Chương 122: 122： The Shock of Ironwood's Generals

Soren turned around, his gaze sweeping over the sixty-three 1st-Line Elites standing before him. Clad in black iron, they stood in the mud as silent and immovable as a forest of iron towers.

"Renn!"

"Here!" The bare-chested Battle Monk took a booming step forward, aggressively cracking his knuckles. Supported by his [Unarmed Master] and [Hardened Skin] talents, he radiated the suffocating, primal aura of a feral beast.

"You are leading a squad. You're coming up with me." For ordinary men, the sheer, vertical cliffs of Eagle Beak Ridge were an insurmountable death trap. But for sixty-three elite juggernauts who had assimilated the [Basic Troll Serum]? Combine that monstrous, bio-enhanced physical strength with Soren's modern military rappelling and free-climbing tactics, and that "impassable" cliff face was nothing more than a steep staircase.

"Listen up! All sixty-three of you: strip off the heavy plate! Right here, right now! Leave only your half-plate cuirasses for maximum agility!"

"Take your two-and-a-half-meter armor-piercing halberds and strap them dead-tight across your backs! Equip your [Geared Heavy Repeating Crossbows]!" Soren's voice was as cold as a sharpened scalpel, dissecting the battlefield:"I am taking you up that rear cliff face. While Ein's Longbow Battalion unleashes a sky full of fire on the frontal path—drawing every single ounce of attention from those five hundred green-skinned pigs..."

"We will become a dagger in the dark. And we are going to gut the Bloodaxe Battalion right in their exposed backs!" The dawn's early light began to pierce the gloom. Everything was falling perfectly into place. Soren leaned casually against an ancient, withered swamp tree, looking down as he slowly, methodically wrapped his right wrist in anti-slip grip tape. He was waiting. Waiting for Luger and his fiercely proud Goblin Engineering Battalion.

Deep in the shadows of the woods, the Hobgoblin was meticulously reassembling the compact Torsion Catapults, while simultaneously rigging the pulley systems to erect the two massive, apocalyptic [Heavy Siege Trebuchets]. Meanwhile. On the muddy, treacherous path leading toward Lone Cliff. An army of nine hundred heavy human pikemen was agonizingly slogging through the acidic muck. Every time they planted their heavy tower shields, they had to violently yank them free with a loud, sucking schlorp.

Riding in the center of the formation were the two commanders from Ironwood Fortress: Galahad and Gabriel. Galahad's weathered face was etched with grim anxiety. The underbelly of his sturdy roan warhorse was already stained pitch-black from the toxic mud. Beside him rode Gabriel, the new-blood noble general. Despite wearing a suit of blindingly polished, lightweight Mithril armor, his pure-white, high-breed stallion looked miserable and lethargic. For standard cavalry, the Misty Swamp was a literal hellscape.

"Pass the order! Double the march tempo!" Galahad barked, his voice tight with urgency.

"Those five hundred Bloodaxe Orcs brought no supply train! If they realize they're starving and launch a desperate, suicidal charge down Eagle Beak Ridge, the Lone Cliff garrison won't stand a chance against their dying frenzy!"

"We have to establish a heavy shield-wall at the base of that mountain and lock them halfway up the slope before they try to break out!" Just as Galahad finished speaking, the rapid, frantic splashing of hooves tore through the toxic miasma ahead.

"Report!" A light cavalry scout burst through the dense fog, practically tumbling out of his saddle before his horse even stopped. Belonging to Gabriel's outrider unit, the scout's face was completely drained of blood. He didn't even bother fixing his crooked helmet as he crashed heavily to one knee in the mud.

"What is it? Has the Bloodaxe Battalion already launched their charge?!" Gabriel spurred his white horse forward, his hand gripping the hilt of his rapier so tightly his knuckles popped. If the Orcs were charging, he would immediately deploy his hundred light crossbow-cavalry to scatter and harass them like a pack of wolves.

"No... it's not the Orcs!" The scout swallowed a huge gulp of saliva, panting heavily. His eyes were wide with lingering, absolute disbelief.

"Generals! I was ordered to scout the interception zones at the base of Lone Cliff's slope."

"But... in the woodlands directly beneath Eagle Beak Ridge... there is already an unknown human army camped there!"

"A human army?" Galahad's thick brows violently slammed together.

"Is it another coalition legion from the Silvermoon Kingdom? Or border-crossing reinforcements from the Holy Empire?"

"I couldn't identify their unit designation! They aren't flying any Royal or Ducal banners!" The scout's voice cracked with agitation.

"But Generals... their equipment... I swear to the Gods, even our grand Ironwood Fortress doesn't have pockets deep enough to outfit an army like that!" The moment those words dropped, Galahad and Gabriel exchanged a deeply bewildered, stunned look. In this godforsaken, bird-shitting dead zone of a swamp, a ridiculously well-equipped, mystery human army had just materialized out of thin air?

"Halt the advance! Entire legion, assume defensive formations! Crossbowmen, nock your bolts!" Galahad didn't hesitate. He swung down from his saddle and grabbed his massive kite shield.

"Gabriel, you're coming with me. We're pushing up to the high ground ahead to see for ourselves."

"I want to see exactly who has the sheer audacity to lead an encirclement against the Bloodaxes!" Leaving the main army behind, the two generals drew their weapons and took a ten-man elite bodyguard detachment, sprinting up the muddy slope as if preparing to face a lethal enemy. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Roughly ten minutes later.

They pushed through a patch of waist-high, thorny iron-ferns and belly-crawled to the crest of a dirt mound less than five hundred yards from the base of Lone Cliff. From their elevated vantage point, the valley winds occasionally tore away the dense fog. When Galahad pushed aside a massive palm leaf and truly took in the scene at the edge of the forest below...

This grizzled veteran—a man who had guarded Ironwood Fortress for over a decade and waded through mountains of corpses and seas of blood—felt his hand violently tremble! Beside him, Gabriel—the arrogant noble who historically turned his nose up at anyone's gear but his own—sucked in a horrifyingly sharp breath of cold air. Deep within the gloomy, damp treeline stood a flawlessly disciplined military formation. Sixty heavily armored infantrymen stood silently in the mud.

Honestly, the heavy infantry alone wouldn't have broken them. Sure, the full-plate Blackiron armor and the armor-piercing halberds were exceptionally high-end, but Ironwood Fortress could still scrape that together. No. It was the fifty men standing on the flanks of that heavy phalanx, their eyes as sharp as hunting falcons.

"What... what in the seven hells am I looking at?!" Gabriel hissed, losing all his aristocratic composure. His eyes bypassed the heavy infantry and locked dead onto the massive bows strapped to the backs of those fifty archers. As a high noble, he recognized them instantly. Those were [Imperial Military Longbows]! The absolute, exclusive monopoly of the Holy Halycon Empire! Forged from air-dried ironwood, with bowstrings woven from the sinew of magical beasts, they required monstrous arm strength just to draw.

They were strategic, Class-A contraband! The Empire executed anyone caught smuggling them. Within their effective range, they could punch a hole straight through a knight's chainmail!

"It's not just the longbows..." Gabriel's gaze drifted lower, and his scalp went completely numb.

"Look at the mounting brackets on their backs! Those are [Geared Heavy Repeating Crossbows]!"

"Those require High-Dwarven master craftsmen spending months just to polish the internal mechanisms! How do they have them?!"

"That isn't even the most terrifying part." Galahad pointed a trembling, gauntleted finger toward the rear of the formation.

"Gabriel... look back there." Following his gaze deep into the shadows of the forest, the true, apocalyptic beasts of war were slowly baring their fangs. Dozens of goblins, their skin coated in acid-resistant black grease, were expertly wielding massive wrenches and raw timber. Four compact, highly lethal Torsion Catapults had just been assembled. And looming directly behind them? Two colossal [Heavy Siege Trebuchets], towering over a dozen meters high.

Using static pulley systems, the goblins were slowly, methodically hoisting the massive counterweight boxes into the sky.

"Gods above..." Galahad whispered, a cold sweat drenching his forehead.

"A vanguard force of barely a hundred men..."

"Fifty Imperial Military Longbows. Sixty-three Geared Heavy Repeating Crossbows. Supported by Torsion Catapults and Heavy Siege Trebuchets."

"I swear it on my life! The ranged fire-projection of these hundred men completely eclipses the entire artillery arsenal of Ironwood Fortress!" (Authors Note: Truthfully, Galahad was exaggerating out of pure shock here. But considering Ironwood Fortress didn't even own a single Trebuchet, he wasn't entirely wrong.) Just as the two generals were drowning in an ocean of absolute terror, desperately trying to guess which Kingdom's hidden Royal Trump Card they had stumbled upon...

Galahad's razor-sharp eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of a half-cloak fluttering at the very front of the formation. On a pitch-black background, woven in dark red silk, was the crest of a fractured moon. The Crimson Moon Knights! That legendary name struck Galahad's brain like a bolt of lightning.

"Sunken Bone Shallows... the ambush that slaughtered the Sons of Titan! I met them once! But they were only wearing cheap leather armor back then, so I didn't recognize them immediately!" Galahad violently slapped his thigh, his eyes wide.

"It's him! It's that madwoman Leona's sharpest blade!"

"The Commander of the 1st Vanguard Battalion! Soren!"

"Soren?!" Hearing the name, the profound dread in Gabriel's eyes instantly mutated into wild, greedy ecstasy. He slammed the hilt of his rapier into the dirt.

"No wonder! No wonder he can pull out an army like this in the middle of the Misty Swamp!" Gabriel threw his head back and laughed, his aristocratic arrogance returning in full force as he made an entirely baseless, completely misguided assumption:"Hahaha! I understand now! This lucky bastard must have stumbled across a hidden military vault belonging to Orc Royalty, or raided Warchief Blackstone's personal armory deep in the swamp!" Meanwhile, Galahad was simply overwhelmed with relief.

Knowing they had an insanely ferocious, heavily armed ally to hold the frontal line against the Bloodaxes instantly elevated their chances of total victory.

"Come! No more hiding!" Galahad eagerly stood up, slinging his heavy kite shield onto his back.

"Gabriel, come down with me! We absolutely must meet this peerless tactical genius in person!" The two generals, flanked by their guards, strode confidently down the dirt mound, heading straight for that aura of slaughter. But as they approached... The suffocating, oppressive aura radiating from Soren's silent, iron-clad array grew heavier and heavier, until it felt like a physical weight pressing against their chests.