sets out for battle, a shamanic ritual begins.

At the front of the army formation, they strode with a heavy, eerie, and primal force, their feet slamming heavily onto the cold ground like pile drivers, kicking up clouds of dust.

The movements started slowly, then quickened, accompanied by intermittent, indistinct murmurs and chants from deep within his throat, sounding like the low, guttural howl of a wild beast.

After singing and dancing for several minutes, the leading shaman suddenly raised the ancestral staff high and let out a hoarse shout.

"Lika!"

"Lika! Lika!!"

All the shamans simultaneously raised their ancestral staffs and shouted in unison.

In an instant, waves of dark red, dark blue, light green, and milky white energy rippled outwards from the shaman, like ripples on a lake after a stone has been thrown in.

The ripples were not pure light, but rather a mixture of thick liquid and shadow, carrying a manic energy that seemed to contain the smell of rust.

The ripples swept swiftly across the entire orc attack formation, silently seeping into the bodies of every orc soldier.

As spellcasters, but unlike human mages, orc shamans aim to enhance the combat power of orc warriors with all their skills.

"Bloodthirst!"

"Berserk!"

"Power Amplification!"

"Focus your will!"

The last spell, [Focus on Will], is particularly special and important. It ensures that while orcs gain powerful bursts of strength, they can still maintain a certain degree of rationality to execute combat commands, rather than completely turning into indiscriminate beasts who only know how to kill in a frenzy.

The moment the dark red ripples touched his body, the orc warrior visibly changed.

The already burly orc warriors, like those big shots on Earth who had taken testosterone and swallowed swarms of dragons, had their muscles bulging and throbbing as if they were about to burst. Thick blue veins protruded from their skin like twisted earthworms, pulsating slightly, as if they were about to burst at any moment.

Judging from their appearance alone, these guys seemed to have swelled up a whole size. Their originally ordinary armor now looked as if it was tightly bound to their bodies, and the metal armor made a slight "creaking" sound.

Now I know that even the armor of elite orc troops is a size larger...

A faint, constantly twisting and swirling crimson aura emanated from the orc soldiers—a manifestation of their wild psionic energy. With low, excited roars, their speed, strength, and pain tolerance would reach their peak for a period of time.

“Waaagh!!!”

The leading orc vanguard was the first to utter this signature battle cry.

The next moment, a deafening roar of "Waaagh!!!" swept across the entire army!
One after another, the orcish army formations, empowered by shamanic magic, surged forward like a burst dam, rushing toward the walls of Skyfrost City!

The first wave of attacks consisted of orc heavy infantry.

They worked in groups of four, carrying massive wooden or iron tower shields, each over five meters long and covered with thick leather. With the shields facing upwards, they acted like mobile roofs, protecting the infantry beneath them as they charged through dense areas of arrow rain, heading straight for the city walls.

With this level of protection, unless a first-class archer uses special heavy arrows, ranged attacks from the city walls will have difficulty inflicting effective damage on the enemy.

Blunt weapons had to be used; it was time for the catapults to prove their worth once again.

These behemoths began to shake their massive throwing arms, creaking and groaning as they hurled huge rocks weighing hundreds of kilograms.

Chen Mo was once greatly shocked by the attack power and range. It was like a super-heavy mortar with increased ammunition but no increased range!
Of course, he later learned that a catapult that could be used in actual combat required at least four sets of mid-to-high-level enchantments, including [Precision Shot], [Stable Stance], [Resilience], and [Blessing of the Wind].

These are respectively used to improve the accuracy of catapults, enhance the stability of the catapult body and the throwing arm during launch, improve the toughness of the throwing arm under extreme stress, and reduce the load on the catapult before the stone leaves the throwing basket, thus significantly increasing the range.

Whether it's orcs or humans, both sides seem to fight using very physical tactics, but their fighting style is all about magic!

Magic is the cutting-edge technology of the starry world.

The massive, polished stone projectiles didn't actually hit many enemies on impact; what was terrifying was their bounce and rolling after landing! The heavy stone projectiles, like bowling balls, frantically plowed through the dense formation of orcs, leaving bloody, mangled furrows.

However, no matter how much they plowed, they couldn't stop the orcs' charge on the wide-open battlefield.

Blessed with both bloodlust and berserk buffs, the orcs ignored fear and pain. In fact, being injured would make their bloodlust even more ferocious for a short period of time. They howled and continued to advance, stepping over the corpses of their companions and the blood-soaked ground.

This time, most of their elite orcs no longer even needed traditional siege equipment!

With their terrifying burst of power and speed amplified by shamanic magic, they charged directly at the vertical city wall!

A large number of powerful orcs roared, using the momentum of their charge to leap up and charge straight up the city wall! Just as their upward momentum was about to run out, their long, ramming spikes pierced the gaps in the city wall's bricks, hanging themselves firmly on the wall like nails!

The agile orcs in the back row climbed rapidly up the city wall, and with the secondary lift from these "orc hooks" on the wall, they flipped over to the top of the wall in one go.

Seeing this, Chen Mo sighed slightly. He knew why the city walls of major northern cities were significantly higher than those of southern cities.

Skyfrost City was built too recently, so it's still too short!
No siege weapons are needed; the orcs themselves are the siege weapons.

The brutal and bloody melee on the city walls erupted in full force just over ten minutes after the battle began!
Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Even before the orcs were lined up in the fields outside the city, inside the command center, the [Penglai] airship activated its synthetic aperture radar, which, together with the [Jinghong] high-altitude reconnaissance drone, clearly displayed the orc formation on the ground.

Inside the lord's command post in the desert, a group of the lord's trusted and staunch officers, elites from the first class of the Han Naval Academy, stared intently at the screen.

A young officer couldn't help but speak up, his voice filled with excitement and eagerness: "My lord, if we were to launch a massive bombing raid from the sky, wouldn't we be able to wipe out all these orcs?"

Chen Mo smiled, but instead of answering directly, he asked, "What do you think? Tell me."

"Injury is acceptable, but death is not! At least not now!" Before Chen Mo could reply, a young officer gave a resolute answer.

His name is Ma Qianzu!
Judging from the name, you can probably guess that this guy is a centaur.

Since the Dongxia language began to be popularized in the territory, everyone has been giving themselves Dongxia names, with all sorts of elegant, vulgar, charming, and classical names emerging one after another, and this guy is no exception.

"I shall serve as the lord's vanguard!"

That's how the name came about. And you know what? Chen Mo remembered it immediately, and it left a very deep impression on him.

These children have been following the lord's and Dongxia's teaching videos for more than ten months.

For some, ten months might just be enough for them to master the basics of the Dongxia script, while for others, ten months would be enough for them to graduate from junior high school.

The worlds of people are different.

For example, a scientific pioneer from Dongxia once expressed his doubts: "Even if a person is not very smart, how can they not learn calculus at the age of fourteen?"

These words made Ma Qianzu feel ashamed, because he was only fourteen years old and had not yet finished learning calculus.

But it's definitely not because he's stupid; in fact, this guy is downright freakish.

With Chen Mo's simple guidance and by studying the materials on his own, this guy not only became fluent in the Dongxia language, but he also learned whatever was lacking in the Hanhai Territory.

By Hanhai's standards, Ma Qianzu can be considered a senior electrician, intermediate fitter, intermediate lathe operator, junior welder... He also knows a lot of miscellaneous equipment repairs, and can troubleshoot and handle basic faults by referring to the manual and video instructions.

But what this guy likes most is military knowledge.

He knew every parameter of every weapon sent by Dongxia by heart, as long as Chen Mo allowed him to handle it.

At present, the vanguard is already the lord's chief strategist. Although he is still missing the title of "chief," everyone can see which people the lord treats with favor and which he is close to.

Thus, the vanguard became the de facto military leader of the headquarters.

Facing a group of nascent military personnel from the territory, Ma Qianzu spoke eloquently.

"The Skylark III we are currently using, after loading ammunition, requires a descent to a height of at least 500 meters to achieve relatively accurate bombing, and also requires hovering for at least a few seconds for final calibration of wind speed and direction."

"At this altitude and in this posture, given the orcs' air defense capabilities, they will most likely be shot down!"

"If we were to allow Lark to drop bombs at a height beyond the orcs' suspected long-range range for safety reasons, there would be a big problem! Lark's maximum payload is only twelve kilograms, and small aerial bombs are greatly affected by wind drift. Based on the average wind speeds near Skyfrost City that have been recorded during this period, dropping bombs at this height would result in a dispersion deviation of over thirty meters."

"War is not a gamble; you can't pin your hopes on the foolish idea that your bombs will just happen to hit the enemy."

A young officer, somewhat unconvinced, offered a new idea: "Then... we can use [Jinghong] to launch missiles, or we can use [Jinghong] to crash down with missiles. At that speed, the enemy can't possibly defend against it."

"madness!"

The foot soldier tapped the table heavily with his knuckles; clearly, some of the lord's little habits had unknowingly influenced these students.

"Fool!"

"How many Flying Goose helicopters do we have? How many missiles does the Flying Goose have?"

"Given our current scanning accuracy, how long would it take for guidance and calibration? We don't have any actual combat launch data yet. What is the circular error probable (CEP) of missiles launched at different altitudes?"

"Even I can't calculate it precisely, so who among you can explain it clearly?"

The entire room fell silent. Ma Qianzu persisted, "Furthermore, how do you know that if Fei Hong charges down, the enemy will definitely not have any means of attack or defense?"

"What if Jinghong is gone, and we don't achieve the desired results? Wouldn't our limited high-level equipment be wasted for no reason?"

Although Chen Mo had not explicitly told his students about the altar's carrying capacity, they could all more or less guess that advanced weapons were definitely not yet at the level of being used freely.

Another junior human officer, cautiously following the rules, raised his hand to speak: "However, if we use some firearms appropriately, we might be able to greatly reduce the losses in Skyfrost City. If we hit the enemy leader or intimidate the opponent, we might be able to end the war earlier. I think we can make some risky attempts."

"I do not think so!"

The foot soldier first nodded slightly to Chen Mo, another of his little habits, which meant that what he was about to say might be a bit sharp, and he needed to apologize to the respected lord first.

Chen Mo smiled and raised his hand, indicating that he should speak freely.

The foot soldier cleared his throat: "For us, recording detailed orc attack methods is important!"

"It's important to figure out as much as possible about the orcs' trump cards!"

"It is of paramount importance to leave yourself sufficient options for the future!"

"We must never play all our trump cards before the enemy has fully revealed their hand! This is a fundamental military principle that applies to any battlefield."

"As for your suggestion to reduce the losses in Skyfrost City, I think that's the least valuable thing!"

"To say something that might be offensive, Lord, you are kind-hearted and far-sighted, and you have your own profound intentions and plans. But if I were to think about it from the perspective of someone as straightforward as me, I would even think that we should have brought the little princess and some people back to our Han Hai Territory and then concentrated our efforts on developing ourselves."

"What do we care about whether those tens of thousands of people outside live or die?"

This was clearly going too far, and a junior human officer couldn't help but retort: ​​"This, this is, after all, tens of thousands of people! Our Vast Ocean is short of manpower..."

The foot soldier interrupted him without hesitation: "The shortage of people is for useful people, not for these ordinary people."

"Have you done the math? The lord has spent so much to support and protect them, and has also helped them defend against the orcs' attacks twice. How long will it take to recoup these investments?"

"It's going to be a long way off!"

The small group spoke quickly and urgently, like a storm: "Before they arrived, how much progress did we in Hanhai make in the past year? It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say we made a thousand miles a day!"

"Bearing the burden of tens of thousands of people, we went all out to prepare for war, even putting aside projects in several factories. What has been the progress these past few months? Is it fast or slow? Can't we really see it?"

“In the future, even if we cut off the Qishan Pass and Yunwu Territory is no longer threatened by the orcs, there is still ‘Kedi Territory’ behind us and the Mist Moon Divine Court on the side. We still have to focus most of our energy on defense.”

"Do we even need this manpower?"

"To be honest, this is a bottomless pit. We've even offended the orcs and Green Pine because of it..."

Upon hearing this, Chen Mo knew he should step in and stop it.

Although Ma Qianzu's words were eloquent and logically consistent, if such extreme utilitarian thinking were to spread within his own officer corps, who knows what kind of trouble they might cause the moment he turned his back on them.

The lord tapped on the table, and the entire room fell silent.

"Are you saying that my strategy is flawed?"

The foot soldier stood ramrod straight: "My lord, please forgive us. Your foresight, whether in terms of overall strategy or detailed considerations, is beyond our reach."

"Many of the Lord's arrangements must have profound meanings, but my knowledge is limited and my vision is narrow. From my perspective, I can only draw my own conclusions."

"In my opinion, the people of Cloud Mist Territory will not be able to bring any positive benefits to the Vast Ocean for a long time to come. Right now, the greatest contribution they can make to the Vast Ocean Territory is to force out as much of the orcs' true combat strength, methods, and trump cards as possible, so as to accumulate valuable intelligence for our future response!"

Chen Mo: "What books have you been reading lately?"

"Uh, reporting to the lord, I'm reading 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu..."

"I don't recall bringing a translated version. You can understand classical Chinese?"

"Reporting to the lord, I can understand a little bit!"

Does "The Art of War" teach you these things?

“Um… Sun Tzu’s Art of War says, ‘Act when it is advantageous, and stop when it is not.’”

"And there's also the principle of 'do not act unless there is a benefit, do not use what is necessary, and do not fight unless there is a danger!'"

Chen Mo sighed: "Don't go astray."

After a pause, Chen Mo asked again, "Is it because your half-orc identity makes you dislike both beastmen and humans, and thus your thinking is more pragmatic?"

The foot soldier thought for a moment and answered honestly, "My lord, perhaps that's possible, but every word I say is carefully considered and not an impulsive decision."

"Cloud Mist Territory is Cloud Mist Territory after all, not Vast Ocean Territory."

"In the future, it may not necessarily become the Cloud Mist Territory of the Vast Ocean Territory!"

　First of all, thank you to allies of [Xiaoxiaoxiaoshuchong] for their support!

　　thank you very much!

　　This book has already received four patrons, and I haven't expressed my gratitude in the book itself. Yesterday, the operations team reminded me: "Did you say thank you?"

　　My heart sank. Oh no, they did reply privately, but it really wasn't in the book.

　　hurry up!
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　　Thank you for your support, [Knocking on the Spring Cat and the Pear Blossoms Bloom]!
　　Of course, I also want to thank all the other readers who have given tips, subscribed, and commented!
　　thank you all!

　　Thank you!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)