Chương 163: 163：The Triple-Talent Commander

This flawless, murderous formation was synchronized to the absolute apex. Such terrifying tactical discipline—even the Silvermoon King's elite Royal Guard couldn't hold a candle to it! Standing exactly twenty paces away, Ilya's eyes swept over the bristling formation. Her heart violently tightened. This is absolutely not some ragtag mob of half-orcs! This level of suffocating tactical suppression could only be forged by humans truly baptized in a sea of blood!

Her gaze locked directly onto the young man standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Separated by the freezing curtain of rain, the two commanders began to silently size each other up. On the surface, Soren remained as placid as an ancient well. He stood completely unfazed, a calm, composed smile playing on his lips. But deep inside, his heart was already experiencing a massive shockwave. He silently activated his [Appraisal] skill! Hum!

[Target: Ilya (Half-Elf)] [Talents:] [Master Tactical Commander: Possesses unparalleled insight into defensive and mountain guerrilla warfare. Capable of flawlessly integrating disadvantaged, low-tier troops to forge impregnable defensive lines.] [Eagle Eye Perception: Massively enhances dynamic kinetic vision. Grants absolute, pinpoint archery accuracy across extreme distances.] [Nature Magic Affinity: Capable of communicating with flora and channeling Nature-elemental magic.] A triple-Talent supreme commander?! Even possessing the mental fortitude of a man who had lived two lifetimes, Soren's breathing nearly hitched. Out of his entire roster of subordinates, even the Hobgoblin Master Engineer Luger and the Chief Mage Victor were, at best, apex dual-Talent geniuses. While his Intelligence Officer, Meyer, possessed three Talents, they were strictly focused on reconnaissance. But this half-elf woman standing before him? She was a literal one-in-a-million, triple-Talent military genius!

If a monster of her caliber was handed a hundred-thousand-strong army, she would absolutely possess the tactical chops to clash head-on with Warchief Blackstone himself! I have to recruit her! At absolutely any cost! Confirming her staggering, strategic-tier military value, Soren's ambitions instantly exploded. This Half-Elf leader, along with the entire armed force she commanded, must become the sword and shield of Greywater Village!

"So, you are Commander Soren?" Ilya was the first to break the heavy silence. She stepped directly into the howling wind, completely ignoring the sixty-three heavy repeating crossbows locked onto her vitals.

"I am the leader of the Half-Elf Rangers, Ilya." She locked her piercing gaze onto him.

"You claim to be a human knight. Then why is a human knight driving the Kodos of the Blackstone Warband? What exactly do you have in those wagons that forced you to go to such extreme lengths to disguise yourselves as greenskin trash?" Had this been any other situation, Soren would never breathe a single word about his territory's strategic resources to an unknown stranger. But right now?

To display absolute, uncompromising sincerity to this apex commander, Soren threw his head back and let out a brazen, booming laugh.

"Leader Ilya, there is no need for suspicion! My spoils of war naturally have nothing to hide from the light!" Soren abruptly spun around. Taking a massive stride toward the lead Kodo flatbed, he grabbed the heavy, waterproof oil-tarp with both hands and violently yanked it back! Riiip! The heavy layers of camouflage were completely ripped away.

Under the dim, freezing rain of the canyon, a literal mountain of raw, unrefined Black Iron Ore—radiating a deep, captivating bluish-black gleam—was instantly exposed to the freezing air! This was the absolute, premium raw material that any weapon-smith would kill for! Soren met her gaze with absolute transparency.

"And this is exactly why I disguised myself as a slavemaster!" He pointed a firm finger at the cargo.

"Just tonight, I personally led these sixty-three elites directly into the heart of the Blackrock Stone Forest! We utterly annihilated a garrison of over a hundred Black Iron Orcs, and we hijacked this entire shipment of high-purity Black Iron Ore right out of their pits!" Soren stepped aside, thrusting a hand toward the center of the convoy. There stood the ragged, emaciated human laborers, tears streaming down their soot-stained faces.

"And them! They are my countrymen! I dragged them straight out of the absolute bottom of the orc mines, right from under the lashes of those beasts' whips!" Ilya's breath caught in her throat. She stepped forward. Under Soren's silent signal, the heavily armored veterans lowered their crossbows and let her pass. Ilya reached out, her pale fingers tracing the jagged edges of the raw Black Iron Ore. That profound density. That deep, metallic gleam. It was absolutely real!

She turned her head, her gaze sweeping over the exhausted, emaciated human laborers who were clinging tightly to the safety of Soren's formation. Witnessing the unadulterated, overwhelming gratitude etched onto their faces, Ilya instantly understood everything. To annihilate the Bloodaxe Battalion. To utterly plunder the Blackrock Iron Mine. And to successfully extract massive amounts of strategic orc resources alongside hundreds of suffering civilians... all without a single scratch.

Ilya slowly turned back around. This female commander—whose heart had been turned to ash by the vile betrayal of human nobles—now looked at Soren with an expression of profound, undeniable respect. This! This is the kind of supreme commander the human world desperately needs! Not those bloated, cowardly political rats scurrying around the Royal Capital!

"It seems the rumors spreading through the swamp regarding your power..." Ilya spoke softly, "... do not even begin to do you justice." Ilya placed her right hand firmly over her heart, executing an ancient, solemn Ranger's bow. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Lord Soren. Please accept the utmost respect of the Half-Elves."

"Since I have confirmed that you are a true hero who strikes back against the Horde, I, Ilya, swear upon my very life and the roots of the World Tree: the Half-Elf archers ambushing your flanks will absolutely not loose a single arrow against your convoy." It was an incredibly high honor, but it was also a polite, definitive drawing of boundaries. She intended to pull her forces back, open the main road, and let Soren depart in peace.

But how on earth could Soren let an apex military genius like this slip through his fingers? In that exact moment, Soren made a decision so insanely audacious it made everyone's scalp tingle in pure terror.

"Gary!" Soren completely ignored the formal bow. Instead, he let out a thunderous bark!

"Your subordinate is here!" Soren pointed a rigid finger straight north, toward Greywater Village.

"I order you to immediately assume absolute command of this convoy! Take these sixty-three frontline elites, escort these four Kodo wagons and every single laborer, and break for Greywater Village this very instant! You are not to delay for a single second!"

"BY YOUR COMMAND! And you will—Wait! What the hell did you just say?!" Gary, halfway through roaring his absolute compliance, suddenly choked on his own words. His eyes went wide.

"We retreat?! Then what about you?!" Soren's tone brooked absolutely no argument.

"I am staying behind. Alone." The moment those words fell, it felt as if even the howling rain had been silenced.

"MY LORD! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Intelligence Officer Meyer frantically roared, the veins on his forehead bulging violently.

"You are the supreme leader of all seven hundred souls in Greywater Village! If you fall here, our entire territory is completely finished!"

"Even though these Half-Elves swore a verbal oath, how can you place your life directly into the hands of an unknown armed faction?!" Lyra hissed, a refined steel throwing knife already sliding flawlessly into her palm.

"If you are staying, at least let your personal guard remain with you!" Soren's expression darkened instantly, his voice exploding with terrifying, crushing authority.

"MILITARY ORDERS ARE ABSOLUTE! Would you have these emaciated civilians traverse a death zone completely unprotected?!"

"EXECUTE THE ORDER! IMMEDIATELY!" Faced with an utterly unyielding, tyrannical military mandate, Gary, Lyra, and Meyer nearly cracked their teeth from grinding them so hard. Left with absolutely no choice, they violently slammed their fists against their breastplates.

"YES, MY LORD! CONVOY, MOVE OUT!" RUMBLE! Ilya watched the scene unfold in a state of sheer, unadulterated shock. Before long, in the dead center of Broken Tooth Canyon... The only person left standing in the freezing rain was Soren, gripping his longbow. Right now, this supreme human commander had completely stripped away his entire defensive perimeter, casually handing the absolute power over his life and death directly to an unknown faction!

"You..." Even for an apex survivor like Ilya, a woman who had waded through hellish slaughter, her heart violently contracted with a mixture of overwhelming tension and shock. How can a human like this possibly exist?! she screamed internally. He is a commander who just secured a world-shattering military victory! If he wanted to, he could return to the capital tomorrow and be crowned a High Noble! Yet he actually dares to dismiss his core vanguard?!

He is standing completely alone, exposing his heart directly to the kill-zone of one hundred and thirty Half-Elf archers?! To literally gamble his entire life, his entire territory, on the absolute trust of a chance encounter... calling this 'insanity' is a massive understatement! She stared at the young man standing before her. Even as his impenetrable iron phalanx vanished into the mist, his expression hadn't flickered for a single microsecond.

In that moment, the deep-seated, traumatizing stereotype Ilya held of human commanders being nothing but vile, backstabbing cowards... was being violently, utterly shattered.

"Since Leader Ilya was gracious enough to bestow her absolute trust upon me mere moments ago..." Soren held her gaze, a relaxed, disarming smile spreading across his face. He casually took a step forward, slowly opening his mouth to issue an incredibly audacious request:"I am a firm believer that chance encounters are forged by fate."

"And since I find my schedule entirely clear at this exact moment... I wonder if I might have the profound honor of visiting your Half-Elf camp? Perhaps sit down, share a cup of hot tea, and take a look around?" Visit the camp?! The sheer audacity of those words was paralyzing! This was a hundred times more insanely dangerous than dismissing his army!

Had this been any other day, the absolute second a human dared to request the location of their hidden sanctuary, the [Meteoric Iron Armor-Piercing Arrow] resting in Ilya's fingers would have ruthlessly punched clean through his throat. But right now? Looking at Soren's completely unguarded, utterly transparent demeanor... And driven by the profound, undeniable respect she held for a hero who actively butchered the Orcish Horde... Ilya let out a long, heavy breath, a plume of white mist escaping her lips.

The fingers gripping her heavy warbow slowly, gently uncurled. Standing in the dim, freezing mud of the canyon, this Half-Elf queen—a woman who had locked her heart away in a fortress of ice and never opened it to a single living soul—inexplicably, miraculously, allowed a breathtakingly beautiful smile to touch her lips.

"To have the supreme human commander—a man whose legend is already whispered across the entirety of the Misty Swamp—grace us as an honored guest..." Ilya stepped aside. With utmost solemnity, she extended her arm in a flawless gesture of invitation.

"It is the profound honor of my people."

"Lord Soren, please, follow me. The gates of the Half-Elf sanctuary are open to you."