10: Chapter 10 Locke Solo Kills Orc Scout

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Moonlight filtered through the sparse canopy, casting irregular patches of silver-white light on the ground like a shattered mirror.

It was Old Zhou who discovered them. He had established a concealed observation post on the northern ridge—a small grass hut he'd built himself. From inside, he could use a telescope to see the valley entrance three kilometers away. The telescope was a modification Lin Mo had made from a flintlock rifle's scope; the field of vision wasn't clear, but it was barely enough.

Old Zhou saw three figures linger at the valley entrance for about fifteen minutes. They didn't enter the valley but instead crouched on a high point, slowly turning their heads in a fixed rhythm to observe their surroundings. Those were the movements of scouts—but more experienced than any orc scouts they had encountered before. When he slid down the slope and ran back to the village, he said only one thing: "Three. Different from before. Bigger."

Locke didn't speak immediately after hearing Old Zhou's report. He crouched on the ground, drawing a rough map of the valley entrance's terrain in the dirt with his finger. His jaw was tight, and his thick-knuckled hand paused twice over the lines before he finally looked up.

"No ambush," Locke said.

"No ambush?" Lin Mo asked.

"No ambush here. Ordinary orc scouts are just mobile sentries, but these are different—when they stand on high ground, their gaze follows a fixed scanning path. They've received specialized reconnaissance training, or they have a stronger combat instinct. An ambush won't trap enemies like this; instead, it might just alert them."

He drew a line in front of the valley entrance with his finger, then traced a curve along the foot of the mountain.

"We need to lure them over. We'll fight on the outskirts of the village."

The terrain Locke chose was a narrow section of the river valley. The riverbed was dry, flanked by steep earthen slopes with tops covered in shrubs—a natural pocket. At the bottom of this pocket, he dug a pitfall trap and covered it with branches and loose soil.

"You guys stay up top. Wait for me to lure them in, then seal the exit," Locke said.

Lin Mo spent a few seconds evaluating the plan—luring the enemy, the pocket, sealing the exit. There was no complex military strategy, but every step was grounded in the actual conditions of the terrain. He didn't need to command anything more complicated; the existing flintlock riflemen didn't have the capacity for complex tactics anyway. Locke's plan was perfect.

"We'll do it your way," Lin Mo said.

The ambush began quietly. Locke walked into the valley entrance alone. He didn't hide or sneak; he stood directly in the open where the three orc scouts could see him, then raised his battle-axe and ran toward the river valley.

The three elite orcs stood still in unison for a moment—then gave chase. Their speed was much faster than ordinary orcs, every step landing firm and heavy, their muscles bulging in clear outlines beneath their coarse green skin.

Locke ran into the river valley. The three orcs followed. They paused slightly at the entrance—not out of hesitation, but as an instinctive reaction to the potential threats of the terrain. But Locke stopped in the middle of the valley and turned back to shout provocations at them.

The orcs charged in.

Locke ran to the end of the pocket and jumped over the pitfall. The first orc didn't notice the abnormality on the ground, stepped into empty air, and fell into the two-meter-deep pit. Locke didn't waste this window—he raised his flintlock, aimed at the orc's head in the pit, and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Two bullets hit its facial bone—they failed to penetrate the skull, but the bone plate near the eye socket was shaken open with a crack. The third shot went right into that crack. The orc convulsed and went still.

The remaining two split up to flank him. Locke's bullets were spent.

He didn't back down. He discarded the flintlock, gripped his battle-axe, and backed against the earthen slope to face two enemies half a meter taller and over twice his weight. In that moment, there were no tactics or plans in his mind—only the famous saying Old Tom used to repeat: If the axe is fast enough, the enemy is slow enough.

His axe blade fell first, shattering the second orc's knee joint. Then, before the third orc's pounce could reach him, he rolled to the side and grabbed a piece of rubble from the ground, slamming it hard into its eye.

By the time Yang Shitou and the others rushed down from the top of the slope, the battle was already over. Locke leaned against the earthen slope, his chest covered in blood—not his own. Three corpses of elite orcs lay at his feet. His hands were shaking, but he stood up.

He remembered the old man in the ruins who had shared half a compressed biscuit with him. The old man hadn't said anything; he'd just shoved the biscuit into his hand and pointed toward the eastern ridge—[There are people over there. Good people.] That was the first affirmative sentence Lin Mo had heard on this planet.

"Check their belongings," he said.

Yang Shitou squatted down to search the corpses—from the waist of the third orc, he pulled out a piece of hide. When spread out, the hide revealed a crude map: the outline of Blackstone Village, the surrounding terrain, and several marks made with charcoal. Lin Mo recognized what those marks represented at a glance—water sources, settlements, and defensive fortifications.

Then he saw the mark that made his heart skip a beat.

A prominent red circle marked a point on the map. It wasn't within the vicinity of Blackstone Village—it was located in the northern hills. He was very familiar with that location. It was the abandoned mine where the metal wall was located.

Chaos knew about it too. They had known for a long time.

Lin Mo folded the map and put it in his pocket. He glanced at Locke—the brute who usually spent his time drinking, bragging, and cursing was now sitting on the ground with a bandaged chest, still gripping the battle-axe he’d grown accustomed to. His image in the team had changed: he was no longer just a man who could fight; he was a man who could figure out how to fight. Lin Mo memorized this thought—it would become a benchmark to measure the growth of everyone in Blackstone Town.

While clearing the battlefield, Locke found a leather neck ring on the third orc's neck, strung with a polished beast tooth. It wasn't an ornament—a row of tiny symbols was carved into the root of the tooth. They weren't Chaos runes, but a type of mark he had never seen before. He removed the tooth, washed it clean in the stream, and put it in his pocket without telling Lin Mo. It wasn't a lack of trust; he just wanted to figure out what it was himself first.

Locke remained silent all the way back to the village. He was thinking about that orc wearing the inscribed tooth—its position in the team, the way it observed the terrain, and the speed with which it made judgments after being ambushed were all different from ordinary orcs. When he served on the Imperial border, he had heard of a type of mutated individual among orc groups called "Smarty-boys": smarter than ordinary orcs, with better organizational skills and even the ability to use tactics. The more he thought, the clearer it became—that orc wasn't an ordinary scout; it was a specially trained unit.

He stopped at the village entrance. The oil lamp swayed in the wind, its dim yellow light casting a long shadow from the post. Lin Mo was leaning against the lamp post waiting for him. Locke walked over, stood before Lin Mo, and said, "Those orcs—someone is training them."

Locke's words were like a nail driven into Lin Mo's mind, cold and hard. Someone was training the orcs. Orcs could be trained—which meant there was a command system behind them. That night, Lin Mo drew a mind map in his notebook. Starting from "trained orcs," he branched out into three lines: who the trainer was, what the purpose of the training was, and where the training base was located. Under the second line, he drew a circle and wrote a word: "Attrition." Not conquest, not plunder—attrition. Someone was using orcs to wear down the defensive forces of the border settlements. Under the third line, he drew a question mark and wrote: "Mine."

That night, Locke returned to his quarters and turned the beast tooth over and over under the oil lamp for a long time. He used his fingernail to copy the symbols onto his hardwood table, then placed the tooth in a hidden compartment under his bed boards—alongside the two marks he had carved into the wall long ago.

*And he finally had a competent military leader.*

*Three greenskins' bone plates lay shattered in the mud of the river valley,*

**After the battle, Locke carved a line of text on the stone wall of the river valley with his axe blade:**

*Iron bones need no name, loyalty shines as bright as snow.*

*One axe carves a path to life, marching forward even through ten thousand deaths.*

*— Locke, inscription after the River Valley Ambush*

*— Locke, personal record after the River Valley Ambush*

The orc roared and charged, its battle-axe whistling down. Lin Mo didn't retreat or even dodge—he simply stepped to the side, bracing the axe handle with his left arm while his right hand struck the orc's throat with a speed impossible for a human. The coarse green skin was as thin as paper before a fist reinforced by psionic energy. The orc's roar turned into a muffled gurgle, its massive body swayed, and it crashed to the ground.

The smoke from the gunpowder hadn't yet dissipated, leaving the field of vision a hazy gray; he could only determine the enemy's position by sound.

"[The third one.]" Lin Mo shook the blood off his hand, his voice as calm as if he were counting the steps he'd taken that day.

The villagers who had just arrived stood dazed, their weapons not yet even raised.

Another day had ended. The number of days he had spent on this planet was slowly becoming a figure he didn't dare think too much about. But he was still alive each day—and that was enough.

*[The Yellow River climbs far into the white clouds, a lonely city stands amidst towering peaks.*

*Why should the Qiang flute complain of the willows? The spring breeze does not cross Yumen Pass.]*

*— Wang Zhihuan, "Liangzhou Song." Memory fragments sealed within the mirror of the emperor quietly surfaced in the darkness.*

The chaos attention level spiked that night and then fell back to its original state—as if something had withdrawn its gaze after observing him in the shadows.