"Arghhh!"
The Orc Chieftain howled in agony, his left eye obliterated in a brutal double strike. Despite his thick skin and formidable resilience, he could no longer endure.
Staggering to his feet, blood streaming from his ruined eye, the Chieftain swung his hammer wildly, venting his fury.
Qin Ming, who had stepped back to avoid the rampage, seized the opportunity to grab the second meteor hammer from the ground. With a mighty swing, he sent the hammer flying low to the ground.
The chain whipped around the Chieftain's ankle, binding his right leg.
Planting his feet firmly, Qin Ming roared and yanked on the chain. The enormous Orc Chieftain toppled to the ground, crashing heavily.
With an earth-shaking effort, Qin Ming swung the chained hammer, using the Chieftain's massive body as a weapon. The four-meter-tall beast spun through the air, smashing into soldiers, orcs, and even parts of the wall itself.
The Chieftain's body finally came to a halt after plowing through the battlefield, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Bent and battered, his armor barely clung to his hulking frame as he struggled to stand.
The Chieftain, still clutching his wounded face, glared back at Qin Ming with his remaining eye. To his dismay, Qin Ming wasn't pursuing but instead stood still, arms extended as flames coiled around his hands.
Qin Ming was charging up his Sonic Flame Slash.
Boom!
With a deafening roar, Qin Ming unleashed a massive, two-meter-wide flaming blade of compressed air. The fiery wave hurtled across the battlefield, slicing through anything in its path. Friend and foe alike were severed, the sheer force leaving no survivors.
The Chieftain's one good eye widened as the devastating attack barreled toward him. Abandoning any thoughts of defense, he roared and leapt into the air, activating his Gravity Smash skill.
Rocketing several meters high, he narrowly avoided the flaming blade, which continued on its path, carving a massive gash into a distant fortress.
The Chieftain, meanwhile, descended rapidly, landing outside the city walls amidst his troops.
"Trying to run? Let's see you escape!" Qin Ming growled.
Without hesitation, he fired two more flaming slashes at the retreating Chieftain. The strikes hit their mark, sending sprays of blood as the Chieftain roared in pain.
Qin Ming vaulted onto the wall's edge and leapt after him—only to grab the parapet and pull himself back up two seconds later.
Below the walls was a sea of orcs, their blackened silhouettes numbering in the hundreds.
"Forget it. Not even I can handle that many," Qin Ming muttered, his face sour. He might be able to handle a hundred pigs, but hundreds of orcs were an entirely different matter.
He watched from the safety of the wall as the Chieftain, bleeding profusely, crushed two of his own soldiers upon landing and disappeared into the night.
The good news was that Qin Ming had proven he could overpower the Orc Chieftain in a one-on-one fight.
The bad news? The Chieftain's sheer number of troops and his uncanny ability to escape made him a frustratingly slippery foe.
"Damn it," Qin Ming spat, his gaze shifting to the ground where the Chieftain's two meteor hammers lay abandoned.
Hesitating only briefly, he walked over and picked them up, inspecting the weapons thoughtfully.
Meanwhile, the orc army began their retreat. With their leader injured and their morale shattered, they abandoned the battlefield, leaving behind a carpet of corpses.
Cheers erupted from the city walls as the defenders celebrated their hard-won victory.
The protagonists, Labelle and Aludo, along with Twin-Guns, descended from their positions to meet with the mayor.
As the group conversed with the mayor in the town square, Qin Ming approached, a massive hammer slung over his shoulder.
His arrival was met with mixed reactions.
On one hand, his role in repelling the Orc Chieftain made him a hero. On the other hand, his indiscriminate use of the Charged Sonic Flame Slash had killed many of the town's own soldiers, earning him the ire of some townsfolk.
Qin Ming, however, remained indifferent to their opinions. Winning over NPCs didn't yield him any tangible benefits, so their feelings were of little concern.
Instead, his focus was on his new acquisition: the Orc Chieftain's hammer.
The hammer immediately caught Aludo's attention. The massive priest, who also wielded hammers, couldn't hide the greed in his eyes.
As Qin Ming walked around casually with the weapon, Aludo's gaze followed it obsessively, his expression growing more intense by the second.
Qin Ming smirked. He had expected this reaction.
The hammer was no ordinary weapon—it was a rare and powerful artifact, even stronger than what the Orc Chieftain himself had wielded.
Using his equipment fusion skill, Qin Ming had combined the two meteor hammers into a single weapon of silver-tier quality.
Name: Orc Chieftain's Meteor Hammer
Type: Weapon (Dull Silver Story Equipment)Requirements: Strength 20Attack Power: 35–45Description: The prized weapon of the Orc Chieftain, inexplicably superior in craftsmanship. It boasts no special abilities beyond its raw destructive power.
Though it lacked any additional attributes or skills, the hammer's sheer attack power made it an unrivaled weapon.
Its 35–45 attack range was comparable to Qin Ming's own silver-tier revolver, but the hammer had the added advantage of scaling with strength.
"A real shame," Qin Ming muttered, caressing the hammer's handle. If it weren't for the Nightmare Space's restrictions on items obtained outside of proper loot chests, he could have brought this back and made a fortune.
As it was, the hammer could only be used within this mission world. Still, it held significant value for bartering, especially with someone like Aludo.
Watching the priest's burning desire for the hammer, Qin Ming's smirk deepened. This hammer will pay dividends, even if I can't take it with me.
(Chapter End)