Chương 102: 102：The Triumphant Return

Deep within the subterranean armory of Lone Cliff, torches flickered, casting long, dancing shadows across the cavern walls. Under the low, commanding roars of their chieftain, Luger, the one hundred and twenty-three newly sworn goblins initiated a full-scale relocation.

"Move it! Don't dawdle! Even if it's a rusty nail or a torn rag used to wipe a crossbow string, I want it packed and taken with us!" Luger stood atop a rocky outcropping, barking orders at his kin. Bundles of precision-cut gears, dozens of massive wooden barrels packed with wax-coated trap components, three hundred meticulously crafted Goblin Repeating Crossbows, and literal mountains of lethal bolts.

Every single item was secured with thick vines, strapped firmly onto the goblins' backs, or loaded onto rickety wooden wheelbarrows. Over in a corner, the chief goblin technician was sweating profusely. Using a pair of heavy iron tongs, he carefully lifted the spatial storage ring—the one still broadcasting its high-tier tracking mark—and placed it into a heavy lead box. Not taking any chances, he wrapped the lead box in three thick layers of beast hide before finally daring to chain it tightly to his own chest.

Soren's gaze lingered on that heavily bound package. The tracking mark on that ring is a Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads, but it's also a decoy beacon that allows me to dictate the flow of the battlefield. Carrying it with us now carries a massive risk, but as long as we make it back to Greywater Village... with Victor's magical research and the military forces currently at my disposal, even if the Blackstone Orcs come knocking, I'll ensure they break their teeth on our walls!

"Move out!" Soren commanded. By early morning, the Misty Swamp was once again weeping a cold, needle-like drizzle. The perpetual, dense white fog acted as a massive curtain drawn between heaven and earth, sealing the swamp in absolute obscurity. A massive, heavily burdened procession marched through the freezing mud at top speed. Soren walked alone at the very vanguard.

Relying on his newly advanced [Eagle Eye Perception], the miasma—so thick it felt almost tangible to a normal person—became completely translucent in his vision. Even the minute vibration of a falling leaf thirty paces away couldn't escape his gaze. In this treacherous, trap-riddled death zone, he effortlessly carved out a perfectly safe path for the hundred-plus heavily laden goblins trailing behind him. Walking just behind him, Luger stared at the human's back. The Hobgoblin's sense of awe only deepened.

Soren didn't even use a branch to probe the mud! For goblins, navigating the swamp usually required sacrificing scout after scout just to find the hidden sinkholes. Yet, under Soren's lead, they were marching through the deadly swamp as casually as if they were strolling through a backyard garden! After four grueling hours of forced marching. The faint outlines of Greywater Village's wooden warning stakes finally pierced through the rolling fog. At the village entrance.

Kyle, the commander of the second-line standing army who had just rotated shifts, was standing under the watchtower, warming his hands around a coarse clay bowl filled with hot, lightly salted porridge. Suddenly, the wind chimes strung across the village's outermost defensive perimeter began to ring frantically. Clatter! Clatter! Clatter! The ground began to vibrate with the chaotic, heavy trampling of numerous feet. That scale of noise... it absolutely wasn't just a wandering Swamp Croc.

"Enemy attack! Sound the whistles!" Kyle didn't hesitate for a microsecond. He smashed his clay bowl into the mud, drew his short sword, and let out a bloodcurdling roar. Within the span of ten short breaths! Splash! Splash! Splash! The deafening sound of heavy boots splashing through puddles shook the air. Fifty-one second-line spearmen, wielding iron-studded shields and shouldering three-meter-long black iron military pikes, surged forward.

Like an impenetrable iron floodgate, they instantly locked into a flawless, airtight Macedonian Phalanx right behind the main gates! Having been fed a steady, abundant diet of meat under Soren's rule, these men radiated a fierce, bloodthirsty aura. A forest of deadly iron points aimed straight at the fog.

"Draw strings!" Simultaneously, from the two towering wooden watchtowers just inside the walls, the calm, icy voice of the master archer Ein rang out. Fifty hand-picked elite longbowmen were already in position. At Ein's command, fifty Imperial military longbows were drawn to their absolute maximum tension in perfect unison! Triangular, armor-piercing heavy arrows gleamed with a deadly, cold light in the freezing rain, locked dead onto the churning mist outside the gates.

Behind the main gates, Gary and Meyer, who had rushed over at the first alarm, gripped their armor-piercing halberds. Their eyes bored into the fog, waiting for whatever primal horrors were about to burst forth.

"I don't care if it's a green-skin army or a horde of monsters. The second they step over that warning line, shoot them to pieces!" Gary snarled through gritted teeth. Just as the tension among the Greywater defenders reached its absolute breaking point—just as Ein's fingers relaxed a fraction of a millimeter, ready to unleash a tempest of armor-piercing steel! Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

The dense white fog was suddenly torn open from the center. A tall figure casually strolled out from the very front of the black mass of over a hundred approaching 'monsters'. Due to the distance and the swirling mist, Kyle could only make out a blurry human silhouette. However, in the very next second... That figure raised a right arm encased in a black iron bracer, clenched his fist, and flattened his palm downwards in a standard military tactical gesture.

[Stand Down] Up on the highest watchtower, Ein possessed the [Natural Hunter] accuracy modifier, granting him eyesight that completely eclipsed the rest of the army. When his razor-sharp gaze pierced the mist and locked onto the cold, familiar face framed beneath that iron helmet... Ein's scalp went numb. He sucked in a massive breath of cold air, instantly spun around, and screamed at the surrounding longbowmen:"Bows to the sky! Ease tension! Ease tension! Put those damn arrows back in your quivers!"

"Open the gates! It's the Lord! All units, stand down!" Click! Clack! Fifty tightly drawn bows were rapidly lowered. Down below, Kyle and his men froze in place. When their eyes widened and they finally saw the man fully step out of the fog... BOOM! An explosion of sheer disbelief swept through the entire defensive line. Just one day ago. Lord Soren had left Greywater Village entirely alone, without taking a single soldier, to scout an armed goblin settlement hidden in treacherous terrain.

In the tactical assessments of Gary, Meyer, and the others, this was virtually indistinguishable from walking directly into a tiger's den! Yet, how much time had actually passed? Just one day! Their supreme Lord had not only returned without a single scratch on his black iron armor, but even more terrifyingly... Behind him trailed an entire, fully structured army of goblins. These goblins were burdened with supplies, carrying weapons, and even pushing compact siege engines.

Yet, they were following closely on Soren's heels, as docile and obedient as a flock of shorn sheep!

"Gods above... how in the hell did he do it...?" Gary swallowed hard, completely oblivious to the fact that his halberd had slipped from his grip and splashed into a puddle. Riding out single-handedly, and within a single day, subjugating a fortified, armed demimhuman tribe without shedding a drop of his own blood? This mythical, almost incomprehensible display of supreme leadership slammed into the hearts of every soldier and civilian in Greywater Village with the force of a battering ram.

If Soren slaying the Son of Titan and annihilating Bone Ridge had earned their absolute martial worship... Then right now, this worship had entirely transcended the realm of mortals. It was rapidly ascending into the realm of the divine! CREAAAK! The massive log gates were heaved open by the soldiers. Kyle led his men, stepping back in perfect, synchronized precision to form a corridor, greeting the returning procession with crisp military salutes.

Inside the walls, the eighty-five goblins who had been integrated into the village earlier were currently swamped with work. Some were straining to push wheelbarrows loaded with heavy iron ore toward the geothermal blast furnace. Others, coated in acidic mud, were hunched over the Swamp Tuber fields, meticulously plucking off nutrient-sucking leeches. A few bare-chested goblins were rhythmically pumping the massive ox-hide bellows in the blacksmith's forge. But the moment Luger—the 1.

9-meter-tall Hobgoblin, his body rippling with rock-hard muscles and clad in heavy chest armor—stepped through the gates, his amber, slit-like pupils swept over the village! CLANG! A goblin holding a hammer at the anvil violently flinched. The heavy iron hammer dropped straight onto his foot, yet he didn't even cry out in pain. Within exactly two seconds, every sound of labor in the entire village came to a dead halt. The instant the eyes of the Greywater goblins met Luger's.

An absolute, biological, undeniable bloodline suppression slammed into them like a physical weight, instantly breaking their posture. Thud! Thud! Thud! All eighty-five common goblins, no matter what they were holding or doing, dropped flat onto the ground. Mud, coal slag, iron shavings—it didn't matter. They pressed their limbs flush against the dirt, burying their faces so deep they didn't dare look up.

They raised their hindquarters, exposing the most vulnerable parts of their necks and the backs of their heads, while emitting low, vibrating purrs of total submission from their throats. It was an instinctual, primal worship of an apex Hobgoblin Chief. Luger stopped in his tracks. His back, which had been slightly hunched in caution upon entering human territory, instantly and reflexively straightened to its full height.

He stood there, looking down at his prostrate kin with the eyes of a king surveying his subjects. A Hobgoblin's intellect far exceeded that of ordinary men, and right now, Luger's mind was as clear as a polished mirror.