Chương 116: 116：The Lord's Arrogant Ultimatum

"Gentlemen," Soren's voice cut through the silence of the command post like a sharpened blade.

"The moment the Orcs suffer a brutal, head-on strike from us at Lone Cliff, their operational tempo will instantly shatter. They will immediately pivot to a hard defense."

"They will seize the high ground of Lone Cliff, dig in, and adopt a turtle formation. They will bunker down and wait for Bloodfang Fortress to send reinforcements." Soren's eyes burned with a calculating, predatory light.

"And that is exactly what we are truly hunting. We are going to annihilate their reinforcements!" For the first time in this world, Soren unveiled the classic, terrifying military doctrine: Besiege the stronghold, slaughter the reinforcements.

"Buck!"

"Sir!" Buck abruptly stepped forward, slamming his fist heavily against his Blackiron chestplate.

"Take all ninety-two of your Warg Cavalry! I want you haunting the concealed ridgelines northwest of Lone Cliff like ghosts."

"That is the inevitable path for the reinforcements from Bloodfang Fortress. If you encounter enemy Warg Cavalry, leverage your absolute mobility. When the enemy advances, you retreat. When the enemy camps, you harass!"

"Use your [Goblin Repeating Crossbows] to blind their mounts! I want you to drag them down into the mud and bleed them dry!"

"At all costs, by your command!" Buck roared, his eyes igniting with bloodthirsty fanaticism.

"Renn! Kyle! Luger!"

"Sir!" Three commanders of vastly different styles stepped forward simultaneously. The battle-monk Renn, his fists wrapped in coarse cloth; Kyle, gripping his heavy black iron pike; and the old Hobgoblin Luger, absentmindedly wiping grease off a heavy steel wrench.

"You three will take fifty heavy shield-pikemen and the entire 3rd-Line Goblin Engineering Battalion."

"Completely dismantle the compact Torsion Catapults. Load them onto the carts and force-march to Throat Valley, just south of Lone Cliff. I want those catapults reassembled and a lethal pocket-trap set up!" Soren stared at them, biting off every single syllable with crushing weight:"Use the terrain to lay an absolute ambush! The moment the enemy's heavy infantry reinforcements enter the valley, Luger, you bombard them with the catapults and shatter their formation.

Renn, Kyle, I want your Macedonian Phalanx to violently plug the valley exit!"

"I want you to grind the southern reinforcements into absolute meat paste! Can you do it?!"

"My pike shall be the Lord's Wall of Sighs!" Kyle roared, his veins bulging. Soren nodded in deep satisfaction. Finally, he reached up to the weapon rack and unhooked the longbow pulsing with a profound cyan luster: the [Windwhisper Bow]. With a smooth motion, he grabbed his heavy quiver and slung it across his back.

"Meyer!"

"Here, My Lord!"

"Take the remaining scouts. Scatter poisoned caltrops along our marching route and completely blind every possible orcish hidden sentry." With a sharp metallic schwing, Soren violently drew his military longsword, pointing the cold steel straight up toward the heavens.

"Gary, Ein, Victor! Take our 1st-Line Heavy Infantry Battalion and the Longbow Battalion. You march with me! We are driving straight into the frontal battlefield of Lone Cliff!"

"Today is the day our army truly comes of age."

"I am going to make every single soul in the Misty Swamp re-learn the true definition of war!"

"All forces, move out!" BOOM! The heavy log gates of Greywater Village crashed open. Over seven hundred armed combatants split into three distinct, lethal strike forces. The gleaming black iron armor, the cold light flashing off hundreds of arrowheads, the terrifying, silent precision of the marching formations... They transformed into three merciless tides of black steel, radiating a suffocating aura of slaughter as they rapidly advanced toward their designated battlefields.

A gentle breeze swept across Lone Cliff. Unlike the rest of the Misty Swamp, which reeked of putrid, nauseating acidic mud, the air here actually carried the faint, comforting scent of wheat and crude spices. Lone Cliff lived up to its name perfectly. It was a sprawling, elevated basin containing exceedingly rare, solid earth. Hidden deep within the swamp, it was completely walled off by treacherous sheer cliffs and overlapping layers of hyper-toxic, thorny vines.

Relying on two subterranean thermal springs that rarely ran dry, the locals had carved out a massive expanse of prime farmland that didn't rely on the weather. Tall stone chimneys puffed white smoke into the sky—the sign of large-scale alchemical workshops extracting magical herbs unique to the swamp. In the winding alleys, children in coarse linen clothes could be seen chasing each other and laughing. Occasionally, a patrol of guards in half-leather armor would stroll by.

Their expressions were relaxed, joking with each other about which tavern watered down their ale the least. As a critical ally and major logistical supply hub for Ironwood Fortress in the Misty Swamp, Lone Cliff had known peace for far too long. With the massive armies of Ironwood Fortress holding the main frontline against the Orc Alliance, absolutely no one believed a single orc could ever penetrate this deep into their sanctuary. Until...

A piercing, agonizing howl of a Warg violently tore through the tranquility of Lone Cliff's entrance. Mud sprayed into the air. A massive black Warg, its fur mottled with bloody sores from acidic burns, staggered frantically up the stone-paved road of Lone Cliff's forward outpost. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Ten meters away from the wooden barricades, the beast's legs finally gave out. It crashed heavily into the dirt, thick white foam pouring from its maw.

"Enemy attack! Hold it right there!" The eight halberd-wielding guards at the outpost violently flinched. Instinctively, they leveled their polearms, crossing them in front of the barricade. From the splattered mud, a rider stumbled and crawled to his feet. His Blackiron half-plate was battered and heavily scarred. Mud caked more than half his face. Yet, completely ignoring the sharp halberd blades pointing directly at his throat, he desperately reached into his tunic. Clack.

He threw a finely forged iron badge onto the stones. It bore the crest of a fractured, blood-red moon.

"Look closely at who I am!" The soldier roared, his throat raw and bleeding.

"Crimson Moon Knights! 1st Vanguard Battalion! Warg Cavalry under the command of Captain Soren!" The guard captain looked down, and the moment he recognized the crest, his pupils violently shrank. The fearsome reputation of the Crimson Moon Knights still carried immense weight in this swamp. But before the captain could even open his mouth to ask a question, the messenger pushed past his absolute physical limits, unleashing a roar so loud it froze the playing children in the streets dead in their tracks.

"Sound the highest alarm! Organize a full-scale defense and evacuate the perimeter instantly!"

"A five-hundred-man elite heavy battalion of Blackiron Orcs! The Bloodaxes! They are less than an hour away from your eastern perimeter!" The faces of the guards instantly drained of all color. The spears in their hands began to uncontrollably tremble. Five hundred heavy-armored Orcs? That was a force capable of frontally crushing a human phalanx of over a thousand men! Just ten minutes later. In the center of Lone Cliff, inside a rather lavishly decorated stone assembly hall.

Lone Cliff's Administrator, Thomas—a pot-bellied, middle-aged man wearing several gemstone rings—was frantically tugging at the collar of his linen shirt, as if loosening it would somehow make him feel safer. His beady, triangular eyes were stuffed with a mix of deep suspicion and sheer disbelief. He glared at the Greywater Village messenger, who was currently being supported by a chair, greedily chugging hot water.

"You... boy of the Crimson Moon Knights. Do you have any idea what happens to those who report false military intelligence at Lone Cliff?" Thomas violently shoved a stack of parchment ledgers across his desk and stood up. He raised his voice, desperately trying to mask his internal panic with bluster:"Five hundred Orcs in heavy armor? Not five. Five hundred!"

"This entirely violates basic military logic!" As an administrator, Thomas's brain was a sharp abacus, and he rapidly calculated the odds:"If a heavy detachment of five hundred troops left the front lines, the magical crystal arrays at Ironwood Fortress would absolutely capture the massive surge in blood-qi!"

"Furthermore, from Bloodfang Fortress to Lone Cliff, they would have to wade through three subterranean rivers infested with Twin-Headed Crocs, and hack their way through toxic fog-woods where not even sunlight penetrates."

"How could five hundred heavily armored Orcs completely bypass the frontline without anyone noticing, bringing zero logistical supply wagons, and strike the deep rear?!"

"This is an absurd farce! What are they eating? Are they drinking acidic mud?!" Thomas's assessment wasn't technically wrong. Based on decades of historical combat data, Orcs were brutish. They fought by massing up and bulldozing straight ahead. They simply lacked the tactical doctrine—and the logistical capability—to execute a long-range, deep-strike, light-infantry maneuver. The Lone Cliff guard captain immediately nodded in agreement.

"Lord Thomas is right. Perhaps this boy was just seeing things. It was probably just a scattered band of stragglers." The Greywater messenger slowly lowered his cup of water. If this had been the past, facing the harsh questioning of such 'important lords', the young cavalryman might have cowered or second-guessed himself. But after serving under Soren? He had long forgotten the meaning of fear. The messenger violently straightened his spine, glaring dead into Thomas's eyes.

"If what my eyes saw was a lie, I am willing to be hung from the gallows immediately in the name of the Crimson Moon Knights!" He took a deep breath. Following the strict, highest-priority orders drilled into him by Spymaster Meyer, he delivered the iron will of his Lord, word for word.

"My Lord, Commander Soren, explicitly instructed me to tell you: The era has changed! The Orcs are learning tactics they never used before!"

"My Lord's exact words were: Tell the Administrator of Lone Cliff to use his damn brain. It is infinitely better to prepare for a false alarm than to be so arrogant that an Orc's battleaxe cleaves your neck straight down into your stomach!"

"That is all I have to say! My Lord's main army is already marching to intercept them!"

"You want your money, or you want your life? Lord Thomas, make your own choice!" This brutally abrasive, disrespectful speech carried the unmistakable, crushing tone of a supreme commander reprimanding a subordinate. Normally, an administrator like Thomas would fly into a rage at such insolence from a mere grunt. But when he heard the name "Soren," and let the terrifying, oppressive weight of that reprimand echo in his mind... He hesitated.