Rise of the Horde

After the discussion was over, Haguk and Dug'mhar departed to get their clansmen.

Xiao Chen climbed on top of the walls and was lost in his thoughts while staring at the fading silhouettes of the Warghen and Rumbling Clan. He remained standing still for quite a long time even after Haguk, Dug'mhar and their companions have long disappeared on the horizon.

Many memories from his past life suddenly started emerging within his head, the times when everything seemed perfect and nothing could go wrong. Those were the times that he enjoyed the most. The moments where he was full of confidence and trust in his comrade-in-arms, but every good thing eventually ends.

He shook his head to get rid of the useless thoughts that suddenly popped up in his mind and glanced towards his commanders, who were now instructing his army to prepare themselves for battle.

'This is what I am now.' He thought as he clenched his hands into a fist so tight that his veins bulged. He breathed out and walked down the walls with steady strides.

The ogres that were loudly snoring around the foot of the walls caught his attention. He smiled wryly at the free spiritedness of the ogres; they work when they are asked, eat when they are hungry, battle when needed and sleep when they have nothing else to do, even under the scorching heat of the sun. They don't seem to mind the heat at all as they roll around the hard ground in their sleep.

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Xiao Chen passed by the slumbering ogres and caught sight of the nature and peace-loving taurens. The taurens were powerful creatures that he wanted to integrate into his army, but Mohrios said that taurens were never fond of killing. They only fight and kill if there is no other alternative, but if they can avoid bloodshed, they will do so.

So Xiao Chen gave up the idea of adding them into his real army and just decided to give them the duty of protecting the village and let them serve as guards of his soon to be built city.

Xiao Chen was about to enter his tent and continue the work that he has made for himself, translating the things that he has written in Mandarin into Orcish when a troll informed him that something needed his attention.

He followed the troll towards where the orc forgers and troll workers were at. A giant crossbow was in front of them, which puzzled him. He approached them slowly and asked, "What is going on?"

Zul'jinn turned around and saw Xiao Chen moving towards them. "Oh! Chief, Glad you're here. We have encountered a problem with this weapon. It no longer fires as strong as before, it can now only shoot an iron bolt at less than a hundred meters, which is severely lacking compared to how it is capable of before and we can't find the reason behind it. The warriors on the walls found out about it after accidentally bumping against one which triggered it to shoot out its loaded bolt a few days ago."

Xiao Chen knitted his brows and stared at the big weapon but can't find any trace of damage upon it which could result in it dropping in its power to shoot out its intended ammunition. "Is it just this one?"

Zul'jinn stared at the chieftain's eyes and scratched the back of his head. "Uhmm... No chief. After they reported this one, that something is wrong with it. We tested all the other weapons on the walls and they all have the same problem. But we can't find the cause behind it. The smaller ones didn't have any problems, it is only the big ones that had something wrong with them."

Xiao Chen approached the giant crossbow and inspected it. He checked every single part of it, but found nothing wrong with it. Pulling the string back with his hands and it surprised him that he was able to easily pull it back, which shouldn't be possible. He tried pulling it fully and even went on to stretch the string past the entire length of the weapon. He finally found the problem and let go of the string.

He can't help but smile wryly and facepalm at his own carelessness. The shotgun crossbows didn't sustain any problems because the proportions were just right, but the bigger ones weren't. They were subjected to a much bigger force, which easily wore down their limbs and made them lose power fairly quickly.

They should have modeled the bigger ones after the ballistas, which had its limbs attach to a torsion of ropes to sustain its power for a longer period instead of just making it a bigger crossbow.

Xiao Chen disassembled the weapon. He instructed Zul'jinn to add a place on both sides where the ropes would be placed at. He then asked some of the orc forgers to get a few pieces of ropes, which he placed on the newly added features of the weapon.

He took one limb of the weapon and inserted it in between the ropes, five ropes on each side. He spun the limb of the weapon around and around in a counterclockwise direction until even four orcs working together can no longer spin it around further.

Upon seeing what the chieftain had done, Zul'jinn then copied him and applied it to the other limb of the weapon before attaching the string and adding a stopper on the limbs to prevent it from spinning away. They added some thick and soft animal skins on the stoppers to soften the impact of the limbs against the stoppers.

"Now let's test it and see if it is fixed." Xiao Chen muttered as bolts of iron were loaded into the weapon.

The iron bolt flew out with such power that it embedded itself deeply against the concrete wall. The orc forgers and trolls stared in shock at the power that the weapon was capable of. It was much more powerful than it was before, and surely more lethal.

"Hmmm... I guess that did the trick. Rebuild all the weapons on the walls just like this." Xiao Chen ordered as he patted the ballista that he just fired while smiling proudly but deep in his mind he was totally nervous.

He was glad and very thankful that the enemy army didn't attack the past days or else they would have been totally screwed since the weapons on the walls no longer possessed enough power to deal lethal wounds.