Chương 135: 135：An Impossible Victory Dispatch

A splash of white, entirely out of place in this muddy wasteland, quietly stepped into the tent. It was the army's cleric, Elena. Draped in the voluminous white robes of the Church of the Bright Moon, her straight, silver-white hair cascaded down to her waist like a waterfall. Yet, at this moment, the usually unflappable cleric's footsteps were frantic.

"Leona, we have a situation." Elena rushed to the table and uncurled her fingers to reveal a palm full of silver powder—the unique arcane transmission method of the Silvermoon Kingdom's state religion, the Church of the Bright Moon.

"My fellow sisters at the Capital Cathedral just relayed an urgent intelligence report from the rear." Elena's voice was tight.

"An elite force of fully five hundred Black Iron Orcs—the Bloodaxe Battalion—bypassed all our scouts. Like ghosts, they've slipped deep into our rearguard!" Leona shot to her feet.

"A five-hundred-strong heavy-infantry Black Iron battalion? Where did they flank to?"

"Lone Cliff." Elena pressed a finger against a remote corner of the parchment map.

"The intel indicates that not only has the Bloodaxe Battalion already reached the gates, but the commanders of Ironwood Fortress, Galahad and Gabriel, have mobilized. They led nine hundred heavy spearmen out of the fortress in an emergency relief effort." Bang! Leona slammed her fist so hard onto the map the table groaned.

"Bastards! Five hundred greenskins, each weighing hundreds of pounds, and they just slipped right past us?!" As a veteran commander who had survived countless battles, Leona instantly saw the terrifying reality of the tactical situation.

"If Lone Cliff falls, Ironwood Fortress's line of retreat is completely choked off." She gritted her teeth.

"But what's worse—that fool Galahad actually dared to pull his nine-hundred-man main force into open terrain without fortifications? And he plans to fight a pitched battle against five hundred Black Iron greenskins who have their backs to the wall?"

"Did Galahad forget?! The moment orcs are cornered with no way out, they'll take the high ground and fight a defensive counter-offensive! The destructive power they unleash in that state is more than enough to bleed three times his numbers dry!" Leona's eyes burned with fury.

"Once Ironwood Fortress's nine-hundred-strong main force is bogged down—or worse, annihilated—the entire human supply line in the Misty Swamp will be pierced like wet paper!" Leona abruptly spun around, grabbing the heavy plate armor pauldrons off her cot and roughly strapping them onto her shoulders.

"Leona? What are you doing?" Elena asked, slightly startled.

"The Kingdom's War Ministry hasn't issued the Crimson Moon Knights any orders to assist in the defense. Our own defensive zones are still stretched thin..."

"By the time those useless bureaucrats issue an order, the men of Ironwood Fortress will already be greenskin shit!" Leona reached back, slinging a massive broadsword—nearly the size of a door—across her back. Her crimson cape flared out behind her as she glared fiercely.

"My men will hold our own territory, but I'm going to pull those arrogant knights of Ironwood Fortress out of the fire!"

"If Lone Cliff becomes a dead zone, the flanks of the Crimson Moon Knights' defensive line will be completely exposed to the orcs! Pass my orders! Tell the two thousand main troops stationed in the west to cancel their rest period immediately! Armor up! They're force-marching to Lone Cliff with me!" Just as Leona, acting with the force of a hurricane, stepped one foot over the threshold of the command tent... Hum!

A sudden, blinding silver halo erupted from Elena's wrist, where a prayer bracelet carved from Brightmoon Stones hung quietly by her side. Elena sharply held her breath. Gripping the bracelet, she closed her pale gold eyes. It took only three breaths. When Elena opened her eyes again, a rare look of absolute, unadulterated shock marred her usually divine, untouchable visage.

"Leona..."

"Stop. Take off your armor. There's no need to assemble the main force." Leona, with half her foot already deep in the mud outside, whipped her head around, her brows knitting together tightly.

"Are you talking in your sleep? The orcs are at the gates of Lone Cliff! If we don't save them, are we just supposed to wait for the entire defensive line to collapse?"

"No... no." Elena took a deep breath, her chest heaving violently. She looked down at the silver powder in her palm, which still retained a faint magical warmth, and declared, word by word:"It's a victory dispatch."

"I just intercepted the confirmed combat report from the front lines."

"The Battle of Lone Cliff is already over."

"The five hundred elite Black Iron Orcs on the Eaglebeak Ridge heights—the Bloodaxe Battalion—have been entirely annihilated." Inside the command tent, one could hear a pin drop. The only sound was the incessant patter of rain hammering against the leather canvas outside.

"W-what did you just say?" Leona's hand remained frozen on the doorframe. For a second, she genuinely wondered if her military cleric was suffering from hysteria.

"Annihilated? Over?" Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Leona abruptly strode back inside.

"Elena, I might not have read many books, but how long has it been since you told me the Bloodaxe orcs assaulted Lone Cliff?"

"Even by the most generous estimates, Galahad's forces couldn't have engaged the enemy for more than an hour!" Leona let out a cold scoff, violently shaking her head, sending her fiery hair flying. As a fierce general who had spent years in the meat grinder of the front lines against the orcs, she possessed authoritative insight into the power disparity between the two sides.

"There is absolutely no way that stubborn old fool Galahad pulled off a battle record like that!" Leona delivered her verdict with ironclad certainty.

"That old man knows nothing except ordering his soldiers to raise their tower shields and push forward, trading blows with orcs like a complete idiot! There isn't a single flexible tactical thought in his brain!"

"Even with the fortifications of Ironwood Fortress, he couldn't stop ten Sons of Titan! His frontlines were smashed to pieces by bare hands, and his men were crying for their mothers as they routed!"

"Five hundred fully armored Black Iron Orcs holding the high ground! To storm that position from a geographical disadvantage and wipe them out within sixty minutes—and completely annihilate them at that?!" Leona stared intensely at the cleric.

"Elena, has your state religion's intelligence network been compromised by an old orc shaman's illusions?" Faced with Leona's perfectly logical military rebuttal, Elena did not argue. The white-haired cleric simply stood quietly in the flickering firelight. Her gaze was somewhat vacant, carrying a trace of deeply complex emotion.

"Leona, your tactical instincts aren't wrong," Elena said softly.

"The ones who conquered the Lone Cliff heights were indeed not the regular main army of Ironwood Fortress."

"Instead... it was someone under the roster of our Crimson Moon Knights."

"The Commander of the 1st Vanguard Battalion, Soren." Boom! It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck directly inside Leona's brain. She stared into Elena's clear eyes, desperately searching for a hint of a joke. The fragmented details of the battle spilled from Elena's lips one by one:"Soren did not use human lives to pave the steep slopes."

"Instead, with an unbelievable grasp of intelligence, he evacuated all the provisions and civilians from Lone Cliff ahead of time."

"Following that, with an incredibly small force, he utilized heavy siege weaponry synced with high-tier Fireball spells to create a dense net of bombardment, directly leveling the high-ground defenses."

"Then, he scaled the cliffs from the rear, forcing the orcs to turn their formation, catching them in a pincer. Total annihilation in one hour. Our casualties... are virtually non-existent." As Elena relayed the actual battlefield conditions transmitted from the front lines, her mouth felt completely dry. Even in the mythological scriptures of the Moon Goddess, there were few records of such an exaggerated, overwhelmingly lopsided slaughter.

Leona went from initial disbelief to dazed shock, and finally, the rims of her eyes began to redden. Suddenly, Leona threw her head back. Her crimson hair danced wildly like roaring flames. A brazen, earth-shattering roar of laughter erupted from the Commander of the Crimson Moon Knights! The laughter pierced through the curtain of rain, shaking a few layers of dust from the tent's ceiling.

"Good! GOOD!" Leona kicked the wooden stool in front of her over, completely ignoring her image as she took massive, pacing strides around the room. Her eyes exploded with the light of sheer ecstasy! The Gods be praised! The God of War be praised! This is what it means to find a path when all doors are closed! If Galahad had won the battle, Leona might have only felt relief that her flanks were secure. But now? The man who forged this victory—one worthy of being inscribed in the Kingdom's history books—was Soren!

"My gods... that madman!" Leona babbled excitedly, grabbing fistfuls of her own red hair, laughing so hard tears threatened to spill.

"Do you know what this means, Elena?" Leona dashed forward and grabbed the holy cleric by both shoulders, shaking her back and forth in excitement.

"This means that the pigs in the Capital—the ones sitting on their plush sofas, swirling their wine glasses, just waiting to watch the Crimson Moon Knights become a laughingstock—are about to have their faces slapped completely raw by this combat report!"

"That one-year military pledge I swore to the King? With the backing of Soren's battle, it just turned into an unbreakable death-immunity medallion!"

"Total annihilation of the ace Bloodaxe Battalion! That is a military achievement so grand that even Grand Duke Valentine of the Holy Halycon Empire would have to bow his head in respect!"

"The Crimson Moon Knights won't just avoid being disbanded—we've instantly become the biggest winners of all!"