Chapter 291: Fire-Demon Tower (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Passes)

As the Defense Tower entered an upgrade phase, Satellite, who was in the middle of the game, was completely stunned.

In the early game, he had adopted the Single Burrows Fast Tech strategy.

For the Orcs, the biggest characteristic of this playstyle is that it's much faster than a standard opening. By the time population reached 17, he could already begin Tier 2 tech.

Combined with an early Wolf Rider push, things could quickly get rolling.

This was one of the mainstream tactics currently developed by Orc players.

The primary reason Orcs could play this way was because the Orc Grunt was the meatiest infantry unit in the early game.

With just the main Hero and one Orc Grunt, leveling up was already entirely feasible. Moreover, the Orc shop was also the most race-appropriate shop—after taking damage, one Great Potion, and a short recovery time, they were ready to fight again.

Right now, Satellite had fallen into an extremely awkward situation—five Peasants were actively constructing a Guard Tower. Although structures were extremely fragile during construction and upgrading, the opponent had built just outside the Burrow’s defensive range. At this point, even if his Peons entered the Burrow, they couldn’t defend.

Meanwhile, his Blademaster and single Orc Grunt were completely outmatched.

In a direct fight, the Fire Demon would surely lose to the Blademaster. But the opponent wasn’t engaging head-on at all!

Whenever his Blademaster and Grunt attacked the Fire Demon, the enemy simply kept building more Guard Towers and upgrading Arrow Towers. The Fire Demon didn’t fight back—it just casually wandered around.

When he tried to attack the Peasants, they would immediately flee. The Arrow Tower was already upgrading, and the Fire Demon, Lesser Fire Demon, and Footman kept pressuring his units.

If he turned back to attack the Guard Tower guarded by five Peasants, he only had one Blademaster and two Grunts—his third Grunt was still under construction.

It was a classic case of being caught between a rock and a hard place.

Moreover, the Burrow was essentially a shoddy construction—unless upgraded with Cement, it was far too easy to blow up.

This was also one of the reasons he built his structures so deep inside his base—because harassment was just too easy.

Now, however, he felt as if he had swallowed poop—completely unprepared for the fact that the Human race could play like this.

Meanwhile, Chen Xu was fully focused.

The Human TR—Peasant Tower Rush all-in push—was an extremely aggressive tactic. When executed well, it completely suppressed the opponent in the early game.

But if it failed to finish the opponent off immediately, the player rushing would usually be the one eliminated.

Fortunately, the early game required control over only a few units, and Chen Xu’s hand speed was more than capable of handling it.

The battlefield situation was extremely tense. With the completion of the Arcane Tower—the defensive structure capable of draining mana—it marked the success of the first phase of the TR strategy. The Humans had now firmly established a foothold near the Orc’s main base.

Satellite, on the other hand, had already figured out a possible counter.

Upgrade to Tier 2, build the War Mill, and use Catapults to break through.

But the real issue was—he could barely hold on anymore!

He had to make a painful choice between economy and lumber.

If he built more Orc Grunts to buy time, production of Catapults and the War Mill would inevitably slow down.

Meanwhile, the enemy’s Defense Tower construction speed wouldn’t slow down. But if he didn’t build Grunts, he wouldn’t be able to stall at all!

It was a dead end. Staring at the two newly erected Defense Towers, he made one final desperate attempt—killing the Fire Demon in front of him—before typing "GG" in the public chat.

The moment those two "GGs" appeared, the players watching in the live stream room instantly erupted in excitement.

If the previous victory with Night Elf against Shu Ben’s Orcs could be dismissed as the opponent being overconfident or careless,

then this win with the Human race could only mean one thing—Orcs were clearly not invincible!

‘Wait, what happened to Orc Supremacy? Why do Orcs suddenly feel like the weakest race?’

‘Damn it! Weren’t we promised the game was balanced? Are we going to see Mr. Chen decide Orcs are too weak and buff them now?’

‘I’m speechless—who the hell is the professional player here!?’

‘To be fair, Chen Xu did make a few small mistakes, but more importantly, no one else anticipated that Humans and Night Elves could be played this way. He completely caught them off guard.’

‘That’s true—skill still matters a lot in RTS. Mr. Chen’s operations alone probably completely overshadow 90% of players. If an ordinary player tried this against a pro, they’d still get hard-countered.’

‘Be confident—it’s more like 99%. But what impressed me most was how he adapted tactics based on unit and race characteristics!’

‘Exactly! Absolutely brilliant!’

Even within the professional RTS community, many pros who hadn’t participated earlier now felt a sudden urge to try their hand.

The inspiration was simply too great.

Before this, no one had ever considered such a strategy. The idea of Humans building structures in groups wasn’t unknown.

But most people previously thought it was a chicken rib—a mixed blessing at best.

After all, it consumed extra lumber and gold coins.

Yet no one had imagined that by exploiting the rapid construction trait, players could build Defense Towers directly inside the enemy’s base, effectively turning an RTS into a tower defense game.

………………

Satellite could only sigh in无奈 (helplessness). He had never even considered this playstyle. Who could have imagined that in under three minutes, the opponent would bring their entire household to his front door and start building houses?

He now entered the group chat, where everyone was already discussing.

‘Satellite, you lost too!?’ Shu Ben’s voice carried both depression and a hint of secret delight.

‘Yeah, I lost as well,’ Satellite replied, suddenly realizing he wasn’t alone in this.

‘You called GG in under eight minutes!’ Shu Ben’s tone now carried a little more glee.

Hearing this, Satellite’s face darkened.

What was the implication?

Because you typed GG later than me, you feel superior? That’s your underlying message?

Yet he had no rebuttal.

Because the truth was, his defeat had indeed been quite pitiful.

‘This Fire-Demon Tower tactic is really something. Against the traditional Orc Burrow setup, it’s almost completely uncounterable!’ someone commented in the group.

Guadi also chimed in with agreement: ‘Exactly. Even if I were to play against it unaware, I wouldn’t have many good options. But now that we know this strategy, there are actually several counters.’

‘The first method is to scout the opponent’s base early. If they open with a barracks and immediately produce two Footmen, it’s almost certainly the Fire-Demon Tower routine. In that case, retreat your Blademaster from base, visit the Tavern to recruit a Beastmaster or Goblins, and use early-game summoned units to stall until the War Mill and Catapults come online. Once those are ready, this tactic becomes nearly useless.’

‘Alternatively, you could start with the Far Seer and use Feral Spirits to survive the early game.’

Guadi, hailed as the strongest Orc player at the moment, offered some unique insights.

However, right after Guadi finished speaking, a Human player voiced a different opinion.

‘It’s not that simple. Humans don’t have to commit to Tier 1 Fire-Demon Tower Rush. They can start with a normal Arch-Mage opening, then fast tech to Tier 2, spam Footmen, and upgrade Defend. In that scenario, their margin for error is much higher than the Tier 1 all-in.’

‘And it’s not exclusive to Humans either. Orcs can also use the Fire-Demon Tower strategy—just not as a Tier 1 all-in like Humans can.’

Many professional players in the group continued discussing, eventually raising the next question.

‘So… who’s going up next?’ Many now wanted to challenge Chen Xu.

Originally, quite a few people hadn’t been eager to play.

After all, beating a game designer wasn’t something to boast about.

But losing? That was embarrassing.

Now, however, everyone realized Chen Xu’s skill was truly exceptional. Many pros now wanted a chance to test themselves against him.

In the end, they decided to use the ROLL dice method—the player with the highest points would go first.

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