Chapter 689: A Thousand Gold

"Whoosh"

A piercing whistle approached from afar, like the Grim Reaper swooping down from the sky.

The orcs, new to Azeroth, were clueless about what was happening.

Under the unimpressive moonlight, they could only look around in bewilderment.

However, Kilrogg Deadeye, Chieftain of the Bleeding Hollow clan and a veteran of the battle at the Blackrock Spire in the Searing Gorge, paled drastically. His wrinkled face contorted in terror as he yelled, "Artillery strike! Scatter! Get down!"

He then hastily took cover behind the Dark Portal.

What's an artillery strike?

The novice orc warriors were confused, but the old soldiers understood.

Not just the old orcs, even the Death Knights, typically fearless of physical attacks, cowered on the ground like hedgehogs, curling up in the face of this apocalyptic force.

Only the clueless new recruits stood frozen, some tried to flee the danger zone, and others held up wooden shields, mistakenly thinking they could block cannonballs intended for spears and axes.

All efforts were in vain!

Knowing that more orcs would emerge from the Dark Portal, it had been two years of supposed field battles turned into turret defense games. Did they really think Duke, the crazed mastermind, wouldn't have prepared something?

Impossible!

After calculating the distance between the Dark Portal and the original Watcher's Keep, Duke identified a serious issue:

The Cursed Land was shaped like a kettle, surrounded by steep, unscalable mountains. The original site of the Keep was located near the only exit, meaning anyone trying to leave the Cursed Land had to endure a barrage of cannon and arrow fire.

Moreover, the Keep was situated on the highest point of a hill, a painful uphill battle for any attackers.

It seemed perfect, but...

The original Watcher's Keep was too far from the Dark Portal, beyond the reach of the era's longest-ranged artillery.

This was a significant drawback.

Duke also knew that playing with magic near the Dark Portal was suicidal, as the chaotic magical energies could interfere with the spatial rift, leading to disaster for both sides.

So, Duke's response was to expand the Keep.

Historically, Watcher's Keep was a single-walled fortress, and when Ner'zhul led the orcs through the Dark Portal for the second time, it was just a low-level stone castle, not the fully-fledged fortress it would become three decades later.

Duke accelerated and altered this with Arcane Golems.

In this era, Watcher's Keep was at least ten times larger, comprising three concentric circles with inner, middle, and outer walls.

The innermost circle was the original site of the Keep, overlooking the entire Cursed Land.

The middle circle was divided into two parts: towards the Swamp of Sorrows lay a massive train yard and temporary unloading areas. On the side closer to the Dark Portal was a jar-shaped defensive area with numerous inhumane defense mechanisms, such as small mage towers to amplify magicians' powers.

The outermost circle occupied about a quarter of the Cursed Land, a layered artillery zone.

There were seven layers, each separated by over five-meter-high stone walls, complete with standard arrow towers, firing holes, and numerous mortars, capable of housing five thousand troops. The distance between each layer was about 300 meters.

The thirty-six fortress cannons, also train-mounted, were installed atop railcars. Each cannon was coupled with a locomotive, ready to be swiftly withdrawn along the tracks in case the frontline fell.

In addition to the locomotives, there were also manual winches and handles for pushing, so that the dwarf gunners and soldiers could retreat the cannons by hand if necessary.

The tracks extended into the Watcher's Keep, allowing for a timely retreat and reinstallation of the cannons as fortress artillery.

These cannons represented the pinnacle of the era's military technology.

"Ha-ha-ha! Blast them to smithereens! Charge, great steel cannon!" bellowed Muradin, laughing wildly.

Previously, a six-meter-long, two-meter-caliber cannon was called the "Little Steel Cannon."

Now, the ten-meter-long, five-meter-caliber cannon mounted on the train, capable of firing up to three kilometers, was aptly named the "Big Steel Cannon."

When Anduin Lothar heard the deafening cannonade even from kilometers away, not only did his eyelids twitch, but his heart nearly leaped out of his chest.

Only the frenzied dwarves with earplugs, dancing jubilantly beside the cannon, seemed to be celebrating a midsummer festival.

Yes!

Unable to improve the quality of steel, yet needing to increase range and power, the solution was to make the cannon barrels bigger and thicker.

The cannonballs, previously liftable by a dwarf in "Avatar" state, now required two such dwarves.

But it didn't matter, as long as it worked.

The only issue was that, due to time constraints, not all thirty-six fortress cannons were "Big Steel Cannons"; thirty were the "Little Steel Cannons" previously used in the battle at Blackrock Mountain.

However, when all thirty-six cannons fired simultaneously, everyone felt as if the sky was falling and the earth was splitting.

Some train-mounted cannons, despite having recoil suppressors, still managed to damage the tracks beneath them due to installation errors. A horde of Bronzebeard dwarves had to lift and relocate the cannons to intact tracks.

Just imagine the horrifying power of the shot, given such intense recoil!

Indeed!

This was the Alliance's judgment!

The wail of the Grim Reaper!

The onset of doomsday!

Of the first five thousand elite Horde forces emerging from the Dark Portal, over eighty percent were instantly blasted into the sky.

The orcs and Death Knights couldn't fly, of course.

In the form of corpses, they were hurled hundreds of meters high, exploding into thousands of bloody fragments before scattering irregularly across several square kilometers.

Not being launched skyward didn't mean survival; many orcs further from the Portal died instantly from the massive impact, their organs rupturing and bleeding from every orifice.

Only those far enough away, or like Kilrogg, who hid behind the Dark Portal, narrowly escaped death.

But even the survivors suffered – many went completely deaf in the deadly silence following the bombardment, unable to hear their own screams.

Witnessing the complete annihilation of the orc vanguard in a single round of cannon fire, Ner'zhul, who had traded with void demons for strong defenses, was utterly terrified: "No! No! It shouldn't be like this! How can we possibly win against such a terrifying Alliance! No! I'm going back, I'm done! I want to go back."

Observing all this through telescopes and mage's eyes, Anduin Lothar jokingly quoted Duke, "When the cannon fires, gold flows in thousands. Though I don't know what 'thousands' refers to, remember to send the bill to King Terenas."